Valis

[gilgamesh]

How about Phillip K. Dicks book VALIS? (rather focus on the VALIS book instead of the trilogy)

The parts about confronting an irrational god with a dead cat will stick with me for a long time. Of course there is also the pink rays from the ancient satellite. (which also became lyrics in a Clutch song). The movie he watches in the book reminds of a certain approach to visual story telling that manipulates the audience.
The beginning of the book started slow and disjointed and grew into strange profundity for me.

[Gilliganista!]

There was a previous "Valis" thread in the Main Forum some months back:

http://forum.lostpedia.com/valis-t10...ighlight=Valis

I haven't read the book yet but it does sound fascinating!

[Sam McPherson]

Well, let's have our own book-club-exclusive thread. Frankly, I loved it. I agree with gilgamesh, the dead cat disproving a rational god was absolutely amazing. It's one of the most theologically probing books I've ever read.

It also got me hooked on Philip K. Dick's works as a whole. I've read Martian Time-Slip and am reading Counter-Clock World both of which are excellent. Great reads for any Lost fan.

I also recently bought Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Uldrich, The Man in the High Castle and The Divine Invasion (all by Dick), though I haven't read them yet. As it turns out, The Divine Invasion is the first of two sequels to Valis.

[TropicalBlush]

I really wanted to like this book, but I just REALLY struggled to get into it... I gave up about half way through...

[richmondpinch]

Sam if you've read VALIS and enjoyed it and you have Ubik, Palmer Eldritch and High Castle to come well I envy you!

IMO those are his three best novels and the ones I'd recommend to anyone who has never read PKD.

[PatrickMM]

I'd highly recommend checking out Radio Free Albemuth, which was the rough draft version of Valis. It's less personal than the final product, but is better in some ways and well worth evaluation as an independent work.