Literature

[Saru Inc]

Someone give me a good book. I mean, preferably fiction, all I've read lately are books on anthropology and da brain. Grrr.

 

 

 

btw, idk how this whole mess got started so let me reiterate.

 

 

I LOVE to read. However, for the past year or so, I've found almost no books that entertain me, save short stories. I love reading short stories, not because they're short ;P I think it's all more fascinating, because they can have as much meaning and powerful as 7,000 page novel. I think my top is the Lottery, by Shirley Jackson. I honestly can't tell you the last book I thoroughly enjoyed, though I highly recommend Thr3e by Ted Dekker. I think its the only christian book I'll ever enjoy, and there's no smarmy religious undertones in it all.

 

Also, as well as me not finding anything interesting, I don't like sitting still.

 

 

And yea I've even tried reading the classics, read Farewell to Arms, it wasn't my thing. Only cuz its a war novel (in a sense). I like Animal farm a lot, despite 9th grade english tainting it.

[Range_This11]

Someone give me a good book. I mean, preferably fiction, all I've read lately are books on anthropology and da brain. Grrr.

Ever read Steinbeck? East of Eden is a bit of a haul, but it's good. That and The Grapes of Wrath are fantastic. I know a lot of my friends find his style to be particularily dry and boring, but I love it. If you're looking for mindless, fantasy adventure books I'd recommend The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind or Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy (starting with Assassin's Apprentice).

[Saru Inc]

Oh not fantasy, god no. ick. I can't stand fantasy/sci-fi. Idk tbh I'm into a very specific genre. Kinda like not horror in a sense, but eh, an intelligent thriller serial killer type thing. idk, i'm pretty damn fickle when it comes books and music. Like, idk. Honestly, I can't really put my finger on it, so it was kind of stupid question to ask XD. I guess thrillers/detective novels. Not zombie type horror lol. Infact, horrors not even a good adjective. Bah, just disregard >.<

[Serpent Eye]

Oh not fantasy, god no. ick. I can't stand fantasy/sci-fi. Idk tbh I'm into a very specific genre. Kinda like not horror in a sense, but eh, an intelligent thriller serial killer type thing. idk, i'm pretty damn fickle when it comes books and music. Like, idk. Honestly, I can't really put my finger on it, so it was kind of stupid question to ask XD. I guess thrillers/detective novels. Not zombie type horror lol. Infact, horrors not even a good adjective. Bah, just disregard >.<

 

You should look into a novel called In The Woods by Tana French.

 

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

 

Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddoxhis partner and closest friendfind themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

 

Richly atmospheric, stunning in its complexity, and utterly convincing and surprising to the end, In the Woods is sure to enthrall fans of Mystic River and The Lovely Bones.

 

[hide=Snippet of Prologue]Prologue

 

Picture a summer stolen whole from some coming-of-age film set in small-town 1950s. This is none of Ireland's subtle seasons mixed for a connoisseur's palate, watercolor nuances within a pinch-sized range of cloud and soft rain; this is summer full-throated and extravagant in a hot pure silkscreen blue. This summer explodes on your tongue tasting of chewed blades of long grass, your own clean sweat, Marie biscuits with butter squirting through the holes and shaken bottles of red lemonade picknicked in tree houses. It tingles on your skin with BMX wind in your face, ladybug feet up your arm; it packs ever breath full of mown grass and billowing wash lines; it chimes and fountains with birdcalls, bees, leaves and football-bounces and skipping-chants, One! two! three! This summer will never end. It starts every day with a shower of Mr. Whippy notes and your best friend's knock at the door, finishes it with long slow twilight and mothers silhouetted in doorways calling you to come in, through the bats shrilling among the black lace trees. This is Everysummer decked in all its best glory.[/hide]

 

Also, I would suggest reading (if you haven't already) pretty much any and all novels by the late Michael Crichton.

[Denith]

some Michael Crichton novels do have borderline horror elements though (terminal man comes to mind)

 

edit: woophs, misread your post, thought you weren't into horror, saruman44.

[Dupin]

Oh not fantasy, god no. ick. I can't stand fantasy/sci-fi. Idk tbh I'm into a very specific genre. Kinda like not horror in a sense, but eh, an intelligent thriller serial killer type thing. idk, i'm pretty damn fickle when it comes books and music. Like, idk. Honestly, I can't really put my finger on it, so it was kind of stupid question to ask XD. I guess thrillers/detective novels. Not zombie type horror lol. Infact, horrors not even a good adjective. Bah, just disregard >.<

 

Try 1st to Die by James Patterson. It's a fast-paced thriller about a series of serial murders in California. There are a bunch of sequels as well, but I haven't read those.

 

Also, anybody who has never read Stephen King must do so at some point. I would reccommend The Shining especially.

 

As for short stories, Poe has written some good thrillers and a couple detective stories, and the Sherlock Holmes stories are excellent if you haven't already read those.

[Harakiri]

Finished Gardens of The Moon yesterday. It took me a while since I didn't have much time to read at camp. It was a great book.

 

Now reading Deadhouse Gates. I'm only 120 pages into it and I'm assuming the story will pick up. At the moment it's kind of slow.

 

I have a lot of books on my reading list

 

-Malazan Book of the Fallen 2-9

-Otherland by Tad Williams

-Shannarra series by Terry Brooks

-Andy Mcdermot adventure novels

-Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

-It

-Wicked City

-Last half of Vampire Hunter D 14

[Serpent Eye]

Finished reading Alice in Wonderland and Looking-Glass today -- Lewis Carroll was definitely barking mad.

 

Today I read Infected by Scott Sigler - this book was awesome; it's the first novel that I've ever had to stop reading momentarily, on account of it making me start to feel nauseous! (Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of blood in this book :thumbup: ) If you're into horror/thriller/sci-fi, I definitely suggest looking into this book. I got about two hours of sleep due to wanting to finish the whole book in one sitting. :P

 

No idea what to read now; truth be told, I'm a bit exhausted from reading 4 books in three days. :unsure:

[LaserDude333]

Finished reading all 5 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books again (understood it much better this time :smile: ) , and read "And Another Thing" too by Eoin Colfer. He did quite a good job imo.

[Harakiri]

 

Also, anybody who has never read Stephen King must do so at some point. I would reccommend The Shining especially.

 

 

In my opinion, The Shining was his best horror novel. Dark Tower series was his best works overall, but The Shining was an amazing novel.

[mughinn]

i'm going to start reading james joyce's Ulysses, any tips to it? i heard it's very difficult to read, my dad said he tried 3 times to read it, only finishing it at the last.

[Mr_Adam]

 

Also, anybody who has never read Stephen King must do so at some point. I would reccommend The Shining especially.

 

 

In my opinion, The Shining was his best horror novel. Dark Tower series was his best works overall, but The Shining was an amazing novel.

 

Heh, to me, Stephen King seems like a pretentious ass-hat. I read the Dark Tower, and it dragged in the middle... but the seventh book was great.

[Satenza]

Hm, what have I read recently?

 

I finished Demons/The Possessed by Dostoyevsky last week, which was another excellent book. I believe I have read all of his novels now.

I read The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Short Stories, Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea, Death in the Afternoon and A Moveable Feast all by Hemingway over the last few weeks.

The Myth of Sisyphus again by Camus.

Finnegan's Wake by Joyce, which was a love/hate experience.

The Alhambra by Washington Irving. Which I have a First Edition of :)

 

 

The best of the bunch is hard to distinguish because they are all so different from one another. I must say Hemingway and Dostoyevsky are the most entertaining authors to read for completely different reasons.

 

Edit: To mughinn

 

Ulysses is a very difficult book to read and one you must have patience with. It is enjoyable once you begin to understand Joyce but this can take awhile. It was after all such a deviation from classical literature that it will be quite unlike anything you have read before. But good luck!

 

Oh, and I recommend reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man before Ulysses as it will begin to give you an insight into both James Joyce and Stephen Dedalus who also appears in Ulysses. It is of course a fraction of the length of Ulysses as well.

[Saru Inc]

http://iwl.me/

 

 

What authors are you like? I don't hold any validity to it's findings, but still fun.

 

After trying different pieces, I'm Tolkien, Hemingway, and Gertrude Stein. Not sure who the last person is, nor how the heck I write at all like the previously two. Interesting....

[Serpent Eye]

[hide]

http://iwl.me/

 

I analyzed a few samples of my writing, with varied results. A non-fantasy piece of fiction compared me to Stephen King; a fantasy piece compared me to J. K. Rowling; a RuneScape short story I had written compared me to Annie Rice (not only does this comparison not make sense, I'm a little worried that they didn't even spell the author's name -- Anne -- correctly.)[/hide]

 

I slipped back into my (bad) habit of re-reading books. :unsure: Currently re-reading Michael Crichton's The Lost World for the Nth time.

[nine naked men]

Chuck Palahniuk, Ian Fleming, Stephen King, J. K. Rowling and Dan Brown.

 

Five random 1k word pieces. ._o

 

Reading me some Janny Wurts. Good fantasy. :3

[Serpent Eye]

Chuck Palahniuk, Ian Fleming, Stephen King, J. K. Rowling and Dan Brown.

 

That's not a bad lot to be thrown in with. Aside from Dan Brown maybe.

 

:twss:

[re4p3r1]

stephen king has been writing basically the same books over and over again for about two decades no, i don't see what's so great about him.

 

Still reading The Journey to the West. Almost done with Vol 2, only two more volumes, about 800 pages in total, to go.

[Saru Inc]

I've not really read his stuff, but his stuff sells o.O and he has made quite the nice amount selling boooks.

[ElkNight]

I have to read Of Mice and Men and Great Gatsby over the summer (few weeks left) for english next year.

Shouldn't be too bad I guess.

[Saru Inc]

you guessed wrong.... :x

[meb]

Finished Gardens of The Moon yesterday. It took me a while since I didn't have much time to read at camp. It was a great book.

 

Now reading Deadhouse Gates. I'm only 120 pages into it and I'm assuming the story will pick up. At the moment it's kind of slow.

 

I have a lot of books on my reading list

 

-Otherland by Tad Williams

Otherland is weird but quite amazing. Memory, Thorn and Sorrow are still his best books though.

 

After reading some really awful fantasy books I am now reading a thriller/detective by Karin Slaughter. I only read that genre when my mom lends me one of her books but I enjoy it every time. She filters out the crap from that genre for me :thumbsup: .

[Dupin]

I have to read Of Mice and Men and Great Gatsby over the summer (few weeks left) for english next year.

Shouldn't be too bad I guess.

I'm jealous. Those aren't the greatest books, but at least they're books. My summer reading has always been junk about morals and people saving the poor.

[Harakiri]

Finished Gardens of The Moon yesterday. It took me a while since I didn't have much time to read at camp. It was a great book.

 

Now reading Deadhouse Gates. I'm only 120 pages into it and I'm assuming the story will pick up. At the moment it's kind of slow.

 

I have a lot of books on my reading list

 

-Otherland by Tad Williams

Otherland is weird but quite amazing. Memory, Thorn and Sorrow are still his best books though.

 

I hate his fantasy but my dad raves about Otherworld and is one of his favorite series so I decided I'd give it a go. Plus it's cyberpunk and I dig that kinda stuff.

 

stephen king has been writing basically the same books over and over again for about two decades no, i don't see what's so great about him.

If you actually read his books, while he, especially nowadays, does not have too many spectacular novels, his older stuff is very varied. The same book over and over doesn't make any sense.

-Carrie: A teenager and high school/prom

-It: A town haunted by it's past in the form of a clown

-The Shining: A hotel in the mountains haunted by ghosts makes a man go crazy, or did the ghosts possess him?

-Cujo: A dog is possessed by the sheriff of a small town and is killing people

-The Stand: A virus is killing people, and follows some of the survivors.

-Misery: A writer is beat up after a car crash and stuck in the house of a crazed fan.

-Salems' Lot: Vampires terrorize a town.

-Pet Semetary: An Indian burial ground is discovered and trouble starts

 

He has very different plots for each book. It's the fact that he is running out of ideas, I feel, that is making him a bit less exciting than he was years ago. Seriously though, I've read most of his books and none are the same.

[Lateralus]

I finished Demons/The Possessed by Dostoyevsky last week, which was another excellent book. I believe I have read all of his novels now.

I read The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Short Stories, Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea, Death in the Afternoon and A Moveable Feast all by Hemingway over the last few weeks.

The Myth of Sisyphus again by Camus.

Finnegan's Wake by Joyce, which was a love/hate experience.

 

A man after my own heart. Though I do notice a lack of For Whom The Bell Tolls, which is my favourite Hemingway novel after The Sun Also Rises. Demons is very close to Dostoevsky's best (second only to The Brothers Karamazov and perhaps The Idiot), and is supplemented nicely by The Myth of Sisyphus.