Books you should read before you die!

[phatfil]

would also recommend

man in a high castle (P.K. Dick) what if ww2 had gone the other way..

slaughterhouse 5 Kurt Vonnegut contains an autobiographical account of the fire bombing of Dresden amongst other atrocities

lest we forget.... which we shouldn't!!

[dalealan]

Stephen Kings Magnum Opus The Dark Tower

[*-SARIN-*]

I'll add:

A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. Gives you clear simple explanations of complicated science and will help you to understand the world around you and why it's the way it is. His other books are worth a read too as already mentioned by others.

[Deleted]

Aleister Crowley born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October ... 2.1 Egypt and The Book of the Law: 1904; 2.2 Kangchenjunga and China: ..... Book 4 (1912–13)

Terry pratchet, mort, well infact all the disc world range.

[tomj777]

My - some great ones already called out.
Let me add these (I wrote this list a day back and already have had to remove Tressell

James Watson
The Freedom Tree
A formative from the middle of my childhood and the emergence of my understanding of the horrors of fascism and of war.

John Twelve Hawks
The Traveller
A modern day Brave New World

C S Lewis
The Problem Of Pain
A Grief Observed
The first is a treaties on suffering and the second, if you like, is the reality of suffering after the death of his wife.

John Brunner
Stand on Zanzibar
Conceptually brilliant counter-culture SiFi from the late sixties.

Neal Stephenson
Snow Crash
Early and brilliant cyberpunk

Thomas Mallory
Le Morte d'Arthur

Mark Chadbourne
Age of Misrule
The Dark Age
Kingdom of the Serpent
Cracking good fantasy reads

Neal Asher (fellow vaper)
The Skinner
Pulp SiFi at it's best.

[prr]

Just remembered Bomber by Len Deighton, stupidity and ignorance of some of the officer class in the second world war. By the same author Goodbye Micky Mouse, re a fighter pilot in the same war.

[collie2011]

Read anything by Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon.

I'm also a firm believer that everyone needs to make themselves familiar with ancient mythology, it's a fascinating subject and has so many mirrors with modern religions.

[GunJack]

The entire Stuart McBride series of Detective Sargeant Logan McRae starting with Cold Granite, proper gritty UK police stuff set in Aberdeen, complete with bloody good plots, totally believable characters, Jock accents, and some incredible laugh-out-loud funny bits... there's 8 or 9 in the series, read them in order

[mart166]

Any Terry Pratchett
Neverwhere Neil Gaiman
Lord of the Rings Tolkien
Early James Herbert books (Rats, The Fog, Fluke)
3 Men in a Boat Jerome K Jerome (good if you know the river Thames)


MP

[izan]

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - Christopher Moore
Moby Dick: Melville
The Lazy Man’s Guide To Enlightenment: Thaddeus Golas

I

[lynwlt]

Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks.

Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

And Quiet Flows the Don, Michael Sholokov.

[yourgurnard]

Surely Someone else's read & luv'd...'The Dice Man' by Luke Rhinehart....?

[glen]

Mark billingham novels featuring tom thorne, just a good read
Also scott mariani novels featuring ben hope, I just cant put them down

[sydsut]

Jack Kerouac's novels

Richard Brautigan Poetry and Novels

Spike Milligan's Poetry, novels scripts letters etc.

Christopher Brookmyre's novels

Colin Dexter's Morse novels

Ian Rankin's Rebus novels

[tim]

For lighter reading:

The Wilt series by Tom Sharpe. Seriously farcical.

The Flashman papers by George MacDonald Fraser. History with a hilarious twist.