My Top Five... Books
This is the first of an occasional series of features that didn’t quite make it into my May 1st redesign. The idea was to expand upon the ‘About’ section with a series of ‘My Top Five…’ entries, covering everything from films to cities to wine; unfortunately I never got around to writing the content in time for the relaunch.
I don’t know about anyone else, but personally I find it immensely interesting to read about what other people are into culturally, be it books, theatre, film or what-have-you. If all we ever talked about were the latest CSS techniques, Bloglines would quickly become pretty boring!
So without further ado, I give you my top five… books.
The top five
Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
Quite simply the greatest single piece of fiction ever written.
Between the ages of about 14 and 20, I think I must have read this book at least once a year. It is true that lately it has become rather a cliche, and there was widespread outrage among the literati when it was voted Book of the Century by Waterstones customers a few years ago, but for me it has never failed to deliver the same excitement that I felt the first time I read it. Okay, it is sexist and perhaps a little racist if you read between the lines, and the backstory is overly – or tediously if you prefer – researched and explained, but the story, the STORY! It sweeps you up, every time, and doesn’t let you go for over 1,000 pages; just writing this makes me want to read it again. And again.
If you haven’t read LotR, you really should. And if you have, then you know what I’m talking about.
Kay is probably my favourite author; Tigana was his first standalone novel (after his debut Fionavar trilogy).
It tells the story of a divided land ruled by two powerful sorcerers, and the struggle for freedom of an oppressed people whose very name has been taken from them. All the standard fantasy fare is present and correct – wizards, troubadours, fairies, heroic leaders – but the story is woven with such skill and character that you can’t help but be drawn in.
Kay’s novels all follow a similar plot; a young man is thrust onto the world stage while momentous events unfold, and eventually plays a major part in the outcome (and usually beds a red-haired beauty along the way) – but the intricate sub-plots, clever dialogue and well-developed characters make every new book a must-read, even for those not normally interested in the fantasy genre. Tigana stands out for me not just because it was the first that I read, but because its scope and theme is that much deeper than his other, later works.
Any computer geek worth his salt should read this book, set first on the Microsoft campus at Redmond, and later in California’s Silicon Valley.
It follows a group of friends from Microsoft as they set up on their own, but the programming-related commentary is kept to a minimum as Coupland concentrates on the inter-relationships between his characters. That said, there are a lot of in-jokes and subtle nods to computer-geekery that should have you smiling in recognition.
The Number of the Beast – Robert A Heinlein
I’m a bit of a Heinlein collector; I have around 30 of his books and short stories. I chose The Number of the Beast as my favourite simply because it is the one book that I keep coming back to again and again. It’s one of those books that I can pick up, turn to any page and start reading.
It is a bizarre mix of time travel, inter-dimensional bug-hunt, intellectual discourse and 50s-style smut; our four heroes travel through space and time in a specially converted car named ‘Gay Deceiver’, bickering over who should be in charge whilst outwitting the occupants of multiple alternate universes, including a few from other classics of 20th century literature.
And yes, it is as good as it sounds!
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I have found that there are very few books where you finish the last page, close the book and think “that was perfect”. One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of those few.
It tells the story of 100 years in the life of a village in South America, and in particular the Buendia family, whose lives are intertwined with the destiny of the village; but the story is entirely secondary to Marquez’s beautiful writing. He effortlessly evokes an incredible range of emotions, drawing the reader to empathise with first one and then another of the Buendia clan as they experience a century of change in a turbulent part of the world.
The best of the rest
Here are some of those (in no particular order) that didn’t quite make the cut…
- Catcher in the Rye (JD Salinger)
- American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis)
- Stop-Time (Frank Conroy)
- Underworld (Don DeLillo)
- Replay (Ken Grimwood)
- The Magus (John Fowles)
- Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
- Snow Falling on Cedars (David Guterson)
- On The Road (Jack Kerouac)
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S Thompson)
- Watchmen (Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons)
- Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole)
I welcome any and all comments, arguments or recommendations (or your own top five, for that matter).
I think films will probably be the next category to be ticked off the list.
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My top 5 changes constantly but there are always somewhere near it:
1 – Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)
2 – Dune (Frank Herbert)
3 – Only Forward (Michael Marshall Smith)
4 – All of the Flashman books (George McDonald Fraser)
5 – Koko (Peter Straub)
Other favourite authors are:
Shirley Jackson, Alistair Reynolds, Nick Hornby, Iain (M) Banks, Anne-Marie McDonald (The Way The Crow Flies is a superb book) and the odd Stephen King (The Shining is the scariest book I’ve ever read!).