We had a thread like this on the old incarnation of the board, and I thought I'd resurrect it because, well, frankly I'm bored with some of the books I've bought lately and would like to see what others recommend. Last time I picked up a couple of winners from other Gazetteers.

To start off...here are a few of my recommendations:

RiverHorse by William Least Heat-Moon (non-fiction)
Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon (non-fiction)
If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell (autobiography)
The House With a Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs (a kid's book, but soooo tasty)
MASH: A Story of Three Army Doctors by Richard D. Hooker (fiction)

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

Recently read, "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed...and Other Things I Have Learned" by Alan Alda...it rocks!!!!  Cried my eyes out through parts of it.

Will have to check out the MASH: A Story of Three Army  Doctors...I adore MASH. :)

I'm down with this, Amanda...somehow I knew the Bruce Cambell book would be in your list...:D

some recommendations of mine:

since it was mentioned on another thread...The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood...House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski (spell check)...The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, which I just loaned to my roomie and he better start reading it soon...A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole...Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie  

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

I would recommend any Bret Easton Ellis book.  American Psycho is my all time favorite book.  Lunar Park is fantastic.

 Confederacy of Dunces is a good one, good call Smokey.

Anyone interested in reading plays, Betolt Brecht Driegroschenoper is a must read.  I LOVE that one! 

If you want to read a book that's non-fiction and has the potential to freak you out, check out the Hot Zone.   

Oi! The moment you recommended this to me four years ago, I ran out and bought it and devoured it. :D

And to add to your Atwood recommendation, I'd also like to suggest Alias Grace. INCREDIBLE book. Hell, pretty much anything she does is incredible... :P

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

Two books I've wanted very much to read, but can't pony up the money required for either of them. And those aren't the kinds of books you can find at the public library. ...or used bookstores in this town, for that matter.
 

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

some non-fiction selections.

Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer...The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer...(gives Susan 10 seconds before she mentions Oswald's Tale)...The Onion Field or Lines and Shadows by Joseph Wanbaugh...And The Sea Will Tell by Vincent Bugliosi...well, I might as well mention it In Cold Blood by Truman Capote...

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

This was easy for me, because I was challenged to come up with my ten desert island books a few weeks back. So here goes:

• A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (probably my all-time favourite)
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (almost depressingly great!)
• The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
• Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer (him again!)
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Tours of the Black Clock by Steve Erickson (a fiction about Hitler's pornographer changing history by influencing Adolf make peace with the Russians to focus the Nazis' energies on the Western front - yeah, you could say it was a bit weird!)
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick (read it before the Richard linklater film comes out)
• Mortal Error by Bonar Menningar (possibly the most ludricrous, mind-blowing but most convincingly argued book on the JFK assassination - and boy, I've read dozens - mainly because it is the only one which really is verifiable)

Just bought Luna Park, will start that next week.

DMG

I hope they cannot see / The limitless potential / Building inside of me / To murder everything / I hope they cannot see / I am the great destroyer

excellent choice on Owen Meany, my favorite Irving (I can also finish the Hotel New Hampshire now that the World Cup is over) and Harlot's Ghost is excellent as well...wonder if he'll ever do the sequel...Have you ever read Something Happened by Heller? I have about 200 pages to go and it is blowing my mind...

I guess if I post I have to reccomend something else? hmm...Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler...early Mailer?, check out An American Dream (talk about mind blowing)...Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (my ultimate desert island book)...Zen and the Art of Mototcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig (need that on the island too)...Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins...okay, that's all for now...    

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

Good call on Alias Grace, Amanda.  That's one of my favourites.

A novel I read recently and enjoyed a ridiculous amount is Sleep with Me by Joanna Briscoe.  It's a real page turner, I even read it till 3am to see how it ended - and that's a pretty good recommendation for a book.

Old favourites:

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers is my favourite book and should be compulsory reading for all humans.

The Eye of the Beholder by Marc Behm.  A very odd and compelling book.  I've read it countless times and I never get bored of it.  A terrible film adaptation was made a few years ago and if you have seen it, don't let it put you off reading the book.  Sheesh...don't get me started on how much was wrong with that film...

Favourite authors:

Margaret Atwood (well duh!)

Sarah Waters.  Fingersmith and Affinity are bloody fantastic.  I read a lot of historical fiction and she's one of the best.

Michel Faber.  The Crimson Petal and the White and Under the Skin.  These novels could not be more different and both are excellent. 

~ 'I will give you my finest hour, the one I spent watching you shower' ~

There are a few biographies that I find to be very upstanding ones:

• Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast - Patrick McGilligan.  This is a very comprehensive look at Lang's life.  I was impressed by the detail put into it.
• Brando, The Biography - Peter Manso.  Well, its Brando.
• Quentin Tarantino, Shooting From the Hip - Wensley Clarkson.  Tarantino is just an intersting man.

The Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

Aberystwyth Mon Amour by Malcolm Pryce

Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson

My theory by A. Elk, brackets, Miss, brackets. This theory goes as follows and begins now. All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much much thicker in the middle, and then thin again at the far end. That is my theory, it is mine, and it belongs to me, and I own it, and what it is, too.

Ange's Odyssey

Hotel New Hampshire (and his latest one - the name of which escapes me) are the only Irvings I haven't got round to reading yet.

I think time is against Mailer getting round to the sequel to Harlot's Ghost. If you think about it, given that he has to cover the last 20 years of the story in the sequel, and it took him 1,400 to cover the first 10..... mmmmm, it's not looking promising.

Read Something Happened and Good As Gold when I was 16. Don't remember much about them, just that they weren't as good as Catch-22 (and actually GAG was just rubbish). But maybe I was too young to appreciate them.

If you want mind-blowing, check out David Mitchell.

You've recommended An American Dream a few times, SCP. I must check it out - the only problem is that I've got a huge stack of books bought but not read yet - and they're all big buggers: Cryptomicon, Easy Riders Raging Bulls, Oswald's Tale, HP & TOOTP, His Dark Materials.

So I end up postponing reading them and going for slighter, lighter books at the moment - coming up autobiographies of John Peel and Rik Mayall, Fahrenheit 511, some Joe Queenans. All good (if frothy) stuff though.

DMG

I hope they cannot see / The limitless potential / Building inside of me / To murder everything / I hope they cannot see / I am the great destroyer

I have had a few guests at the bar mention how good Irving's last book was and couple claimed it was one of his best...alas, he is one writer I would like to read more of but like yourself, to-read list is a tad long...

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

That's a very funny book, Flangella   Have you tried Jasper Fforde?

~ 'I will give you my finest hour, the one I spent watching you shower' ~

QUOTE: Flangella wrote:   Aberystwyth Mon Amour by Malcolm Pryce   That's a very funny book, Flangella Have you tried Jasper Fforde?

I haven't yet, but everytime I'm in the SF section at work, they wink at me...

I'm never sure which one to start with, what would be your recommendation? 

My theory by A. Elk, brackets, Miss, brackets. This theory goes as follows and begins now. All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much much thicker in the middle, and then thin again at the far end. That is my theory, it is mine, and it belongs to me, and I own it, and what it is, too.

Ange's Odyssey

~ 'I will give you my finest hour, the one I spent watching you shower' ~

twitter/ josephallenart 

josephallenart.com 

The Reality Of The Supernatural World By Todd Bentley

Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain

Why Revival Still Tarries By Chad Taylor

Secrets Of The Prophetic By Kim Clement

From Reel To Deal By Dov S-S Simens

A Spiritual Awakening By Tommie Zito

"Journey to the End of the Night"- and "Death on the Installment Plan" by Louis-Ferdinand Celine Translated by Ralph Manheim;

"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami Translated by Jay Rubin (Murakami is awesome, I'm currently reading his newest)

"Of Human Bondage" W.Somerset Maugham (just finished today, it took me awhile to get through, but very good, one of the best I've read in long time)

The newest Chuck Palaniuk was a strong book,very dark,I liked as much as "Choke" 

twitter/ josephallenart 

josephallenart.com