Nell, is this the same Patrick Hamilton as in, 'Rope', and 'Gaslight', and '20,000 Streets Under The Sky'?

some of my favourite books are:
Papillon by Henri Charriere
Banco by Henri Charriere
The Count Of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas
Moby Dick by Herman Mellville
The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Steven

I mainly write crime fiction, but my favourite book has to be The Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl. I've lost count of the times I've read that to my eldest son.

Short story collections I would recommend would be
Barcelona Plates by Alexei Sayle
The Quantity Theory of Insanity by Will Self
Things Snowball by Rich Hall.

The only other book I would really recommend is not fiction, but to anyone with a desire to getting published, it has to be From Pitch To Publication by Carole Blake.

Colin M

Colin - dunno about the others but Carole Blake's book is shit hot!

Favourite books? Crumbs, how long have you got?

It's already been picked, but it's a marvel: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. Pure magic. I can't believe someone sat and created it, it's so magical it must have been just 'there', always.
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks...and Regeneration by Pat Barker, (the whole trilogy is superb).
The Narnia books by C. S. Lewis. Oh, I know they're old fashioned and a bit racist seen through today's eyes, but that world is just so fantastic..as a child I longed to meet Aslan..
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell, and Germinal by Zola. From my student activist days!
More kiddies things, (I work with 11 - 18s, so read many more kids books than adult ones) Skellig by David Almond; anything by Philip Pullman; Postcards from No-man's Land by Aiden Chambers; Bloodtide by Melvin Burgess; Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman; Coram Boy by Jamilla Gavin.

And something I'm reading now of which I know nothing: Don't Let's Go To the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fulller. About her childhood in Africa, mainly in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe of the 1970s. It's sparkling, funny, wacky, moving; and the writing is rich and evocative. I'm loving it.

There are hundreds more......

x
tc

Haruki Murakami is my all time favourite author of the moment. I stumbled across him in a "3 for the price of 2" offer and have never looked back. His books just draw me in somehow, they manage to be surreal but totally real at the same time, and once I start reading I usually end up ignoring everything else until I've finished. Almost worth learning Japanese to read the ones that haven't been translated (I said almost!!)

He is also the author of the most gruesome scene I've ever read though, and has given me more than a few nightmares.

Sam

There's a few books i think of straight away whenever this question gets asked.

The Enchanted Wood
by Enid Blyton. Some of the expressions are slightly dated now, but the characters and adventures are still as magical as when the book was written in the late 1930’s. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read this.

The BFG, Boy and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
by Roald Dahl. Family classics, simple as that.

The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse
by Robert Rankin. A warped fantasy. Wonderfully original and funny, even when it shouldn’t be.

And a more recent addition is
Babycham Night: A Boyhood at the End of the Pier
by Philip Norman. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, but I found these childhood memoirs fascinating.

Swandale: could this gruesome scene be in Wind-up Bird Chronicle? And involve soilders? Now that is one of my favourite books and authors.

Others include ASK THE DUST (Joe Fante); LONDON FIELDS (Martin Amis); HIS DARK MATERIALS (Philip Pullman); NEUROMANCER (William Gibson); EXCESSION (Iain M Banks); THE WASP FACTORY (Iain Banks); Narciss and Goldmund (Herman Hesse); A PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION (Philip Kerr)...oh and THE PHOTOGRAPHER by me

<Added>

Oh and one I can't believe I forgot

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Dostoyevsky)

James, you obviously know the one I mean. It's just so horrible!

I have to admit that I don't have favourites of anything whether it be colour, book, music or people. I find it limits me (but that's just me).

The books that do stand out in my mind, however, as being thoroughly enjoyable during my teens are an eclectic collection:

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Sicilian - Mario Puzo
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Divine Comedy - Dante
Flowers in the Attic - Virginia Andrews

In my older years, the book that has made the most impression in my mind is:

The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

The book which made me laugh out loud recently was:

This is Your Life by John O'Farrell

What an enjoyable scroll this has been! I've now got a long list on a notecard of promising books and authors. Thanks for that, y'all!

Some of my favourites which have not been mentioned yet are:

Bruca Chatwin's travel writing. I have read In Patagaonia and Songlines with great satisfaction. Particularly in the case of In Patagonia, Chatwin amazes me with his flexibility, pulling in bits that would not seem remotely related to Patagonia! And his writing is fine. I love it!!!

Angela Carter is one of my favourite writers. My special favourites are Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and The Bloody Chamber.

Also, Angela Carter has edited an excellent collection of short stories called Wayward Girls and Wicked Women.

Nina Fitzpatrick's Loves of Faustyna is set in communist Poland and looks at Faustyna's sexual-political education (yes, that's what I meant to say) through a couple of decades. I really like the way Fitzpatrick has organised this book. Each chapter is named, beginning "In Which Faustyna....." A very, very funny satire.

And my all-time favourite author is Mikhail Bulgakov, past master of the absurd. Heart of a Dog is a side-splitting read, and not long - maybe 100 - 150 pages. Master and Margarita is just dazzling. Both are plump full of oblique commentary.

Anne Marie

I've nearly forgotten another favourite: Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. It is extremely funny. (Hope the bold text is bold -- last time I tried this I ended up with brackets all over the place!)

Anne Marie

I agree about The Wasp Factory. It definately had a profound affect on me, and now I've read all the Ian Banks books (apart from the sci fi ones), the most notable being Espedair Street, Canal Dreams, Whit and The Business.

Some of the others I found a bit too weird, most notably Song of Stone, and Walking on Glass .

Dead Air was brilliant too, I thought, particularly the nerve shredding ending which to me revealed a writer at the top of his game.

I've nearly finished Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow which I have absolutely adored. Along with that and Snow Falling On Cedars, they are without doubt the two best books I've read this year so far.

My New Favourite Author In The World Ever at the moment is China Meiville...anyone heard o'him? Apparently he writes 'wierd fiction'...y'might have heard of Perdido Street Station, and everything good you've heard about it is true.
Other favourite books...quite a mixed bag:

His Dark Materials, Phillip Pullman (I am an English-speaking teenager, after all)
Hokkaido Highway Blues, Will Fergusson
Tokyo Stories, translated by Lawrence Rogers (I try to write like this)
Red Dust, Ma Jian
The Scar, China Mieville (I couldn't ever write like this)
Unconditional Surrender, Evely Waugh
The Singing Detective, Dennis Potter ( a screenplay, yeah, but I could read it o'er an' o'er)
The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
Pappillon, Henri Charriere
Dune, Frank Herbert (I want to back-pack, I need to get used to this)
Veronika Decides To Die, Paulo Coelho
Brighton Rock, Graham Greene
Invitation to a Beheading, Vladimir Nabokov (complete futility, I'm drawn to it)

My New Favourite Author In The World Ever at the moment is China Meiville...anyone heard o'him? Apparently he writes 'wierd fiction'...y'might have heard of Perdido Street Station, and everything good you've heard about it is true.
Other favourite books...quite a mixed bag:

His Dark Materials, Phillip Pullman (I am an English-speaking teenager, after all)
Hokkaido Highway Blues, Will Fergusson
Tokyo Stories, translated by Lawrence Rogers (I try to write like this)
Red Dust, Ma Jian
The Scar, China Mieville (I couldn't ever write like this)
Unconditional Surrender, Evely Waugh
The Singing Detective, Dennis Potter ( a screenplay, yeah, but I could read it o'er an' o'er)
The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
Pappillon, Henri Charriere
Dune, Frank Herbert (I want to back-pack, I need to get used to this)
Veronika Decides To Die, Paulo Coelho
Brighton Rock, Graham Greene
Invitation to a Beheading, Vladimir Nabokov (complete futility, I'm drawn to it)



<Added>

I've posted i histwice. I hate people that do that. Passionately. Without possibility of redemption of character. 'Scuse me while spiral into a Trollopean spiral of self-disgust.

<Added>

I said 'i histwice' instead of 'this twice'. Yeah I did.

Just read Ticonderoga's posting and wholeheartedly agree:
A Confederacy of dunces followed by the Third Policeman. If you like that stuff also try anything by J.P Donleavey.

Best
Sion