Apolyton Recommends

[Guynemer]

The Stupidest Angel (A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror) is also quite good, and probably the quickest read of the Moore books. But it has so many characters from his other books (The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove; The Island of the Sequined Love-Nun; Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal) that it's really a big treat for longtime readers, and not as good for first-timers.

[monolith94]

Read The Maimed.

[Felch]

Check out some Chuck Palahniuk. Choke was just made into a movie, Survivor is great, Invisible Monsters ditto.

Don't bother with Fight Club. The movie was faithful enough, only missing a few bits here and there.

[Jon Miller]

OK, will leave to the book store soon. Will probably pick up 5 or so to go with the physics book/Bible/Spin which I already own and am bringing.

JM

[Jon Miller]

So far list to look at:

All books/authors I have thought about reading in the last couple of years:
Christopher Moore (well, I wondered what it was about, to be honest, I hadn't thought about purchasing it yet)
Patrick O'Brian
C.S. Forrester
Pillar's of the Earth
Watchmen!
Cyptonomicon

Ones I hadn't thought of in the past couple of years:
I, Claudius
King Solomon's Mines
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Master of Tea
The Maimed
Palaniuk

JM

[Kuciwalker]

No ! in the title of Watchmen.

[Guynemer]

I enjoy Palahniuk in small doses. Reading a book straight through, as one might do on vacation, can be a punishing experience when Chuck is the author.

[Jon Miller]

I purchased:

First Horatio Book
Master and Commander
Watchmen
Pillar's of the Earth
Dirty Job (read part of at the bookstore, decided I liked it)
Blood Sucking Fiends
Cyptonomicon
I, Claudius
King Solomon's Mines

JM

[Lancer]

Let us know how you like them.

[Guynemer]

Good choices all around. EDIT: I suppose I should have mentioned that A Dirty Job also features supporting characters from other Moore books, primarily Blood Sucking Fiends, so you may want to start with that one. There is another character from Coyote Blue (another personal favorite), but his backstory isn't as important as the BSF characters.

[Traianvs]

I, Claudius is a masterpiece. Really. And that comes from an archaeologist who is totally into Roman history and culture.

[Ramo]

Christopher Moore is awesome. My favorite is Lamb (though, A Dirty Job comes close).

[Boris Godunov]

I, Claudius: All you really need to do is watch the BBC series with Derek Jacobi. Masterful

[Seedle]

Originally posted by Traianvs
I, Claudius is a masterpiece. Really.

I agree fully. But I would say, that, imo, it is not a light read. But it does reward multiple read-throughs. Just make sure you pay attention when reading, it jumps around in time a bit near the beginning, and the family tree is Byzantine, so you have to keep track of what's going on.

Anyway, glad you picked up both of my recommendations. Now hopefully you don't find them both horrible.

And KSM's is a fairly light read, an adventure story. SOOOOOO good. Though it is a book written by a white guy in the 1800's about Africa, so if you're a ultra-knee-jerk liberal, (which I don't think you are) you could be offended. But you'd have to be really over-sensitive, it's actually a very,very progressive book for its time.

[Seedle]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
I, Claudius: All you really need to do is watch the BBC series with Derek Jacobi. Masterful

I haven't seen the series, but you really do need to read the book, it's beyond awesome. But the TV version might well be mind-blowing as well.