The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov.
The VERY best book I've ever read has to be -
1. Cormac McCarthy's ' Blood Meridian ' or ' The Evening Redness In The West ' .
2. Cormac McCarthy - The Border Trilogy , All The Pretty Horses , The Crossing , Cities Of The Plain .
3. Louis De Bernieres South American Trilogy - The War Of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts , Senor Vivo and The Coca Lord , The Troublesome Offspring Of Cardinal Guzman
4. David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas
5. David Mitchell - The Bone Clocks
6. Iris Murdoch - The Sea The Sea
7. Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall , Bring Up The Bodies
8. Umberto Eco - Foucault's Pendulum
9. Anthony Burgess - Earthly Powers
10. Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger
There are loads more , those are just a few that spring to mind .
The book I have read 3 times, is "Misery", by Stephen King- I love it and will be reading it again at some point!!
Another book that I really enjoyed was, The Wasp Factory, by Iain Banks.
The Devil of Nanking and Pig Island by Mo Hayder, (which are her stand alone books), I thought they were brilliant.
I do also love her detective series, with Jack Caffery, which don't hide away from really dark subject matters.
I have every book that Iain Banks ever wrote as Iain Banks and around 6 which he wrote as Iain M Banks [ his Science Fiction novels , his middle name was ' Menzies '] - now , if you enjoyed ' The Wasp Factory ' you'll enjoy his other novels , the best of which [ in my opinion ] is ' Transition ' - the first book of his I ever read was ' Complicity ' [ another good one ] -
When he died in in June 2013 I had just come out of hospital where I'd come very close to death myself , I'd contracted sepsis and the Doctors in Paisley [ where I'd been flown to and where ' Espedair Street ' is set ] told my wife to prepare my Family for my passing , I was on a life support machine for over 3 weeks and hooked up to dialysis too [ my kidney , lungs and eventually my heart packed in ] - I was in hospital for 3 months and it took over 18 months to fully recover , learn to walk again etc etc and in that time I thought about life and death a lot - I'd seen the interview with Kirsty Wark and it had quite an effect on me - I bought every one of his books and decided that I'd savour them , I've not read them all , I was trying to leave the best till last so to speak thinking it could be ' The Wasp Factory ' or ' The Bridge ' [ Banks' personal favourite ] but although I had a 1st ed copy of The Wasp Factory at home on Skye I found a paperback copy in a charity shop in Elgin where we're living for 9 months while our son studies Drama so I succumbed early . Personally , I found it slightly disappointing [ he wrote it in his early 20s ] and in my opinion he's written better books but it's still a classic Banks novel .
I've still to read ' Walking On Glass ' , ' Canal Dreams ' and ' The Bridge ' , of the ones I have read I'd rate...
1. Transition .
2. The Crow Road .
3. Espedair Street .
4. Complicity .
Joint 5th
5. Dead Air
5. The Steep Approach To Garbadale .
I found ' Song Of Stone ' too depressing , Stonemouth is good as is Whit , The Business , I think he was just going through the motions and I'll forgive him The Quarry as he was ill when writing .
I'm Welsh by birth , grew up on Anglesey but I've lived in Scotland for the past 32 years , I love it up here , love the people and the way of life .
Here's that interview with Kirsty Wark if you're interested , he was a lovely lovely man was Iain Banks .
I read most if not all of the Culture series, incredibly complex and everything fitted together.
Add believable characters plus consistently logical, no cop outs or short cuts.
I have around half a dozen Culture books , part of the reason I haven't read any of them is I thought I'd have to begin at the beginning [ would that be ' Consider Phlebas ' ? ] and because I'm a collector of books and tend to stick to hardback copies only I discovered I couldn't afford his first Sci Fi novel !data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7, daft I know , one day I'll have to buy a paperback copy and begin reading his Sci Fi books.
I have been out of the habit of reading books for a long time, mostly with moving around and some health issues.
This thread is making my page turning finger itchy.
Our permanent home is on Skye but we're renting a place just outside of Elgin for 9 months while our boy studies HNC Drama - he has Asperger's so needs a bit of support - I brought a few bags of books along with me to read but I still visit the occasional charity shop looking for a bargain - my wife counted my books around 5 years ago when rearranging the house , it was 3000back then so it probably stands at around a few hundred more now .data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Sorry to hear about your health problems [ had a few myselfof late ] - just a matter of getting on with things and try not to let them upset you too much .
Well I'm very glad to hear that you're now fully recovered as it sounds like it was a truly awful time for you all https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/joypixels/[email protected]/png/64/1f614.png
Song of stone was the only other one I read and to be honest, I just didn't like it at all, so haven't, yet, read any of his others....
Is there another particular favourite of yours that I should try next?
Skye is beautiful btw- I used to spend a lot of time in a wee village near Kyle of Lochalsh when I was a child....
True Scottish wilderness and so incredibly beautiful....
I just couldn't bear the midges!!
Song Of Stone was quite depressing , was the second one of his I read [ either that one or Complicity ] - hisfeel-good novels are ' The Crow Road ' , ' The Long Road To Garbadale ' ,' Stonemouth ' , ' Whit ' and ' The Quarry ' .
His best in my opinion is ' Transition ' which could actually be considered as one of his Sci Fi novels , it's a very well thought out story .
The sepsis happened in December 2012 until March 2013 - I was home 3 months before I discovered how close I'd come to dying , they had to revive me when my heart stopped for so long the Doctors told my wife that should I live I would suffer from permanent brain damage , but apart from a little memory loss I'm perfectly fine . It was my family who suffered most , I was totally unaware how ill I'd been [ well , I had an idea ! ] .
I worked on the Kyleakin Ferry from '88 - '95 - the village could be Balmacara or if going towards Plockton it could have been Erbusaig . We live in the south of Skye .