your 10 recommends at this moment

[kskyhappy]

i'm sure something like this will have been done before, but i'm repeating it by way as an introduction for me. 10 recommends that people may have missed - no author repetitions within the 10.

so lets see mine would be something like this(in no particular order):

Astonishing the gods - Ben Okri
Dancers at the end of time - Michael Moorcock
Oman Ra - Viktor Pelevin
The electric kool aid acid test - Tom Wolfe
Mr Palomar - Italo Calvino
Been down so long it looks like up to me - Richard Farina
In Water Melon Sugar - Richard Brautigan
Old man and the sea - Ernest Hemmingway
Dumas Club - Arturo Perez Reverte
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

at the other end of the scale one book that sucked

"something happened" Joseph Heller, should have been called "nothing happens" i don't appreciate authors who play jokes on their audiences in this fashion.

ksky

 

[fluffy bunny]

No repeats? Well if you insist on 10 decent ones (it would have helped if you gave me a genre to work with here):

The Name of the Rose- Umberto Eco
And Then There Were None- Agatha Christie
The Shining- Stephen King
Double Indemnity- James M. Cain
Count of Monte Cristo- Alexandre Dumas
To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee
The Book of the New Sun- Gene Wolfe
Mote in God's Eye- Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle
Rebecca- Daphne Du Maurier
Great Expectations- Charles Dickens

 

[Hannibal]

OK I'll play. These may be repeats; if they are I'll give you your money back.

Imajica - Clive Barker (dark fantasy)
Hyperion - Dan Simmons (SciFi)
Mercy - David L. Lindsey (Suspense)
Ishmael - Daniel Quinn (fiction geared to change your outlook on the world)
Necroscope - Brian Lumley (Horror)
Carrion Comfort - Dan Simmons (Horror)
Tigana - Guy Gavriel Kay (fantasy)
A Philosophical Investigation - Phillip Kerr (Suspense)
When Gravity Fails - George Alec Effinger (SciFi)
Mortal Fear - Greg Iles (Suspense)

Book that sucked: Insomnia - Stephen King...Almost turned me off King forever.

 

[igkuk7]

Here goes then, I'll try and give a variety of genres:

The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks (Love)
Lullaby - Chuck Palahniuk (Thriller)
Wasp - Eric Frank Russell (Sci-Fi / Comedy)
The Fog - James Herbert (Horror)
A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick (Sci-Fi / Drug Abuse)
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler (Detective / Crime)
I Am Legend - Richard Matheson (Horror)
Dark Tower Series - Stephen King (Fantasy / Horror)
Legend - David Gemmel (Fantasy)


That's only 9, but hey, it's quality, not quantity, right?

 

[hobitten]

My recommendations are - in no particular order:

Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
Ken Follett: The Pillars of the Earth
Tolkien: Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Jan Kjærstad: The Seducer (as well as the next two in the trilogy: The Conqueror, and The Explorer).
Paul Auster: The Book of Illusions
Jan Guillou: The Arn Trilogy
Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen): Out of Africa
Herbjørg Wassmo: The House with the Blind Glass Windows. The Tora Trilogy.
Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children
Günter Grass: The Tin Drum

It was harder than I thought. To single out 10 books to recommend, among so many books worth reading.


Hobitten

 

[phil_t]

Well i'll give this a go!!

Jasper Fforde: Thursday Next series (Detective Novels in an Offbeat Comedy Style)
Jon Courtney Grimwood: Arabesk series (Dark Steampunk)
Christopher Brookmyre: One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (Dark Comedy)
Matthew Reilly: Temple; Ice Station (High-Pace Thrillers)
Yann Martel: Life of Pi (Not easily pigeon-holed this one!)
Peter F. Hamilton: Nights Dawn Trilogy; Fallen Dragon (Sci-fi Epic Adventures)
Neil Gaiman: American Gods (Offbeat Tale with a Mythological Bent)
J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter series (Kid Wizard, you've heard it right?!)
Raymond E. Feist: Magician, etc. (Fantasy Adventure)
Michael Crichton: Jurassic Park; Timeline(Sci-Fi thrillers)

Phil

 

[Stewart]

A couple of my favourites already mentioned so I'll offer up this set of ten:

• Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Millenium People by JG Ballard
• Sacrament by Clive Barker
• if on a winter's night a traveller by Italo Calvino
• Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice
• Threshold by Caitlin R. Kiernan
• e by Matt Beaumont
• Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
• The Cutting Room by Louise Walsh

 

[funes]

In no particular order:

Short History of a Small Place - T.R. Pearson
Little, Big - John Crowley
The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
The Great Bridge - David McCullough
A Fan's Notes - Fred Exley
Desolation Angels - Jack Kerouac
Loop's Progress - Chuck Rosenthal
Experiments with Life and Deaf - Chuck Rosenthal
Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges
A Gentle Madness - Nick Basbanes

 

[Ell]

My 10:

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader - Anne Fadiman
A Canticle for Liebowitz - Walter Miller Jr.
Sho Gun - James Clavell
The Foundation series - Isaac Asimov
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Dragons of Eden - Carl Sagan
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K Le Guin
Watership Down - Richard Adams

I also wanted to include Oryx and Crake by Atwood, but didn't want to repeat authors. Still managed to anyways, didn't I?

Ell

 

[kskyhappy]

wow this is fun

good lists, quite a few i've had my eye on, even a couple of suprises.

lets see what other goodies come in.

ksky

 

[dele]

• Tailchaser's Song - Tad Williams
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
• The Princess Bride - William Goldman
• The A.B.C. Mystery - Agatha Christie
• Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
• The Abyss - Orson Scott Card
• The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Once and Future King - T.H. White
• The Queen of Attolia - Megan Whalen Turner
• On Fortune's Wheel - Cynthia Voigt

 

[tugger]

Not necessarily in this order, but:

Turtle Island -- Gary Snyder
Twenty Love Poems: And a Song of Despair -- Pablo Neruda
To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee
Life of Pi -- Yann Martel
The Feast of Love -- Charles Baxter
Peace Like a River -- Leif Enger
Picnic, Lightning -- Billy Collins
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -- Ken Kesey
A Prayer For Owen Meany -- John Irving
Slaughterhouse-Five -- Kurt Vonnegut