Off Topic What Is Your Favourite Book And Who Is Your Favourite Author?

I don't engage in as much reading as I used to. In my youth, I devoured everything from classical literature, to Shakespeare, to modern classics (Waugh, Greene, etc), to pulp horror and sci-fi. My favourite authors around that time were definitely Greene and Waugh.

But I also had a love of pulp horror fiction writers, such as H P Lovecraft, Robert E Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, and Ray Bradbury (among many others). I also loved the works of H G Wells and John Wyndham.

Among my favoured poets, I still read the works of Tennyson and Byron.

These days, I mainly read non-fiction works, particularly within the field of cosmology and astro-physics, subjects that I have held in high regard since my youth. I've been trawling through Cremo's "Forbidden Archaeology" and Pim van Lommel's "Consciousness Beyond Life," as well as revisiting my Zacharia Sitchen collection.

What books do you lads read?

 

Who?

Anyway John Fante for me.

 

I was caught between "what book" and "which author!"

I have now amended the title to allow for both!

Not familiar with that author. What's the genre?

 

I'm not sure if I have a favourite Author. I'm more of a Biography man..read loads on various people, mainly sports people, political figures and just individuals I admire or am intrigued by. I enjoy getting into people's heads. Looking to learn about Albert Pike in depth next...interesting political views and predictions.

Currently reading Joey Barton's biography.

 

Anyone read Dante's Inferno? **** like that works for me

 

Something I have been doing a lot, lately, is going back to all my old card magic books. Some of those volumes I had purchased for me as a kid by my mum, at birthdays and Christmases. I'm loving learning all the old tricks I used to perform for friends and family!

I've been brushing up on my sleights!

 

My favourite book is still Catch 22. I must have read it 7-8 times over the years. Still cracks me up everytime..

 

No, I never did read that one.

I read a lot of the classical French authors (in the original French), such as Balzac, Camus, Voltaire and Hugo.

 

Good effort HIAG, good to see you writing a proper thread for once

Currently reading Mark Twain's letters from Hawaii, written in 1860 when he was a journo for the Sacramento Union (that's in California ) before he found fame with his classic literary works. Before that I read 'Barbarian days' by William Finnegan, an autobiography about surf, travel, adventure, love, drugs. A really good read and a throwback to a spirit of adventure that I like to incorporate into my life.

 

I went through a (sadly short-lived) phase of reading classic American authors. The ones I remember are The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald), To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee), The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck), and For Whom The Bell Tolls (Hemmingway).

 

As for favourite authors, I'm a big fan of the 'Beat' scene, those American writers like Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kesey. 'On the Road' was a seminal book for me, that I must have read 10 or 15 times. On another note, I met Ken Kesey once, with his bus 'Further' and his merry band of pranksters. I was given some liquid acid that day too, but that's a whole other story ....

 

I love the gothic stuff!

My favourite top 5 classic gothic works:-

Dracula, Bram Stoker
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allen Poe
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

 

I'm a big Hemingway fan, I loved his short stories. His stories are quite visceral and and his writing reflects that too. I also read a fair bit of black american womens writing too, like Maya Angelou (she was an Earth Angel), Toni Morrison. 'I know why the caged bird sings' is a brilliant story about growing up as a black woman in the deep south in the 1930's USA and is punctuated with an infectious positivity despite the racial and religious tensions.

 

Studied much of that at uni. It's good stuff.

If you like Hemingway then read Fiesta (The Sun Also Rises), it's his best work in my opinion.

Modern books that have to be read include The Book Thief and A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Both are unbelievably brilliant.

 

Top list....have not read the Grapes of Wrath..clocked the others though.

Technology is killing the art of opening a book, that's a crying shame.

 

To be honest, I didn't read a proper book for a number of years. I read lots of newspapers and current affairs articles, scientific journals and studies etc. And it is very easy for the internet to give you a brief world overview of lots of subjects without actually digging too deep. But there is nothing like sitting down and reading a proper book and allowing yourself the time to be engaged and engrossed with somebody's story.

 

I quite liked his style, which (so I understand from having read the literary critics), was revolutionary for its day, and inspired many a modern novelist.

I should read more of that stuff. I love movies that deal with segregation in the Deep South, and slavery.

 

John Banville is, by far and away, my favourite modern Irish novelist. I have read all of his books, and there isn't a duff one, imho.

 

I would recommend I know why the caged bird sings by Maya Angelou or The Colour Purple by Alice Walker.