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book? It's my birthday next week and my family and GF family are asking what i want and i haven't a clue, i could do with a few good books because i travel on trains a lot and get bored when they break down.

no horror rubbish or biographies unless they're funny.

What sort of shizzle are you into then?

What was the last book you read?

labryinth by kate mosse, any contemporary fiction / decent thrillers. favourite author at the moment is Jasper Fforde but his new one's not out till July.

Im reading Rcky Hatton biographie.

Its very boring to be honest but I improve it by reading it in my mind using the voice of Ashley Peacock from Coronation St.

biographies tend to be dull, i enjoy ones of / by comediens but thats about it.

I just got a Japser Fforde book for my birthday, haven't got around to reading it yet though.

If you want something easy to pick up and which will most definitely amuse you then I recommend anything by Robert Rankin. Crazy stuff.

jasper is great, start at the start though otherwise they won't make too much sense.

i mean the first book, not the first page, obviously.

I read Lost In A Good Book.

Was ok, don't get the hype. Maybe not my thing.

albert camus' the plague

weirdly i hate fantasy stuff i.e. pratchett et al, but i found the fforde books really funny, third one wasn't so good but the fourth was really good again.

The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr. Rieux, resist the terror. An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, "The Plague" is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, and a story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence.

this one sonic? sounds like it might be OK.

 Jean Paul Satre's trilogy  "Roads to Freedom" is worth a go

that's the one.

i like camus. he was a goalkeeper too.

it's on my list now, if its shit you owe my girlfriends mum £6.99

i've also got the god delusion on my list - anyone read it?

Dean Koontz books are usually good - some of them aren't too horror/supernatural, ones like Night Chills for instance or Dark Rivers of The Heart, tend to be good thrillers and interesting.

If you want something a bit different I always like to recommend Stel Pavlou's Decipher - interesting take on technology, religion, history and a great apocalyptic thriller set in the present day. Better than the Dan Brown stuff I'm told (although I haven't read any of his so can't comment). It's a big book though, but worth the time.

If you like crime thrillers then Harlan Coben or Lee Childs books are easy to pick up.

i could lend you my copy.

i'd also recommend octave mirbeau's torture garden...the most graphic book i've ever read.

that looks good si, thats 3 on the list.

no reviews on the torture garden on play.com sonic, might try amazon tomorrow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Torture_Garden_%28novel%29
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Torture-Garden-Empire-Senses/dp/1873982534/ref=sr_1_2/202-8949640-0414243?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180655280&sr=8-2

not sure i could cope with that when hungover on the train on a saturday morning! its more of an involved 'at home' sunday afternoon book.

This is standard fare on the subject of moral perversion. It has been a favourite topic of pretentious or over-privileged writers for a very long time, discussed by writers as far-ranging as Nietzsche, J.G. Ballard, Allen Ginsberg or Albert Camus.

But THIS has to rank as one of the most openly vile, rancorous books ever written. It is typical of people such as Mirbeau, who, according to the introduction, "inherited the conservative bourgeois values of the rural middle-class", which is basically his entire problem. He has never had to struggle so instead has opted to dream up ways of livening up his life - thus 'The Torture Garden' is a morally-perverted haven for sado-masochists and general perverts alike.

judging by the last line in this review maybe i would like it.

Superb book, 'The Outsider' is also superb and is one of my favourites.



If you enjoy thrillers and the like i recommend this book. If you regret it, i'll fucking buy it off you because i lost my copy!

It's probably my favouritist ever book. Very Martin Cruz Smith, although doesn't have the same flow, but the story is absolutely fucking epic.

Lionel Davidson - Kolymsky Heights (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kolymsky-Heights-Lionel-Davidson/dp/0099415895/ref=sr_1_2/026-8276459-1986865?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180656519&sr=8-2)

sounds good, but you can't buy it new on amazon or play. weirdness.

just bought it on ebay for £1, that'll do the job.

For some real life amazing stories read Papillion by Henri Charriere, the sotry of his time in the French colonial prisons for a crime he didn't commit.

For a giggle Ben Elton, and for some good modern day gritty books look no further than Irvine Welsh and the non-football factory output by John King.

have a read of Agent Zig Zag  8)

http://www.play.com/Books/Books/4-/3296326/Zigzag/Product.html

based on a true story

you read anything by carl hiaasen? good comedy thriller suspense type stuff. Reasding Moneyball at the mo, about how a poor babseball side took on the big boys...

Anything by Cass Pennant if you're interested in the terrace culture and hooliganism.

think i've read all the elton and welsh books already.

Try White Trash or Human Punk by John King,  I felt Human Punk shared a lot of the qualities that Glue by Irvine Wesh has.

cheers matt, might give them a go, they seem to have pretty good reviews.

I did that for my French A-Level (failed it mind)

Camus was a goalkeeper of some repute I believe

The story is an allegory of the German occupation of Paris in WW2

Another hugely enjoyable book is Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London.  Quite short and not my usual cup of tea but ulitmately very good.

Read the Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell. It's alternate history based on the life of a young lad who grows up around King Arthur and becomes one of his top fighters. It's not a fantasy novel, it's written with realism in mind and is fucking excellent, and also a slightly different (much more believable) take on the Arthur legend.

I have!

Very readable. Although friends and relatives, particularly those with any remaining vestiges of religious faith, may get a little pissed off with you randomnly launching into detailed critiques of every aspect of their beliefs.... or maybe that was just me.

If you want fiction and like thrillers I would recommend:

anything by

James Elroy - but in particular The Cold Six Thousand
James Lee Burke - particularly the Dave Robicheaux novels
Jake Arnott - start with The Long Firm
Walter Mosley

Between those four there's 50 or more cracking reads

Oh and if you've never read them look at the George Smiley Trilogy by Le Carre - Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy - The Honourable Schoolboy - and Smiley's People