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With or without the M? All Iain Banks fans welcome here.

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Groundhog Jun 2020 4:40pm, 21 Jun 2020 881 posts	0 Groundhog Consider Phlebus is the only one I've read twice. I think I intended to re-read all of his then got struck with guilt at the number of books I own but haven't read yet. I used to keep track of my owned and read books with an app I could scan bok barcodes with. That app no longer exists, but does anyone else use such a thing?
mrs shanksi Jun 2020 4:47pm, 21 Jun 2020 10,853 posts	0 mrs shanksi I use Goodreads to keep track Groundhog but I just search for the book title rather than scan them in. Am I the only person who never reads the same book twice? I feel there are always too many books I want to read and too little time.
McGoohan Jun 2020 5:50pm, 21 Jun 2020 45,866 posts	0 McGoohan Banks is the only writer I've re-read more times than I can count. I have re-read some other favourites by other authors.
RunnyBunny Jun 2020 6:03pm, 21 Jun 2020 1,057 posts	0 RunnyBunny The Crow Road is one of my favourite books ever. I can take or leave The Wasp Factory, and enjoyed The Quarry. I tried Consider Phlebus but didn't get further than a few pages in. Ought to read more of them really.
quimby Jun 2020 6:24pm, 21 Jun 2020 4,636 posts	0 quimby I think I have read most non-M books, but quite a long time ago. Might be time for a re-read. I tried an M - might have been Consider Phlebas? But didn't get on with it at all. But that was probably 20 years ago, so willing to have another go at one of the Ms. With regard to barcode scanning, I catalogue my books at Librarything.com. I bought a CueCat from them - a USB barcode scanner, and went through a massive project of scanning all the books some years ago. I don't so much bother with the scanner now, as I can enter a trickle of books easily manually.
JenL Jun 2020 6:28pm, 21 Jun 2020 27,902 posts	0 JenL I actively disliked the Wasp Factory because I guessed the "twist" really early in the book but persisted with it hoping I was going to be wrong, so I was sort of disappointed twice. I think Joanne Harris handled that much better in Gentlemen and Players, which I was surprised to have liked so much because I loathed Chocolat. I loved The Crow Road, and quite liked Complicity and Whit. I hated Espedair Street: it seemed to consist of everything that irritates me about young men and I actually wanted to slap the book for being so predictable and pedestrian. I could take or leave A Song of Stone, This thread reminds me there are still lots of Banks books I haven't tried, and I haven't read any of the M ones. Alan Warner: I loved Morvern Callar but found Sopranos a disappointment and haven't read anything else by him since.
LindsD Jun 2020 9:20pm, 21 Jun 2020 38,186 posts	0 LindsD I am a recent convert to the M ones and have loved the two I have read: Player of Games and Use of Weapons.
McGoohan Jun 2020 9:42pm, 21 Jun 2020 45,870 posts	0 McGoohan Linds, can I suggest Inversions? Lots of people don't like it to be fair, but I love it: two parallel stories that have a slightly tangential link. The twist is subtly buried in two words on p272. I can't even tell you why I'm recommending it. (Liebling was very indifferent to it but had missed the reveal.)
LindsD Jun 2020 9:43pm, 21 Jun 2020 38,190 posts	0 LindsD Thank you. I'm reading and loving The Dutch House (Patchett) atm but will cue up Inversions next.
MsG Jun 2020 10:08pm, 21 Jun 2020 1,666 posts	0 MsG I prefer the M books, haven't finished his last book as then there would be nothing left (as a couple of others said). My favourite was probably Excession due to my fondness for the Culture ships. I also didn't finish Surface Detail as the subject matter and overall bleakness was just too much for me. One of my favourite twitter accounts is twitter.com Probably time to start re-reading them.