The Literary Society

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anything by Martin Amis (The RACHEL PAPERS in partic.)
anything by Chuck Palahniuk
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
the Secret History - Donna Tartt
anything (and everything) by Brett Easton Ellis
American Tabloid | The Cold Six Thousand - James Elroy
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
The Monk - Matthew Lewis <---- hilarious book
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
Glittering Prizes - Frederick Raphael
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
Evelyn Waugh
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Nineteen Eighty Four - Orwell
Portnoy's Complaint - Phillip Roth

Reply 21

Fluent in Lies

excellent list jd27.

Ian McEwan
Joseph Conrad

Reply 22

Debussy

steerpike1985

agreed!

well i'd expect you'd agree :p:

Reply 23

xx_Becca_xx

am half way through the de vinci code and loving it so far, any one else read it? no spoilers please! but before then read east of eden by john steinbeck which was fantastic!

Reply 24

jd27

Fluent in Lies

excellent list jd27.

Ian McEwan
Joseph Conrad

Well I do run my school's reading group :redface:

Reply 25

Debussy

xx_Becca_xx

am half way through the de vinci code and loving it so far, any one else read it? no spoilers please! but before then read east of eden by john steinbeck which was fantastic!

it is good... i enjoyed reading it but it wasn't epic enough to really get me... having said that, i read it in three days... :eek:

Reply 26

Fluent in Lies

lol, I think most people in my school will never have read a book cover-to-cover, a reading group would be too much. Our library has essentialy been converted into a classroom, where teachers take their classes so they can play on the computers.

Reply 27

jd27

Can't say my school is that much better (altho the library isn't too bad).
We had 7 or 8 people at a time, tho slightly more when we did the Rachel Papers, which was the year below's set text (and, since it's one of my favourite books, i'm glad i missed out on that..). But the rest of the school.. According to yr 10 and 11s, reading is gay. and by extension...

Reply 28

Luize

jd27

anything by Chuck Palahniuk
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
Nineteen Eighty Four - Orwell

Great choices.
Just re read Choke (Palahniuk) I always forget the twists and it is still like reading his books for the first time but picking up different bits as well.

I haven't had time to read much recently. It makes me sad. It's expensive as well. I read way too fast and feel the need to own the books as I do like to re read thins.

Anyone watch pageturners? BBC1 in the mornings.

Reply 29

Psycho Gerbil

Orson Scott Card is good for sci fi. Ender's Game and Ender's Shadoware both very recommendable.

Reply 30

zhivago

Best book in the world. Ever: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.

Also like:

Enduring Love - Ian McEwan
Animal Farm -George Orwell
Goodbye To All That - Robert Graves
Dead Famous - Ben Elton
Anne Frank's Diaries - Anne Frank
The Ruby in the Smoke - Philip Pullman
The Shadow in the North - Philip Pullman
The Tiger in the Well - Philip Pullman
The Tin Princess - Philip Pullman
Running in Heels - Anna Maxted?

All the Harry Potter's!

I'm sure there are countless others, but I just can't think right now! The Lord of The Rings is ****! So frigging boring! Tolkein has a great imagination, but he can't write for ****.

Reply 31

Ferret_messiah

staylor

What is the first Ice and Fire book?

I know what you mean about Jordan, but I cant just stop reading halfway through a Path of Daggers :biggrin:

. It is annoying that Rand seems to be becoming a crazy invalid old man with a liver problem. It just makes no sense :confused:

The first book is A Game of Thrones, followed by A Clash of Kings, and then A Storm of Swords. Book four, A Feast For Crows, will hopefully be out soon, because he has taken ages on it so far.

Reply 32

staylor

Psycho_Gerbil

Orson Scott Card is good for sci fi. Ender's Game and Ender's Shadoware both very recommendable.

Ive read enders game - is shadoware a sequel? I quite enjoyed the first one.x

Reply 33

Psycho Gerbil

staylor

Ive read enders game - is shadoware a sequel? I quite enjoyed the first one.x

it's not really a sequel, it's more of a parrellex. Remeber the kid Bean in Ender's Game? Ender's shadow is nearly the same events but from his point of veiw. Shadow of the Hegemon is good too, but not as good as the first two.

Reply 34

staylor

Was bean the clever small one?

Ive enver heard of that or Shadow of the Hegemon. Are there any others?

Reply 35

anycon

Everyone's just so learned! I bow to the best-read.

Reply 36

Psycho Gerbil

staylor

Was bean the clever small one?

Ive enver heard of that or Shadow of the Hegemon. Are there any others?

Yeah bean was the little one. Hence the name.
The Shadow Saga are Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets. I think Shadow Puppets leads onto another book, but I'm not sure if it's been written yet.

Reply 37

queenselphie

medic_bex

i read when i have the time...

i read a fantasy trilogy called mistress of the empire or something a while back... it was quite good in a padme amidala, queen of naboo kind of way...

if you fancy something hardcore, read gormenghast by mervyn peake. i think its possibly longer than the lord of the rings trilogy, but once you've gotten used to his style, it is the one of the best books you'll ever read..

mistress of the empire is fantastic, as are the other two books in that triology
cant fault you for liking gormenghast at all - it rocks!

Reply 38

queenselphie

I want to join :biggrin:

Im a literature student, so I get to read a lot of books, but I also read for pleasure and always have done :smile:

I also write a lot creatively.

fave books...good grief, how does one list even a few? well here, goes...

G.R.R.Martins song of ice and fire series
Lord of the Rings
Mirror dreams and Mirror wakes by Catherine webb
Gormenghast
Mistress, daughter, and servant of the empire by Janny wurts and R.E.Feist.
any Wilbur smith book set in Egypt
The hobbit
margaret george, memoirs of cleopatra
any discworld novel
the harry potter books
any of shakespeare's comedies or tragedies
carol anne duffy's poetry
Homer's odyssey
Virgils Aeneid
any agatha christie
do androids dream of electric sheep - phillip k dick
asimov's short stories
Angela carter's bloody chamber
anything by susan cooper, especially the dark is rising
any poem by John donne

I'll stop now....this list is getting too long and I havent even listed half of my faves :smile:

Reply 39

staylor

Oh look, heres Amazons top 10 books (i.e bestsellers I think) in the last 245 hours:

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6) [Children's Edition] ~ J.K. Rowling 41% off
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6) [Adult edition] ~ J.K. Rowling 41% off
3. The Opal Deception (Artemis Fowl S.) ~ Eoin Colfer 40% off
4. Long Way Down ~ Nick Hornby 40% off
5. I Can Make You Thin ~ Paul McKenna 40% off
6. All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye ~ Christopher Brookmyre 40% off
7. The Da Vinci Code ~ Dan Brown 30% off
8. Angels and Demons ~ Dan Brown 30% off
9. You Are What You Eat Cookbook ~ Gillian McKeith 40% off
10. The Time Traveler's Wife ~ Audrey Niffenegger 42% off
11. Behind Closed Doors ~ Jenny Tomlin 40% off
12. Rip-off!: The Scandalous Inside Story of the Management Consulting Money Machine ~ David Craig 30% off
13. Antony Worrall Thompson's GI Diet ~ Antony Worrall Thompson, et al 40% off
14. Low GI Cookbook: Over 80 Delicious Recipes to Help You Lose Weight and Gain Health (Hamlyn Food & Drink S.) ~ Louise Blair 30% off
15. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy ~ Douglas Adams 50% off

The top 3 are a little predictable :biggrin: