I second the purpose of this thread!
Ishmael
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ishmael-Daniel- ... 308&sr=8-1
I, Robot
http://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Robot-Isaac-A ... 366&sr=1-1
Plutarch's Moralia
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Moralia-Plutarc ... 81&sr=1-19
The Little Earth Book
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Earth-Al ... 609&sr=8-1
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (and basically every other Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy book by DNA)
Quote from SindwillerThe Restaurant at the End of the Universe (and basically every other Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy book by DNA)
Im trying to read hitchhikers guide to the galaxy at the moment but I'm having a hard time. The author tries so hard to be funny 98% of the time ... It annoys me very much. I wish I could read the same story without all the unfunny jokes.
Rant - The Oral Biography of Buster Casey
I'm a huge palahniuck fan, and recommend all of his books, but this one seriously surprised me. For the first time he ventures into a bit of sci-fi but manages to keep his unique style. Rant is like those movies that need instant rewatching. It's told in a pretty original way aswell, through interviews of fictional characters that tell the story of this mysterious guy named Rant, and some interviews contradict others so you have to decide what you want to believe.
Hard to get into for the first 50 pages, but amazing speculative fiction, very very well thought, intelligent, detailed, hard to believe a single dude can juggle with all the concepts of math, space, time, etc. and he manages to merge them into a great sci-fi story. Loved it. I'm reading Snow Crash right now by the same author and it's great too.
I'll come up with some more later, but being 600km away from my personal library doesn't help remembering what I read.
Im trying to read hitchhikers guide to the galaxy at the moment but I'm having a hard time. The author tries so hard to be funny 98% of the time ... It annoys me very much. I wish I could read the same story without all the unfunny jokes.
I enjoyed the first one, but in the sequels it got old quickly and the jokes even lamer, so I had a painful time finishing the last 2.
During my years away from Mapcore i've read hundreds of books (it's amazing how much spare time you've got without a TV or a computer), my favorites were:
Rochefort - The Warrior's Rest
Goncharov - Oblomow
Dostojewski - Crime And Punishment
Sartre - La Nausee
Kafka - Well, basically all his stories
Amundsen's diaries
Gombrowicz - Ferdydurke
Hemingway - The Old Man And The Sea
Saffran Foer - Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close
Kosinski - Painted Bird
Armstrong - The History of God
Anything by Schopenhauer
Sjklovski - Zoo Or Letters Not About Love
Dahl - Boy, Solo
Flaubert - Bouvard Et Pecuchet
Ishiguro - Remains Of The Day
Roth - Portnoy's Complaint
Houellebecq - Atomised, The Possibility Of An Island
Tsjechow's short stories
Ibsen - Peer Gynt
Wilde - The Importance Of Being Earnest, Portrait Of Dorian Gray
And the absolute worst books i've read were whatever books by Jules Verne and Aldous Huxley, two most overrated writers in human history.
Quote from Sindwiller
I don't normally like activist/environmental books but I really enjoyed this one.
DaanO, I'm agree with you about Aldous Huxley, I have only read Brave New World, but was really boring... but Verne? Maybe is because I had read these books when I was very young, but definetly I keep very good memories from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon or Michael Strogoff 
My favorite book list that I can remember:
Arturo Perez-Reverte - El Capitan Alatriste´s saga, El Club Dumas.
Dumas - The Three Musketeers
Gabriel García Márquez - Cien Años de Soledad, Relato de un Naufrago
Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings
Michael Crichton - The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park
Philip K Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Carl Sagan - Contact
Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa - Ébano, Tuareg
Mika Waltari - The Egyptian, The Dark Angel
HG Wells - The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds
Anyway, lately I´ve lost my lecture habits and I barely read a few books per year... (damm you internet, computer and consoles! [Blocked Image: https://migrationtest.mapcore.org/public/style_emoticons/default/mapcore_smilies/emot_shakehead.gif] )
ayn rand - the fountainhead (absolutely brilliant character analysis and story).
malcolm gladwell - blink (modern day insight into split second judgment we make every day)
isaac asimov - the last question (phisophical propheteering of what will happen in a billion years - good for the soul)
isaac asimov - nightfall (if someone found out with 100% accuracy that the bible was fake in christian times basically)
carlos castaneda - the teachings of don juan - a separate reality (insight into modern spirituality)
it should be noted that all of these books are 'alternative' in the sense that they are very philosophical and are more about teaching things than focusing on whatever story they have. and when i say teaching i mean teaching the ways of life, not the way that education will teach you otherwise. i also second 'el club dumas'!
Oh, the teachings of Don Juan was awesome, read it when you're on shrooms! It's a great experience.
But anyway, Jules Verne: His dialogues are forced, and he's so desperately trying to make his stories interestingishly by adding pseudo-scientific facts that it gets annoying. The imagination is great, but after a while it gets nhhhhah. Jules Verne is an imaginative guy that would have written great books if he'd used a ghost writers. Also, in his life he has never been outside of France, which explains a lot if you've read his books and still remember 
Im trying to read hitchhikers guide to the galaxy at the moment but I'm having a hard time. The author tries so hard to be funny 98% of the time ... It annoys me very much. I wish I could read the same story without all the unfunny jokes.
Try to read Terry Pratchett then 
DNA at least has some depth in his jokes (imho).
I don't normally like activist/environmental books but I really enjoyed this one.
Because it's all true 
Seriously though, I think everyone with some brains left knows that our society is somewhat faulty, Quinn just knows how to phrase that nicely. Well, I might just be too left for the generality, however I'd go as far as saying that Ishmael should be read in school(s).
But anyway, Jules Verne...
Jules Verne introduced me to Science-Fiction literature. 
I like Terry Pratchet
Just orderd a new book by Woody Allen called The Complete Prose, love that guy.
One last thing: Whoever enjoys a good rant, try reading some of Trotski's work. You don't have to agree with the man to love how he tears his opponents to shreds!
i jusut bought a bunch of books with the intent to read them. currently i'm reading scar tissue by anthony kiedis (singer from red hot chili peppers), i love it.
anyone read anything from bukowski? i bought three of his books but havent started them yet.
So you want to be a writer?
Charles Bukowski
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
I like breaking this one out on all the "writers" out there. Not only does it criticize them in the medium they romanticize but it has the double bonus of being written by a confirmed hipster poet. EAT IT PUSSIES
I like Bukowski.
Which books did you buy? Read the 'post office' first, cause all his other books (novels) have that entire book's story covered too in like on chapter.
Especially I like 'Notes of a dirty old man', a collection of short stories.
Those 2 and hot water music
Quote from Senturaayn rand - the fountainhead (absolutely brilliant character analysis and story).
Seconded, I love Ayn Rand, Anthem is another good one she wrote that I highly recomend. Atlas Shrugged was ok, but drug on a little long, but it had the same kind of analysis and story as the fountainhead
Quote from vancorsoPhilip K Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Also a good choice, I love Bladerunner so go figure this was a good read
A scanner darkly is another good Philip K Dick book. (Movie was made from it with the same name)
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