Did you read a special book at a special time? A book that changed everything?

Atlas Shrugged when I was fifteen. I instantly concluded that I was a superman, albeit a superman with low grades, weight problems, acne and an inability to cook my own food or wash my own?

I was always patiently explaining to them that they were socialist sub-human parasites. I told my class-mates the same thing. I did not have a girlfriend.

I'm moved by your story. But at least you got over it.

Beatrix Potter didn't pull any punches. By comparison, Ayn Rand's a wuss.

I don't remember where I read this, but it was a 'Kafka writes Potter' parody and began:

'Someone must have been telling lies about Peter Rabbit . . .'

Maybe Beatrix Potter would have had more political impact?

Literally, the world made a lot more sense after that.

Lucky Luke
Safari Adventure

(Adrian Mole phase)
Anything by Dostoevsky
ditto Graham Green (who bores me now)
The Female Eunuch (for similar reasons to Mr. Mole. )
Tintin

Things Fall Apart
Cry the Beloved Country
A Suitable Boy

The Three Musketeers (any?

The Female Eunuch (for similar reasons to Mr. Mole. )

Heh. Me too. I got a bit out of it too, even if I do regard Germaine Greer as basically crazy now.

I wonder what Gary Gilmore would have?

I am too young to have appreciated him first time round – I was so glad in reading that book to have found that NZ had produced a truly erudite, accessible, stylish writer on NZ political economy.

And from?

Top 5 – in no particular order:

Any Calvin and Hobbes. I have Bill Watterson's genius lying around the house, readily available for reminding me about the pretentiousness of art, why?

Any Calvin and Hobbes. I have Bill Watterson's genius lying around the house, readily available for reminding me about the pretentiousness of art, why tv sucks, why childhood is so precious and why imaginary friends rock.

I think Calvin and Hobbes provides all the answers that any parent needs. Or?

As an adult, Russell Hoban's books, particularly Kleinzeit and?

Turned me on to computer science in a big way. Definitely life changing.

And I've been a hard-nosed skeptic ever since I read Martin Gardner's "Fads and Fallacies".

The Tyrannicide Brief: The Man who sent?

As an adult, Russell Hoban's books, particularly Kleinzeit and Pilgermann, have always grabbed me. Reality, death, futility, human vanity, fun, all in a neat little package.

It really makes my day to read Russell Hoban's name mentioned here – as it does when I read it anywhere – and so?

Lolita by Vladamir Nabakov. I first read this when I was about sixteen. My motives were pornographic and I was soundly disappointed. I only read the first third and then furtively flipped through the rest.
Some time in my early twenties I watched?

I love that book.

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.?

In my early twenties The Third Eye by Lopsang Rampa,?

raise you The Third Policeman, so I will

not to mention molecules and bicycles ... The "Mollycule Theory", the theory that people's personalities become mixed up with those of bicycles through the pounding of man and machine while pedaling down bumpy Irish country roads ("a process of prolonged carnal intercussion").?

I thought it might be a rude book (after all, it had SEX in the title), but it turned out to be surprisingly?

[Mr Ramsay, stumbling along a passage one dark morning, stretched his arms out, but Mrs Ramsay having died rather suddenly the night before, his arms, though stretched out, remained empty.]

It was very mischievous of Woolf to drop such a bombshell in parentheses.

Having left Henderson for 1st year uni?

Pride and Prejudice

Yes. Yes! Yes!!

I guess what I'm saying is that War and Peace isn't so special.

No. No! No!!

It's a fabulous book. I'll grant you that his philosophy of history of boring, and even turgid, not to say just plain wrong, but there's only 50 or?

If Hitler had bothered to read War and Peace, he would surely have realised the folly of invading Russia.

I don't really blame Hitler for that. The Soviets had just had their asses kicked by the tiny Finnish militia and Stalin had recently executed his entire officer corps (about 100,000?

I finally read Tom?

Read Livy, and see how he attributes the first plebian consulship to the jealously?

Sendak sure did some great stuff.

The first novel to have a big impact on me was Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – though now even Gareth Morgan's done that trip it nolonger holds quite the same mystique.?

Danyl, and others, night be interested in this from chronicler of Russian lowlife and former Otago Uni Lecturer John Dolan in 'eXile' magazine. You can follow the links to his reviews of the books (My Friend Leonard, Sept '05: "James Frey is a liar. A bad one. And?

As a teenager, as well as the backs of those cornflakes packets, Ken Keyes The Hundredth Monkey, and John Christopher's The Lotus Caves. The Catcher in the Rye for?

From memory it was called After Heat, and it was a cool cross-generation story about identifying yourself as a young kiwi?

Truly awful stuff, but fantastic all the same. I always wanted to be able to throw knives like Willie.

Very sad, like losing old friends.

Did I?

In fact I loved all those 50's driven novels that used a sport or hobby as a device to look at human (usually male) frailty, the excellent Walter Tevis?

Did you read the E E "Doc" Smith Lensmen books about age-old galactic warfare, genetic tampering & weapons races?

Or more to the point, did you trade them?

And earlier... the (first 3) Foundation books – not to mention the Asimov robot stories & pretty much everything Arthur C Clarke & Robert Heinlein churned out... never did re-read Starship Troopers though, because the film didn't seem to bear any resemblance to?

Fever Pitch – Nick Hornby, best book ever on the highs and lows of being an obsessed fan

Into Thin Air – a gripping cautionary tale about commerce at the roof of the world – the death of Rob?

Books/Authors/series I will make sure they have access to over?

And on the 'please don't let the movie suck' and 'what I want?

Gosh this could go on & on – someone mentioned Safari Adventure way back, I devoured all those Willard Price Adventure books.

Never rated Stephen King, but a sometimes collaborator of his called Peter Straub wrote the scariest book I have ever read & called it Ghost Story?

And speaking of Douglas Adams ...........

Harry Harrison and the Stainless Steel Rat

George MacDonald Fraser and Flashman

I'd forgotten about the Stainless Steel Rat.

And someone should make a big TV series of the Flashman books, starting with Tom Brown's Schooldays (there was a mediocre movie starring Malcolm?

I'd forgotten about the Stainless Steel Rat.

Oh, me too. And Spider Robinson. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, and Lady Slings the Booze.

I read the Willard Price books as well and thus learned that the male Lion roars only after feeding, knowlege that has saved my life on many occasions.

Have to say that I?

Aha! Because you only read Stranger in a Strange Land? It's been a long time but I remember thinking that one was like it was written by someone else entirely.

Wasn't someone going to make a movie of it? Obviously came?

Aha! Because you only read Stranger in a Strange Land? It's been a long time but I remember thinking that one was like it was written by someone else entirely

No I tried some others. I have heard that comment about SSL from others and I think that my lack?

All you need to read and reread and reread...

Because you only read Stranger in a Strange Land? It's been a long time but I remember thinking that one was like it was written by someone else entirely.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is pretty good. Some Heinlein is total unmitigated bilge, though. I'm looking at you, Number?

Well... I used to get Rupert Bear annuals every year.

A good one for most ages – and a pretty neat film for a change too –

http://www.reelviews.net/movies/t/tuck_everlasting.html

to misquote Ms Morissette – Isn't it Byronic?

Gnarf gnarf ...... Sorry.

Yeah sorry Merc, I'm no Morissette fan, and I HAVE read some poetry – mostly because I had to though. and would be hard pressed to quote anything these days (Augustan poetry did strike me, as?

The Worst Journey in the World, by Appsley Cherry-Garrard

That's a good book, The depression that Cherry- Garrad entered at the end of his life was a terrible shame.

Poetry : John Cooper-Clarke, Sam Hunt, Auden and Frost do it for me.

But I probably got more out of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress --- TANSTAAFL was a pretty?

[Hoban's] children's books are near perfect. The Francis books and "How Tom beat Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen" are classics.

Of course I agree, in light of which am almost inclined to let the following slide:

I'm not such a fan of Russell Hoban's adult novels?

Utterly fantastic coincidence! I suppose your sister had a horse called Byron at some stage too?

Merc, I really want to ask "What if Dog was one of us"

But I want us to remain friends.

Seriously.

"I got a 59 Chevy with a 387 and a Hirst on the floor..." (Bruce Springsteen)

Hirst?
Hurst.
http://www.hurst-shifters.com/

Memorable kidlit: Anything Tove Jansson.
Moomins. Hattifatteners. Hemulins. The Mymble. The Groke. Salome the Little Creep. The meerschaum tram.
Wonderful stuff.

Before anyone finalises judgment on Allanis Morisette

Hating on Alanis is sooo '90s, anyway.

When I was five, my favourite book was "The Outsider" by Albert Camus. My mum used to read it to me before bed.

Once I was staying with my gran and she had to ring mum to find?

i think the book that really adjusted my mindset was james lovelock's ages of gaia(?). someone knicked my copy a few years ago, but it fundamentally changed the way i related to?

Virginia Woolf is one of those superstars of literature that leaves me cold.

She's not someone I'd read again but To the Lighthouse has nostalgia value.

Similarly with Simone de Beauvoir although I achieved a long standing personal?

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

This is, I reckon, the most pleasurable opening paragraph?

Did you read a special book at a special time?

See?

Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, for obvious reasons.

D.T. Suzuki's Introduction to Zen Buddhism: For a while, I always had it in my ex-army gasmask bag when I was tripping in London. I never got past the first few pages, but it felt nice having?

Books and drugs ...

well, if you're going to do that.

Jean Paul Satre, Nausea. Blew my mind.

the aforementioned Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance. Made me realise that the pursuit of knowledge is like, a never-ending journey, man.

A Thousand Plateus. I could only read small glimpses?

But returning to?

One thing that bugs me are books about drugs that contain dramatic descriptions of their effects ('take your best orgasm and multiply it by a million . . .') that prompt me to protest 'but it's nothing like that!'

A lot of?

The problem is, Deborah, a lot of books have carved a notch on the bedposts of my easily-led mind, and I keep wanting to say yes!

Yes. I think I spent far too long in the previously mentioned Adrian Mole phase of life. Lasted well into?

Other than that revisionist Camus, I never "got" the existentialists, thank God

when it came to existentialism the Fat Slags were more my thing Don, god never had a look in.

Oh, is that the time...

And in that anthology Curnow and the Baxter and Tuwhare held up well against Tennyson and Browning...

Hell yeah. But for love, Pablo Neruda, 20 Poems Of Love,

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her?

And if you kiwis haven't yet read William Brandt's The Book of the Film of the Story of my?

With a couple of friends I used to smoke with at the Wailing Bongo

The Wailing Bongo! OMG! Did you ever call it the Wailing Bong? I did.

OK, back to the books.

Mud in your Eye – Chris Laidlaw, written at a time when All Blacks spoke, if at all, in monosyllabic terms, here was a book that opened the lid on rugby in?

Carrie Fisher. I love Carrie Fisher. To the point that when I joined an all-women book group without realizing just what that meant, I told them all she was my favourite author. Cue: scorn. Postcards from the Edge is great.

Also: Anna Karenina, The Wasp Factory, Franny and Zooey...?

yes me too me too.

i have also enjoyed and been changed somehow by lots of

1. 'crap' books because they can still be quite illustrative – i mean Mills and Boon (1 or 2 should be enough)can actually be really interesting?

If you lose all that then the story is really just Biggles Goes to School. Not that the latter isn't a fine story in it's own right.

Man, I've never been able to find Biggles Goes to School. I've Some rare ones (including some of the ones with racist?

If I remember I'll have a look for it at their house when?

Chris- yeah, they are all good books Pilgermann, or Kleinzeit, or The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz – and Riddley Walker is a classic... but not, for me, a loved one.

I agree of course, Rob, that it's a matter of taste. Also, that there seems to?

And on the 'difficult to do well non-fiction' front, some of the best sports books I've read ....

Noel Holmes' Trek Out of Trouble, about the 1960 All Black tour to South Africa is the best sports book I've ever read.

When I interviewed Warwick Roger and Ron Palenski about?

although I enjoyed Riddley Walker, I spent so much time trying to figure out all the allusions that I started treating it less as a story and more as a puzzle. I couldn't engage with it or suspend disbelief.

I can see how that might happen, Stephen.?

I do intend to give Vernon God Little a try. But oh, for more time to read... I've just about finished Part One of Don Quixote and hope to conquer the?

/chants in Bart voice

Kiwiana! Kiwiana! Kiwiana! Kiwiana! Kiwiana!

Ooh, thanks for the recommendation – our Dad gathered the most amazing collection of NZ sports books (mainly rugby and cricket) from the 60's and 70's, all?

With a couple of friends I used to smoke with at the Wailing Bongo

The Wailing Bongo! OMG! Did you ever call it the Wailing Bong? I did.

OK, back to the books.

That'd be the Wailing Bong and Transcendental Meditation Centre thanks very much...

Late to the party but?

Late to the party but I'd add Le Guin's (mentioned earlier in the thread) The Dispossessed

A fantastic book, and one that tuned me into thinking about what an anarchic society might look like, and the extent to which we might replace external institutions of control with internal social mechanisms?

And when I feel like something a little twisted there's always Colin Wilson's A Criminal?

Very well written and quite chilling in places

...There is no poetry of the EMO kind, I will not let that meme stick...

Well said Merc.

A fantastic book, and one that tuned me into thinking about what an anarchic society might look like, and the extent to which we might replace external institutions of control with internal?

Terrific book – I hear a movie version is coming, how do you visually represent the sense of smell in all its glory?

The Hobbit was the book that started me reading, my mother read it too me at age 5 and straight?

Another one that I haven't seen mentioned yet, but that I loved, Perfume, by Suskund.

Terrific book – I hear a movie version is coming, how do you visually represent the sense of smell in all its glory?

I lent that to my mother (who works as a high selling?

Joyce Johnson's Minor Characters

That was quite a book for me too when I found it after a vaguely romanticizing Beat period...I read it several times and remember it as rather sad.

Mervin Peake....not only the Gormenghast trilogy but Mr Pye and his wonderful children's work. His flights of, sometimes,?

Mervin Peake....not only the Gormenghast trilogy but Mr Pye and his wonderful children's work. His flights of, sometimes, medieval merged with gothic fantasy enthralled me for years. I remember the three pages he took in Titus Groan to describe two steps taken on a staircase by Steerpike.?

As a kid I soaked up some the more esoteric sources of information such as The Peoples Almanac, and the Book of Lists. Heck, even the Guinness Book of Records was devoured from?

– Footrot Flats. Read these constantly as a little kid. Cue endless Murray Ball-ripoff title pages in primary school exercise books.

– Goosebumps?

Gormengast is terrific

As an aside, the first (and easily the best IMO) Split Enz album, Mental Notes, opened with the line "stranger than fiction / larger than life / full of shades and echoes" lifted verbatim from the Penguin back cover of Gormengast. The album also had the track?

As an aside, the first (and easily the best IMO) Split Enz album, Mental Notes, opened with the line "stranger than fiction / larger than life / full of shades and echoes" lifted verbatim from the Penguin back cover of Gormengast. The album also had the track?

Oddly enough I was given several of those as a gift via Amazon – they never turned up, or so I thought. So after 2-3 months I got the giver to?

I would vote for Consider Phlebas and The Crow Road as my favourite M and non-M Banks books. The whisky book needed a good editing and had far too much "gosh I'm rich!?

I really, really love Iain Banks, but his female characters all strike me as men with breasts.

Especially in The Wasp Factory.

Ben, could you please clarify your point there, because I think it's a good one.
WRT Blade Runner, is this universal nature of humankind thing questioned or affirmed? And I guess we need to define Universal Nature of Humankind in this context, no?

I agree. Ben, please clarify;?

Kurt Vonnegut just died!

I only just found that out now and came here to post the same thing. Pretty sad, have a fair collection of his books at home – may have to go back and reread some of them...

Not so after Robert Anton Wilson too :-(

Was that poor taste?

The story from one of Trouts books

Hah. Yes. The brilliant Kilgore Trout. I remeber the farting & tap dancing alien.

Have you read Venus on the Halfshell by Kilgore Trout himself (not sure who really wrote it, but it wasn't Vonnegut)?

Have you read Venus on the Halfshell by Kilgore Trout himself (not sure who really wrote it, but it wasn't Vonnegut)?

Yes Sir! Later editions were credited to Philip José Farmer.
Remember the quadruple amputee who achieved more with his remaining appendage than most manage with a full set of?

"It was the?

It really is a small world – our next door neighbour – Mr Alpatoff – had been on the ground in?

I know from his interviews he wasn't that keen on being alive anyway, but I'm sad to see him go just the same.

Seems like he went when he was ready to go. We should all be so fortunate. Great post Dyan, thank you.

the best first line ever, in?

"Suzi crapped the Frankenstein cockroach into the toilet bowl, then pushed the chrome handle halfway down for a short flush."
THE NANOFLOWER.

Out of the 600+ books I own none have?

Boing Boing has a festival of Vonnegut linkage up, but?

Some hair-raising stuff in there. One pilot was pinned in his seat by G-forces in a crashing, spiralling?

The Algebraist got just plain boring

i battled through the first 150 pages... and read it out of sheer determination.

as i reviewed it (briefly) on object dart, much of it was a waste of pages.