It's hard to get through collections of Lovecraft. They're always kind of shoddily assembled. Good stories to start with include the Colour Out of Space, the Hands of Erich Zann and Pickman's Model.

The collection he loaned me is Dagon and Other Macabre Tales. It includes "Herbert West - Re-animator," which I'm excited to read.

Some gems in there. Cool, poetic Bizarro histories and the brilliant Supernatural Horror in Literature which will make you salivate over several probably unreadable Gothic novels that will never get reprinted.

Peter F Hamilton can roll out excellent Sci Fi novels, anyone who likes the genre should check out his Nights Dawn trilogy.

Preferred genre is Fantasy, especially Tolkien and Robert Jordans Wheel of Time series.