- This topic has 81 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 3 years ago by
.
- Posts
Lets Get Racing
I just noticed your post and thought you might like to know about the following site, in case you’re not aware of it.
It’s called Project Gutenberg and you can download books from there.  They also  have an interesting list of their top 100.  I see James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ is in at no. 5 which surprised me, although I recommend the adaptation on DVD called ‘Bloom’ starring Stephen Rea as an alternative to the, quite exhausting book.
At no 21 you might like ‘Le Kama Soutra’ by Vatsyayana<br>and at no. 31 The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, as you’ve shown an interest there.
here is a link if you are interested.  <br>bi for now, happy reading to all
<br>www.gutenberg.org
<br>(Edited by Lovely Lady at 12:30 pm on Feb. 16, 2005)<br>
(Edited by Lovely Lady at 12:35 pm on Feb. 16, 2005)
Oooh one I must recommend myself is The Commitments by Roddy Doyle. The guy has a blatant disregard for punctuation but, if you can adjust to that, it is a truly hilarious book.
The film of it is an absolute classic itself.
Also,
Roddy Doyle’s ‘The Snapper’ – you can get them all as an omnibus edition – titled The Barrytown Trilogy.
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.
I would like to nominate, Archangel by Robert Harris…. An excellent historical thriller.
I enjoyed that one too, but preferred both "Enigma" and the one set in Germany by the same author (can’t remember the title).
Steve
Quote: from Zoz on 1:25 pm on Feb. 16, 2005[br]Oooh one I must recommend myself is The Commitments by Roddy Doyle. The guy has a blatant disregard for punctuation but, if you can adjust to that, it is a truly hilarious book.
The film of it is an absolute classic itself. <br>
Don’t get me started on them. They were playing at York after racing last summer. But I was working, packing 25 bookie joints away and taking down the rails, with people using the rails as bars, while bloody Mustang Sally was blearing out!
Currently about half way through "Star of The Sea" by Joseph O’Connor, a murder mystery set against the backdrop of people fleeing famine-stricken Ireland for a new life in America in the 1840s. It’s got plot, characterisation and suspense, and is well-written.
Avoid anything by: Beyer or Mordin.<br>My favourites include:
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov<br>The Third Policeman, by Flann O’Brien<br>The Great Gatsby, by F Scott Fitzgerald<br>The Trial, by Franz Kafka<br>Under Western Eyes, by Josef Conrad<br>Homo Faber, by Max Frisch<br>The Selfish Gene, by Professor Richard Dawkins<br>Hamlet, by William Shakespeare<br>Great Expectations, by Darles Chickens<br>The History of The World in 10.5 Chapters, Julian Barnes<br>
(Edited by Prufrock at 12:17 pm on Feb. 17, 2005)
Star Of The Sea is a top read Prufrock.
I can also second The Great Gatsby – read it after being dragged to see a London show about F Scott Fitzgerald.
I am half-way through "The American Boy" by Andrew Taylor. Gripping stuff so far.
"I also like Franz Kafka…."
Flattery will get you everywhere, TDK. (Note to other forumites: I am known as Franz Kafka on another forum).
How could I possibly have forgotten "L’Etranger" by Albert Camus?!?
I have enjoyed "Star of The Sea" a lot so far but was bitterly disappointed by the glaring error on p 159 where a colt is described as having "twice been placed in the Derby.":o
Not in 1830, he didn’t.
In those benighted times all-weather racing hadn’t even been dreamt of. We’ve never had it so good……
The book 1984 is one of a small number (Robinson Crusoe and The Bible are two others) that it is quite difficult to imagine the world without.
For starters, what kind of reality tv shows would we be betting on if Orwell hadn’t penned his masterpiece?! Celebrity Hamlet, in which contestants contemplate their navels, have violent mood swings and soliloquise to their hearts’ content?……….Come to think of it, perhaps things wouldn’t be all that much different after all………….
Those who mention the great Kafka may like to try Magnus Mills – a seriously strange writer of recent years.
"The Scheme for Full Employment" is wonderfully Kafkaesque.
I think I’ve said this before Prufrock, but yours is the only name on the internet I envy – can’t imagine why you’d want to downgrade to Franz elsewhere!
I have a signed copy of Mills’s "All Quiet on the Orient Express" somewhere, tooting, and I know what you mean about the Kafkaesque nature of his writing (transported to the Lake District).
Are you a fan of Haruki Murakami at all? "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" was strange but very memorable in places. His latest work is called "Kafka On The Shore", but I haven’t got round to buying/borrowing it yet.<br>
Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera’ is perhaps the most Kafka type existential book I’ve read that’s like him, don’t know if anyone has read that?
Your list and taste is more or less the same as my own Pru.
Has anyone ever read a book called WE -Yevgeney Vamyatin’ … (I think that’s how you spell it) this is very much in the same vain as 1984, in some ways it’s much better because it’s more frightening and real must for any Orwellian. This was written in 1920.
(Edited by dave jay at 6:21 pm on Feb. 17, 2005)
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.