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

My favorite book right now is The Count of Monte-Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. I spent all summer reading it in French, which made it go slowly, and it's long anyway, something like 1600 pages in the original edition. In most condensed form, it's about Edmond Dantes, who gets sent to a brutal prison for a crime he didn't commit, who escapes, and who then ruins the lives of the men who betrayed him. Along the way are dozens of parallel and converging stories, and hundreds of intriguing characters. It is all set in France and Italy in the first part of the 19th century. It would make a wonderful vacation book, the kind of book to read if you had a long journey and a week of spare time.

I am glad that you enjoy Ringworld. It has dropped down on my list, but after all, I read it for the first time in 1984, and there are so many other good books out there to read! Sadly, I have found a lot of Larry Niven's other works to be somewhat incomprehensible, including his story in the current issue of Asimov's. But he still gets my appreciation as a writer who at his best, comes up with really interesting ideas and writes about them plainly.

The Count sounds like a very enjoyable book. I read The Three Musketeers in English (15? 20?) years ago and loved it, and I think I re-read it relatively recently (2-4 years ago?) and enjoyed it again.

A Tale of Two Cities is on my list, though I don't really like Dickens. I get massively irritated by his heroines. Trollope and even the bloody Brontes "do" women better than Dickens, imho. I think I associated to the Tale of Two Cities via the French connection.

Favouorite books?
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K LeGuin (cause and effect, truth and consequences)
Venetia, Georgette Heyer (girlie book, don't worry about it!)
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett (about religious hunger and intolerance)
Songlines, Bruce Chatwin (the nomadic urge, and what makes humans humans, written in lucent prose)
Why me, why now, why this? Robin Someone (a book about Buddhism which does not mention the "B" word - truth and consequences again)
The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins (how evolution works and shapes the psychology of living creatures on this planet)
Shadows of Forgotton Ancestors - Carl Sagan (he wanted to write an explanation of WW2, and ended up writing a history of the universe)
just about anything by Carl Sagan, in fact
The Right Stuff, Tom Wolf (as discussed - a compelling history of the X-Planes, the Mercury missions and the first Americans in Space)
Apollo 13, ? Shephard (the disasterous mission, takes up the space race 5 years after Tom Wolf leaves off).
The Way we Live Now, Anthony Trollop (imagine a book written about Michael Milken and Junk Bonds, but written about 130 years before either were thought of... the way we live now, indeed!)

Those are the main ones at the moment. There are others of course....

Books abandoned half way through?

Emma Bovary - more of a wet dream than a real woman
Anna Kerennina - the incidental characters and sub-plots were more compelling than our Anna (though War and Peace really should be on the Favourite Books list).
Agnes Grey - a tedious wingeing moaner
David Copperfield - I was supposed to admire the heroine???
Moll Flanders - enjoyed the first half, but the second half seemed likely to be more of the same

Secret vices - authors' whose books I will buy whatever it says on the cover:
Dick Francis; Ian Rankin; Terry Pratchett; Stephen Fry (always surprising); Mary Wesley, Katie Fford (both girlie authors, though Mary Wesley has teeth and uses them to bite); Jane Austin; John Buchan; Georgette Heyer; George Orwell; Bruce Chatwin.

I have decided to only read recommendations for a while... Big bro has just recommended The Business by Ian Banks.

Your go:

I am assembling a list. Thanks for the plentiful example!

Just finished "The Demolished Man" and really enjoyed it. A good piece of 50s sf that had not dated too much, and a rattling thriller, too.

That said, I think 1984 and even Brave New World are closer to describing the kinds of societies that I fear. In fact thinking about it, they each describe one of my fears almost exactly. With the Time Machine complimenting BNW on the subject of multiple human races.

Just finished The Business by Iain Banks - on the recommendation of my big brother. Loved it, even if it is a little cerebral. I had though Iain Banks was much blacker and sicker than that.

Don't think I read The Business. But yeah, most of his stuff is pretty grim. His scifi, though, is a little lighter. Right now I'm reading Elmore Leonard's Cuba Libre, set in Cuba during the Spanish-American War in 1898. Kind of a caper story.

Fun?

Cuba Libre, yes! a nice book. I borrowed Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear from the library the other day and have a RR trip to take, so should get to read most of it.
Still working on large & exhaustive book list.