There are lots, rarely read fiction
Jutland 1916, Death in the Grey Watersby Nigel Steel & Peter Hart
Lost Voices of the Royal Navy - Vivid eyewitness accounts of life in the Royal Navy from 1914 t0 1945by Max Arthur
by Peter FitzSimons - an iconic battle of World War II
Flipping brilliant book! Never thought I would read any book about a war.
I often pick up books that have had films made from them. I've never found one that wasn't better than the film. In the case of Hunt for red October it was as good - but more detailed with more action and a better understanding of the miltary-political meouverings and the caterpillar drive.
The most memorable book. Ellie (I think) thetrue story of a Jewish girl who was taken to Auschwitz. Twice. Because she was blonde they didn't kill her, they put her to work in a factory. When it was bomber they took her back to Auschwitz.
Her description of the events there - sometimes the smallest ones were the most traumatic. Like the moment when she realised the shaved, naked scrap of human life next to her was a friend of hers that she hadn't recognised.
A book the pierces the soul. And, no, I won't read it again. Nor can I now watch Schindler's List (I can only think of those that he failed to save).
Grapes of wrath / To a God unknown..Steinbeck
Portnoys complaint..Philip Roth
The ragged trousered philanthropist
Until I find you...John Irving (or hotel new Hampshire Or the world according to Garp)
The Bible (yes I have)
The communist manifesto
I'll stop....every book I've ever read has impacted on me to some degree, it's the nature of the thing...And I never forget having read a book (I often forget what they're about)and wether I enjoyed it or not
P'raps I should add....
Atonement
Cannery Row (best opening page of descriptive text I know)
The Pearl
Hotel Honolulu
The Big Sleep
Pride and Prejudice
The Odyssey
.
Wind in the willows - Kenneth Graeme (could read this over and over again and there is a little place outside Youlgreave in Derbyshire that is the essence of this book)
Eric - Terry Pratchett (first Pratchett I read)
Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Turning Thirty - Mike Gayle (my childhood sweetheart/best friend and I caught up after a few years and he said this book reminded me of him and it was exactly how we were LOL)
For me its the Vans RV 7 series aircraft specification and technical build giude.
What a read , just makes me want to get it out every night and sleep with it lol
A Child Called It
It's about the only book where, images while I have read it, have stuck so long in my head. I read it in about 2003/4 and can still vision the story. Then it made me HAVE to get the follow up books....of which I enjoyed reading so so much!
Another has come to mind.
The Spire by William Golding. The last two chapters are the most moving I've ever read. But you have to read the whole novel to understand and appreciate the ending.
As a lover of true crime Jimmy Boyle A Sense of Fredom is the best book i have that man went through.
The Time Travellers Wife, Captain Correlis Mandolin, A History of Love, Slaughter house Five, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings........
My most favourite book ever keeps cropping up here: The Time Traveller's Wife. I can thoroughly recommend Audrey Niffenegger's follow-up novel too: Her Fearful Symmetry.
It's good to see someone mention Alan Dean Foster. Although, it should be stressed that he's more than just a 'novelisation' writer. He's written some great stuff like The Spellsinger series (6 humerous fantasy books). He's also responsible for some excellent SF like The I Inside, The Man Who Used The Universe and the sublime Nor Crystal Tears.
I like Pratchett, but if I had the choice, I'd have to pick the 'master of far-fetched fiction', Robert Rankin. His books have reduced me to tears of laughter on numerous occasions. The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies Of The Apocalypse and The Toyminator (murder mysteries set in Toy City) are brilliant.
A book I will "never forget reading", though is The Satanic Bible by Anton LeVay. It's not the sensationalist nonsense that people who have read too many Dennis Wheatley novels seem to think it is. It's more of a collection of humanist/self aggrandising ideas. I read it and found myself nodding in agreement with so much of it.
In no particular order
the Hobbit
Lord of the rings
Green mile
Anything Pratchett although his newer stuff isn't so good
Peter and Jane
Emmanuelle :twisted:
A book I read in my 20's and has stuck with me is Robert Tresswell's "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist"
"The book advocates a socialist society in which work is performed to satisfy the needs of all rather than to generate profit for a few. A key chapter is "The Great Money Trick", in which Owen organises a mock-up of capitalism with his workmates, using slices of bread as raw materials and knives as machinery. Owen 'employs' his workmates cutting up the bread to illustrate that the employer — who does not work — generates personal wealth whilst the workers effectively remain no better off than when they began, endlessly swapping coins back and forth for food and wages. This is Tressell's practical way of illustrating the Marxist theory of surplus value, which in the capitalist system is generated by labour."
I was just wowed by it at that time. Now I have mellowed and sometimes wonder when and where did I loose my political mojo ..........
Oh and "Clockwork Orange" - book was hard reading but still think about it. Didnt see the film till a couple of years ago......
