Best books

This thread was around but I can't find it.

What's your favourite or most formative comedy or serious book?

Comedy - Catch-22: stunningly funny, recursive, ironic with a great anti-war theme underlying it. Not to say I'm against all wars. Just that the reality of it needs to be grasped and the enemy has to be chosen for the 'right' reasons.

Serious books: 1984: excellently dark, a protagonist set in a totally hopeless struggle, so glad Orwell didn't go for a 'happy' ending. Not ashamed to say it made me cry at the end.

Paul Bowles wrote some great shorts.

Another vote for Catch 22. I didn't read another book for ages afterwards cos nothing seemed to come close.

More recently I'm fond of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, in company with a lot of people.

And Ian Wolf's bible blog is making the "Good Book" more interesting as well.

the curious incident is a very good book to read and so is catcher in the rye, i am much more of a autobiography man myself, i read peter kays the sound of laughter to see if there was more to this annoying, gag theiving toe rag, but i was shocked to find that it obviously had a lot about his early life i.e driving lessons, dead end jobs, that it only had about one page of how he cracked the market and it didn't even mention max & paddy or pheonix nights in my memory, so i was dissapointed by it.

I also thought "of mice and men" was a good read, quite better than the movie.

So Peter Kay stuck to the FUNNY parts in his life? Japing, I did like Phoenix Nights but not much else.

LOL i agree slagA i kinda liked pheonix nights but not much else

The Catcher In The Rye.
Of Mice & Men.

I put Catch 22 in as my Desert Island book. Read it about 5 times. Always makes me laugh and then to varying degrees anything written by Leslie Thomas.

Serious stuff (and soory but a bit pretentious) would have to be Alasdair Gray. Look up his web site.

How are we defining "serious stuff"? Does non-fiction come into it?

I'd think yes to non-fiction, if it made a big impact on you.

Like Encyclopedia Britannica falling off the shelf onto your head.

The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy novels, and anything by that arch purveyor of old toot, Sir Robert of Rankin! I think both have certainly had an influence on the comedy I write.

Very interesting short article "Anthony Slide on writing about the golden era of British comedy" as the three books featured I was thinking of buying for Christmas, AFTER I have checked whether or not I already have and read !!

https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/anthony-slide/features/anthony-slide-on-writing-about-comedy/

Quote: SlagA @ 20th April 2007, 9:39 PM

This thread was around but I can't find it.

What's your favourite or most formative comedy or serious book?

Comedy - Catch-22: stunningly funny, recursive, ironic with a great anti-war theme underlying it. Not to say I'm against all wars. Just that the reality of it needs to be grasped and the enemy has to be chosen for the 'right' reasons.

Serious books: 1984: excellently dark, a protagonist set in a totally hopeless struggle, so glad Orwell didn't go for a 'happy' ending. Not ashamed to say it made me cry at the end. I came across a review for this book and the story hooked me. Anyway, check out this website at https://edubirdie.com/research-papers-writing-services , It's a student site. I used to love using it when I was in college!

Paul Bowles wrote some great shorts.

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I finished 1984 and it really hit me hard. It's one of those books that stays with you for a long time.

Sadly still haven't got beyond about page 40 because it's so unbearably bleak, and I was told it's such an easy book to read. 😱 I think if I hadn't seen film versions of it and didn't know the whole thing I'd have tried harder to finish it, but I tend to read for pleasure, not for depressing myself into a coma.

1984?

Starts off very dull and tedious

Gets better and better and is really good

Bit of an anticlimax at the end

S'ok

Animal Farm is better