In desperation, Poirot fumbles about for a topic that excludes 1) the Carbon Tax and 2) Australian political machinations.

I haven't quite decided yet what's my favourite work of literature, and I'll add that at certain times of our lives we're apt to be moved by works that we find less powerful as we grow older.

I'm not as well read as I'd like to be, I have numerous second-hand classics on my bookshelves that I've yet to read, but I like reading (although it tends to lull me to sleep, which is frustrating)

(Poirot reckons his favourite 'non-fiction" work is "Murder on the Orient Express", but he's an egotistical fellow so I think it's best to just humour him on that one : )

What a good idea, Poirot; to talk about something else for a bit.
My favourite book is 'Meditations' by Marcus Aurelius. A well thumbed copy has been my conscience and my travelling companion through forty years of military, corporate and literary life.
My favourite fiction work? Well, that's a tough one, but I confess to having been a Tolkien fan since I was a teenager.
But then there's the incomparable Tim Winton... Ummmm...
Anthony
http://www.observationpoint.com.au

Dear Poirot,

As a teenager I was often at odds with my parents. Then I read "The Way of All Flesh" by Samuel Butler. I found out that I was not the only one who felt that way as the young man in the book in another time in another country felt much the same way. Recently I read "The Spinoza Problem", a novel by Yalom. Spinoza was excommunicated by his Jewish community but was at odds with the outside community as he rejected any form of supernatural belief and the historical narratives of both Judaism and Christianity. My wife and I at this time are reading other works about and by Spinoza. Also recently read "The Rainbow" by D H Lawrence. In that book Ursula Brangwen also questioned and was alienated. The lives of quiet desperation that most men lead are relieved when we can enter into the fictional life of others who feel the same. It is even better when we can be close to another living person who feels the same.

Too difficult a question. A bit like asking who's your favourite child. There have been so many over the years – favourite books, not children – and for many different reasons.

However, I decided on The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B by J. P. Donleavy which rather dramatically opened my mind to the world of possibilities beyond that in Bible study class.

Good idea Piorot. A bit of light stuff for a change.
I have a library of around two & a half thousand books. I must admit though most of them are Technical books on anything from metal engineering, chemistry, physics, woodwork, computers, craft, general history, military history, all types of religions, their theories & conspiracies, Some really weird stuff like ZON & such like. & of course collections of various Magazines like Practical electronics/mechanics, etc.

I have very few novels. The ones I like are; "Hitchers Guide to the Galaxy", Tofflers "Future Shock" which I read some 25 years ago. I still haven’t got around to the sequel as yet. one day. Zen & the art of Motorcycle Maintainance" by Robert Pirsig. Patience, understanding & a soul needed for this one. Once again I still haven’t read the sequel "Lila" as yet. I did start it once though. I got about four chapters into "Ulysses" once. Also heavy going but I'll will finish it one day. The classics I read as a child "The Odyssey & the Iliad" the children’s version & later the full books. "Horatio at the Bridge" The children’s version as a child now MaCawleys 589 line version.

One book I have been involved in writing is "Blue Lanyard Red Banner" by Lex McAulay also I get a mention in his "First to Fight". There is another book called "When the Buffalo Fight". It's a no names, no pack drill type of book about a Company in Vietnam. (B Company, 1 R.A.R) My Platoon in particular. Ssssh! It doesn’t mention our Company, but everything that happened to us is mentioned, some of the names have been reversed. First name for last etc & parodies of names.

WmTrevor,

I agree that the question is too hard. However, it seemed like an attention-grabbing title (although, Ive often wondered which book I'd choose if I was allowed only "one" prior to being banged up in solitary for twenty years : )

Anthony,

I don't have Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, but I do have a sizable passage from it (which I will look up later on today) He does strike me as a wise and measured man.

David f.,

"The Way of All Flesh" is one of those classics sitting on my shelf that I haven't yet got to. I'll say, however, that it is in my top ten for brilliant and profound titles.

Poirot

I’m not into fiction.

Only one book comes to mind:

Calvin and Hobbes, ~1990 publication I think!

It is a fascinating and highly humorous journey into the mind and imagination of six-year-old Calvin, in which his toy tiger, Hobbes, plays a big part.

Oh hold on, that IS fiction!

But…but… it seemed so real!! ( :>/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes

Dear Poirot,

What's my favourite book?
That's a tough one because there were so many
at different stages of my life's journey. I went through
various phases - from the classics of English Literature,
onto Russian Literature, onto American and Australian
writers. There were many books that had a different impact
in their own way.

Apart from novels -
there were biographies that made me laugh
out loud - "The Moon's A Balloon," by David Niven, just to
name one. Then there were ones that shocked -
"Infidel," by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

I also loved reading all
the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling - because I guess
I'm a child at heart, and I love imaginative stories and
magic.

However if I have to name just one book that made a huge
impact. A book that even today brings a chill to my spine
It would have to be -
Robert Conquest's, "The Harvest of Sorrow:
Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine."

This book records the full history of possibly
the worst human
disaster in living memory. It is a deeply moving testament
to those who died, and should register in the public
consciousness of the West a sense of the darker side of the
history of the past century. The number dying as a result
of these actions was higher than the total number of deaths
for all countries in World War I.

The sheer excellence of the writing, compel from beginning
to end. Quite simply a great book. One that will live in
my mind forever.

This thread was a good idea, Poirot; it's only been up a few hours and already my reading list has grown by half a dozen titles.
Problem is, it's already unmanageable.
A few years ago, I decided that I wouldn't die until I'd read all the books I wanted to.
At this rate, I'll live forever.
Quite a cunning plan, actually.
Anthony
http://www.observationpoint.com.au

Another great thread to be sure POIROT. Nice to get away from all the daily dramas that seem to continually assault our sensibilities, ad nauseam.

To the topic...shamefully, I'll always head for a local 'remainders' bookshop (near to where I reside) whenever I can, as paying full price kinda goes against my grain to be quite truthful.

One of my favourite NF books is a little paperback titled 'The Surgeon of Crowthorne' by Simon Winchester. Essentially, about a criminally insane (imprisoned) Doctor of Medicine who assisted James Murry in the compilation of the first OED.

An easy, quite flowing read, that isn't too intellectualy demanding for a bloke like me.

And for a good fictional read, I like anything by, Richard North Patterson; Boris Starling (aka Danial Blake); Martin Cruz Smith to name a few.

Generally, I'll read any Non Fiction material, providing it's modestly priced - except anything on the police or the Vietnam War.

Again, a most refreashing thread POIROT, it really is.

Thanks for the topic Poirot,

One's 'favourite book' is rightly a rather ethereal notion.

I think the best we can do is say what one's favourite is at present. It obviously will remain so until another replaces it. That is not to say the dethroned book is not as good or ever better than the usurper since the impact a book can have can fade and personal circumstances and tastes can change.

For instance my current favourite book for quite a few years has been Tim Winton's 'Breath' yet I know there is no way I could have appreciated it had I not been at a particular stage of life.

But significant books from one's past are like memorable friends and sometimes it even seems a little discourteous to put one above the others.

I do agree with the previous comments about favorites but there are a few that come to mind.

Robert Heinleins "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Robert Fulghum's "All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten"
and Barry Lopez's "Arctic Dreams"

All books that have snuck up on me in a way that Instill value.

R0bert

Poirot,

Very good question.

I don't reach much fiction either and I don't have a single favourite book.

Some favourites are-

(1) 'On Liberty', by J S Mill (2) any well-written history book, particularly by J J Norwich or Donald Kagan (3) 'The Prince' by Machiavelli and (4) 'The Book of Heroic Failures' by Stephen Pile, it's non-fiction but very funny. LOL

Fiction - any Terry Pratchett novel, LOL and witty.

I'm, with you Lexi, I think I enjoyed the Potter books more than the kids.

Then there was a nothing book, The Cruiser, a tale of a mythical WW11 warship, a prize for some achievement in high school. It was responsible for starting a 15 year old kid living 300+ miles from the sea, thinking about joining the navy.

But best of all was Sir Francis Chichester's Along The Clipper Way. This was a result of Chichester's research for his single handed voyage, [the first] around the world.

It is a compilation of writings of hundreds who sailed the mighty clippers, & some smaller ships, in the days right up to WW11. It tells of the joys, the terrors, & the hardships they experienced, & the satisfaction they achieved.

It brought home to me reason for so many of our ills in todays world. So many lived such exciting dangerous, & hard lives, not just sailors but everyone in those days, every day was an adventure.

No one needed drugs, when they flooded their body with adrenaline, just living their normally dangerous existence.

Yep it's those 2 & some by the racing drivers in the 30s, I blame for where my life led me. We only get about 20 years to do most things that require top physical abilities, & they are the same years when most are building a career.

I know I'm financially poorer because I chose to chase those dreams, but I'd rather that, than be sitting in a gold plated rocking chair, thinking if only.

Reading R0bert's comment really brought back memories.
I remember reading Stranger in a Strange Land back in the Sixties, and I thought it the best thing ever. I really believed we were going to change the world.
Ah youth!!
But thanks for bringing it all back, R0bert. It's was a helluva time, back then wasn't it.
Anthony
http://www.observationpoint.com.au

Glad everyone is enjoying the topic.
One of the things I like about OLO's literature threads is finding some commonality between my reading and that of other people.

Jayb,

From your selection I've read "Future Shock" and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". I got about the same distance into Ulysses, although I like Joyce's short stories and I've read "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". Good on you for having contributed to that book on the Vietnam experience.

Lexi,

"The Moon's A Balloon" is an absolute scream - one of my all time favourites.

o sung wu,

I too enjoyed "The Surgeon of Crowthorne", but even more I enjoyed Winchester's, "The Map that Changed the World".

csteele,

I think Tim Winton is an uncanny and masterful writer, however, his writing doesn't really do it for me - maybe I should have another go.

mac,

I read Terry Pratchett's Discworld series when my daughter was a teenager - so hilarious.

Robert,

I haven't read "Stranger in a Strange Land", but I reckon I'm going to do so in the future.

I love short stories particularly which I'll expand on later.

Here's another sublime title (IMO) - "A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight".

The short list.
Fiction:
The Grapes Of Wrath-John Steinbeck.
Blood Meridian-Cormac Mc Carthy
Cloudstreet-Tim Winton
Do androids dream of electric sheep?- Phillip.K.Dick

Non fiction:
The Struggle for Europe-Chester Wilmot
The Gulag Archipelago-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Pandaemonium- Humphrey Jennings

“A person's favorite book isn't always a perfect indicator of his or her personality, but it never hurts to find out what it is, just in case.”

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/favorite-book-as-personality-test-the-catcher-in-the-rye-the-lord-of-the-flies-and-the-outs

Dear Poirot,

It took Breath to lock me into Winton. I had read Cloudstreet and his others earlier but went back to them after Breath blew my socks off. It was if the proverbial veil had been lifted from my eyes. I devoured them with much joy and enlightenment.

Dear J of M,

Pretty handy list of fictional works you have there. Blood Meridian was one hell of a visceral work. As indicated for me I would have Breath pipping Cloudstreet and Cannery Row doing the same to Grapes of Wrath. I would have to add Conrad's Lord Jim, but Phillip K Dick would stay.

Dear mac,

The Prince is like the Art of War, both quite strong books, but I would struggle to include them as a favourite. Why the attraction?

Ans: my 'black book' :O

There have been far too many for me, loved them all and named a lot the best.
Taste changes but love of books same.
Reading two volume Banjo Paterson's works now.

Hasbeen: No one needed drugs, when they flooded their body with adrenaline, just living their normally dangerous existence.

If you really want to get your adrenaline flowing. I recommend;

HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE

Retold in modern English by Adrienne Potter

From the original "Horatius" by Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) originally published in 1842.

I know we oldies did it at school. That was an abridged version. This is very long. By the end you are really there, cheering him on to safety.
An end note to the poem:
Horatio’s Sister Hysteria
Although the victory of the Horatii was acclaimed throughout Rome, the real victim was the sister of the winning Horatius. She had been secretly engaged to the enemy, Curiatus, and when she learned they had all been killed, her lover included, she cried loudly and only one can imagine, passionately. Horatius lost his patience with her, grabbed his sword and killed his sister for being disloyal to Rome and such a whiner. The people forgave him.

Now you know where we get the word Hysteria from. A day you don't learn something is a day you've wasted.

Anthony I read it many years after the 60s. Probably in the 80s. Saw some interesting commentary on it in a series called Prophets of Science Fiction.

Poirot I'd be interested to hear your reactions to it. I first read it as a fairly conservative christian, not in the 60s nor in the USA so I suspect some of the context was lost on me but enough was there to make it an important part of my life.

R0bert

Dear csteele,

I read "The Prince" when I was at High School, which was indeed a long time ago, during the Vietnam War. Machiavelli's cynical, amoral view of politics and war was a very instructive textbook for a naive teenager during the turbulent 1960s.

I might have formed a different opinion if I'd read the book for the first time in my 60s, but books have a time and place don't they?

My definition of "favourite" doesn't necessarily imply that the book was satisfying or fun to read.
I forgot to mention the "Lucky Country" by Donald Horne.

Here's a few more favourites of mine:

1) D.H. Lawrence, "Women In Love." Very erotic.
2) Jeanette Winterson,"Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit,"
"The Passion," and "Sexing The Cherry." Her books need to
be read and re-read.
3) Thomas Keneally, "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith."
Very moving read.
4) Patrick White, "A Fringe Of Leaves."
A terrific story. One of his best novels.
5) C.J. Koch, "The Year of Living Dangerously."
A Great Read. Jakarta comes to life - brilliantly
and sympathetically.
6) Khaled Hosseini, "The Kite Runner."
Pulled every string of my heart and made it sing.
7) Paul Theroux, "The Great Railway Bazaar,"
A very entertaining book - for anyone who likes to
travel.

Dear lexi,

Are you serious? If you're conning us then your favourite book must be the lexicon.

Dear mac,

Well you were doing better than I. I probably would have offered up Jonathan Livingston Seagull or Clarke's Rondevous with Rama at that age, although my Conrad fixation did kick in about then. I didn't get to The Prince until my mid 20's.

Big tick for The Kite Runner, Lexi.
What a fantabulous book.
Anthony
http://www.observationpoint.com.au

Okay, here are some books I have enjoyed over the years.

I really enjoyed Jane Eyre in my teens - although I think I had the hots for Mr Rochester.

Also in my late teens, I used to read "Anna Karenina" in my little car at lunch when I was working at a car wash which was attached to a service station. It was such a contrast to my surroundings and I so looked forward to munching my lunch while reading it...I think it was the first decent piece of literature I ever bought, so it has a special place for me.

The French Lieutenant's Woman - Fowles is a master and takes you where he will. It even has alternate endings.

Death in Venice" - superb storytelling in this novella - erotic (in the truest sense of the unobtainable) and atmospheric.

The Name of the Rose" - Umberto Eco is such a clever man.

....and many more.

A special mention to a compilation of letters exchanged between Gustave Flaubert and George Sand "Flaubert~Sand" - simply because they were both so wise and sensitive.
Flaubert wrote" "Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity."
(He wuz humble too)

JoM,
I have a copy of Chester Wilmot's "The Struggle For Europe". In my twenties I had a particular penchant for learning about British social history of the WWII era, and invariably this led to associated themes.

Dear David F.,

No David - I'm an avid reader - and the list I gave is a
very short one. There's so much more that I could add to it.

Dear Poirot,

I also loved "The French Lieutenant's Woman," It's a passionate piece
of writing as well as an immaculate example of storytelling.

Have you read, "A Difficult Young Man," by Martin Boyd?

csteele,

I've been a Clarke fan since I read "The City and the Stars", Asimov was another great sci-fi writer.

High School ruined the 'classics' for me, so I've generally avoided the Great Literature of Western Civilization.

This is a good thread, but I’m not a reader of books.

Calvin and Hobbes was a great way to end the day and send me off to the land of nod.

Other than this (and a similar Garfield compilation comic book!), I have read no books for a long time, and instead read OLO and a whole lot of associated stuff online.

I wonder how many people, who may have read books a few years ago, simply don’t any more…. because there is so much else to spend one’s time on these days.

That goes for me too Ludwig. I'm not one for the product of other peoples imaginations, more interested in something factual.

I carried a book "The Ant World" on the yacht for some years before I actually opened it. I was not expecting much, but was then fascinated at the range of behaviours of the hundreds of ants studied. I couldn't put it down.

I also developed a deep interest in WW11 as fought in PNG & the Solomons, while I was sailing around the area. It was that interest that made me sail to the Carolines, & Truk. I wanted to see what I had read about.

I found the stories of the coast watchers quite incredible. I had no problem being a fighter pilot, but I doubt I could ever raise the courage of those men who spent months & even years behind enemy lines, with just a radio, & perhaps a few locals for company.

I was lucky enough to gain access to some unpublished diaries, & stories of these men at their strange war. When one of them that you met, realised you were really interested, they sort of passed you on between each other.

I also find the net more interesting than a book. I sometimes get so many windows open, chasing information, that the computer almost stops.

Dear Ludwig and Hasbeen,

There is more in heaven and earth than accessing and processing information. Good fiction is not just the product of someone else's imagination. It incorporates views of a particular society and the feelings of people. There are many clinical studies of the teenager and his or her angst. There are also many studies of the various questions that people ask about religion. ‘The Way of All Flesh’contains the feelings that is missing in those studies.

The book is a semi-autobiographical novel which includes Ernest Pontifex’s struggle with his father who apparently thought of Ernest as a mere extension of himself and Ernest’s struggle with the religion he was expected to believe. It incorporated the struggle that many people of the time had with the hypocrisies of Victorian religion. Samuel Butler used his life as raw material for the novel and in doing so brought life to the character. I was living in a different time and a different place with a different religion and a different father, but I had similar feelings to those of the fictional Ernest Pontifex. I remember my father saying, “I never met a boy like you.” That carried the idea that I was unique in my doubts about religion and my feelings that I was something other than an extension of my father. Ernest Pontifex had similar feelings. I was not alone, unique or a monster.

If I should read that book again it would not have the same effect as I am now an old man with many descendents, but it had tremendous meaning then.

I have read “Moby Dick” more than once. Even though I know what is going to happen I enjoy the descriptions of the meeting of Ishmael and Queequeg, the sermon in the New England church and the process of whaling. My wife’s father was a sailor on a whaler before whaling became the mechanised industry it is now. From “Moby Dick” I can get some idea of his life.

Good fiction allows us to enter many other lives and enriches our own life.

Hasbeen: I found the stories of the coast watchers quite incredible.

If you found those stories incredible, you should have met the "Coastwatcher" himself, John (Jack) Dobell Wilkinson. 3rd Nov 07 - 24 Mar 87. He lived in Townsville after living on Saibai Island from the end of WW11. Through him I met many interesting people. The Arch Bishop of Papua & New Guinea & Dame, (God, I can't think of her name) one of the girls from the "Sound of Music." & many more. Great Book.

An aside. I worked with an Australian Coastwatcher, Mick Statham, who was looking after the Cromarty area between Townsville & Ayr. He watched 109 Japanese Marines land. He radioed Army HQ in Townsville & they told him he was dreaming. He insisted & they sent a Negro Battalion from Woodstock to investigate. There was a short battle & a number of Japanese were killed for 2 Americans. The Japanese were captured & kept in the cutting at Jessine Barracks on Kissing Point in Townsville before being sent south by plane. My father-in-Law was one of the guards. Very, very, hush, hush. Oh, the same Negro Battalion was involved in the first Negro Civil Rights Protest. It happened at Stuart near Townsville. They won & were allowed into Townsville after dark without being shot on sight.

Jayb,
What an interesting story - about the Japanese marines landing. I'd certainly never heard about it before. Amazing what secrets remain, probably for no better reason that no one ever got around to declassifying them.
I wonder what their mission was; probing the coastal defenses, I suppose.
Anyway, thanks for sharing that.
Very interesting indeed.
Anthony
http://www.observationpoint.com.au

If literature has integrity - that is, if it explores,
orders, evaluates and illuminates the human experience,
its heights and depths, its pain and pleasure
aesthetically and according to the creator's genuinely
felt response - the end product becomes an image of life,
and potentially a metaphor for living.

The range of such images is as vast as human society
and culture.

"He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust.
He knew no more that he was poor,
Or that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy ways,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book.
What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!"
(Emily Dickinson).

Anthonyve, I've got lots of them. Cape Upstart is between Ayr & Bowen. The Japanese Submarines used to water there during WW11. A few of my Uncles & their families lived on Cape Upstart during the war. The Japanese always treated them well. Even today you can still find Japanese Whisky bottles all over the place there. Woodhouse Station is near Clare, Just West of Ayr. I worked there after leaving school & climbed Woodhouse Hill. Part of a shack was still there. The Jehovah Witnesses had a Radio Site there during the War Transmitting to the Japanese. As they did at Malanda on the Atherton Tablelands. Big Court Case, but hushed up. There are a million stories around if you look & they are not fake, just local knowledge.

There is a book by a Japanese Marine Lieutenant who survived landing in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Of 110 Marines that were landed he was the only survivor. Apparently the local Aboriginals speared them one at a time & they never saw a soul. He was lead back, without making contact with the Aboriginals, to the Coast where he was picked up by submarine.

Two of my all time favourites are Moby Dick and The Pickwick Papers.

Moby Dick has everything, science, philosophy, adventure, angst and nostalgia. Melville's superior to Tolstoy in my opinion in that the latter's narrative voice is like an angry god and the former's more modest.
I love Dickens for his way with metaphor and eccentric characters.

Apropos the ladies, Jane Austen and George Eliot.

Modern favourite, Atonement by Ian McEwan.

But picking favourites feels like betraying all the others.
I owe an enormous debt to the author's that helped to insinuate some sense into an all top often foolish head.

Lexi,

No I haven't read anything by Martin Boyd, but will note his name for future reference. I like the verse from Emily Dickinson.

Squeers,

I haven't read Moby Dick (most remiss of me)...but I think that sort of story might answer Hasbeen's question as to why some people read of experiences and times which they cannot themselves experience. As L.P. Hartley writes in those immortal lines of another great work, "The Go-Between": "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."
I've read Melville's Bartleby, which is an extraordinary story.

Sometimes the things that move us aren't contained in book form. When my daughter was in primary school, I befriended an elderly gentleman who I used to talk to while we were waiting at the school gates. He lived in England, but used to visit his son and his family periodically in Australia. His name was Stanley and he was someone from a bygone era. We kept in touch when he returned to his home in Eastbourne and he used to send me long letters regaling me, in the most exquisite prose, of his life in the merchant navy in the earlier years last century. It felt like I was reading a published memoir and I learned so much as well as enjoying his old-world style of writing.

Poirot: he used to send me long letters regaling me, in the most exquisite prose, of his life in the merchant navy in the earlier years last century. It felt like I was reading a published memoir and I learned so much as well as enjoying his old-world style of writing.

I sincerely hope you kept them because that knowledge & insight is invaluable. The stuff that fiction writers can only dream about.
I think that's why M.A.S.H. was so popular. Every episode was adapted from real life. Old soldiers wrote in & told of their personal experiences with M.A.S.H. Units. The personal stories that don't make the "Official History."

A good book is the original Alice in Wonderland. (not the childrens version) It was written because Alice wasn't allowed to be educated. It is an self contained education system, albeit disguised, in its self.

Jayb,

I'm sure I've got them around here somewhere, although I haven't read them for years.

I wonder if I can track them down - if I do I'll post a couple of passages. (I'm sure Stanley wouldn't mind. We lost contact after a while, but he was in his eighties then - and that was over twenty years ago)

I'm going to completely ignore the singular noun in the title and offer four books.

1) Night by Elie Wiesel. It is his account of his experiences of the Holocaust. More than that, it is an exploration of the animal within the human and, more touchingly, an examination of his relationship with his father. At times, it is extremely matter-of-fact; at others, it is completely heartbreaking. In fact, at all times it is completely heartbreaking - but sometimes it is the hardness of Wiesel's tone that breaks the heart rather than the events themselves (which SHOULD be heartbreaking). Not a light read, but the first book I actually read in one sitting.

2) The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Hard to explain, but a beautiful story and an exploration of the childlike innocence that could reside within each of us.

3) Life of Pi by Yann Martel. One of those books that is so confusing, so absurd and so utterly absorbing that it becomes 'literature' as soon as it is published. A rollicking adventure with a twist - but perhaps without a twist. That's the twist.

4) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. It's just wonderful.

Alright, I’m not quite fiction-illiterate!

My favs which I read again not so long ago are George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm.

BTW, I started a similar type of thread to this one which got us away from politics and the woes of the world for a while.

It is on music and is still active, if anyone wants to check it out:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5030

Otokonoko,

I am going to read "The Little Prince" as I have it here somewhere - same with "The Life of Pi". Have you read "The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde? I read it to my son last year when he was nine years-old. He decided mum was going to read him something boring and put the cover's over his head, but at the end he was blubbering with emotion. It goes right to the heart that story and it was a special moment when my son responded like that.

I have read "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" - a great vehicle to explain the peculiarities associated with Aspergers.

Just wanted to add:

"Stanley, Stanley, where art thou bloody letters? I've searched high and low all avo and they're nowhere to be found (and boy have I hoarded a mountain of paper junk!)...I mean I can picture the big envelope that contains them all.

Grrrr, I know it's here somewhere....

No, I haven't read 'The Happy Prince' - it's on my 'to-read' list, but that list just keeps getting longer all the time. Another one I forgot to mention (well, I shafted it at the last minute for 'The Curious Incident ...') is 'Beatrice and Virgil', also by Yann Martel. It is brilliant, and also contains a bizarre twist. It's one of those 'literary' texts that could be discussed endlessly without ever really reaching a conclusion. A very satisfying read.

Do you ever find books that you don't enjoy reading but, when you have finished them, you find yourself deeply satisfied? I found myself in that position last year when I read 'Foucault's Pendulum' by Umberto Eco. All the way through, I was aware of how the author (and translator, perhaps?) was manipulating my mind - alienating me at every opportunity, torturing me and deliberately making for a dense read. In doing so, it became an 'experiential' read - I went through much of what the characters went through. I hated every second of it, but find myself recommending it at every opportunity. Bizarre ...

Otokonoko,

How strange that you should mention "Foucaoult's Pendulum". I have a bookshelf in the bedroom, and that book by Umberto Eco has been sitting there for a year or so silently beckoning me to read it. I've read the first few pages and the blurb does sound as if it's an unusual read - okay, it's next on my list.

The other book that I wanted to mention was "Perfume" by Patrick Suskind, although we've already had a thread on that.

Dear Poirot,

I can also recommend "Passion," by Jeanette Winterson.
As well as , "Oranges are not the Only Fruit."

So many books so little time.

Thank you, Lexi. I shall note them down.

Another book that looks like a great read is "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver. (Again, it's a book that I bought second-hand to shelve for future reading...my particular weakness : )

Aah, 'The Poisonwood Bible'. I haven't read it, but did read Kingsolver's 'Animal Dreams' as part of my American Literature subject at uni. It was strange - on the one hand, I was a bit disgusted that it was being placed on the same level as F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'Tender Is The Night'; on the other, I was pleasantly surprised by it. It's not my sort of book (usually), but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Dear Poirot,

After you read the "Poisonwood Bible," you might like
to give, "The Mosquito Coast," by Paul Theroux a go.
A good read.

Come to think of it, a couple of good ones, Three Men in a Boat, a fabulous tale of 3 men's holiday in a large rowing boat on the upper Thames river. I really enjoyed it & was utterly amazed when I looked in the front & discovered it was written in the 1920s, it could have been last month.

Then David Nivens The Moon's a Balloon was a bit of good fun.

Hasbeen,

Jerome K. Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat" is a great humorous read, and there's something else about it which gives it extra verve. Another one is "Diary of a Nobody" - a hoot about lower middle-class pretension in the Victorian era.

Lexi, I saw the movie of "The Mosquito Coast" - and enjoyed it. I have it in book form here along with "The Great Railway Bazaar" and "The Pillars of Hercules". Paul Theroux is a very good writer.

I'll have to give Paul Theroux another go. I've had "Dark Star Safari" sitting in my bookcase for a couple of years now. I gave it a go when I bought it, but couldn't get into it. Perhaps it was a timing thing ... On another note, I've pulled out "The Odyssey" again, for the first time since I studied it at uni. Reading through it, I've come to the conclusion that I never actually read it when I was at university - it all seems so new and fresh to me. I remember the story, but am finding it very engaging. I was inspired after a friend lent me "The Eagle: A Crime Odyssey", the Danish TV series, on DVD. As I watched it, it suddenly occurred to me that it had a number of very clever parallels to Homer's text.

Dear Poirot,

I recently saw the Russian journalist/author Masha Gessen
interviewed on the ABC. She's here in Oz as a guest at the
Sydney Writers Festival. She was an interesting personality
and spoke of her book, "The Man Without A Face: The Unlikely
Rise of Vladimir Putin." Well I was so intrigued I went out
and bought a copy of it. ($29.99, paperback). I've only just
begun to read it - and I can't put it down. It's a real page
turner - and a must for anyone interested in this inflammatory
topic. As the New York Times writes:

"Gessen has written something rare: an accessible book
about an unreachable man."

Thanks, Lexi,

There's nothing like a well written biography.

Went driving a little way down south today with friends and stopped off at Bussleton where I bought a book by Ian McEwan - "Enduring Love"....I've never read him before. But the blurb and the first page lured me in - this guy can write by the looks of it!

Just revisiting the comments and noticed Squeers mentioned "Atonement" by Ian McEwan earlier in the thread.

Why has it taken me so long to read this guy's work? - oh well, better late than never : )

Poirot,

I forgot to mention "The Lucky Country" by Donald Horne--a seniors' moment (I'm a senior BTW) It impressed me very much when I first read it in the late 60s, characteristically Australians have misunderstood the meaning of the title.

mac,

Thanks for that. It's always been one of the books I meant to check out. Will catch up with it in due course no doubt.

: )

Poirot,
I can recommend Enduring Love; it has a very gripping opening but then turns out to be not quite what the title suggests. There's also a film.
I recommend McEwan generally : )

Hasbeen,
I loved both Niven's biographies, and another huge favourite of mine is "Harpo Speaks". I'm a bit of a nostalgia buff. I'm nostalgic of a past that never existed.

Squeers,

Yes, I got the impression straight away that what the title suggested wasn't necessarily what McEwan was going to deliver....usually a book titled "Enduring Love" would send me running in the opposite direction : )

Since no one else has restricted themselves to just one – why should I?

I've always especially enjoyed science fiction/fantasy themes particularly when crafted into densely realistic alternative worlds and universes which somehow seem as familiar as they are strange and novel. Clive Barker leaves me weirded out but fascinated. Australian author Greg Egan's Permutation City allures with its promise of immortality in cyberspheres – reminiscent of OLO in some respects, but as a full spectrum three-dimensional 'reality'.

Should you have any time on your hands, try dipping into Peter F Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy, which begins with The Reality Dysfunction. Or, Samuel R. Delany's allegorically informed Neveryon series.

A more recent favourite – and proving cover quotes can sometimes be accurate – is Neal Stephenson's baroque trilogy; Quicksilver('This weird, wonderful collision of scholarship and storytelling has no peer' Time Out), The Confusion ('Massive in scope and littered with treasure… You'd better start reading now' Daily Telegraph), The System of the World ('A sumptuous, decadent feast for the brain' Irish Examiner.

It just occurred to me that each of those previous sets runs to about 3,000 pages and that Hamilton followed up with the Void Trilogy of similar heft – so probably not suggestions suitable whilst waiting at the bus stop, but useful if you're facing being banged up for twenty years, Poirot.

Squeers,

"Bring on the Empty Horses" is marvellous.

"Harpo Speaks", is also a great read, a rags to riches story, clowning all the way.

WmTrevor,

I wish I could join you in discussion about sci-fi, but I never got into it. My daughter is a huge fan of science fiction/fantasy and I know that sci-fi fans feel an affinity with and a passion for the genre.

Having said that, if I ever have another go at reading it, I'll make a note of your favourites.

(Just about to embark on a complete clean-out of our fish tank....by the look of its present state I could be entering a completely different dimension of reality - wish me luck : )

Your daughter sounds like an eminently intelligent person with exquisitely good taste, Poirot.

I've often thought that the world is divided into two types of people – the literati and those, the more highly attuned, I think of as the faster than lite-erati.

Should you decide to – as you say – have another go at it… ignore everything else and sample Quicksilver which I think is best described as historical speculative fiction.

Good luck with the fish tank. I hope it's not such a complete clean-out as you imply, since that would be very bad news for the fish.

mac,
I was more interested in Harpo's eccentric circle of friends, and the Algonquin club he was a memeber of, than I was in him. Same with Niven and his friends. I think I recall a moving tribute to Bogart among other things. I've always admired actors and performers. Not celebrity or the popular stardom of some actors, especially these days, but the consummate actor devoted to the craft, on stage and screen.

WmTrevor,
I was a fan of sci fi and fantasy for several years, but haven't read any for ages. I might have a go at one of your suggestions too.

Squeers

I can't think of any of Harpo's friends who was more eccentric than Alexander Woollcott.

David Niven could have told some interesting tales about his his time in the British army during WW2 and in post war Germany, however he seemed reluctant to do.

Dear WmTrevor,

Sci-fi nurtured me through my teen years and I have found my eldest teenager has much the same tastes, though a bit more contemporary

We sat down to watch Bladerunner the other night and she actually sat through and appreciated the whole, now rather dated, thing.

While I had extremely fond memories of the genre, I left for quite a few years until drawn back into it after discovering Ian M Banks. His Culture series is brilliant. He wrote what I consider one of the most exciting couple of paragraphs in any book I had read for a decade, all the more impressive because it was just one programmed machine escaping another.

Also I credit him with creating one of the most villainous villains in literature, one Archimandrite Luseferous, from The Algebraist.

I am not normally fond of mixing Gothic with my Sci-fi but Banks is such a master at it one can only go along for the ride.

Squeers, I'm finding Wikipedia excellent for following up on authors and book series or titles as people suggest them… For example Greg Egan's entry includes, "He specialises in hard science fiction stories with mathematical and quantum ontology themes, including the nature of consciousness. Other themes include genetics, simulated reality, posthumanism, mind uploading, sexuality, artificial intelligence, and the superiority of rational naturalism over religion."

Almost sounds like a typical day of OLO offerings.

Csteele, your eldest teenager might be old enough to appreciate David Cronenberg's 1999 film 'eXistenZ' – which you can check out in full on YouTube. Thanks for the reminder, I know I've got a couple of Iain M. Banks titles I bought about 20 years ago stored in boxes somewhere. I'll have to dig them out for a revisit.

I used to devour science fiction and especially liked Ursula LeGuin. She was an anthropologist who created worlds with different social arrangements from ours. There was an anarchist planet and another planet where people would switch their sex every six months. I like to read writers who have a background in some non-literary area which they bring into their narrative.

Spinoza has caught the fancy of some writers. "The Spinoza Problem" by Yalom has alternate chapters dealing with Spinoza and Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi theorist, who was hanged at Nuremberg. The problem is that Goethe was influenced by Spinoza, and a Nazi was bothered by the fact that a great German was influenced by a Jew. Yalom is a psychiatrist and tries to see into the minds of both men. Rebecca Goldstein, a philosopher, wrote "Betraying Spinoza." She integrates Spinoza's philosophical works into her narrative. Spinoza's works are available on the net. Spinoza may have been the first person to advocate separation of religion and state.

What a sublime writer is Ian McEwan.

"...We tumbled out of our respective days, like creatures shaken from a net."

(and I got hold of "On Chesil Beach" today at the library and bought a big thick Penguin edition of "Moby-Dick" cheap from the discarded book pile)

: )