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Well read? Well… read, anyway.

13 July 2009 28 views Comments

Inspired by a conversation on Twitter between me, @mooley, and peripherally @neonwombat, here’s a list of my top ten books.  I’ll qualify this by stating that I wrote this list whilst not in front of my bookshelf, or with any attempt at recollection of which books I’ve got stack up in boxes in Adelaide.  Arguments about anything on this list are happily welcomed, particularly on the basis of me having declared something to be in my “top 10 books” list previously and then having omitted it here.

  1. Last Chance To See – Douglas Adams
  2. Axis Of Time (trilogy) – John Birmingham
  3. Lord of the Rings (trilogy)- JRR Tolkien
  4. Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (“trilogy”) – Douglas Adams
  5. Join Me – Danny Wallace
  6. He Died With A Felafel In His Hand – John Birmingham
  7. Big Bang – Simon Singh
  8. The God Delusion – Richard Dawkins
  9. Armed Madhouse: Who’s Afraid of Osama Wolf?, The Best Legal Whorehouse in Texas, No Child’s Behind Left and Other Tales of Class Combat in a Dying Regime – Greg Palast
  10. The Ode Less Travelled – Stephen Fry

Yes, trilogies count as a single book.

  • Excellent list - at least half of which just got added to my "To-read" pile. :)
  • Oh COCK! I knew this would happen - I left something off the list! This is where it gets tricky...

    I definitely need to get Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson onto the list, but who gets sacrificed??

    Plus I've been informed that you're not allowed to count trilogies as a single book, which I think's a bit unfair given that a trilogy is primarily divided up for convenience, deadline & marketing reasons, however ultimately follows a couple of primary and continuous story arcs.

    Of course, by that definition I guess Harry Potter would be a trilogy, which I suspect it really isn't.
  • Charlie
    Actually, having further thought about it.

    Split your lists into Fiction & non fiction?
  • But then that wouldn't be my top ten books, would it? It'd be my top 20.
  • Charlie
    You've got 2 John Birmingham books there ...

    What about Neil Gaiman?

    It's a hard decision
  • Hey Jason, this is an excellent top ten list. "Lord of the Rings" and "Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy" are in my top ten too, I'm kind of a fantasy and sci-fi nut. I found you through Twitter and am now following you, we are @toptentopten. You can cross-post this to our site http://www.toptentopten.com/ and link back to your site. We are trying to create a directory for top ten lists where people can find your site. The coolest feature is you can let other people vote on the rankings of your list.
  • Charlie
    I think Last Chance to See is one of the most emotive and wonderful books I have ever read and it's a pity that more people have not read it.
  • I agree, and am hugely looking forward to seeing the "20 years on" series that Stephen Fry's filmed with Mark Carwardine retracing the steps of the original journey.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/lastchancetosee/sites/abou...
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