TV bookworms, what are the best babies to have at hand for rainy days and power outages?

Besides an OED or similar dictionary, Bill Shakespeare, the Bible or similar tract, what else is requisite on the shelves? Tutsi Warrior is a connoisseur of literature, stuck out in the sticks without fine beef stock but a copy of Grapes of Wrath at hand. Resorts and farang restaurants are often good sources of a fine book to borrow. What are your favourites, TV readers? The 100 must-have books are...?

I have many favorites but for some reason all I can think of at the minute is;

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

by Douglas Adams

Very funny and very true

TV bookworms, what are the best babies to have at hand for rainy days and power outages?

Besides an OED or similar dictionary, Bill Shakespeare, the Bible or similar tract, what else is requisite on the shelves? Tutsi Warrior is a connoisseur of literature, stuck out in the sticks without fine beef stock but a copy of Grapes of Wrath at hand. Resorts and farang restaurants are often good sources of a fine book to borrow. What are your favourites, TV readers? The 100 must-have books are...?

Shakespear's a bit out of my league.

Cheesy Adventure stories are my go.

I have over your required 100 books but i'm not a librarian & would have to go home to list them for.

Brief examples:

For all SE Asia fans - James Clavell - All of them.

Action men - Clancy, Cussler etc.

Adventure - Wilbur Smith

Good reading,

Soundman.

Anything by Anne Tyler.

I have many favorites but for some reason all I can think of at the minute is;

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

by Douglas Adams

Very funny and very true

good choice! have you read all five of the trilogy?

I also like the Terry Pratchett Discworld books. maybe some John Le Carre, and then Paul Theroux's a star in my eyes.

A little James Elroy doesn't go amiss.

I take heaps of books with me when I move around with my job, so not so much a question of top 100, rather shelves of books.

But the OP's question is soon to have some direct relevance, my next move is indeed into the dessert and at that time I have to remove a number of books lest they cause offense.

I really need to get started on that..

Lord of the Flies

One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest

Papilion

Catch 22

Slaughterhouse 5

The Stranger (or Outsider)

Breakfast of Champions

The Catcher in the Rye

1984

le Carre - Complete works

David Ignatius - "Agents of Innocence"

David Furst - "Dark Star" and "The Polish Officer"

John Grisham - when he's in Clanton

Stephen King - when he's in New England

John Sanford - the "Prey" novels

Elmore Leonard - Complete works

Tony Hillerman - the Navaho novels

That's it for now

I have many favorites but for some reason all I can think of at the minute is;

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

by Douglas Adams

Very funny and very true

good choice! have you read all five of the trilogy?

I also like the Terry Pratchett Discworld books. maybe some John Le Carre, and then Paul Theroux's a star in my eyes.

I think so but it was a long time ago. The last one I remember reading was 'So long and thanks for all the fish'. I miss Marvin the depressed robot 'brain the size of a planet and here they have me opening doors'.

Btw, how can you read all five of a trilogy. Do you mean a fivology?

No particular order...

Entire works of J R R Tolkien

Entire works of William Shakespeare

Robert Jordens 'Wheel of Time' series, complete set (if he ever finishes it!)

Probably also go for the entire works of Terry Pratchett.

The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri

Entire works of Roald Dahl

Watership Down, Richard Adams

Animal Farm, George Orwell

The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

I take heaps of books with me when I move around with my job, so not so much a question of top 100, rather shelves of books.

But the OP's question is soon to have some direct relevance, my next move is indeed into the dessert and at that time I have to remove a number of books lest they cause offense.

I really need to get started on that..

You're going to write a cookery book? Good luck with that, although everybody seems to be doing it these days.

P. G. Wodehouse omnibus. The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes. Lonesome Dove. To Kill A Mockinbird.

I have many favorites but for some reason all I can think of at the minute is;

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

by Douglas Adams

Very funny and very true

Huh. First thing I agree on you with, Garro. The first book I laughed out loud whilst reading.

I'm gonna steer this in a Thai related direction and say I'm on a bit of a Christopher Moore kick at the moment. Just finished Pattaya 24/7 and got Heart Talk on the nightstand.

Very difficult for me to reread any books.... except for A Clockwork Orange...

Edit: to keep on topic, on a desert island I'd probably need some Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Robbins to keep a smile on my face.

Watership Down, Alice through the looking glass, Black Beauty & the entire Harry Potter series, Roald Dahl's "The Witches" and "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory"

The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay (and Tandia & pretty much anything he's written)

One flew over the cuckoo's nest - Ken Kesey

The Stand (unabridged) - Stephen King - in fact any of his that are more fantasy than straight horror

Harry's Game - Gerald Seymour

East of Eden - Steinbeck

QB VII - Leon Uris...

Oh loads more, I'm sure.

Edit: Just thought of one more... The Plague Dogs - Richard Adams

Lord of the Flies

One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest

Papilion

Catch 22

Slaughterhouse 5

The Stranger (or Outsider)

Breakfast of Champions

The Catcher in the Rye

1984

Yum. That's my kind of books. I read anything at hand, but I like books I can ponder with.

I have many favorites but for some reason all I can think of at the minute is;

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

by Douglas Adams

Very funny and very true

Huh. First thing I agree on you with, Garro.

Well don't make a habit of it. Next you will be wanting to hold hands and sing 'I want to buy the world a coke'.

Anything by Umberto Eco

Anything by Stephen King

Anything by Aldous Huxley

Anything by Isabel Allende

Anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Plus a few always fun favorites:

Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel

The Sheep Look Up - John Brunner

I have many favorites but for some reason all I can think of at the minute is;

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

by Douglas Adams

Very funny and very true

Huh. First thing I agree on you with, Garro. The first book I laughed out loud whilst reading.

i have recently downloaded the entire original bbc radio series, including interviews with Douglas Adams.

14 plus hours of pleasure

SUN TZU ON THE ART OF WAR

Everything by:

Christopher G. Moore

Robert Parker

Elmore Leonard

Carl Hiassen(spell??)

And.........................

"Samurai Boogie" by Peter Tasker

&

"Jock of the Bushveld"

my bank book, but very sad story and no happy end

my phone book, many person, not much action...

Lord of the Flies

One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest

Papilion

Catch 22

The Catcher in the Rye

1984

Yep, have all of the above. I have a similar list to Jet's op. Loads of reference books, loads of Bible study books. As well as Shakespere, complete works of Oscar Wilde, complete Sherlock Holmes. Just looking at my bookshelf, loads of art books, ie, books about art, favourite artists complete works, that sort of thing. And finally, something that I couldn't do without, my poetry books, mostly little known works that I have collected over the years, and, dare I say it a few poetry books I have been published in myself.

All in all, that easily makes a hundred!

Excellent thread.

1. Lucky Jim: Kingsley Amis

2. Alexander Trocchi: Cain's Book

3. Graham Greene: A Gun For Sale

4. Anthony Burgess: The Doctor is Sick

5. Derek Raymond: The Crust On its Uppers

6. Aldous Huxley: Point Counter Point

7. Rose Tremain: Restoration

8. James Kelman: How Late It Was, How Late

9. A. Crowley: Crowley On Christ

There are lots of single individual works I'd include, but in terms of people with large works:

Marcel Proust: In Search of Lost Time

Gene Wolfe (everything, but especially The Book Of The New Sun)

Virginia Wolfe (everything)

James Joyce (everything)

Charles Dickens (everything)

Randall Jarrell (the children's books)

John Gardner (Grendel, Jason and Medea- ok, pretty much everything)

Flannery O'Connor (complete short stories)

Stanislaus Lem (everything)

Italo Calvino (everything)

Cervantes (Don Quixote)

Shakespeare (everything)

Ok, ok, the Bible- KJ version, as the poetry is the redeeming factor

William Faulkner (everything)

Mark Twain (everything)

William James (everything)

Complete poetry of:

e.e. cummings

Wallace Stevens

May Swenson

This probably puts me over 100 books already, so I'll leave it at that...

"Steven"

These are the books I can pick up and read again and again and still get the same buzz as I did the first time I read them. They're my companions:

Gates of Fire - Stephen Pressfield

Fire from Heaven/The Persian/Boy/Funeral Games - Mary Renault (The Persian Boy is my favourite book of all time)

The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay

The Flashman books - George Mcdonald Fraser

The Hornblower books - CS Forester

Letters from Thailand - Botan

The Teachers of Mad Dog Swamp - Khammaan Khonkhai

On Sparta - Plutarch

Hannibal - Ernle Bradford

Not very cerebral but I do like a bit of swashbuckle

Robert Jordens 'Wheel of Time' series, complete set (if he ever finishes it!)

I gave up after book 10

A tale of two cities. Charles Dickens

A Bridge too far. Cornelius Ryan

Lost Moon. Jim Lovell

Stalingrad. Anthony Beevor

To start with....

Good Luck

Moss

The Norton Anthologies of English an' World Literature (de latter aka World Masterpieces), a dictionary an' an atlas...when ye got dem, ye don't need much else... dey been me constant companions fer over 35 years now...

also like Kerouac, Bukowski, G Greene, GG Marques an' Raymond Carver but dey usually dissolve into de ether...

One book every castaway needs:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0393035549...465#reader-link