Quote
Medzvel
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
(Please allow me to introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste)

Actually, the truth is that anyone whom cites this book as best ever hasn't read it.

Mathijs

Nankering With The Rolling Stones - The Untold Story of the Early Days - By James Phelge.

An absolute wonderful insight of the seminal year by someone who was really there. A great read and amazingly funny - I swear I have never laughed so much reading a book. Not only is it funny but you actually can place yourself at Edith Grove amongst Mick, Keith & Brian and of course Phelge as they start their Journey amidst a load of pranks that young boy's get up to.Yes you really do feel as if you know the guy's and the writer tell's it like it was.A true must for all Stones fans.

Memphiscats, I LOVE so many of the books on your list! You might well enjoy Evening's Empire by Bill Flanagan. A spot on novel about the music business.

David Niven's book is great. I feel like I should read it every two years.

A lot of tempting books so far!

Good Grief: this is tough.

I would say the best book that brought me a fleeting moment of happiness way back in June 1996 was:

1. Virtue & Vice Within Juvenal's Satires by Thomas Casagranda

It was my BA dissertation and it got me my first class degree in Classics, and it is in book format.

Forgive the ego-tripping.

However, the best books I ever read are as follows:

1. The 16 Satires of Juvenal (Worlds Classics) translated by Susannah Morton Braund

2. Homer's Iliad translated by Robert Fagles - Penguin Classics

3. The Anxiety of Influence - Harold Bloom

4. Jorge Luis Borges - Ficciones

5. Why Am I still a Catholic - Peter Stanford

6. High Rise - J G Ballard

7. The Holy Bible - King James Translation

8. Ovid's Metamorphoses

9. Sweet Soul Music - Peter Guralnick

10. Hellfire - Nick Tosches

11. Jostein Gaarder - Sophie's World

12. Michael Gray - Song & Dance Man

13. Stephen King - The Shining

14. Terry Eagleton - Literary Theory

15. Aristotle - The Poetics

16. Phillip Roth - Portnoy's Complaint

17. Peter Ackroyd - London

18. Swift - Gulliver's Travels

19. British Film Institute - Analysis of John Carpenter's The Thing

20. Benny Green - Such Sweet Thunder

Why a BFI short analysis of the Thing is amongst my favourites is due to me quoting from it regarding the metamorphosis of Arachne on an academic paper. Again, more ego tripping.

For a good laugh
My Wicked Wicked Ways - Errol Flynn
How Ta Talk Dirty And Influence People - Lenny Bruce

Harder stuff
Groovy Bob - Harriet Vyner...Idi Amin...swingin 60's..drugs...Art..sex..drugs
Bird Lives! - Ross Russell ... Whatalife!!! sax... curried meals..smack... fat chick sex ...burnout at 35



ROCKMAN

There is no best book(s) (because there are too many ;-) Some favorite books, however, are still there. I would recommend anything of Philip Djian (start with the early stuff) He is pure rock'n'roll

Martin Suter "Die dunkle Seite des Mondes" is also a great book.

Stuff from Arno Schmidt (only German, can't really be translated, just like Joyce the other way round)

Dostoviesky "The Idiot", anything from Tucholsky and so on...

More recently: I never thought I'd recommend a novel from Stephen King, but 11.22.63 is a f******* great book. Also Peter James "The Alchemist"

Oh, and Deon Meyer, if you are interested in contemporary South Afica. Great novels. The best start is "Heart of the Hunter" with an amazing description of a motor bike drive ... and

Well I guess I should stop or this will become a very lengthy post

I forgot a book on my list, which is stupid because it's probably my favorite book.

Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut

Anything by Robert G Barrett - his Les Norton character should be an Aussie legend!! Booze,sex and rock n roll,Les loves it all.

Swan Song by Robert McCammon

Also, The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

A Cure For Gravity - Joe Jackson
No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs - John Lydon
Hello It's Me - Chris Epting
Living Out Loud - Toyah Willcox
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
Blowing The Blues - Dick Heckstall-Smith

Rockman, are you aware of Lillian Roxon, late Aussie music writer who was one really sharp chick? You might have her "Rock Encyclopedia" with wonderful capsule descriptions of many a musician and band.

No mention of Nik Cohn, Charlie Gillett etc..these guys knew their stuff.

I think Bill Wyman's books stand up very well as to how things were in the biz and among musicians.

Dick Waterman's books on blues artists are terrific. A good guy.

are you aware of Lillian Roxon,

Yeah ruley ... don't have her book but recently watched the doco about her life...started out the queen of the scene but the last year or so of her life
were dragged down with poor health issues etc...sadly died a lonely girl..



ROCKMAN

The Fountainhead Ayn Rand

Rockie, remind me to let you have that book when we meet up to read books at the Stones concerts next year. You will laugh your ass off at her writing.
I gave her the grand tour of LA in late 60's. She had a fab time and I am sad that life turned rotten for her.

read books at the Stones concerts

....okay I'll knock over Lord Of The Rings during the support acts gig





ROCKMAN

The entire Dune series by Frank Herbert. The prequels and final ones by his son aren't that great.

Berlin Noir- by Phillip Kerr

The Great Santini- Pat Conroy

Shantaram- Gregory Robert

The Rise and Fall of the Third Riech- William Shirer

The Lord of the Rings- Tolkien

A Tan and Sandy Silence- John D McDonald

Shabumi- Travanien

The Stand- Steven King

Salems Lot- Steven King

The Dark Tower- Steven King

Sick Puppy- Carl Heissen

Stormy Weather- Carl Heissen

Valdez is Coming- Elmore Leonard

Swag- Elmore Leonard

Breakfast of Champions- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Slaughterhouse Five- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-04-04 05:15 by whitem8.

I'll read from "Life" before the music starts. Maybe Ozzy will loan me his sound crew.

Anna Karenina by Tolstoy.

Stalin Man and Ruler by Robert McNeal.

Origins of the Great Purges by J. Arch Getty.

Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization by Moshe Lewin.

American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund Morgan.

The Bluesmen: The Story and the Music of the Men Who Made the Blues by Samuel Charters.

Rage of Angels-Sidney Sheldon

Great thread. the short answer is

Chief Joseph - the biography recently published by Nebraska Historical Press folks.

The Baker Boy - senseless remedial but excellent fiction

Dune Messiah -

I'm taking a copy of this thread to the bookstore next visit.

peace

roberto bolano's the savage detectives is the greatest book i have ever read..shockingly good.

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The deepest, most compelling book, with the most from which to learn:

The Bible

I don't know, I always felt there was better fiction than the Bible.

Quote
DaveG
The deepest, most compelling book, with the most from which to learn:

The Bible

Have you read it? I'm 99 % certain you haven't. Very few have. By the way, The Bible isn't one book - it's a collection of books (or texts). If you want to form your view of life on fables and stories from the first century in The Middle East maybe it's something for you.

Quote
Stoneage

Quote
DaveG
The deepest, most compelling book, with the most from which to learn:

The Bible

Have you read it? I'm 99 % certain you haven't. Very few have. By the way, The Bible isn't one book - it's a collection of books (or texts). If you want to form your view of life on fables and stories from the first century in The Middle East maybe it's something for you.

If we go down this road this great thread is going to get closed REAL QUICK.

The Bible is on my own list, plus:
John Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath
Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
Alan Paton: Cry, the Beloved Country
J R R Tolkein: just about everything
Patricia Finney: Firedrake's Eye/Unicorn's Blood/Gloriana's Torch (Elizabethan spies and intrigue written Le-Carre style) Also (writing as P F Chisholm) some great novels set on the lawless Elizabethan Anglo-Scottish border - start with A Famine of Horses.
Elijah Wald: How The Beatles Destroyed Rock'n'Roll
Patrick O'Brian: Keith is absolutely right about his novels (and before you ask, I had read and loved most of them long before Keith ever mentioned them)
Anything by Terry Pratchett.
Science fiction: too many to mention but I started reading SF from a collection of old AMAZING mags and haven't stopped yet.

Agreed about Nankering With The Stones: OK, so women don't understand the Stones, but this helps (and it's funny, too).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-04-04 12:25 by Green Lady.

Quote
Mathijs

Quote
Medzvel
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
(Please allow me to introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste)

Actually, the truth is that anyone whom cites this book as best ever hasn't read it.

Mathijs

haha,, why are you so hard on old Bulgakov? It';s a pretty good book.

This is such a huge question. what is the best book I have ever read? At what age? Fiction or non-fiction?
That LBJ book sounds very interesting.
My answer would be the last 7 books by James Ellroy.

More importantly, what parts of The Bible, DaveG.

Do you go for the Talmud, i.e. the first five books of the Old Testament, also known as the Books of Moses ? Do you analyse where myth and history are inseparable in the Book Of Genesis, or do you go for the early history of the Israelites from Joshua to Second Chronicles ?

You could also delve into more metaphorical accounts such as the Major Prophets, and the Minor Prophets ? Or is it the poetry of the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Job, Wisdom, Song of Songs ?

Do you consider the Apocrypha part of the Old Testament Bible or not ? Is it canon ? What do you think of 1st and 2nd Maccabees ? The Book of Tobias ? Bel & The Dragon ?

Likewise, do you consider the the differences between the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the one Gnostic gospel that is part of the canon, John ? What about the intertextualities between Luke and The Acts of the Apostles ? Did you know that Theophilus is not a real name, and that it is a Greek cipher meaning "Lover of God" ?

Do you consider the Gospels the earliest books in the New Testament, or do the Letters of Paul pre-date them ? Is the Book of Revelations purely a metaphor for the early church and the trails and tribulations it was undergoing ?

What is the relationship between the Bible as a Judaeo text and the culture around it, i.e. Greece and Rome ?

What about the Dead Sea Scrolls at Nag Hammadi and their relationship to the Bible ? What about how the gospels were narrowed down by Iranaeus to the four that we have today ?

Do you read people like Robin Lane Fox, and how he established that the Book of Genesis is two different authors, and that there is a contradiction right at the beginning of the Old Testament ?. God promises death to Adam and Eve for eating of the Tree of Knowledge, yet, after the event, the narrative switches, and no death occurs, but expulsion.