Clarkman wrote:Herb wrote:I am currently reading Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. My brother, who reads gooseberry fool loads, says it's one of his favorite ever books so I'm expecting good things.
All of Vonnegut's works cover Existential Absurdity fantastically well. Cat's Cradle remains far and away my favourite of his masterpieces though. If you enjoy Slaughterhouse 5, go straight onto it.
The only Vonnegut book I've not got on with so far is Galapagos - still finished it mind.
After Slaughterhouse 5 my favourite book of his is Sirens of Titan. I've not read Cat's Cradle yet though. I would also recommend Hocus Pocus, another great read - the usual funny, poignant, 'what are the chances' type stuff, but a very novel idea for a story. Vonnegut says he stumbled across this story as hundreds of tiny scraps of paper numbered sequentially and he just put them together to tell this man's life.
Drawlight wrote:IGM wrote:I have been really disappointed with the recent Neil Gaiman books I've read. I loved all his books up until Fragile things and Anansi Boys, both of which I thought were terrible! I need to read up on his new one as I know nothing about it - I really hope it is a return to form though, as his earlier works are among my favourite books.
Hmm, I'm not sure if you'll get on with the Graveyard book- it certainly seems another step away form the much darker mode of his earlier stuff, and 'feels' more like things like Anansi Boys- obviously I can't judge the entire book on what I heard- but I will say that its about some ghosts in a graveyard who raise a small boy whose parents are murdered- like a more serious Johnny and the Dead (Pratchett) and it follows the boys life growing up in the graveyard. Its also getting a Harry Potter style Kids cover and Adults cover.
For the record, I loved Anansi Boys- really good way of doing a semi-sequel/spin off to American Gods, but he hasn't quite reached the same heights as American Gods/Sandman era, has he?
Totally. I confess I haven't read Sandman, but I loved Neverwhere, which has the same kind of premise as Anansi Boys - the normal man thrown into a world behind the normal world. With Neverwhere it just seemed so effortless, and Anansi Boys to me felt forced. I never got transported into the story of Anansi Boys, I always just felt I was reading a book. It didn't grip me at all.
I thoroughly enjoyed Stardust and even Coraline, a great kids book of the kind I would have had nightmares about as a kid!
American Gods was incredible, as was his first collection of short stories Smoke and Mirrors.
But Anansi Boys just felt like he was writing by numbers and living off the reputation of American Gods - a comparison that does it no favours whatsoever.
And I don't want to get started on Fragile things...
Anyway, for the first page, I would recommend Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities to anyone and everyone. A great read and not heavy on the descriptions and asides that you could normally take out of his books to make it about a two thirds shorter!
Also, Robert Rankin - 'Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse' and 'The Witches of Chiswick' are excellent. He is a crazy person and writes incredibly funny crazy stories. His other books (that I've read) are a little more zany and random but these two have as solid a story as you could hope for from one of his books so are great ones to start with. I have not yet read the Brentford trilogy though.