Happy National Book Lovers Day! Share your favorite titles here!

innerspaceboy · 08-09-2016, 06:43 PM

Happy National Book Lovers Day! Here are some of my all-time favorite books. What are yours?

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The Art of Noise: Destruction of Music By Futurist Machines (Collected Futurist Manifestoes)
NinjaTune: 20 Years of Beats & Pieces by Stevie Chick (ltd. ed.)
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
Principia Discordia - or - How I Found the Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her by Malaclypse the Younger
Genesis of a Music by Harry Partch
For the Birds by John Cage
(R)evolution: A Journal of 21st Century Thought by The Anarchists of Chicago (private pub.)
The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell (collected)
The KLF: Chaos, Magic, and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds by John Higgs
Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past by Simon Reynolds
Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music (collected)
Silence: 50th Anniversary Ed. by John Cage

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Propaganda by Edward Bernays
Annotations to Finnegans Wake by Roland McHugh (John Hopkins University Press) 3rd ed.
Empty Words by John Cage
The Ambient Century by Mark Pendergast
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century by Alex Ross
Ulysses by James Joyce (Franklin Library ed.)
The Illustrated HHG2G by Douglas Adams (ltd. ed.)
A Skeletons Key to Finnegans Wake by Joseph Campbell

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A Clockwork Orange
Flatland
1984
We
Frankenstein
Fahrenheit 451
A Medicine for Melancholy
The Golden Apples of the Sun
Dandelion Wine
The Martian Chronicles
The Halloween Tree
The Illustrated Man
Something Wicked This Way Comes
A Scanner Darkly
The Time Machine & The War of the Worlds
Stranger in a Strange Land
Childhood’s End
Brave New World
Animal Farm
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

...and oh bugger - I left out Lord of the Flies and my facsimile first clothbound edition of Alice in Wonderland!

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The Annotated Sherlock Holmes (1967 first single-volume ed.)

I would LOVE to see your favorite books in celebration of Book Lovers Day! I've no doubt this community has some fascinating titles to share.

Neapolitan · 08-09-2016, 10:39 PM

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Plankton · 08-10-2016, 08:16 AM

Good to see some Heinlein in your collection, innerspaceboy. SIASL is one of my favorites too.

Ol’ Qwerty Bastard · 08-10-2016, 09:29 AM

No book has ever hit me like 1984 when I read it a few years back. Easily my favourite novel.

Tristan_Geoff · 08-10-2016, 09:35 AM

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Night - Elie Weisel
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

I think most of these authors are dead.

**Frownland** · 08-10-2016, 11:08 AM

Ray Bradbury is so goddamned overrated. He can go to hell.

Nice list ISB, Cage is always a good read. One quintessential book I haven't seen listed yet is Sebald's Rings of Saturn. A man goes on a walking tour in Suffolk and that's about it, but it blends together fact, fiction, history, and memoir very seamlessly. Also, the language is stupid beautiful.

JGuy Grungeman · 08-10-2016, 01:49 PM

The majority of my favorites are classic novels from before the 1920's. But I still like some of the new stuff.

1. Tarzan of the Apes
2. Frankenstien
3. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
5. Solaris
6. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (this is a kids' book?)
7. Catherine, Called Birdy
8. Three Days in April (hyped for the spin-off)

I'm not much of a bookworm, though. Other greats IMO are Jurassic Park and The Firm and The Book of Three. I wanna say the first LOTR, but I just can't get into them. Tolkein rambles off-topic a bit too much.

The Batlord · 08-10-2016, 07:02 PM

innerspaceboy · 08-10-2016, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JGuy Grungeman

The majority of my favorites are classic novels from before the 1920's. But I still like some of the new stuff.

1. Tarzan of the Apes
2. Frankenstien
3. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
5. Solaris
6. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (this is a kids' book?)
7. Catherine, Called Birdy
8. Three Days in April (hyped for the spin-off)

I'm not much of a bookworm, though. Other greats IMO are Jurassic Park and The Firm and The Book of Three. I wanna say the first LOTR, but I just can't get into them. Tolkein rambles off-topic a bit too much.

I've had the same difficulty with Tolkien. I absolutely acknowledge the tremendous importance of his work, it just isn't my bag.

I haven't read Mrs. Frisby but the film is fantastically dark as well. It made a lasting impression on me as a lad.

I definitely need a copy of Solaris in English. I'll have to look up how early on that was translated. I know the Russian novel, We took several decades.

And regarding Frankenstein, my copy sports what is perhaps the least appropriate cover artwork of any edition I've found. Did they even read the damn thing?

The Batlord · 08-10-2016, 07:32 PM

^^^

Yeah he's a linguist/historian before a writer, which shows in the pacing of the second two books, but his mythos and its presentation is one of the most important artistic achievements of this century. He's like if Ayn Rand had written Atlas Shrugged but didn't forget to make his story entertaining.

08-10-2016, 08:16 AM	#3 (permalink)
Plankton Just Keep Swimming... Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: See signature... Posts: 7,766	Good to see some Heinlein in your collection, innerspaceboy. SIASL is one of my favorites too. __________________ See location...

08-10-2016, 11:08 AM	#6 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,548	Ray Bradbury is so goddamned overrated. He can go to hell. Nice list ISB, Cage is always a good read. One quintessential book I haven't seen listed yet is Sebald's Rings of Saturn. A man goes on a walking tour in Suffolk and that's about it, but it blends together fact, fiction, history, and memoir very seamlessly. Also, the language is stupid beautiful. __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x

08-10-2016, 01:49 PM	#7 (permalink)
JGuy Grungeman Primo Celebate Sexiness Join Date: Apr 2014 Posts: 2,662	The majority of my favorites are classic novels from before the 1920's. But I still like some of the new stuff. 1. Tarzan of the Apes 2. Frankenstien 3. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 5. Solaris 6. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (this is a kids' book?) 7. Catherine, Called Birdy 8. Three Days in April (hyped for the spin-off) I'm not much of a bookworm, though. Other greats IMO are Jurassic Park and The Firm and The Book of Three. I wanna say the first LOTR, but I just can't get into them. Tolkein rambles off-topic a bit too much. __________________ I'm a pretty nice troll if you ask me.