Favorite Author/Book

Who is your favorite author(s) and book(s)? I was just curious to see what the T men and women are reading, and maybe learn about a good book or author I hadn’t heard of or read.

A few of my favorites:

Tom Robbins “Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
Clive Barker “Imajika”
Ernest Hemingway - all of his works
Neil Peart - “Ghost Rider”

Kurt Vonnegut. Guy is nuts.

I’ve been reading biographies lately more than anything.

Currently reading Ty Cobbs “My life in Baseball” Grumpy old Bastard.

I’d have to Say Mitch Album is right up there, not to mention Hunter S. Thompson.

Fight Club-Chuck Palaniuk

Such a T-book.

The Art of War - Sun Tzu

It’s amazing how much this book can apply to almost any aspect of life. It’s also a great insight into why we’re looking like such jack-asses in Iraq…let the soldiers fight and stop letting the politicians run a P.C. war.

Too many good ones: but my faves

Dostoyevsky - esp. Brothers K. and Crime and Punishment

Julio Cortazar - Rayuela

Milan Kundera - Immortality

Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus (collected works)

Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Proust - In Search of Lost Time (take a summer to read this epic - possibly the greatest novel ever written)

James Joyce - Ulysses

Yukio Mishima - Death in Midsummer and other stories - (this guy was hardcore - there’s an essay out there about this author written by Henry Rollins which is bad ass - the first “T-author” the guy was big time into lifting and kendo)

Catcher in the Rye - Sallinger

1984 - Orwell

Master and Margerita - Bukalov

Fahrenheit 451 -Bradbury

The Prince

The Russia Hand - Talbott

Say what you will, I think Chuck Palaniuk is one of the worst writers in the history of mankind.

[quote]JDREDD wrote:
Who is your favorite author(s) and book(s)? I was just curious to see what the T men and women are reading, and maybe learn about a good book or author I hadn’t heard of or read.

A few of my favorites:

Tom Robbins “Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
Clive Barker “Imajika”
Ernest Hemingway - all of his works
Neil Peart - “Ghost Rider”

[/quote]

Stephen King…all stories…except the new one about the red sox

Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, is the greatest book of all time. I think every T-man or woman should read it. On a different note, Hemingway is brilliant, especially A Farewell to Arms. And Michael Connelly’s books, especially the Harry Bosch ones, are T-Nation material too.

i dont read fiction anymore, but two that stand out are East of Eden by Steinbeck and Eaters of the Dead by Crichton.

Favorites are tough to pick out as it just depends on the mood…

Clive Barker is always a good read (Weaveworld one of my preferences) for fantasy

Rick Moody - most people liked The Ice Storm, I prefered Purple America

Andrew Klavan is good for some light reading, try Dynamite Road or True Crime

Alan Moore is such a good writer of graphic novels that he makes most popular novelists look like hacks.

Brian Greene is probably the best writer of ‘science for the layman’. My wife even liked The Elegant Universe and she doesn’t care for science at all.

I have many others to bring up but I’ll just skip to the end…

Best book I’ve read in the last 3 years is The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Its a mystery in a similar vein (sort of) as the Davinci Code and it makes it clear that Dan Brown has the writing skill of a fourth grader (I really hated that freakin book, not for the religion but for the sheer stupidity).

Most important book I’ve ever read… Newton’s Pricipia. Probably the most influencial non-religous texts ever written.

Oh yeah, I try to read holy books in my spare time.

Currently reading:

“Not Always So” by Shunryu Suzuki.

I’m not going to get all brainiac-ish on my pick, so you guys can flame the shit out of me for all I care.

Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. I read it once a year.

Ray Carver
Rick Bass
Clint McCown
Senor Hemingstein, for sure.

[quote]OARSMAN wrote:

Milan Kundera - Immortality

[/quote]

That’s a pussy-getting book if there ever was one. Let a college chick see you reading that, and her panties are soaked.

[quote]rainjack wrote:
I’m not going to get all brainiac-ish on my pick, so you guys can flame the shit out of me for all I care.

Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. I read it once a year. [/quote]

Never read it, but I always have heard good shit about it.

I like Louis L’amour’s stuff.

Here are some of my favorites:

Think and Grow Rich, By Napoleon Hill

Sex, Money, Kiss By Gene Simmons

Art Of War, by Sun Tzu

Unleashing the Warrior Within, by Richard Machowicz

The Ends justify the meaness by Stanley Bing

Dune, by Frank Herbert

The Sufi Path to Mindfulness by Kabir Helminski

The Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield

The Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz

Almost any book written by James Lee Burke.

Louis L’Amour, The Walking Drum or his memoir Education of a Wandering Man.

I also like Orson Scott Card as far as fiction goes.

Everyone should read Trust by Fukuyama and The Blank Slate by Pinker, but those aren’t really “recreational” titles.

The Stranger - Albert Camus

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers

Soul On Ice - Eldridge Cleaver

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest - Ken Kesey

Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Candide - Voltaire

Ham On Rye - Charles Bukowski

I like most anything by Buk or John Steinbeck.

Right now, I’m rereading “The Quiet American” by Graham Greene

Great thread.