h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My favourite Stephen King is 'Desperation', and 'Insomnia' comes second...

Have you read the series of books by Patrica Cornwell or John Connolly. They both are wonderful crime novelists. Both giving a sometimes disturbing look at the world hideousness and ugliness. John Connolly's novels also have a supernatural touch and villians to make your skin crawl.

It's always difficult to name the best something, but I haven't read many books in my life, so it should be a bit more easy.

The best I've read might be "The World" ("Verden" in Danish) by Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff. It's the first that doesn't have completely catastrophical time paradoxes. It describes time travelling much better. And it's not just a science fiction. It's much more than that... I have no idea if it has been translated to any other language.

Jotunn

That sounds like a great book, Jotunn!

It is... if you can, get it and read it.

the sirens of titan by kurt vonnegut

There are so many 'best books I've ever read' that it's impossible to choose, but here goes nuthin'!

The Riverworld series by Philip José Farmer
The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchet
LOTR and The Hobbit By Tolkein
Darwin's Black Box (bit of a technical read, but worth the effort) by Micheal Behe
A Secret Country by John Pilger

and probably about 2000 books I've read in the last few years, but can't be bothered to type them all out!

i've never really heard any of them... maybe i'm a bit out of my depth here and you're all older and wiser than me. i've nearly got one of my wisdom teeth though! so i'm getting there i suppose.
i've just read another garth nix book. he's the only fantasy writer i've ever enjoyed reading, but it's not so challenging. salmon of doubt is one i can't help recommending for it's sheer randomness (and douglas was a brilliant writer! love you doug!)

There's this great book that attempts to liberate people from the hypnotic ritual of screen life:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0747536899/202-5740707-8546244

I personally liked the Ringworld series by Niven better than Patchet's disk world. but then that is just my opinion. I Note Nivern just added a book to the series "Ringworld Children" I haven't read it but maybe sometime it will find a place on this list.

Ah, so I need to catch up on my reading of 'Ringworld'...

Number Of The Beast by Robert Heinlein

Greetings, space odditities.

I love Slapstick and Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut.. and The Stand by Stephen King... 1984 by Orwell, and yes, Fear and Loathing too.

well, a lot of these have already been said, but here goes...

Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
anything by Terry Pratchett
most things by Tom Holt
Lotr and the Hobbit
Do Androids dream of electric sheep, Philip K dick

Dont like Dune though.

i have to say - pride and prejudice by jane austen...i can read it over n over probably have about a million times already and i laugh out loud evry time!! love it love it love it!!!

The Illuminatus! Trilogy : The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.

This little known book comes in one huge volume and is possibly the most fun to read of any book. It capers from mystery, to sex, to conspiracy and then sends your mind, skittering in confusion, out of your skull. This book possibly has the most twisted plot ever and is absolutely awesome.

I remember reading the Illuminatus trilogy way, way back...

Illuminatus, a great book... the sequel, Schrodinger's Cat, was better, though.
A Scanner Darkly, by Phil K Dick.

Most books by P.K.Dick (his S.F. anyway, books like 'The Man whose teeth were all exactly alike' were a bit average(?))
The Trial. F. Kafka. Read this and think back upon a lot of works you may of read which had elements of this book in it. There is a valid reason for Kafkaesque entering the English lexicon.

Anything written by Jack Vance. Here is a very brief intro to his work from one of the many web sites dedicated to his work......'My own belief is that Vance can best be conceived as a tailor of prose, to whom plots are the tailor's dummies on which to array the wonderfully cut and remarkably colored garments that are his real business. The dummies must be sturdy and shaped well enough to properly hold and show off those garments, but fashioning such dummies is not what his craft is all about.

In the other three areas of pleasing, Vance is triumphant. His language use is literally wonderful: he coins exotic words so true to roots that one needs to search an unabridged dictionary to discover which of his unfamiliar terms are real (his vocabulary is monumental) and which of his coining. Nuncupatory, twittler, venefice, tintamar--those are in dictionaries you can pick up and read; sanivacity, malditties--those are pure Vance (hurlothrumbo, though not to be found in my copy of the OED, turns out also to be a real word, or name anyway).

But it is in the arch, bone-dry, ironic mode of dialogue Vance assigns his characters that his wit, and his genius with language, is perhaps most manifest. The speeches Vance puts in his characters' mouths are often not at all plausible, but therein lies their very charm: a dull, stupid, ignorant, old man in a cheap bar remarking that "In this life events bend to no such kindly patterns" (and there you see the resemblance to Bramah and the Kai Lung tales)'. This is just a brief quote from a website which you can find in any search engine.


Nuncupatory, is a word I have yet to find in a actual dictionary, you may find it in a google search, but it aint the same as having it in your hands in the form of a book!.

A quick list now, as it seems that everyones posts here are whippet quick and equally fast to type

Ultimate Biography> Boswells. Johnson

Scheming Heart of Gold, girl grown into woman, give me a man who will raise my social standing! Vanity Fair. Mr Thackeray.

Best account of a fighter for his idea of freedom. Tom Barry. Guerilla Days In Ireland.

Best Travel Book in the last Ten years. Journeys With A Tangerine. Tim Mackintosh-Smith.

Best memoir of the Holocaust. The World Of My Past. Abraham H. Biderman

Greatest Story of Maritime hardship and pure guts. Nathaniel Philbrick. In the Heart Of the Sea. (Accounts of which inspired Herman Melville's Moby Dick)

Of course there is Tolkien,but there is also L.E.Modesitt. Jr. and the Chaos Wars Saga.Many other Fantasy novels as well( I,m sure you can name them)

Explanations of pure Butchery and Thuggery(?) can be found in Rebel Hearts. Journeys within the IRA's soul. Kevin Toolis .

Of course other subjects could just lead us ever onwards into that great forest known as Literature. To finish, just try this...next time you meet someone interesting or someone you wish you hadn't..ask em if they have read the Wind In The Willows. The answer will almost always be self evident and you are only waiting for confirmation!....cheers

'The Man in the High Castle' by Phillip K. Dick
'God Bless You Mr Rosewater' by Kurt Vonnegut
'Sunset Song' by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
'Creation' by Gore Vidal