best book you've read

[pinkmoon]

Er, anyone mentioned Biggles, william, Billy Bunter...

I purchased some biggles books a couple of years ago and they are brillant not a sign of sex in them though but plenty of mindless violence aimed at the dastardly Huns very good fun.

[PaulB]

Er, anyone mentioned Biggles, william, Billy Bunter...

[pinkmoon]

Let's not forget "tiger in the bed" by Claude balls .

[pinkmoon]

Thank you Dave I once offerd to lend Shakespeare's limericks to a girl at work she was very upset when I kept forgetting to bring it in.

[Cogidubnus]

I'm not a cultured person but I do enjoy Shakespeare's limericks.

I just read this and for some reason or another it really tickled me...I giggled uncontrollably for several minutes...one of these days Jason you're going to see me off!

All the best

Dave

[jmenges]

Here are some of my favorites:

Fiction
Brothers Karamazov- Dostoyevsky
The Idiot- Dostoyevsky
Lolita- Nabokov
Frankenstein- Shelley
Dead Souls- Gogol
Pale Fire- Nabokov
The Air Conditioned Nightmare- Miller
The Rosy Crucifixion- Miller
Nausea- Sartre
Petersburg- Bely
The Place of Dead Roads- Burroughs
Anna Karenina- Tolstoy

Non-Fiction

The War Within: America's Battle over Vietnam- Wells
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72- Thompson
Waiting for the Sun: A Rock and Roll History of Los Angeles- Hoskyns
The Family- Sanders
A Writers Diary- Dostoyevsky
A People's Tragedy- Figes
Gulag- Applebaum

Those are just a few. My interests generally lean towards Russian history and literature from Pushkin to roughly 1940, British and French poetry of the early through mid-19th century, and 20th century American counterculture.

JM

[pinkmoon]

I still think cornellius Ryan's "a bridge to far " is the best ww 2 book by far.

[John G]

Stalingrad is an excellent book.

Yes, I agree. Although I would say that Beevor's Berlin: The Downfall 1945, is equally as good.

[pinkmoon]

Stalingrad is an excellent book.

[John G]

Fiction: The Great Gatsby; Pot Luck (Zola); Our Mutual Friend, The Goldfinch; Our Man In Havana; On Beulah Height

Non-Fiction: Jack the Ripper: The Facts; The Fall of Berlin (Beevor); Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery; Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45;Stalingrad (Beevor); Jack the Ripper, CSI: Whitechapel

As a true crime book, I can strongly recommend Lost Girls, by Robert Kolker. Not only a brilliant analysis of the Long Island serial killer but an excellent social commentary for the internet age. As the New York Times opined: "Riveting and heartbreaking."

[richardh]

Six Against the Rock by Clark Howard. About the Alcatraz breakout attempt. Read it twice over a few years and it's stayed with me. Out of print now.

[pinkmoon]

I'm not a cultured person but I do enjoy Shakespeare's limericks.

[GUT]

Oh, and speaking of school books we were forced to read but actually turned out to be pretty damned good: Day of the Triffids.

I would stack that up against any mindless Zombie apocolypse-type novel out there.

I wonder how many kids were turned off reading by teachers trying to over analyze the books which if simply left to read the kids would love.

I know that at school I hated Shakespeare but since allowed to read and enjoy I love his work.

[Magpie]

Oh, and speaking of school books we were forced to read but actually turned out to be pretty damned good: Day of the Triffids.

I would stack that up against any mindless Zombie apocolypse-type novel out there.

[Magpie]

I don't know how I'd qualify "the best" but three books that I've read multiple times and will probably read multiple more times are:

Moonfleet
It Can't Happen Here
The Three Musketeers.