How about Tom Sharpe - easy to pick-up and put down, perfick commuting fodder!

I've taken to reading whatever some kind soul has left on the train for that purpose. It was a very ordinary spy thriller last week.
I'm thinking of investing in a couple of spare copies of certain books to leave on trains. Maybe with a note inside encouraging other people to do the same. Like a travelling library project.

Get the one from Hancock. The one with the missing last page. Create your own set of neurotics.

BK, bookcrossing is all about the same thing that you are talking about. If you join you can track the books that you "release in to the wild"

Secret Garden? Not a bad book either.

Ich bin ein bookcrosser.

As I am probably the only person on the Fforum who actively dislikes JS & MN you may find my my suggestions less to your taste. However, here goes

Any Wodehouse - they are all brilliant and yes, Blandings are as good a place to start as any.
Wells - particularly "The Time Machine"
Tolstoy - "War & Peace"
George Grosmith - "Diary of a Nobody"
RL Stevenson -"Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes"

Happy reading!

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My computer beat me at chess, but I won at kickboxing

If you like sci-fi, I would highly suggest the "Ender's Game" saga by Orson Scott Card.
"Ender's Game"
"Speaker for the Dead"
"Xenocide"
"Children of the Mind"
WARNING: These books are not, by any stretch of the imagination classics. Still, they are truly amazing pieces of literature.

I didn't like "Strange & Norrell" either. It lacked a certain amount of depth to me. Oh well.

'Gateway' by Frederik Pohl?

Damon Knight, if you can find anything by him. :\

Only read three shorts, but they were pretty readable.

Dave Freer is also quite good.

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'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

For winter trips when the train is slowed: 'The History of the English Speaking Race' by that promising writer W S Churchill.

'The Glass Key' by Dashiell Hammett. A genuine crime classic and far better than Chandler. Just don't try to type Hammett's name as it's guaranteed you'll never get the correct number of m's, t's or l's!

Anybody read any Caiseal Mor? I keep putting it off, I bought a book called The Raven Game by them, never get around to it.

A question for ibborobb: how many of the choices offered fit your definition of classics?

History geeks will like "Warriors of the Dragon Gold."

Skids - 22.

Egon - Thanks for recommending A Tale of two cities, I was put off Dickens a long time ago when I had to read Hard Times at college but I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Yes, 'A Tale of Two Cities' is actually good! I had trouble with 'David Copperfield' and 'The Pickwick Papers' but I made it through ATOT easily. Also, try 'The Moonstone' and 'The Woman in White' if you get a chance; Wilkie Collins is king of the 'one read' classic as once you know the endings you'll never want to read them again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2008 02:28PM by EgonSpengler.