Reading lists

[fencerontheline]

Favorites:
Umberto Eco
Neil Gaiman
Ayn Rand
Douglas Adams
Mark Twain
Victor Hugo

LOTR
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Sandman series(which gets noted aside from Gaiman)
The Preacher series

The Medium is the Message
One Flew Over the Cookoo's nest
Ender's Game
The Nibelungenlied
1984
Brave New World
Clockwork Orange
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance (I saw myself when I read this)
Tale of Two Cities
Art Of War
The Stranger


Dislikes:
All of the Bronte writing (The stories are interesting, but awefully dry)
Charles Dickens (Except ToTC)
Dan Brown
Dostoyevsky (which is expertly and superbly written, but depressing to the point that I had to put the book down after an hour of reading)
Anything commercialist for that matter...

[great bowyer]

i have read many books and it is hard for me to chose just a few that i like the most becuase they each have a characteristic that makes it unique. a few books tht i have read include...
-the deerslayer, the last of the mohicans, the pathfinder and the pioneer by j.f cooper
-many of gary poulson including Brian's winter, Hatchet, Dogsong, the crossing, woodsong, tracker and a few others
-my side of the mountain and on the far side of the mountain by Jean Craighead George
- The Cave of Moving Shadows by Millstead
-bowmen of crecy (forget who wrote it)
-men of iron by Howard Pyle
-ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
-fawn by Robert Newton Peck
-The King's Swift Rider by Mollie Hunter
-the black arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
-call it courage by Armstrong Sperry
-My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
-the phantom of the opera by Gaston Leroux
-i will fight no more forever by beal
-treasure island by Robert Louis Stevenson
-Bury my heart at wounded knee by dee brown
-the man who never was by ewen montagu
-yearger by general chuck yeager & leo janos
-William Wallace: Brave Heart by James MacKay

a few books i have read this past year for school include
-chronicle of a death foretold by grabriel garcia marquez
-let them eat prozac by david healy
-Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us by Robert D. Hare
-Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog

and of course i have read the standard required books in highschool. most of those books i found to be good, but the the way the teachers present them ruins them.

[Moses]

Oh yeah, another one I heartily vomitted upon:

"Anthem" by Rand.

Only because, in my heart of hearts, in my cliche box of cliches, I'm a socialist.

-Da Mose

[latenight]

I just read Perfume by Suskind for like the 30th time......I love that book.

[Mr Epee]

Non-fiction -

Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
The Open Society and It's Enemies vol I & II - Karl Popper
Second Treatises of Government - John Locke

It's really hard to list good Non-Fiction Books without looking at my book case. I just listed a few of the ones I've read and regularly reference.

Fiction

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Joke - Milan Kundera
1984 - George Orwell
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol
Demons - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Various Play - Vaclav Havel



About five years ago I stopped reading books written by women. This simple act has greatly reduced the number of books that I hate... but here are a few doubleplusungood books

Any/All books by Tolstoy - Useless
Any/All books by Hegel - Long, Boring, Arrogant, Useless, and WRONG!
Any/All books that make me feel like watching TV
Any/All books that make me feel like I AM watching TV.
Books you can buy in airport gift shops, or check out lanes at food stores
Fantasy / Sci-Fi - I have my own imagination, thank you. Note: there are a few exceptions to this, and I'm thrilled by the prospect that nerds, geeks and their ilk will be stuck in their basements/attics reading about wizards, and aliens... instead of clogging up my streets, and god forbid, getting someone preggers...

[Almightynoitall]

I have a general disliking towards any and everything ever written by John Steinbeck... His constantly depressing drivel and subsequent takeover of all of Monterrey, CA (if you've ever been there, you understand) is abhorrent to me.

As for things I rather enjoy, yet haven't gotten around to reading again:
Anything from Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series
Steven King's "Dark Tower" series
MOst anything by either Whitman or Frost,
Kerouac's "Dharma Bums"
and far too many others to go into...

[Larrison]

Good books?

One's I'd Recommend:

Nonfiction:
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

The Great Game, by Peter Hopkirk (or just about any of his books on Central Asian history -- they're amazing and fascinating)

The Structures of Everyday life, by Braudel (3 volumes -- fascinating, but dense)

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: The Secret Agent Who Made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, Discovered the Kama Sutra, and Brought the Arabian Nights to the West , by Edward Rice. This guy also was one of the discoverers of Lake Victoria and the headwaters of the Nile, first translated Omar Kayyam's "Rubiyat", and was a fascinating, multi-faceted character.

The Adventures of Theodore Roosevelt, (a collection of TR's writings) -- currently reading this, which is quite interesting and well written.

Fiction:

Neal Stephenson's "The Baroque Cycle". (Currently on Volume 2 -- a little hard to get into, but very good)

"The Unwound Way" by Bill Adams. One of the few books whose middle and ending is much better than the beginning.

Larry Niven, "Ringworld"

Tom Clancy, "Hunt for Red October" (but I really haven't liked his later books at all....)

Eric Flint "1632" Not bad...

SM Stirling "Conquistador" Not bad...

[Sword Mistress]

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story by Chuck Klosterman

Be Cool by Elmore Leonard

Stiletto by Caroline Cox

any others i will mention have most likely already been mentioned.

[sabreur]

I forgot to include Gaiman and William Gibson in my list--both are well worth reading. I've read all the Harry Potter books, and enjoy them, despite Rowling's obvious (IMNSHO) deficits in writing about adults and adult issues. Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is also well worth a read, I think.

MR

[Neil]

The best book ever, that you should go and read right now is Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. Just make sure you skip the epilogue.

Other books I like:

Dostoyevsky's The Gambler, The Brothers Kamarazov
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkess, Lord Jim
Most things by Graham Greene
Moby Dick
Wuthering Heights (I seem to be in a minority here)

Aparently I don't have my own imagination, as I also enjoy some fantasy and SF books:

Most things by Stephen Donaldson
Lord of the Rings
Many of Terry Pratchett's discworld novels
Ender's game
1984
Dune
Neuromancer

Authors who fall into the category of me having read and loved one of their books such that I now want to try more:

Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash
Tom Robbins' Fierce Invalids home from Hot Climates
Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby
Michael Marshall Smith's Only Forwards

Books I hated :

Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. Ploughing through this was not fun. Maybe if I read it again I might understand more, but I'm yet to be convinced it is worth the risk.

[geezer]

Jebus...a those millions of words to sort through...it made me give up literacy. 1975, "Gravity's Rainbow"...it really hurt...can only read...text books...wine lists...DE trees....

[Westley]

The Trump of Doom and anything else by Zelazny

Harry Potter, of course.

Anything by Ian Fleming.

Zen and the art of motorcycle Maintenance.

Without Remorse: Best Clancy novel I ever read

Shogun, even though I am aware of all it's problems and the numerous amount of Japanese scholars who hate it.

Miyamoto Musashi

Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musahsi

Art Of War, of course, although you desperately need a good edition or it's not worth it, I couldn't even read the cheap ones.

All of Pratchett and Douglas Adams.

All of Asimov, especially the short stories.

All of Heinlein

Anne Rice, especially the first two. Screw the rest. Oh, and her erotica. Meowww!!!!

Bourne Identity. So Awesome. I 'm glad they made the movie, or I'd never had read the book.

Books that make me feel funny:
Gor. Wow. That was F*cked up. And I mean, F*CKED up. Wow. I didn't actually finish it though, because it was weird puking while you had a boner. Read it and you will understand.

Books that should desperately be banned and only cool people should get:

Uncle Fester's book of explosives (I don't think that's the actual title, but it's close. I haven't read it in a long time and don't have it anymore.)

Anarchist's Cookbook. It's pointless unless you have a current addition though, and even then.... But it's good actually if you're writing a story that occured a few years ago.

Oh yeah. And btw, that whole Gor thing was f*cked up. Anyone else see that?