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Amongst fictional private eyes, those vices are probably as common as fingernail biting. Contrasted with a PI like Neil Fargo in Joe Gores' Interface, or Hammett's own Continental Op, Sam Spade would be a boyscout in comparison. A lot of the greatest hardboiled/noir fiction doesn't always...

Angela Carter - The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman. I haven't read the book (yet), but the title is intriguing.

Not counting re-reads, the best books I read in 2010 were: Jose Saramago - Blindness Thomas Pynchon - Vineland Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird

"Whole sight; or all the rest is desolation" - John Fowles, Daniel Martin

I couldn't decide which book to cut from my list to make it a top 5, so my list has 6: Philip K. Dick - Ubik Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination Arthur C. Clarke - Rendezvous with Rama Isaac Asimov - The Caves of Steel John Wyndham - Day of the Triffids Frank Herbert - Dune

While I'm reading a book I'll usually have some idea about which one I want to read next. I wouldn't want to plan out a whole year's reading in order, though. I find that often I get diverted by library books, which end up jumping the queue because of the due date. I think I need to stay...

^ I'd agree with Swag and Out of Sight. I lost interest in Cuba Libre and didn't finish it; maybe it's a love-it-or-hate-it novel. Some other good ones: - I started reading Leonard with Rum Punch and went on to read many others by him, so I'd call that an endorsement as a good starting...

I'm cautiously interested. I immensely enjoyed many of his earlier novels, but his last one, Until I Find You, was a big navel-gazing mess.

I've had similar bad reactions from people when I mention science fiction novels, and I think part of the cause is that the impression some people have of SF as a genre is largely defined by TV and movies rather than books, and unfortunately, SF TV and movies are all too often cheesy/geeky/juvenile.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three by John Godey. Been curious to read this since seeing the 70s movie version, and found that it's been reprinted as a tie-in with the remake of the movie. No idea whether the remake is any good (they usually aren't), but cheers to it for leading to the book...

Some titles I can remember: Lord of the Flies by William Golding The Pearl by John Steinbeck The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton "On the Sidewalk Bleeding" (short story) - Evan Hunter Macbeth and Othello - Shakespeare The Cay - Theodore Taylor All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque Go...

The thing I like best about used bookstores is finding books that I've never seen before due to the books being long out-of-print. I don't like to walk into a used bookstore and find mountains of recent books that you can get anywhere. The thing I like least about some used bookstores is slow...

"The dead cop came drifting in towards the Birmingham control zone at a height of some three thousand metres." - Bob Shaw, Terminal Velocity

I think the Dune series works best when you just look at the first two Frank Herbert books - Dune and Dune Messiah. The rest of Frank Herbert's sequels from Children of Dune to Chapterhouse Dune are occasionally interesting, but are nowhere near the quality of the first novel, and you can skip...

Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton. The movie version was renamed The 13th Warrior, which doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison

Keen to read this one. I've read and enjoyed some of Perrotta's earlier novels - Election, Joe College and The Wishbones.

Jack Kerouac, On The Road. I found the story just meandered, with nothing that made me want to keep reading. John Irving, Setting Free The Bears. I usually like Irving's novels, and usually finish his books even if they're below par (like the bloated Until I Find You). The first section of...

I first read Rendezvous with Rama years ago, and liked it a lot - a great story, mysterious, compelling and eerie. By contrast, I found Rama II to be a load of soap-opera junk. It was so bad, I wonder whether it was actually all by Gentry Lee, and Clarke's name was there to entice readers...

"The transient barracks at Norfolk Naval Base are deserted at nine this morning, or almost deserted; Billy Bad-Ass, First Class Signalman, is asleep in the TV room at the far end of the barracks." Darryl Ponicsan, The Last Detail