BCF's "20 Books Everyone Should Read" 2010

[Nollaig]

Right, new year, new thread.

 

The guidelines for picking and posting your list are as follows:

1. You are only to choose your top 5 books. No more, preferably no less.

2. Your choices can be from any genre you like, and for any reason you like.

3. This is not necessarily a 'favourites' thread - while you are more than welcome to list your 5 favourites as your choices,

the KEY idea here is to name the books you think EVERYBODY should read once.

4. Please note you are welcome to use your list from 2008 if you so choose.

5. A book series is counted as one choice. Name the series, rather than an individual book.

 

- Once enough posts have accumulated, I will list the top 20 here and update it on a regular basis)

 

- Please feel free to discuss other peoples choices (in a constructive manner - people are allowed pick books for any reason, so don't start criticizing reasoning.)

 

- In December I will post the 2008, 2009 and 2010 lists together for comparison!

Edited February 5, 2010 by Nollaig

[Nicola]

1. His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman

2. Let The Right One In - John Ajvide Lindqvist

3. The Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice

4. The Tudor Series - Philippa Gregory

5. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

[Kell]

My top 5 from last year are:

 

1. Brom - The Devil's Rose (illustrated novel)

Brom's art is dark and beautiful and his words are certainly equal to the pictures in the book. He's a supremely talented individual and everyone should read his books!

 

2. Christopher Brookmyre - A Snowball in Hell

It's not part of a "series" as such, but it's best to read The Sacred Art of Stealing before this one, just to get everything in context. However, it's brilliant in its own right. Brookmyre is one of the finest writers of our generation, mixing gritty crime with dark humour seamlessly.

 

3. Sturt Macbride - Logan McRae series

The one I read last year was the most recent in the series, Blind Eye, and I rated it a firm 10/10. Macbride is fast becoming THE Scottish crime writer to contend with and this, the 5th book in the series set in Aberdeen (which starts with Cold Granite) is absolutely superb (as are the rest of the series, to be honest).

 

4. Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book

I read the version illustrated by Chris Riddell and both the writing and illustrations are fantastic. It's a YA book, but there's more than enough there to keep grown-ups hooked too.

 

5. Kelley Armstrong - Women of the Otherworld series

Again, it was the most recent books in the series that I read last year (Living with the Dead and Frostbitten) and they are great additions to the series. If you like paranormal/supernatural stuff but like things to actually be believable, then Armstrong's Otherworld series are definitley the books to read - you really could believe that you could be living next door to a werewolf and not even know it!

[Peacefield]

Mostly the same list from last year, with one change:

 

1. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

2. The Shining - Stephen King

3. Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

4. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

5. Ordinary People- Judith Guest

[BookJumper]

Not sure what I voted last year; better this way, so you know it's all new & fresh:

 

1. William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona

2. Victor Hugo, Les Miserabl�s

3. Ferenc Moln�r, The P�l (Paal/Paul, depending on the edition) Street Boys

4. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus

5. Jasper Fforde, Thursday Next series

[Echo]

I know that my answers have changed a bit since last year, but some are the same.

 

1. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

2. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

3. American Gods - Neil Gaiman

4. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

5. Persuasion - Jane Austen

[rach.at.the.disco]

1. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult

2. The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory

3. The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne

4. Chocolat - Joanne Harris

5. Harry Potter Series - J.K Rowling

[Kylie]

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

3. 1984 by George Orwell

4. Animal Farm by George Orwell

5. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

 

I've just made one change from last year.

[Mexicola]

1. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

2. To Kill a Mocking Bird - Harper Lee

3. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

4. 1984 - George Orwell

5. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

[AbielleRose]

1. Night by Elie Wiesel

2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

3. To Kill A Mockingbird- Harper Lee

4. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

5. Paradise Lost by John Milton

[Weave]

1 ~ Weaveworld by Clive Barker

2 ~ A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb

3 ~ Let the right one in by John Ajvide Lindqvist

4 ~ Little Big Man by Thomas Berger

5 ~ Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

 

[Vanwa]

1. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (a timeless classic for children and adults alike, and the prelude the LotR)

 

2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (for a mere glimpse into how one man can create with words an entire universe in less than half a century)

 

3. Perfume - Patrick Suskind (for an insight into the mind of a murderer and a general feeling of eeriness upon completion)

 

4. 1984 - George Orwell (for an eye-opener of when politics and government control go too far)

 

5. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (for a complex and controversial view on organised religion)

Edited January 3, 2010 by Vanwa
sp.

[beautifuldisaster7]

1. Night by Elle Wiesel

2. The Lord Of The Flies by William Golding

3. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

4. The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

5. A Child Called It by David Pelzer

 

 

There are soo many others but had to stay within the limit haha

[Janet]

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

3. 1984 by George Orwell

4. Animal Farm by George Orwell

5. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

 

I've just made one change from last year.

I've read 1 to 4 of those and they're cracking reads!

 

It's very hard (I didn't do this last year - not sure why!).

 

Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

[Kimmy619]

This is hard, but I have narrowed it down to the following:

 

1. The Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice

2. 1984 - George Orwell

3. The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood

4. To Kill a Mocking Bird - Harper Lee

5. His Dark Materials trilogy - Phillip Pullman

[Stephanie2008]

Mine would be:

1. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

2. Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

3. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

4. Time Travelers Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

5. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

[Lucybird]

I'm trying to put more 'important' books in this year.

 

1) 1984- George Orwell

2) The Lucifer Effect- Phillip Zimbardo

3) His Dark Materials- Phillip Pulman

4) Captain Correli's Mandolin- Louis de Bernieres

5) The Historian- Elizabeth Kostova

Edited January 30, 2010 by Lucybird

[emelee]

Its a bit hard to list only 5 books since you have to "kill your darlings". But I can do it and claim these 5 books are books everyone should read... I will not put in Harper Lee

[Freewheeling Andy]

Well, I don't think I've changed much in the last year, but I might be pushing slightly more non-fiction now:

 

Still, at number one, and still the book everyone should read:

 

If This Is A Man by Primo Levi. You should still read this. One of the most important books ever, a man describing his life inside Auschwitz, but with more humanity and more hope than you could imagine, a book that touches so deep I don't know where to being.

 

The Great Crash of 1929 by JK Galbraith. You should read this, this year or last year. Everyone in the financial world should have read it in 2006 or 2007. It tells you all you need to know about history repeating itself in our current financial mire, and how easy it would have been to avoid it, but that - in the end - we will never avoid it because we eventually forget the problems of the past and think we've reinvented leverage.

 

Bad Science by Ben Godacre. Not the best written book, by a long chalk, but it would do everyone a world of good to read it, so you can begin to understand how science and science-ism is used horribly cynically to take advantage of people who don't fully understand what's going on.

 

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Just because. There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle."

 

And, finally, you know it's coming: To Kill a Mockingbird.

[Readwine]

Sooo hard:

 

1. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

2. 1984 - George Orwell

3. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

4. Short Stories - Horacio Quiroga

5. The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski

[willoyd]

A similar list to last year, with just a couple of changes. I'm sticking with non-fiction as, despite the relevance and importance of fiction, the stuff that I see as being genuinely essential reading, is all too real. Long on quality, short on quantity, only one of these (Bad Science) exceeds 200 pages. The pack a lot in!

 

 

1.The Great Crash of 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith

Never was there greater need to learn from history as there is today (Afghanistan anyone?), and Galbraith's history is superbly written, making it very easy to see the connections. I can only agree with Freewheeling Andy that this is essential reading in the current climate.

 

2. Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Nothing has changed since last year - science remains grossly misunderstood. Remains a toss-up between this and The Tiger That Isn't (Blastland & Dilnot) which does the same thing with statistics.

 

3. Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne

Slim, succinct, and beautifully written. Tackles another of the great misunderstoods.

 

4. The Vanishing Face of Gaia by James Gleick

The ultimate harbinger of doom and gloom in some people's eyes, this discusses one of the most important issues of the day, debunking some real nonsense (carbon offsetting for instance). Even if one disagrees, and Gleick does take a somewhat extreme if well argued position in some key areas, this needs to be read.

 

5. Touching the Void by Joe Simpson

Amongst all the 'hard stuff', I thought it important to have at least one book focusing on the human element. As I haven't read Primo Levi yet (see Freewheeling Andy's list), this will stand testament instead to the human spirit, if in a different context. Was a toss up between this and the biography of Shackleton, one of the greatest leaders of men and survivors of all time.

[ethan]

I'll limit my list to post WWII English language

 

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

[Kimmy619]

I'll limit my list to post WWII English language

 

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

 

 

I am currently reading the Sheltering Sky and I am realy struggling to get in to it.....I will keep going though as it has been recommended to me by a few people now.

[Nicola Booth]

1. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

2. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

3. Don Quixote - Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

4. Twilight Series - Stephanie Meyer

5. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult

 

I myself am going to try to read Pride and Prejudice and Don Quixote!

I have read the rest and enjoyed them.

Edited January 24, 2010 by Janet
Added authors

[vinay87]

1. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

In this day and age where Fantasy fiction is abound left and right, what better to read than the work of the man who started it all? The definitive work of fantasy fiction that it is, it deserves the battle some say they must fight to get through the style of Tolkien's writing.

 

2. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

My favourite book. And most arguably the best book ever written. Whether you are talking about spiritual change that a man can undergo by the sheer kindness of another or whether you want to see how far that man can go for what he believes is just, no matter what the consequence. It adds, as a joyfully orgasmic bonus, the unbelievably detailed accounts through Hugo's eyes of the Napoleanic war. And in particular, the battle of Waterloo.

 

3. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky considered it his best work. And as it is his last, many believe that it really is. He claimed that though the story was in his head for his entire life, he wasn't emotionally ready to write it till the end. The story is deeper than can be imagined of a story of Patricide. And throughout we see the characters of the three brothers struggle with the sheer philosophical questions that inevitably daunt us all in our life. Should not an evil man be put to his end without wasting time? In this book, Dostoevsky demands the attention of his readers like never before, wasting little time as he jumps into his ideals head on.

 

4. The Story Of My Experiments With The Truth - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

As an Indian, I'll admit that there are two classes of people in India. Those who quiver at the very mention of the name of the Mahatma. And those who spit, after learning that he sinned. I, thankfully, belong to the former group. The man's account of his life is shockingly honest and forthcoming. Although many begin to doubt his greatness in this day, we must wonder how one frail old man had the capability to throw back the force of the British Empire from the country.

 

5. Histories - Herodotus

I still have this on my TBR pile but I keep sneaking peeks at chapters and scenes every now and then. If you would bother to read up on him, you'll find that Herodotus is called the Father of History as well as the Father of Lies. Thucydides, the author of the account of the Peloponnesian war, claims Herodotus is a liar, accounting stories largely from mythology rather than history as Thucydides himself defines it. But one must remember that Thucydides expects Herodotus to have heeded a definition of history that did not exist for as long as Herodotus had been alive. The book is a must read most importantly in this age where Hollywood seems to want to hurl movie after movie at us that is either based on or derived on various fictious tangential lines from, Greek stories and histories from Herodotus's accounts. And if not the least of the reasons to read it, it accounts minute details about the way of life in that day and age.