Books

[Bobbybirdtree]

Does anyone here read (gasp) books? Some of my favorites were the Indian In the Cupboard series. Right now for english class i am reading "The Lord of the Flies". It's kind of slow moving and is basically a "what if" book set in the time near the end of ww2. The world has possibly been nuked so parents send all their kids away on a plane which crashes on an island. They have to make due with things and survive. Something like that. Anyway you guys reading anything or have any favorites?

[Shadowknight]

Some really good books are by George R.R. Martin. Get:
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
A Feast for Crows (coming out later this year)
Fevre Dream
Tuf Voyaging

Several of his books were out of print for years, but thanks to his popularity with his current fantasy series, they've brought his older stuff into print.

But not the entire Wild Cards series, dammit :( I'm missing four books towards the end of the series, and the only places on-line that have them want $30 each.

[Anubis Nine]

As a fantasy freak,

I'll read anything by Mercedes Lackey. Even though I find some of her books are not as good.

The song of Fire and Ice series by George RR martin

Andre norton, Tamora Peirce, Sara Douglass, and there are others on my bookshelf that I can't remember. (I'm unwilling to go and look)

Edit! A Martin fan! *Cling*

[moo]

I used to read the Idian in the cupboard series, was pretty nice.
Right now I am in book limbo, Basically I follow 4 series. 2 already ended, and the others take a while to get written.
The first being the "into the darkness" series It is basically WW2 except with magic ie- behemoths instead of tanks, dragons instead of planes and etc.
The other being Lord of the rings, I really enjoyed read the three from the trilogy as well as "the hobbit", and "the silmarillian"
Now I follow the Dune series. One guy wrote 6 books for it, and then died, and now his son continues it by writing preludes, and hopefully will eventually finish off the series as book 6 ended with a sort of cliffhanger.
Lastly is basically a childish series "Redwall".
It is I believe a 7th grade reading level, or something of the sort, but I still greatly enjoy reading it.

[Ziellos.ein]

anything in the ender universe.

enders game
speaker of the dead
xenocide
children of the mind

the shadow line of the ender univers is sposed to be good btu i havent got around to readign it.

[Myrsilus]

Ugh... I don't read very often because the times I actually have a book it's an assignment. I have being forced to read something I have no initial interest in. Then when I want to read something, I have no time. I have read two especially famous novels... The Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick. Both were way too long-winded for my tastes.

One book I can remember liking is The Great Gatsby. Other than that I'll read things I am interested in... Like various Bruce Lee books, books focusing on bushido, and such. I haven't read a novel in a while...

[Marblehead]

Soem of my favorites:

Neal Stephenson
William Gibson
Douglas Adams
Bruce Sterling
Robert Heinlein
Robert Jordan
(early) Terry Pratchett
Hunter Thompson
Kurt Vonnegut
Anais Nin
Henry Miller
Haruki Murakami
Chuck Palahniuk
J.K. Rowling (What? :cool: )

Some notables:

Janet Fitch "White Oleander"
Alan Brown "Audrey Hepburn's Neck"
David Guterson "Snow Falling on Cedars"
Fredrick Forsythe "The Day of the Jackal"

Way overated:

"Memoirs of a Geisha"

Just Nauseating:

Anything writen by Michael Moore, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Al Franklin, Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh

[harper]

anything in the ender universe.

enders game
speaker of the dead
xenocide
children of the mind

the shadow line of the ender univers is sposed to be good btu i havent got around to readign it.

I liked the Shadow series. It ended earlier this year and was pretty good. It's a lot different than Ender's Game and Xenocide though. I still haven't gotten around to reading Children of the Mind yet, though.

[harper]

As a fantasy freak,

I'll read anything by Mercedes Lackey. Even though I find some of her books are not as good.

Tamora Pierce, and there are others on my bookshelf that I can't remember. (I'm unwilling to go and look)


I've enjoyed most of the Valdemar series, though it went through a lull in the mid 90s. The recent ones have been good. Lackey apparently just signed to do several more new Valdemar books and I'm looking forward to them.

Tamora PIerce books are also quite enjoyable. I've enjoyed all of them, but the two book Trickster series was great. I'm looking forward to Pierce's new book(s) this fall.

I'm reading the Pern series by Anne McCaffrey right now and have been enjoying those. I recently read the latest Charlie Bone and Gregor the Overlander books along with the Artemis Fowl Files.

One of my favorite authors is Lois McMaster Bujold who has a wonderful science fiction series based around Miles Vorkosigan and a terrific fantasy series in the Chalion universe. Another favorite author is Raymond Feist. Magician is my favorite individual book ever and many of the other books in the series are also pretty good.

[Ziellos.ein]

I liked the Shadow series. It ended earlier this year and was pretty good. It's a lot different than Ender's Game and Xenocide though. I still haven't gotten around to reading Children of the Mind yet, though.

COTM is a short read, but it explains SOO much backstory. thats all it is is diffrent sections on jane/ender, his dad as a kid, and his dad in college. i think thats right i really dont remember well.

[Anubis Nine]

I loved the tricksters choice series most but I never could get into the circle of magic. I read one book by Anne McCaffrey that made me cry with boredom (I believe the doplhins of pern) and I kinda haven't been able to pick anything else up despite my knowing she's probably a very good author.

Dave Duncan wrote the 'King's Blade' series. Those were DAMNED good books.

[Unknown]

I love reading! I read about a book a day. I dont really have a favorites because there are to many good books out there, but right now I'm reading "Slaughter-House Five" by Kurt Vonnegut and it is a really great book

[Kusoyaro]

MarbleHead! You read some of the same stuff I read! Cryptonomicon? Idoru? The long dark tea-time of the soul? cat's cradle?
maan, i love books. shit, i love them so much im gonna marry em.
im reading the constant gardener, foucaults pendulum, and chindi right now. awesome awesome.

[Shamu]

I really enjoyed "Exodus" by Leon Uris. It's a fiction story about the begining of Israel. Although long, I also recomend "London" by Edward Rutherford, also a fiction book about the history of London.
Now I'm reading "Scotland, The Story of a Nation" by Magnus Magnusson.
Also, just about any comedy by Shakespeare is good (My favorite is "As You Like It")
For Sci-Fi, I loved "Beauty" by Shari S. Tepper
I do love a good romance novel though! Hey, some of them may be trashy, but the entertainment value is there!
I also love the Harry Potter series!
I also read alot of manga, but I don't know if those necessarily count as books :p

[Jiant Flying Panda]

Ender's Game: Come one now. I do not know one person who has read this book and ended up hating it. Everyone at my High School who had to read it their freshman year loved it; even the people who didn't like reading loved it.

This book was so loved at my High School it was one of the things us senoirs were talking about a few hours before graduation.

Edit: Oops. I forgot to put my favorite part of the book (Yes, I know I dont have to but I love this book so much)

Anyways. My favorite part of Ender's Game was the fight seen he had in the bathroom with Bonzo. It was soooo badass I remember I re-read that chapter like 3 times, lol. The fight was also very very well written. Well written enough that it was depicted into my head like some sort of Matrix style fight scene, especially the part where Ender doe's some crazy ass 3 kick to the chest in mid air move that pushes Bonzo into his gruesome demise. Man that was awesome.

I also read Ender's Shadow

The Great Gatsby: This book is not boring! Yeah it may be slow but it's really good.

The Divine Comedy: I didnt finish it. I got to Malebolgia (which is about half way through) then I stoped for some reason. I'll probably re-check it out of the library.

Paradise Lost: Another book I didn't finish. But can you blame me? It's fricken John Milton. What I loved about this book was how well the images was painted into your mind.

Of Mice And Men: Great story. I even got teary at the end :(. Also, this is a great book if you have to do a book report. It has a lot to talk about as well as being relatively short.

Great Expectations: Yeah I know. British story about some boy who can never have the girl he's been in love with as a child. Boring right?... Wrong! This novel is great and I'm actually surprised with myself that I read it all on my own free will. Yeah, I didnt have to read it.

[Myrsilus]

Of Mice and Men is a great book. I loved reading it. It's just been so long I had forgotten I actually read it.

[Jiant Flying Panda]

Of Mice and Men is a great book. I loved reading it. It's just been so long I had forgotten I actually read it.

Yeah man. It's been a while for me too. Ummmm 3 years I think.

But what's cool is that the story is so short and simple that it's very memorable. John Steinbeck = teh leet amoung book writers.

Did you get teary at the end?

[AUD21]

The Davinci Code -- I didn't expect the twists and turns. What a ride.

Blindness -- Wow...great story.Really enthralling.

Maus 1&2 -- Wonderfull story of a husband and wife surviving the Holocaust. Very Entertaining.

[h2orowe]

I loved 1984.
A Brave New World. (Hahaha, I loved how they quoted Shakespeare, it reminded me of The Rugrats from when I was little "Oh what Brave new world with such people in it!")
I'm going to get We sometime soon, I love distopia books.
The Ghost at Tokkaido Inn, that was an awesome book, I also want to get the sequel to it.
Lord of the Flies.
I read like the first 100 or 200 pages of Grapes of Wrath, it was pretty good but kinda boring.
I loved Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
I need to read more :(

[Random]

All of the Ender / Ender's Shadow series. Those have got to be some of the best Sci-Fi I've ever read.
Besides those, anything by Adam Roberts (Salt, Stone, On to name a few), Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men I read for english and loved it, Great Expectation's I'm afraid I don't like so much, but have to read it anyway. It's better than some of the shit I read, but I prefer sci-fi in general.

All the Hitchhiker's series, and then the Hex series is great, the His Dark Materials is nice, Alex Rider books and Artimes Fowl books I read, and then I have 2 space fiction series I read:
Revalation space / chasm city / redemption ark / absolution gap / century rain by Alastair Reynolds, and the Saga of Seven Suns by someone else. Both are great.

Harry Potter books I read because such is expected of me at 14, and I find a few other series pretty good: Chris Ryan's Alpha Force, Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines / Predator's Gold / Infernal Devices, most of Diane Wyne Jones's books, Tom Clandy's Net Force, PowerPlays and OpCentre series, Garth Nix's Sabriel, Librial and Abhorsen books, Garth Nix's Mr. Monday, Grim Tuesday, Lady Wednesday... books, plus a few random books that I buy if I see them.
edit: also, the DaVince Code and other books by same author were good.

I read quite a lot.

[Zaysho]

Some of my favorite books include:

- Painted House by John Grisham
- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
- Inherit the Wind (a play) by Jermone Lawrence and Robert E. Lee (it's a story about back then when teaching the Evolutionary Theory was against the law).
-Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Saligner
-Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
-Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

I'm mostly into what I guess would be called "realistic fiction", but I do like branch off into the realm of sci-fi every once in awhile.

My sister recommended some books to me that I want to check out. There's Grendel by John Gardner and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. I want to read Grendel since I basically finished reading Beowulf for my English class (though it was a shortened abridged version). Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead just seems funny. I read a couple excerpts she showed me and I really wanna check it out.

[UlrichRyddle]

I'm currently reading We The Living by Ayn Rand. I like it a lot so far, although I haven't gotten too far into it. 3-4 chapters maybe. The main theme to the book is basically about social oppression and how it affects different people.

Other favorites:

Catcher In the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Julius Caesar - Shakespeare
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Tuesdays With Morrie - Mitch Albom
Kingdom Come - Mark Waid
Watchmen - Alan Moore

Kingdom Come and Watchmen are both graphic novels btw.

[sharpie]

America: The Book. A Citizens Guide to Democracy Inaction

I was reading this at work and people thought this was an actual text book, then they turned to the page with the naked Supreme Court Justices and had the funniest look of WTF on their faces I have ever seen.

[Tssss..]

eh...i like raymond fiest, lotr series, 1984, jane austen, agatha christie, anne rice, harry potter, basically, i like fantasy books and like, books with social commentary. i don't like sci fi, i don't like thrillers, etc.

[koku]

books are evil man I thought you knew. It's a fact; I read it in a book.

[morganlefayw]

Yes!!! Someone else read "White Oleander". YEah!!!
Anywho, I could give you an entire 15 page list of the books I want to read. Yeah, I'm a real book-freak. Love 'em- friends have to drag me outta stores and take away my debit card.
Anwho, I'm trying to get through this book called "Shinto: The Way Home". The author's really freaking intelligent, uses big words I gotta look up in the dictionary. But hey, it makes me smarter....
But what I really stick to is Charles de Lint, Holly Black,Terri Windling, neil Giamen, and a few more I can't recall. For the past couple years, I've been reading alot of books about rewritten fairytales- very very very good stuff. But just about anything that catches my attention. I also liked "Memoirs of a Geisha". I never knew people thought it was over-rated, I just liked it.
And another book I'll spend the rest of my life trying to read is the dictionary. Yes, you read that right: the dictionary.
Told you I'm a real book-freak.

[Kusoyaro]

i dont know if its just me, but books like the da vinco code and atlantis found and all that piss me the hell off. like, they always decide to keep the secret quite and shit. i swear to god if i were somehow given the ability to transport myself into books id blow their fucking heads off. they don't deserve to live. we're kept in enough ignorance as it is without the harbingers of truth keeping it from us. "ooooh, this discovery (atlantis, the holy graile, whatever), may totally change the way society operates and thinks and shit! oh noes! we can't have that!"
BALDERDASH

[PiccoloNamek]

One word: Dune.

[moo]

One word: Dune.

Finally, someone else.

[Shadowblade]

One word: Dune.

Finally, pretty much no-one i know has read it.

Anyway some of my favourite authors are:
Anne McCaffrey
John Marsden
Matthew Reilly
Anthony Horowitz
Eoin Colfer
Garth Nix
Tamora Pierce

Some really good books that i've read are:
The Forever War (Sci-fi)
Eragon (fantasy)
The Hobbit (apart from all the songs)
Wayfarer (sci-fi)

Thats about all i can think of right now. Although i'm currently reading the second book in the inheritance trilody (first book being eragon) Eldest, and its quite good.

[Myrsilus]

Yeah man. It's been a while for me too. Ummmm 3 years I think.

But what's cool is that the story is so short and simple that it's very memorable. John Steinbeck = teh leet amoung book writers.

Did you get teary at the end?
I know man. A good story even if the length was considerably shorter than most famous novels. It was still so great.

The end did make me sad... I think I teared up a little. :( They were supposed to get that little house... with the rabbits.

[Ducky]

I read all the time. I'm completely and utterly fascinated by Anne Rice. I'm obsessed with all her books. I do read other stuff, though. I really liked The Giver and Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry. I've read the whole Left Behind Series, and it was really great. I'm also a big fan of the old V.C. Andrews stuff and of course I like C.S. Lewis.

[harper]

I took a break from Pern and read a trilogy by Michael Cadnum that takes place during the third crusade - The Book of the Lion, The Leopard Sword, and The Dragon Throne. All three books were pretty good.

[Betrayer of the Light]

I don't really read that much naymore and I can't realy say my favourite authors since I really haven't readm roe than one book unless it was in a series, so all I can give is a list of some of my favuorite books.

Ginger Pye
Battle Royale
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Harry Potter
Carrie
Witch Child
Fudge series

I'm currently reading Stonewall. I might at some point get around to finishing the Hobbit and Queen of the Damned, and will definately finish Beauty's Release once I find where mym om hid the book( I'm reading the series backwords).

[Tssss..]

I read all the time. I'm completely and utterly fascinated by Anne Rice. I'm obsessed with all her books. I do read other stuff, though. I really liked The Giver and Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry. I've read the whole Left Behind Series, and it was really great. I'm also a big fan of the old V.C. Andrews stuff and of course I like C.S. Lewis.


hey, did you read cs lewis'the abolition of man? he had some greaaaaaaaaaat social commentary books.

the giver was fuckin awesome.

so yeah, books i read as a kid that i loved were the giver, the gray king series, a wrinkle in time series, the book night made me cry. i dunno theres other good ones i can't recall.

[Slartibart]

I've read:

* Lotr (Good book but i'ts way overrated)

* Hitch hikers (Ahh the magic of Douglas Adams :) )

* Dune (Good book(s) tho ive only read the two first )

* Color of magic/Light fantastic ( Fantastic books that gave me the same feeling i got when reading the Hitch hikers, and The Luggage is Lovable :D )

* Real ultimate power (This book is weird, but funny as hell )

And a bunch of other books i cant remember/don't care about/sucked so bad i wont list them/etc...

[rush]

America: The Book. A Citizens Guide to Democracy Inaction

I was reading this at work and people thought this was an actual text book, then they turned to the page with the naked Supreme Court Justices and had the funniest look of WTF on their faces I have ever seen.

I love that book so much. People at my school thought it was a textbook too, because of the thing on the back of the front cover. :D

Jon Stewart for President.

[Anubis Nine]

*Fangirly screech* Aieee! Garth Nix! I *love* Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen... *purrrrr*

[Deadhead]

I love reading.

Ive read too many good books to name, but last night I read one.
It was called 'The Lake House' and it was about these bird people hybrids who were being chased by evil scientists. Apperently it was a sequel, but I hadnt read the first and you didnt really need too. The book started out pretty good, but by the end it was getting old, there was too much chasing and not enough of the bird people developing relationships (which there was in the first half).
Also, they killed off a character that I really dont think they should have, it was a little cliche.

[Pierrot le Fou]

Ayn Rand
- The Fountainhead
- Atlas Shrugged
- Anthem
Jean M. Auel
- Clan of the Cave Bear
- Valley of Horses
- The Mammoth Hunters
- Plains of Passage
- Shelters of Stone
Kurt Vonnegut
- Welcome to the Monkeyhouse
- Slaughterhouse Five
- Timequake
- whatever he entitled his autobiography
The Harry Potter Series
Tom Clancy
- The Teeth of the Tiger
John Grisham
- The Chamber
- The Bleachers
- The King of Torts
- The Firm
Friedrich Nietzsche
- Beyond Good and Evil
- Ecce Homo
Michel Foucault
- History of Sexuality Part 1
Michael Reilly
- Scarecrow
Like Water for Chocolate
Jack Kerouac
- On the Road
I love books and reading. I have so many books on my bookshelf, but I go through them too quick. I read through the entire Harry Potter series in about a week. Books are far too expensive in Japan...

[harper]

I usually read around 130-140 books per year. It can be hard to find the time now with all of the manga I want to read and all of the dvds of movies and tv shows that I want to watch. I usually make time to read just before bed even if I haven't had time earlier in the day. Now that school has started, I probably won't have much time to read until things settle into a routine, perhaps in a month or so.

I've purchased lots of books over the years, many of them from library book sales at really cheap prices. As a result, I have a library with some 1500 hardcovers, 1300 trade paperbacks and 3000 paperbacks. I'll never read them all, but it's nice to have plenty to choose from when I'm ready to try another author or read another book. And yet, I still find myself checking out books from the library on a pretty regular basis.

[dillon]

american psycho by bret easton ellis, fight club by chuck palahniuk, the fountainhead by ayn rand, frankenstein by mary shelly, the count of monte cristo by alexandre dumas, the princess bride by william goldman, it by stephen king.

american psycho is kind of graphic. the princess bride is a cute book XP

[Deadhead]

Count of Monte Cristo kicked ass, so much better than the movie.

[Arilou]

Just finished Pratchett's "Thud!" and moving onto an edition of Arabian Nights...

[Kragar]

Books. Mmmm. Tastiest stuff on Earth.

I'll throw a vote in for the Ender's series as well, though I wasn't as moved by the Shadow series.

There's also Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series (which is where I got my username), about a human assassin in a world of "elves." Sharp, witty dialogue.

Tim Powers is another great writer. Pick up anything, it's all good. They're all about the Grail Quest happening in the most unlikely circumstances, and an awe-inspiring eye for detail. Ghosts traded and eaten like drugs. A brewery as the heart of Europe. A special version of poker that uses the Tarot deck to determine who will be the secret king of America.

I also enjoyed Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series, but I didn't like her fantasy stuff as much.

Of the classics, two of my favorites were Moby Dick by Herman Melville and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. Both are dense and layered, and probably horrible to read for class. I read them at my own speed and they were like fine, cold vodka next to a fire. Smooooooth.

Special mention goes out to Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison, because they've both been on my mind recently. Both of them saw the world in unique ways, and wrote everything the saw as honestly as they could. Great voices.

My sister recommended some books to me that I want to check out. There's Grendel by John Gardner and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. I want to read Grendel since I basically finished reading Beowulf for my English class (though it was a shortened abridged version). Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead just seems funny. I read a couple excerpts she showed me and I really wanna check it out.

Did you ever see Shakespear in Love? That was written by Tom Stoppard, too, which can give you a flavor of his style.