1FF Top 100 Books

[mistermagic]

Think now would be a good time to resume.

Tomorrow.

 

[Ginola14]

Cheers, MM!

 

[This Charming Mike]

Lovely jubbly!

 

[BCFC Jordan]

 

[mnb089mnb]

I was rather disengaged near the end at TFF so I didn't submit a list. I'm looking forward to following this list through to its conclusion (Harry Potter and the Ungrateful Twats, or whatever the books are called).

 

[mistermagic]

I was rather disengaged near the end at TFF so I didn't submit a list. I'm looking forward to following this list through to its conclusion (Harry Potter and the Ungrateful Twats, or whatever the books are called).

 

[Son of Cod]

Have you still got all the information then, mm? Kind of annoying to have lost the previous content, but I will do a quick review of all mine that have been and gone if you post a list up until the point we were at.

 

[mistermagic]

138 A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson 11
139 Along Came a Spider James Patterson 11
140 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 11
141 Meat Pies & Microphones - Adventures of a Football Reporter Simon Mapletoft 11
142 No Longer Human Osamu Dazai 11
143 One Night In Winter Simon Sebag Montefiore 11
144 Past Imperfect John Matthews 11
145 Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare 11
146 Shantaram Gregory David Roberts 11
147 Silence of the Lambs Thomas Harris 11
148 The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman 11
149 The Gulag Archipelago Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 11
150 What Dreams May Come Richard Matheson 11
151 World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War Max Brooks 11
152 A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking 10
153 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 10
154 David Jason David Jason 10
155 Duckworth Lewis: The Method and the Men Behind It. Franck Duckworth & Tony Lewis 10
156 Every Dead Thing John Connolly 10
157 I am Legend Richard Matheson 10
158 Maus Art Spiegelman 10
159 Odyssey Homer 10
160 On Beulah Height Reginald Hill 10
161 So Long and Thanks for All the Fish Douglas Adam 10
162 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 10
163 Your Erroneous Zones Wayne W. Dyer 10
164 A Perfect Spy John Le Carré 9
165 AGI Annals F.H.K. Henrion 9
166 El Macca Steve McManaman & Sarah Edworthy 9
167 Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami 9
168 The Blade Itself Joe Abercrombie 9
169 The Bourne Identity Robert Ludlum 9
170 The Catcher and the Rye J.D. Salinger 9
171 The Gospel According to Judas Jeffrey Archer & Frank Moloney 9
172 The Hiding Place Trezza Azzopardi 9
173 The Ka of Gifford Hilary Dennis Wheatley 9
174 The Leopard Jo Nesbo 9
175 The Sorrow of War Bao Ninh 9
176 Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature Charles Hatfield 8
177 Asterix René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo 8
178 Charlottes Web E.B. White 8
179 How to Make Love to the Same Person for the Rest of Your Life... and Still Love It Dagmar O'Connor 8
180 King of the World David Remnick 8
181 Noughts and Crosses Malorie Blackman 8
182 On the Road Jack Kerouac 8
183 The Ascent of Man Jacob Bronowski 8
184 The Drawing of the Three Stephen King 8
185 The Fourth Protocol Frederick Forsyth 8
186 The Partner John Grisham 8
187 The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope 8
188 We Need to Talk About Kevin Lionel Shriver 8
189 Angels and Demons Dan Brown 7
190 Animal Farm George Orwell 7
191 Before They Are Hanged Joe Abercrombie 7
192 Crimini - The Bitter Lemon Book of Italian Crime Fiction Various (8 authors) 7
193 Fallen David Maine 7
194 Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan Herbert P. Bix 7
195 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 7
196 Post Office Charles Bukowski 7
197 Second Foundation Isaac Asimov 7
198 The Devil Rides Out Dennis Wheatley 7
199 The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett 7
200 The Virgin Suicides Jeffrey Eugenides 7
201 Ulysses James Joyce 7
202 Where Eagles Dare Alistair Stuart MacLean 7
203 White Tiger Aravind Adiga 7
204 A Cambodian Prison Portrait Vann Nath 6
205 A Dark Adapted Eye Barbara Vine 6
206 Cancer Ward Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 6
207 Doctor Faustus Christopher Marlowe 6
208 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets J.K. Rowling 6
209 Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronté 6
210 Macbeth William Shakespeare 6
211 The Dark Tower Stephen King 6
212 The Girl Who Played with Fire Stieg Larsson 6
213 The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky 6
214 The Road to Wigan Pier George Orwell 6
215 The Sound of Laughter Peter Kay 6
216 Wool Hugh Howey 6
217 A Case of Exploding Mangoes Mohammed Hanif 5
218 A Little Lower Than Angels Helen Travers 5
219 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carrol 5
220 Can We Have Our Balls Back, Please? Julian Norridge 5
221 Resurrection Men Ian Rankin 5
222 The Chimney Sweeper's Boy Barbara Vine 5
223 The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde 5
224 The Knife of Never Letting Go Patrick Ness 5
225 The Sign of Four Arthur Conan Doyle 5
226 The Son Jo Nesbo 5
227 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 5
228 Wizard and Glass Stephen King 5
229 Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham and the Science of Success Matthew Syed 4
230 Candy Luke Davies 4
231 Let the Right One In John Ajvide Lindqvist 4
232 Manwatching: A Field Guide to Human Behaviour Desmond Morris 4
233 Saturday Ian McEwan 4
234 The Castle Franz Kafka 4
235 The Dark Tourist: Sightseeing in the World's Most Unlikely Holiday Destinations Dom Joly 4
236 The Glory Game Hunter Davies 4
237 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 4
238 The Gunslinger Stephen King 4
239 The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle 4
240 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks 4
241 Tripwire Lee Child 4
242 Zazie in the Metro Raymond Queneau 4
243 A Drink Before the War Dennis Lehane 3
244 A Midsummer Night's Dream William Shakespeare 3
245 A Place of Execution Val McDermid 3
246 Atonement Ian McEwan 3
247 Der Zauberberg Thomas Mann 3
248 Filthy English Jonathan Meades 3
249 Looking for Alaska John Green 3
250 Talking Double Dutch Paul Holland 3
251 A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke Ronald Reng 2
252 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl 2
253 Heavier than Heaven Charles R. Cross 2
254 King Leopold's Ghost Adam Hochschild 2
255 Life: A User's Manual George Perec 2
256 Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus John Gray 2
257 Shah of Shahs Ryszard Kapuscinski 2
258 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 2
259 The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid Bill Bryson 2
260 The Quiet American Graham Greene 2
261 The Return of the King J.R.R. Tolkien 2
262 The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 Sue Townsend 2
263 The War of the Worlds H.G. Wells 2
264 A Feast for Crows George R.R. Martin 1
265 Fermat's Last Theorem Simon Singh 1
266 Kill Your Friends John Niven 1
267 Martin Misunderstood Karin Slaughter 1
268 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1
269 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 1
270 Reconstructing Quarternary Environments John J. Lowe & Mike Walker 1
271 Saturday Night Peter: Memoirs of a Stand-Up Comedian Peter Kay 1
272 Small Island Andrea Levy 1
273 Stig of the Dump Clive King 1
274 The Black Echo Michael Connelly 1

 

[mistermagic]

Books on 12 points (124-137):

• American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
• Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
• One Day by David Nicholls
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (2 lists)
• Ooh Ah Stantona by Phil Stant
• Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano
• Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
• Smiley's People by John Le Carré
• The Damned Utd by David Peace
• The Green Mile by Stephen King
• The Magician's Guild by Trudi Canavan
• The Tempest by William Shakespeare
• The World of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

Some nice entries this time around.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is an epic novel for its era written during the 60s and 70s economic boom of Latin America vastly influenced by the modernism of Europe and North America. It was on 2 lists.
We have some fine novels from Le Carré (Smiley's People), King (The Green Mile) and another Shakespeare (The Tempest) but the other big addition is the second George R.R. Martin novel but one that did not belong in the A Song of Ice and Fire series but talks about it. I'll let the experts deal with that one.

 

[SUTSS]

Books on 12 points (124-137):

• American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
• Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
• One Day by David Nicholls
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (2 lists)
• Ooh Ah Stantona by Phil Stant
• Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano
• Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
• Smiley's People by John Le Carré
• The Damned Utd by David Peace
• The Green Mile by Stephen King
• The Magician's Guild by Trudi Canavan
• The Tempest by William Shakespeare
• The World of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

Some nice entries this time around.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is an epic novel for its era written during the 60s and 70s economic boom of Latin America vastly influenced by the modernism of Europe and North America. It was on 2 lists.
We have some fine novels from Le Carré (Smiley's People), King (The Green Mile) and another Shakespeare (The Tempest) but the other big addition is the second George R.R. Martin novel but one that did not belong in the A Song of Ice and Fire series but talks about it. I'll let the experts deal with that one.

It's not a novel. It's a fictional history book of the history of the world he created, presented in the style of a long lost tome on the subject.

 

[Stagat]

Books on 12 points (124-137):

• Ooh Ah Stantona by Phil Stant

Some nice entries this time around.

You're not wrong. Whose was this?

 

[ZianfrancoGoal]

The most common sentence in all of the Harry Potter books is "Nothing happened."

 

[This Charming Mike]

I'm reading The World of Ice and Fire at the moment so it didn't make my list but I can offer some opinion on it. It's fantastic so far. I love all of the illustrations and the level of detail Martin goes into (for once not cut back by an editor) is remarkable. My only criticism for it is that it was released prior to the final two books in the ASOIAF series and, as such, feels a little incomplete.

 

[IanH]

I'm reading One Hundred Year of Solitude at the moment. It's very good, but I was quite confused (still am at times) that all the characters are called either Aureliano or José Arcadio.

I chose Green Mile as my Stephen King book, but don't remember placing it as high as eighth. It was released in six shorter parts, as a serial novel, and tells the story of John (like the drink, only not spelled the same) Coffey. You've all seen the movie, love it or loath it, the book's better.

 

[mnb089mnb]

138 A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson 11

I adore Bryson. His book on Britain "Notes from a Small Island" is superb and everyone should be made to read it. It's something that made me love the UK more than I previously did. Would certainly benefit people more than 'Citizenship Lessons'.

199 The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett 7

I went through a stage of reading pretty much every book published on the reign of King Stephen and "the anarchy" (This covers the same period of English history). However, I've never quite been able to get my head around historical fiction. I really enjoyed the dramatic adaption of this, stars Eddie Redmayne and Lovejoy. It's probably something I should get around to...

 

[Veggie Legs]

I adore Bryson. His book on Britain "Notes from a Small Island" is superb and everyone should be made to read it. It's something that made me love the UK more than I previously did. Would certainly benefit people more than 'Citizenship Lessons'.

That was my choice; likewise I'm a big fan of Bryson and I could have picked several of his books.

 

[mistermagic]

Books on 13 points (111-123):

• Deliver Us From Evil by David Yallop
• I'll Go To Bed at Noon by Gerard Wodward
• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
• Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
• Lord Loss by Darren Shan
• Soccernomics by Simon Kuper & Stefan Szymanski
• The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
• The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• The Shock of the New by Robert Hughes
• The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré (2 lists)
  
• Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
• Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock

Quite a few authors I've read myself in there.
From Dickens I read Great Expectations but I then researched the whole meaning of the word literature and realised that I'd rather be entertained by a story via its suspense and drama rather by its sadness.
From Forsyth, I read The Day of the Jackal and The Kill List. Two good books. I did read on Goodreads that The Odessa File was brilliant so will give it a go in the future.
Finally we have a John Le Carré. Of his I read The Little Drummer Girl which was alright but painful to read and The Honourable Schoolboy, a novel that I did not get from start to finish. People have been telling me to give ol' John another go (including Scumbag) but that book just put me off.

We're nearing the top 100 peeps! TOP 100!!

 

[Stagat]

I adore Bryson. His book on Britain "Notes from a Small Island" is superb and everyone should be made to read it. It's something that made me love the UK more than I previously did. Would certainly benefit people more than 'Citizenship Lessons'.

Have you read Watching the English, mnb?

One of my old Chinese students used to read it for homework then ask me about it in class.

"Why do English people only sit in their back gardens, never the front?"

"Why do English people say sorry if someone says sorry to them?"

"Why do English people do sarcastic understatement?"

Hard lessons explaining that kind of stuff. Good book though, a very accurate analysis of us (not you).

 

[mnb089mnb]

That was my choice; likewise I'm a big fan of Bryson and I could have picked several of his books.

I've realised that one of the better ways to consume his work is via audio-book. They lend themselves to that quite well. Listening to the 1927 American Summer one currently, which isn't one of his best but is still a worthwhile listen on my commute.

 

[This Charming Mike]

None of those are mine so I'm fairly confident that my remaining books will make the top 100 now.

 

[mnb089mnb]

Stagat

That book sounds great, I'll add it to the 1000s of books I want to read... And although I was born in Wales and follow their sports teams my father is English and I've lived most of my life in England - and will likely live here forever. I've also found out I have two tickets for the first day of the Ashes test at Lords. So I imagine I'm 'culturally English' in many ways too.

 

[Stagat]

Into the Wild was mine from that batch. It's (kind of) about a lad in the early 90s who had read loads of Jack London and wanted to go get lost for bit in Alaska. Unfortunately, he got really lost, and then he died out there in an abandoned bus.

The book was interesting to me because it explored the writer's (a professional climber iirc) emotional connection with the lad's tale, and tried to understand why he wanted to go off into the wilderness, rather than just being some account of a young life lost or whatever. If that's what you want, watch the film. The book though goes deeper, and is probably as much about the writer trying to make sense of what the lad did and reconciling it with his own desire to push himself as a climber/adventurer than it is just describing what the lad did.

 

[lordofthepies]

I've read Watching the English. It's mostly very interesting and quite funny. I do think she gets a few things wrong but most of her observations are accurate.

 

[lordofthepies]

I'll Go To Bed At Noon is mine. It's about a dysfunctional suburban family, dominated by alcoholism. Both hilariously funny and painfully sad. Quite beautiful.

 

[Son of Cod]

176 Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature Charles Hatfield 8
194 Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan Herbert P. Bix 7
204 A Cambodian Prison Portrait Vann Nath 6
234 The Castle Franz Kafka 4
269 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 1

These were all mine that I'd previously written about on TFF, so I'll do a quick recap.
Never Let Me Go: Dystopian sci fi novel told from three different times in the lives of three different characters who are clones brd as donors from "normal" humans.
The Castle: Dark and surreal novel about a man's seemingly impossible struggle against a bureaucratic system.
A Cambodian Prison Portraint: Account of one of the very few known survivors of one of the most notorious prisons during the Khmer Rouge's genocide.
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan: Fairly heavy going account of the Japanese involvement in World War 2, in particular their leader at the time.
Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature: Not recommended unless you have more than a passing interest in non-superhero comics. However, if you do then this book is great for contextualising this type of work.

I've had two come out since I last wrote in here and the previous thread. The first of those is the Japanese classic, No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. It's the story of a man struggling to identify with both the people and the country he lives in and the downward spiral he falls into due to drug abuse and depression. The story is told in the form of the main character's old notebooks and takes place across various points in his life. It's a sad, but beautifully written tale. It's been made into a film, manga and an anime and is the second best selling Japanese novel of all time.

The Damned United was also mine. Pretty sure most of you have read it or seen the film. Fast paced no holds barred account of Brian Clough's brief stint as Leeds manager. Quite how much is truly accurate is both questionable and irrelevant if you read this how it is intended to be read - as a dramatisation. This is Peace at his best for me, a notch or two higher than GB84. A real engrossing page turner that delves into a genre (fictional football stories) that is seldom explored outside of children's literature.

 

[mistermagic]

Erm, I think some posts were deleted. I'm positive I posted the books on 14 points yesterday.

I call conspiracy.

CONSPIRACY!!!

 

[mistermagic]

Books on 14 points (98-110):

• A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
• A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines
• Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre
• As You Like It by William Shakespeare
• Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
• Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan
• Jude The Obscure by Thomas Hardy
• Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier
• The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
• The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman by Bruce Robinson
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adam
• The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

 

[Oaf]

Yeah, check this MM.

http://www.onefootballforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/urgent-notice-loss-of-posts.654/



Gonna need to play some catch up.

 

[Veggie Legs]

Two of my books have come out since I last posted in here:

The Lies Of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is probably the best fantasy book I've read in the last ten years. If you like fantasy, then you should read this, it's that simple.

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman was my pick too, I'm a little surprised no one else selected it. I'm pretty sure there was a long discussion of His Dark Materials the last time this feature was run about whether it's really suitable for children, but I don't remember what the consensus was. I enjoyed reading it at as a child and as an adult, I guess I missed out on some of the deeper themes the first time round, but I don't think that prevents it being good for children too.

 

[Veggie Legs]

99% sure The Peculiar Memories Of Thomas Penman is SoC's choice from that lot - I read it a few years ago on his recommendation.