There's an old 'music books' thread here that should help you http://www.cluas.com/discussion/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5827 As for Orwell and Dostoevsky: Orwell's essays and his non-fiction are excellent: try 'Down and Out in Paris and London', his tale of slumming it in these two cities. Any collection of his essays is well worth having. 'Notes From Underground' by Doestoevsky is excellent - and it's short! For something a bit lighter for your holidays, how about something by Flann O'Brien or John Irving or 'A Confederacy of Dunces' by John Kennedy Toole or 'Lucky Jim' by Kingsley Amis or the Jeeves & Wooster books by PG Wodehouse.....

orwell is brilliant, he wrote a book about burma which you should pick up. Highly recommend "Dispatches" by Michael Herr, best book written about the vietnam war, and youll love the bit where he describes hearing hendrix for the first time. "THe Sorrow of War" is kick ass too, written by a VC special forces dude, amazing writing. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance i think by Pirsig is kick ass, One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey is mind blowingly good, Catch 22, Stoned and Stoned 2 by Andrew Loog oldham are decent Anything by Hemmingway, try Farewell to Arms, then For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man of the Sea. thats all i can think of at the mo

actually frankenstein is a really good book if you havent read it

Some really good advice there thanks all

glue porno trainspotting and filth by irvine welsh. hilarious books. picture of dorian gray is my most favourite book at the moment.oscar wildes only novel i think. perfume by Patrick Süskind is pretty interesting altough very weird.

At Swim two birds by FLann O' Brien is the one getting all the nods recently (silly lost reference aside its a good book), the Burmese Orwell book is called Burmese Days though my memory of it is a bit blurry its not his best and does not give us much to engage with in terms of empathy. I read Candide by Voltaire and it seriously made me feel better due to its absurdity despite the measly 100 pages. I'd bring Lord of the Flies for the irony value

it's a holiday - some easy literature is what you want... leave the hi-brow stuff for when you come home again when you should read anything from samuel beckett's mid-period, all of flann o'brien, infinite jest by david foster wallace, lanark by alasdair gray etc.. etc..... ...go with catch 22 - it'll have you laughing out loud

Catch 22 is brilliant, but a hard read all the same.. once i got into it i couldnt put it down. One of my favourite Orwell books is "Coming up for Air", Burmese days is pretty decent as well.

East of Eden by Steinback or The Secret History by Donna Tarrt. 2 easy enough reads and fairly un put downable.

Anything by Chuck Palahniuk is a good read - especially for holidays - would recommend Choke, Haunted or Survivor. Down and Out in London and Paris is also great, as is Perfume, which have been recommended above. Would also recommend London Fields by Martin Amis, Speed/Kentucky Ham by William S. Burroughs Jnr, A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway and The Wrong Side of Paris by Honore De Balzac - also anything by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Favourite book of all time though is Papillion by Henri Charriere - a truly life changing book!

dromed, papillion is class isnt it? f**king loved that book, theres a follow up too, think its called banco! very good read as well, what a life that dude had. oh n junky by william burroughs is really really good, as is doors of perception/heaven and hell by huxley, if you liked 1984 read brave new world by huxley too, gotta find me some of that soma!

i reckon catch-22 isn't all that hard a read as it's too hilarious... if you go into it with absurdism on the brain, then you should be ok... dose up on some david shrigley or eugene ionesco first

Catch 22 is fantastic, just sheer genius. I was amazed to read the book was turned down by over 20 publishers. Recently read On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Good book, was expecting better. Bit mind boggling at times.

For an easy read, Id recommend "McCarthys Bar".. no brain crunching here, just a humourous story of one english mans trip around irish pubs with his name on them

Would Highly recommend "54" by Wu Ming. Set mostly in Italy and Yougoslavia in 1954 and with cold war politics and politics in general as a backdrop it inlcudes Cary Grant,Lucky Luciano and Tito among the people involved as well as a host of other people and is very engaging and clever book.

'Down and Out...' is fantastic. Orwell is probably the most economical writer EVER. Legend. I don't read much fiction, so if you're into non-fiction, I'd highly (HIGHLY) recommend: 'Female Chauvinist Pigs' by Ariel Levy 'Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx'' by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 'Hiroshima' by John Hersey 'The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down' by Anne Fadiman on the fiction side of things, I've recently finished 'I Am Charlotte Simmons' by Tom Wolfe, which is just fantastic. Also, 'Life After God' and this first half of 'Girlfriend In A Coma' by Doughlas Coupland, 'Atomised' and 'Platform' by Michel Houelbecq (am reading his new one 'The Possibility of an Island' at the moment, not really feeling it) are all really worth a look. And for a bit of trash, I read 'Bling' by Erica Kennedy recently. It's a pretty funny novel based on a Russell Simmons-type and his Beyonce-type protege. But the writers I always return to are Graham Greene, Hunter S Thompson, JM Coetzee and John McGahern - anything by them is gold.

"Orwell is probably the most economical writer EVER. Legend." i don't know how to do that quote thing - how crap am i? anyway, he's not - samuel beckett is... and i only point this out because you put "ever" in capital letters ah, i dunno - it's not as if i devour books... but i find good holiday books are the more plot based literature... not low-brow stuff, just easily accessible story based stuff