Book recommendations

@ Andrew

A friend of mine told me about the book and was terribly depressed after reading it.?? Maybe she took it too much to heart... she is a very kind and thoughtful person. After your comments I am interested in reading it now.

M.

i just read this book, i would not say its a very good book ( not bad, just average), i feel the first one by mitch ( about the dying man, dont remember the name ) was much much better and touching ,if you really would like to read books on philopshy ..try books from Osho, ayn rand, huxley etc or pm me so that i can think more..they are bound to make an imapct

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (.uk, .de)

A retelling of the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (movie) as political history and philosophical inquiry into the nature of Evil. The protagonist is Elphaba, the "Wicked Witch of the West", who as a classically tragic doomed character, ponders the nature of Evil, and fights against the bourgeois and upper classes of Oz and for Animal rights. Not a children's book - the themes encompass infanticide, alcoholism, fascism, class warfare, minority rights, mob mentality, feminism, religious fanatacism.

Most of the tale follows Elphaba, with excellent character development (especially between her and Glinda, as university roomies). Dorothy comes in at the end of the book, starting with the manslaughter of the WWofTE to the murder of the WWofTW. Some strong comparisons between Oz and Socialist Germany are made; really turns the movie version inside out. It's a good read, a bit too drawn out and slow in some places, but overall creates a good atmosphere, setting and alternative plot.

Harry Potter vol 6 at amazon.co.uk
Harry Potter vol 6 at amazon.de
Harry Potter vol 6 at amazon.com

pre-order it now!

Armageddon by Sir Max Hastings - history books don't get much better - interesting, touching and frank - can make for painful reading, and will almost certainly shatter a few illusions (let's start with 'the USA won the war on her own' or 'the British army was the best') - worth a go if you're so inclined to learn about the Reich's last days.

Kathy Reichs, Dan Brown, John Saul, Paranormal, Horror, Thriller

Just finished 'Quarantine' by Jim Crace. A beautiful read. Set in the Judean desert at the time of JC.

Cooped up in the hospital for a few days. Sent my dad to the bookstore and he comes back with 2 Franz Kafka books, nice to rediscover him.

Ken Follett's Jackdaws and Eye of the needle and ofcourse Harry Potter

Recent reads, all excellent, all recommended:

1. Time Traveller's Wife- Audrey Niffenegger
2. Eleanor Rigby- Douglas Coupland
3. Diary- Chuck Palahniuk

The Plot Against America - by Phillip Roth...

it's a fiction work, telling the story of a middle class jewish family in newark, when a faschist and pro nazi charles lindbergh gets elcted for president...extremely well written...

another good book by the same writer is "The Human Stain"...also very good book...
got both of them at Hugendubel...

btw. if i may make a suggestion, when you recommend a book, if you purchased it in munich, try saying where...not everything is at hugendubel, and that way we can all hear about new shops coming up...

Porno by Irvine Welsh. All the lads from Trainspotting, 10 years on, trying to make money, this time by filming a porno flick. Excellent stuff, and very stylish - can be tricky to read at times thanks to Welsh's phonetic way of writing the Scottish accent. Also very graphic, and not a little disturbing in parts.

@Jimbo

get on "Glue" from the same stable. the other lads in "Porno" (Juice Terry etc) are in Glue all growing up, few years younger than Spud etc.

if you are of a more delicate disposition, might be worth having a look at Nigel Slater's "Toast" about growing up and all that. nice little read

I read 67 books in 2004 (yes, I kept track because I was curious.)

Best of the lot:

Hillenbrand, Laura: Seabiscuit (no, I don't even particularly like horses or racing, but this was fabulous writing and kept me riveted, checked out from The Bookshelf)

Russo, Richard: Empire Falls (checked out from The Bookshelf)

Pierre, DBC: Vernon God Little (bought at Hugendubel)

Snicket, Lemony: A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the First: The Bad Beginning (bought at Hugendubel, but pretty pricy for a 90-minute read, better borrow it)

So far this year, I have read -

Red Storm Rising - *recommended*

LOTR - The Two Towers

LOTR - Return of the King

Deep Space Nine : Antimatter - Only read if you are a hard core trek fan.

Star Trek : In Myth or Legend - Delves in to the background of the history of Trek and gives added meaning to the series.

Lair - 2nd part of The Rats trilogy by James Herbert - Lots of blood guts and horror. Not bad.

Star Trek : Dark Victory - Captian Kirk comes to save the day...again! - Only read if you're a hard core Kirk fan.

Pompeii (Still reading) - Story about the last days of Pompeii, very good so far.

Has anyone read House of Leaves, by Mark Z Danielewski?

It's the weirdest book I've ever read. A bit of a trip really.
I've heard it took him 10 years to write. It's basically a fiction story within a story within a story, with text that goes in circles and up the sides of pages or backwards, and many pages only have a few words written on them or just a window of words. It's huge, and you look kinda daft reading it because you have to turn it upside down often.
Really interesting and original though. Refreshing if you're looking for something a bit different.

east of eden by jon steinbeck
bread and wine by ignazzio salone(sp?)

My gf and I have read ALL David Sedaris books...he's hilarious.

We also have the audiobooks of them, as he is also well known on NPR and canadian public radio.

Otherwise, I just read "swan king" about Ludwig II...best book in english about him or the Wittelsbachs I've found yet...which isn't saying that much, lol

Just finished

Pompeii - Very good.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Also very good.

Now reading War of the Worlds.

I just re-read 'Dance Dance Dance' by Haruki Murukami (I like all his books, especially Norwegian Wood). Now am re-reading Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" before starting an English translation of the Japanese book "Musashi".

I read a book called "COSMOS" by carl sagan. Its a book based on a 13 episode TV series by the same name. This book is about the origin and the workings of our universe with a description of how life began on earth.

It is really awesome , with some breathtaking photographs. I recommend it strongly to anyone who is interested in science or physics.

I rate it 10 out of 10.

My recommendations from the last couple of months...

The Inspector Banks series from Peter Robinson. Have read "Strange Affair", "Playing with Fire" and "The Summer that Never Was" so far and think they're excellent.

"Spanish Steps" by Tim Moore. 'Laugh out loud'-funny book about the author taking a donkey (Shinto) along the pilgrimmage to Santiago de Compostela.

"The Tin Drum" from Günther Grass. It sucked me in much more than I would have thought. Psychotic midget takes on the world.

"Going Postal" from Terry Pratchett. He just gets better and better.

"Cannabis" from Martin Booth. To quote from the jacket, "After two puffs on a marijuana cigarette, I was turned into a bat". Recommended reading.

"Father Frank" from Paul Burke. Taxi driving priest in London parish who doesn't exactly believe in God. Funny & heartwarming.

Shogun, Taipan, King Rat, Noble House...all by James Clavelle
Amazing books...An amazing writer.

@3lions Pompeii was a good read aye...the author also wrote a book called 'Fatherland' about what Germany would be like if they won the war.

What I've read in the past year:
Good:
Anna Karennina (Tolstoy) -- one of my new all time favorites. Nobody makes real people like Tolstoy ('cept maybe Victor Hugo)

100 Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) -- never read anything like it

Story of a Soul (St. Therese of Lisieux)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (JKR)

Bad:
Moby Dick (Melville) -- this is a classic? 620 pages in and we *finally* meet the whale? Sure, I could meditate on the tragedy of one man's disordered passions leading so many others to doom, and why those many others would follow...but who wants to put in all that work after being forced to consume 100s of pages of excruciating detail about whales and whaling, then getting 30 pages of plot?

Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) -- a pile of crap, can't believe people are so enamored with this guy. Full of 1D characters and ridiculous errors (and I'm only talking here about his treatment of physics and of contemporary science/religion/philosophy...I don't know anything about his treatment of religious history, but am led to believe it is full of as many errors).

Best ever, in this order:
Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky), Les Miserables (Hugo), Anna Karennina (Tolstoy)

I'm re-reading Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray - nice easy style to read, good insight into that era, and I love the discussion on the soul and sinning..

"Long Way Around" by Charley Boormann & Ewan MacGregor (the book of the TV series)

yummy pictures in that.

I've pretty much been liking anything by Isabel Allende lately - The House of Spirits, Eva Luna, The Infinite Plan, Paula. If you like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, you might like her.

Finished War of the Worlds - Not bad at all.

and just finishing - Post Mortem by Patricia Cornwell, which is pretty good.

He also wrote Archangel and Enigma - both are decent reads, and both have been made into films/TV films - Archangel was on BBC 1 a few weeks ago - Enigma was a Hollywood number IIRC. Fatherland became a flick too in fact. Pompeii has already been on telly and starred Frankie Howard - Oh! Titter ye not!

Some books I enjoyed recently:

Iain Banks - Whit
Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory

A bit longer ago:
Matther Kneale - English passengers

Read it a long time ago, but it is still one of my all time favourites:
John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces

the master by colm toibin. toibin pays homage to henry james similar to the way michael cunningham did to virginia woolf in the hours. brilliant.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Now reading 1984

Bomber Command by Sir Max Hastings - very old tome now (probably the best part of 30 years old), but one of the most comprehensive overviews of the RAF Bomber offensive against Germany in WWII. Obviously not to everyone's taste, but if you're going to read one book about the English bombing this should be it - especially the chapter that describes the raid on Darmstadt in 1944 - utterly terrifying.

Currently reading- Microbiology of Periodontal Disease- good read, can lend it out if anybody wants.

I acutally want to start reading my new books from the English Hugenduble Patricia Cornwell- Trace, and James Patterson- 3rd Degree (waiting impatiently for London Bridges to come into paperback).

But alas, gotta read on and find out what Bacteria was the culprite!

Underground, by Haruki Murukami

Excellent book. It tells the story of the sarin poison gas attack in the Tokyo underground in 1995.
It's split up into the different underground lines, and consists of a short rundown on what happened on each line, the stabbing on the sarin bag with an umbrella tip, and the number of victims. Then he asks the survivors to recount what happened that day. He didn't only ask those badly affected by it, he also asked those who maybe just observed the whole incident in passing.
It is in no way a ranty book, nor is it too much of a gruesome read, but it is shocking what happened and what the effects were.
It's an interesting view into the Japanese psyche, and helps understand society there a little more.

Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder

Its a fictional story, but woven through the story is a history of philosophical thought from ancient times to current day. If it sounds heavy, its not really ... the way the author works the philosophy into the story and then uses the story to explain the concepts is amazing, and you will find it is a bit of a page turner. I have lent this book to 2 people and never got it back either time ... so I now hav a pristine 3rd copy sitting on my bookshelf waiting for a re-read.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

A short but powerful read. Tells the story of one day in the life of a man in a Russian Gulag (concentration camp). Set in Siberia, the story gives a simple but powerful image of the daily struggle for survival, where every little action, positive or negative, has meaning. No matter what time of year it is when I read this, I never fail to feel the cold of Siberia. BTW, I believe the author spent some time in a Gulag.

"Okinawa 1945" by George Feifer. One of the best descriptions of a conflict I've read and unusually sets it all against quite a personal back ground of just a few U.S. Marines and Japanese regulars - worth a read, even if you're not into your military history. Which let's face it, you're probably not.

just read two books by alan hollinghurst. the first was the line of beauty, which won the booker prize in 2004, and the second is the swimming pool library, which he wrote in 1988. both are a glimpse at gay life in london with the backdrop of thatcherism, class structure and aids among other themes. both books are smart, sad yet bitingly funny and well worth your time.

i also recently read courtesans : money, sex and fame in the nineteenth century by katie hickman, which was basically a look at five high class hookers. really a fun interesting book. in most ways, these women were more in control of their lives than their more legitimate couneterparts, the mostly titled women who were married to their clients!

Confederacy of Dunces
Laugh my a$$ off each time I read this. If anyone wants to borrow this let me know via PM. Also only to borrow not have Hee-Hee

The Hungry Caterpillar
The Giant Jam Sandwich

My fave books as a kid, and now my son's too

Dry - Augusten Borroughs: tales of alcoholism
Notes from a Scandal - Zoe Heller: one of the best books i have ever read. dunno if i am reading too much into it but i think its genius. not just for the ladies, i assure you

Guns,Germs, and Steel /for those of us who are history buffs)

War is a Racket, by Major General Smedley Darlington Butler - United States Marine Corps [Retired]

You can read it online at: http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

I just saw a book called "Leben! Das Hausbuch von GU" in the bookshop and it looked very very cool. Does anyone know about it, or have it? It has 1013 tips on everything from drilling to cooking.

any of lee childs books. the great character jack reacher is a legend.

How about a book NOT to read. The Human Stain by Philip Roth. Dull as a dead slug. And the critics raved about it apparently.

A much better one to read is A Secret History by Donna Tart

I second (or third or whatever) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, very good book.

I recently read and really liked Singularity Sky (uk, de)

Right now, I'm reading Down and out in the Magic Kingdom (uk, de) and so far it's pretty good. Note that it's also available for free on the author's website.

After seeing the film, I decided to read "Midnight Cowboy". It was very good. The only thing was that it was hard to get Dustin Hoffmann and Jon Voigt out of my head as the characters. So read the book, then see the film.

I'm reading the Conn Iggulden "Emporer" series at the moment, and they are fantastic. Charting the life of Caesar, vaguely historically accurate, three out of four books written so far, all excellent.