Favourite Books/Authors/Poets etc?

Amy

from the Ice Age to the dole age
Who/what are your favourites?
 
Who/what are your favourites?

Comic Books - Amazing Spiderman (Serious)
Real Books - I am more into non-fiction for my reading habits and am a fan of Stephen Ambrose's works on WWII (despite the two passages he plagiarized).

Been reading up on some Zinn lately although sometimes I feel he goes a little too far over the top with a couple of things.
 
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Albert Vigoleis Thelen - "Die Insel des zweiten Gesichts" (not available in English, but my favourite book ever)
Thomas Mann - "Zauberberg" (The Magic Mountain)
Helmut Krausser - "Melodien" (another brilliant German author not yet translated into English)

And almost everything by John Irving, T.C. Boyle and Hans Fallada.

I'm not into poetry.
 
Anything by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Stephen King, Edgar A. Poe, James Patterson, Ken Follet, Phyllis Pellman Good, Legs McNeil, ...etc.

Being able to just read is awesome.

Books written especially about bands, Mark Coopers' Liverpool Explodes; Chris Adams' Turquoise Days; The Velvet Underground Story: All Yesterdays Parties; etc. John Lydon's No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, etc....

Song books too...
 
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I WILL say j k Rowling and you (whoever you are) can scoff all you want. I think the books are wonderful.
I mostly read thrillers or mystery books nothing too taxing. When I was much younger it was Stephen King.

Hey... I am serious when I say this.... I have never read one of her books nor seen one of the movies. However I cannot shun them as I know of quite a few educated and simply "smart" individuals that have read her work. "50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong" and all.

Of course this is coming from someone who once a month marches down to his comic book store to pick up the latest issue of Amazing Spidey to keep up the set.
 
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Irvine Welsh, Ian Banks, Dennis Potter and Victor Frankle.

Robert Burns & Wilfred Owen.
 
That should have been Iain Banks. The books are on the shelf and i couldn't be arsed walking 5 feet...:)

It's an amazing book. I just finished Whit and it isn't his best but he's a great author and comes across as a great guy.
 
That should have been Iain Banks. The books are on the shelf and i couldn't be arsed walking 5 feet...:)

It's an amazing book. I just finished Whit and it isn't his best but he's a great author and comes across as a great guy.

I have only read "The Wasp Factory" of his, but it was a brilliant book, I am hoping to buy some more of his stuff soon.
 
Yup....You can't go wrong with Banks.
 
The Stand by Stephen King is excellent (along with a lot of his early books)
Mr. Nice by Howard Marks is highly recommended
Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters
Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son by Gordon Burn is probably the best book on the Yorkshire Ripper ever written
10 Rillington Place by Ludovic Kennedy
Morrissey and Marr: The Severed Alliance is a must-read
Deviant by Harold Schechter (the real story of Ed Gein)
Heavier Than Heaven by Charles R. Cross (excellent life story of Kurt Cobain)
A Simple Plan by Scott Smith (outstanding thriller)
 
My favourite books have to be:

"Junk" > Melvin Burgess
"The Catcher in the Rye" > J.D Salinger

Other than those, one of my other favourite authors would have to be Allan Sillitoe, and in general I enjoy English post-War novels about working class heroes :)

Poetry wise, I am rather into modern poets, particularly Tony Harrison, Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage. Phillip Larkin is also a bit of alright.
 
I read pretty much anything but the authors I keep coming back to & would buy anything they have are:

Fay Weldon, Poppy Z Brite, Stephen Fry, Lily Brett, Martin Amis & Germaine Greer.

I also love to read 'music books' and love 'Rip It Up & Start Again' by Simon Reynolds and 'The Sex Revolts' are favourites that I read over & over (and both mention Moz/Smiths). I also keep Nick Kent's collection of articles next to the bed to dip into.

I also read books about art & I re-read 'Shock of the New' by Robert Hughes a fair bit....I also like books on Warhol.

Madame Bovary (Flaubert) is probably my favourite book ever written.
 
The only non-fiction authors to whom I've turned repeatedly since leaving college are Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, and (stifle that laff) J.K. Rowling. My favorite book of all time is Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

I don't read much poetry these days, other than Shakespeare, Homer, and Vergil, and the latter two very, very infrequently.

My vote for best non-fiction writer is Shelby Foote. His 3000-page The Civil War kept me from losing my mind during the six months that I spent sleeping on the couch after the twins were born. Each chapter is practically a self-contained narrative; in fact, the "Stars in Their Courses" chapter (about Gettysburg) is sold separately as its own book.
 
My vote for best non-fiction writer is Shelby Foote. His 3000-page The Civil War kept me from losing my mind during the six months that I spent sleeping on the couch after the twins were born. Each chapter is practically a self-contained narrative; in fact, the "Stars in Their Courses" chapter (about Gettysburg) is sold separately as its own book.

I will check it out... I am more focused on events after 1890 and Constitutional Law. Admittedly I need to brush up on my civil war.
 
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