Gimme Ten

[darren_stranger]

Though i usually hate the incessant polls and quizzes that proliferate on
usenet and el-Jay, i'll make an exception when it can be used for the
purposes of self-interested personal gain.

So..

- Name ten books i ought to read.

- Name ten films i ought to see.

Thanking you in advance.

Comments

[mr-e-cat.livejournal.com]

hmmm 10 books
ok so these books are not books I have liked so much as books which have affected me in someway.
Books which made me stop and look at the world in a different way.
Films are the same.
although I suspect you have already read and seen them.
book/film

1) Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance / The world according to Garp
2)Hamlet /fight club
3)The collected stories of Sherlock Holmes / True Grit
4)to kill a mockingbird / Mississippi Burning
5) shogun / bladerunner
6)Mythagos wood / a clockwork orange
7)comrade don camillo /full metal jacket

You know in about ten minutes I'll remember a lot more.

[mr-e-cat.livejournal.com]

King Rat by James Clavell not the one by china melvile

[redcountess]

(you've probably read/seen most of these already)

Books:

1. Complete Works of Shakespeare
2. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
3. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
4. Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
5. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
6. Man in the Grey Flannel Suit - Sloan Wilson
7. Twelve Angry Men (actually a play) - Reginald Rose
8. Lost Souls - Poppy Z Brite
9. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
10. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Films:

1. It's a Wonderful Life
2. High Fidelity
3. Almost Famous
4. Roman Holiday
5. It Happened One Night
6. Grand Hotel
7. The Fifth Element
8. Pulp Fiction
9. Some Like It Hot
10. The Apartment

[bar-bar-ella.livejournal.com]

Books:
Orlando - Virginia Woolf
Hamlet - Wee Willy Shakespeare
Letters To Alice - Fay Weldon
Billy - Pamela Stephenson
If Chins Could Kill - Bruce Campbell
Crazy From The Heat - David Lee Roth
Death Sentence - Don Watson
A Study In Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (it's the first Sherlock Holmes story)
Poems From Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
Another Country - Julian Mitchell

Movies:
The Odd Couple (original)
Amadeus
Lawrence of Arabia
Suburbia (original)
Three Kings (every war needs its war movie... the first Iraqui war has a classic)
Cabaret
Better Off Dead
Billy Elliott
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
Reservoir Dogs

Many you've probably read or seen but...

[txxxpxx.livejournal.com]

Books:
Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Silmarilion - Tolkien
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
Wheel of Time (Books 1-10) - Robert Jordan
Red Dwarf Omnibus - Grant Naylor
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Macbeth - If you don't know, you're in trouble
The Music of Razors - Cameron Rogers (hey lets support our own here)
You Can Heal Your Life - Louise Hay
And I Don't Want to Live This Life - Deborah Spungen

Film:
LotR trilogy - has to be done
Bad Taste - see how far Jackson has come
StarWars
Breakfast at Tiffanys
Withnail & I
Blood Diner (if only for the doughnut head scene)
Mad Max 1
The Grinch
Tribes of Melbourne (Doco really, not film)
Seven

[fraerie.livejournal.com]

OK, firstly I'm going to include entire series as a single line item...

Name ten books I ought to read

1. The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy (5 books at last count)
- Douglas Adams
His turn of phrase is a wonder to behold, the story captures
the imagination on so many levels.
2. Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams
Because while he does comedy, he also cares deeply about the
world we inhabit.
3. The Shape of Snakes - Minette Walters
Fiction, but it does a decent job of exploring how many people
allow everyday prejudice to shape their reality - to the harm
of others.
4. The Winter King/Enemy of God/Excalibur - Bernard Cornwell
A non-romatic exploration of the Arthur myth.
5. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
Underrated and small cousin to The Lord of the Rings.
6. When We Were Very Young - AA Milne
Innocent wonder of childhood.
7. Gridiron - Philip Kerr
Believable AI technology gone wrong.
8. Red/Blue/Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
Slow at times, but an interesting exploration of the issues of
terraforming and ecological balance.
9. The Star Faction - Ken MacLeod
Covers much of the same ground as Stephenson's Snowcrash from
an very different perspective.
10. The Night Watch - Terry Pratchett
Dark and comedic by turn, his most mature novel to date, set in
his Discworld universe


Name ten films I ought to see.

1. The Road to Eldorado (2000)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138749/
Mature animation and a good story with many layers.
2. The Blues Brothers (1980)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080455/
a cult classic
3. Bob Roberts (1992)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103850/
satire about US politics
4. LA Confidential (1997)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119488/
for Russell Crowe and Guy Peirce doing awful American accents
5. The Usual Suspects (1995)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114814/
great piece for disemblers
6. Hamlet (1996) - the 4 hour Kenneth Branagh version
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116477/
it is a great pice of theatre
7. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100519/
for the other side of the Hamlet story
8. Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160611/
a great caper film
9. Paths of Glory (1957)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050825/
the futility of war
10. Unbreakable (2000)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0217869/
an examination of modern myth making

[velvetclaw.livejournal.com]

These are more 'some of my all time favourites' rather than
worthies that I feel I or others should read.

Bob Flanagan - SuperMasochist
editors A Juno and V Vale

Bob had cystic fibrosis and was doomed for an early death.
Rather than letting the disease have entire control of his
body, he took back some control by becoming a masochist. Rather
a lot of piercing involved. He was also an artist.
You might have seen the doco that was in the cinemas 3 or 4 years
ago

The HandMaiden
Margaret Atwood

Society gone a little wrong. Fertility problems cause the re-introduction of women as chattels.

I think that you would really enjoy her book of poetry "Good Bones and
Simple Murders". Everything from "My Life as a Bat" to a beautifully written poem on consumerism.

The Immortals
Tracy Hickman

Society gone awfully wrong. I always cry at the end of this book.

Mythago Wood
Robert Holdstock

Already mentioned I know - but worth mentioning again. There are two sequels - not as good simply because the concept in the original book is what makes it so stunning - the plot is almost secondary. While I'm here, I'll put in a vote for Gaiman's American Gods as well (and the rest of his novels)

And the Ass Saw The Angel
Nick Cave

already mentioned? I can't remember - writing off-line. So very very
lyrical.

Iain Banks (or Iain M. Banks for his scifi/fantasy)

I haven't liked his last 5 or so novels, but the earlier stuff is absolutely brilliant.

If you haven't read him - The Wasp Factory (not easy to sum up), or The Crow Road
(brilliant discussions on atheism and starts with an exploding grandmother), or
Espedair St ("the funniest truest rock biopic yet")

or on the fantasy side, rather than making a long list because there are so many great ones, Consider Phlebas - a man
with the ability to shape change who has an identity crisis (no it isn't 'funny'. I hate comic stuff. Witty yes, funny no).

The scene with the Cannibal King on the island, who has the
interchangeable metal dentures for eating various parts of the human anatomy, and what he forces his subjects to do, is fairly unforgettable.
Whatever you do, don't start with "Fearsum Enjin". The entire damn book is spelt phonetically! Those poor editors!

anything by Christopher Fowler

Urban splatter punk horror tinged with fantasy, and a lot of the history of London thrown in. C.F. is one cool but twisted dude.

Jonathon Aycliffe
The Vanishment

The scariest ghost story I've ever read. The denouement (sp?) is stuck as an image in my head forever, I think.

Any book on Natural Cat Care, if you haven't read one

No I'm not suggesting reading up on how to practise chiropractics on your cat
(I've seen a book on that). Just information on what goes into commercial cat food, their nutritional requirements, breeding habits, and simple home health tips. (Dandruff = put I-forget-which oil in their food, for example and check out for food/environmental sensitivies)

There's a good one (with "natural cat care" somewhere in the title) in the Yarra/Melbourne library network - it lives at the Richmond branch I think., but you can always reserve it)
Guaranteed to put you off feeding your furry ones tinned cat food forever.
I've also actually, really seen a book on "How to Knit a Jumper using Your Dog's Hair"
That's stuck in my head in a similar area to the scene from the Jonathon Aycliffe novel, I think! :-)

[morgan303.livejournal.com]

Here’s mine, off the top of my head, and in no particular order.
Books
1.Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco. By the author of Name of the Rose, a really engrossing book about a lot of things; ideas, history, secret societies, you name it. Super.
2.Sexing the Cherry - Jeanette Winterson. Or anything she's written. Bit of a modern decadent, her recent stuff leaves a bit to be desired, but her earlier work is just lovely.
3.Labyrinths - Jorge Luis Borges. Extraordinary short stories by one of the greatest writers ever.
4.The Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami. Kinda Neal Stephenson-y poetic cyberpunk-ish novel by a celebrated Japanese author. Really, really good read. His other books are great, too.
5.The Music of Razors - Cameron Rogers. Described by the editors of The year’s best Fantasy and Horror as one of the top three novels published internationally in the fantasy/horror genre when it came out. People you know have most likely read this; the most recent piece of fan mail read “Nothing I have read since has moved me as much”. Everyone I know who’s read it raves. Neil Gaiman certainly did. (http://www.cameron-rogers.com/)
6.The Invisibles - Grant Morrison. It's a comic. It's incredible.
7.Anything by Lawrence Block, most especially the Matt Scudder series, which starts with The Sins of the Fathers. Crime fiction author who writes about five different series, very different and all really good. Matt Scudder's an alcoholic ex-cop who does detective work on the side. They're not as bleak as all that (though they have their moments), and as well as being super-good detective stories, they're richly descriptive studies of hosts of characters and the city of New York. When I open one up I feel like I'm coming home.
8.TAZ - Hakim Bey. Actually, you can get it online, here (http://www.hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont.html). Lyrical and lovely text on poetic terrorism and creative activist philosophy.
9.No Logo - Naomi Klein. Cause everyone should. Even though it's a little out of date now, it's still plenty interesting.
10.Fleurs de Mal – Baudelaire. Because Baudelaire rocks.:)

Movies
1.Wings of Desire - stunningly beautiful film by Wim Wenders, centring around two angels in Berlin. Nick Cave's in it, too.:)
2.Brotherhood of the Wolf - awesome French period drama/supernatural horror/monster/martial arts flick. yes it sounds dreadful. No, it isn't.
3.Velvet Goldmine - Todd Haines' love song to Glam. You don't really have to like glam to enjoy this, but it helps.
4.Spirited Away (or Princess Mononoke, or My Neighbour Totoro, or anything else by Miyazaki Hayao) Japanese animated film that blew Titanic out of the charts in its home country. See my journal for Miyazaki's thoughts on it, but it's magical, beautiful, and sweet without being cloying. Everything by this guy is great.
5.Beauty and the Beast - Jean Cocteau. Beautiful French Symbolist film.
6.Jacob's Ladder - Hollywood arthouse from the late 80s. Gut wrenching, uplifting, scary, pretty much all-round good.
7.Kama Sutra - Sensual, lovely Indian film. Less about sex than you'd think, but so's the Kama Sutra.
8.Hero - Zhang Yimou film starring Jet Li. See it if you liked Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. It's in the same ballpark. Very, very lovely.
9.The Cat's Meow - Fun 20's flick starring Kirsten Dunst and Eddie Izzard in a fictional tale based on the mysterious death of a Hollywood director on board William Randolph Hearst's boat.
10.The Red Violin - Multinational flick about the lifetime of the last violin made by a legendary craftsman.

Man, what a collection of hyperbole. I guess I feel pretty strongly about a few of these. I hope you find something you can enjoy here. I'm going to steal this idea for my own journal; it's a good'un.:)