Favourite book/author

OK, for those of you who can read, what's your favourite book and/or author. I'm always on the lookout for a good read so let's have it.

1. Favourite book: Well now that I've started it, I can't really say I've got an absolute favourite. Some of the best books I've read are:

The Bridge, Walking on Glass, Feersum Enjinn, Complicity, Crow Road, Player of Games, Excession - Iain Banks
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
Filth - Irvine Welsh
The Map that Changed the World - Simon Winchester (non-fiction)
Dinosaur Hunters - Deborah Cadbury (non-fiction)

There's many more but they're the ones that come to mind.

2. Favourite Author: undoutably Iain Banks, with or without the M. He writes non-genre fiction as Iain Banks and Sci Fi as Iain M Banks. Sometimes there's a cross over, with bits from the Sci Fi books popping up in the non-genre books. Some of his books are very dark, The Wasp Factory for example.

Chook man, thats like asking someone whats your favourite girl you've perved on: Ie they are all good at the time, some being better that others.

anything by Robert Heinlein, Douglas Adams, Harry Harrison, Terry Pratchett, Martin Gilbert, spike milligan, Far Side, Viz comics, Rip off press comics and countless others.

My most read book has been the Hitchikers Guide series and Spike Milligans war memiors.

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comics

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They're called 'graphic novels' now, Zed ;)

I think that two of the better authors floating about at the moment are Robin Hobb and Terry goodkind. Both have written some absolute stunners but a couple of less enjoyable ones as well. Both have a dark element running through them.

For a laugh read any of the "ronan" books by James Bibby, to give you an idea try a black Conan. He used to write comedy for Lenny Henry and the books are hilarious. Every time I see a baby bouncer I think of the evil character in the novel and what he does in the first scene of the first book.

For Australian I like Martin Middleton, enjoyed his first set of novels, and the novel "Assassin", but like many he got caught in the more novels on the same world trap. His newer ones are set in another scene and have been interesting, but with the kids and woodwork my reading has dropped dramaticaly.

The technical work stuff is really what I read mostly. I will not bore people with that but some articles really make you sit up and think how far we have come and how amazing some of the things we are able to do. To give an example in Adelaide there is a childrens hospital for kids with defects in how their body destroys certain chemicals. They usually die at the latest in their teens, however somebody has worked out that you can feed them the enzyme they are missing and the improvement is dramatic. At a conference last year they showed a video of this little girl, pretreatment she could not walk 10m in 12 min, after 3 months of therapy they had to stop her from running for the 12min just so the test was valid.

I've just finished reading 'The Seven Ordeals of Count Calliastro', Prof Iain McCalnan (I think).
Brilliant book on this poor sod who was a member of the Freemasons and how the Catholic Church destroyed him for not following their faith.
A truly great biography if you like that sort of thing.
Apart from that, Wilbur Smith, Ian Fleming (yes, a Bond fan from wayback, saw my first one when I was 15), Philip Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep).
Numerous others but depends upon the mood at the time.

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My most read book has been the Hitchikers Guide series and Spike Milligans war memiors.

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I'm with ZED on this one,

I'm more of a Sci-Fi person, The dune series. a lot of Ben Bova and a lot of "one of's" by various authors.

Sci-Fi for me too. Himzol's got it right, Ben Bova is a great author. Probably my favourite. I like the early Heinlein, Asimov, Phillip Jose Farmer, Robert Silverberg etc. Douglas Addams is a fav. Also, I really like Kurt Vonegut for a non-SF.

with a book collection of over 2000 its a bit of a big ask....

the ones I go back to on a regular basis

anything by nevil shute, dick francis, d.e. stevenson ( known as mistress of the light novel but her characterisation is excellent ) gets reread about once a year.

crow road i really like but one of mr banks' books is now in the public library at munich because I thought it was total tripe so donated it to their english language section :D

david foster's "dog rock".

the book that recently came out on the lighthouse stevensons is excellent.

if you've got kids then get out Arthur Ransom's swallows and amazon's series and read them aloud ( you have to get past the fact that one character is called titty but if you're reading it aloud you can always call her Beryl or something ).

Melways by Mel Way.

Al :confused:

The Dark Half by Stephen King was one of the first books I read that had me enthrawled from the very first page. I'm not much of a reader, but anything with Stephen King I can't pass.

Animalia for the kiddy winks.... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...X0DER&st=books

Noddy, until it was banned.

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Originally Posted by jackiew

with a book collection of over 2000 its a bit of a big ask....

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You must have a great job to be able to afford enough colouring pencils to do all those!

(sigh!)

P :D

Where do I start!

One of the first things I made when I took up woodworking again after a very long interval was a bookcase. I haven't counted my collection recently but - like Jackie's - it's well over a couple of thousand.

Some favourites (in no particular order other than that they will occur to me at apparent random):

P G Wodehouse (favourite quote: "She had a laugh like a squadron of cavalry crossing a tin bridge"); Evelyn Waugh; Douglas Addams; Patrick O'Brian; Isaac Asimov; William Shakespeare; John Keats; Derek Hansen; Dick Francis; Philip Roth; John Updike; Mark Twain; Sue Grafton; Umberto Eco; J P Donleavy; Spike Milligan; Ian Fleming (still like the James Bond stories).

Enid Blyton - I read vast quantities of her books when I was a kid. I used to read the Noddy stories out loud to my kids at bedtime when they were tiddlers. I had a different voice for each character. When he was about five my son saw a TV version of Noddy for the first time and was very unimpressed. He said that Big Ears and Mr Plod had the wrong voices.

My wife reckons I'll read anything. She may be right. I can still quote the French copy on the back label of the old HP Sauce bottle: "Cette sauce de haute qualité est une mélange des fruits orientaux, d'épices et de vinaigre de malte". Bit of a worry, that.

Col

I am a fantasy and science fiction fan but haven't read much lately. It's impossible to pick a single favourite.

Books: Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks; Magician by Raymond E Feist; Ringworld books by Larry Niven, Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.

Authors: Iain M Banks, Raymond E Feist, Larry Niven, Terry Goodkind, Terry Pratchet.

Fine Wood Working