Favourite 3 Novels

Martin Amis - London Fields
Stephen King - Hearts in Atlantis
Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children

 

London Fields is a good choice.

Tough to choose three, but I'll go with

Haruki Murukami - Norwegian Wood
Roberto Bolaño - 2666
Emile Zola - Germinal

 

Absolutely impossible to narrow it down to 3! That said,

Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time

would always be on my list. For the other two, today I'll say:

Walter Moers - The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear,

and any one from Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series.

RCB

 

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Kestrel For A Knave by Barry Hines
Worst book to read from cover to cover: Moby Dick

 

What's a novel....................................Beano, Dandy, Shoot, Goal .

 

Why stay away from the obvious?

 

I really enjoyed the Kurkov as well; all thanks to an old girlfriend who brought it to my attention. Ever read Futility by W. Gerhardie?

As for northern, one can't ignore Priestley; Lost Empires, Bright Day, and Angel Pavement are ones I have on my shelves.

RCB

 

That's before you progressed on to Health and Efficiency and Parade, no doubt!

 

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
Down and Out in Paris And London - George Orwell OR Papillon - Henri Charrière (but not sure if you can truly class these two as novels).

 

Indeed there are, and I certainly couldn't narrow my favourites down to a permanent top-3. Powell would be the constant, but mood, circumstances, location, etc. would all play a part.

On another day I would, quite genuinely, put in Proust, even though the narrator at times exasperates me as much as our current owners exasperate some of the posters here! And on yet another day, I'd stretch the terms of the question a bit, and stick in Pepys' Diary. I finished the complete set a few months ago, and few works have given me as much pleasure as that.

RCB

 

As @Bigrod mentions, there are thousands of good books out there. I suppose as well - anybody's favourite three novels could change depending on the mood they are in when asked the question.

For me -

Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh
It - Stephen King
The Beach - Alex Garland

(although the above are subject to change )

 

Thinking about the fire led me to thinking about war, and how indeed to describe one's experiences. And that led me to re-read In Parenthesis, by David Jones. For my current mood, it would go into the top-3.

For this modern age, I'd put Wilfrid Owen at the top of the list of war poets, but I'd put Jones' work at the top of the list of writings about war. It is part poetry/poem, part prose/novel; part myth-history, part history; part invention, part the story of his WWI experience; it is an incredibly moving, remarkable piece of work.

RCB

 

I can't say my best three novels, unfortunately ............
Back in 1977 I started (and finished) a Five book series (which continued growing !!) covered by the title 'Herne the Hunter' Penned by 'John J McLaglen'..... The old wild west.
I later followed this with the RATS trilogy from James Herbert. (Rats, Lair and Domain)
Since then, a great series (The main character reminds me of FROST as a cop) ...... From Mark Billingham, featuring Insp Thorne as the central character.

I actually didn't begin reading until about 1975, when I became almost 'addicted' to Harrold Robbins. Since then, I've read many novels, but some stick with you more than others. Although an ex squaddie - I was not overly enamoured by Sven Hassel, though his books were well written.

 

Razzle- summer of 93
Jo guest

Apparently 80 pages according to my brother could only read 59