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I searched the forums and didn't find a topic like this, but if i missed it please redirect me.
moving along...

has anyone read any good books lately?
I finished watership down about a month or two ago. it has bunnies...homicidal bunnies...
right now im in the middle of shogun(the o has a bar aver it but i don't know how to make that symbol). they stabbed a lot of people and boiled an englishman. im really enjoying this book.

so if you've read any good ( what the hell.. bad too) feel free to say something


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Probably the bet book I've ever read is one that I recieved for Christmas (I requested it, though, it's only available on Amazon as far as I know). It's called Just a Couple of Days, by Tony Vigorito, and it's absolutely fantastic. It's about a scientist named Flake (don't remember his last name), who gets caugt up in a government project to develop a biological weapon (saying what the weapon does would be a spoiler). Of course, something goes wrong, and the entire world is at stake. But the book's mood is in the vein of Dr. Strangelove, and it just makes happy reading it (it's not as funny as some people make it out to be, though). The book has lots of deep themes (the main one being communication, and how the human form of it is flawed) and two of my favorite characters ever (Flake's friend Blip Corterly and his wife Sophia). I wish I could say more about the book without spoilers, but it's absolutely fantastic and you should go buy it right now.

This post has been edited by Spiffyness on 4th March 2006 17:24

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The island bathes in the sun's bright rays
Distant hills wear a shroud of grey
A lonely breeze whispers in the trees
Sole witness to history

ICO-You were there-

I don't like books, because I can't read.

But, if I HAD to choose, then I would have to pick the Barry Trotter series. Heh heh. I never get bored of The World's Worst Predictions either (even though it was out before I was even born )

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'Bastards, we may be, but clever are we.'
Thorn, FFIX

well I've read quite a few but I'll just name my top 5 that I read this past year

5: Teacher Man by Frank McCourt
4: the Frankenstein trilogy by Dean Koontz (the third comes out this summer)
3: "Rowdy" Roddy Piper's autobiography
2: Wrestlecrap by R.D. Reynolds
1: "Classy" Freddy Blassie's autobiography

This post has been edited by mcclanahan on 4th March 2006 18:04

I have a tendency to read quite a bit when I'm able. Just really got involved with my local library, too. Most recently I've gone through all the Harry Potter novels, as I'd never read any of them. Additionally, I just finished Richard Preston's "The Cobra Event," a fiction about the reactions of individual epidemiologists and the US government toward a viralterror attack in NYC. I also recently read "Novel" by George Singleton, which was hilarious and completely insane, detailing the life of a guy named Novel in Gruel, South Carolina. Around that same time I read "Pornified," which is a semi-sociological study about the changing attitudes toward porn in America.

All of those are worth a read, no doubt.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

The Cobra Event is ****ing creepy. I really enjoyed The Hot Zone, but I couldn't finish Cobra when I was reading it two years ago. THZ is an excellent read, though.

I have mostly been doing school reading for the past year, but the books I probably enjoyed the most last year were HP and the Half-Blood Prince, Shadow of the Giant, The Life All Around Me, Flashman on the March, and A Feast for Crows. All four books are parts of different series, but all of those series are worth your attention (Harry Potter, Ender, Ellen Foster, Flashman, and Song of Ice and Fire). The Flashman series is my favorite historical fiction series, SoIaF is my favorite hardcore fantasy series, Ellen Foster is basically a fascinating, 12-year-old Holden Caulfield, and the Harry Potter and Ender series need no introduction.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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you can always try reading the da vinci code. lots of people liked it, and i thought it was pretty awesome too. angels and demons is pretty damn good too.

i just finished reading hiroshima diary. its really sad and kinda gross....its a journal kept by a doctor who survived the atomic bomb in hiroshima during WWII....basically where he was and what he went thru from the day of the bomb to about a month later....its pretty damn good

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"The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved."
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Oh, yeah, I also read Da Vinci. It wasn't quite as good as it was hyped to be, but how could anything withstand the sheer amount of hype it's gotten?

Lasz: My wife has all of Preston's books. I think she fancies herself an epidemiologist just because she's halfway through her Masters'.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Good books...

I'd suggest both Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and Ulysses by James Joyce.

If you can understand what they're saying then it's really quite fun and enjoyable.

Althought, chances are, you probably won't get all of it. But they are fun reads.



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You say I'm weird: you're the person who is exited when you kick a leather testicle into a net.

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Kill me, or else you a murderer!

My favorite books are:

"Beauty and Sadness" by Yasunari Kawabata.
"The Princess Bride" by William Goldman.
"The Picture of Dorian Grey" by Oscar Wilde.
"The Alchemist" by Paulo Cuelho
"Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden

Ok, I'll add a top 5 list as well:

1. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
2. The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
3. Watership Down - Richard Adams
4. The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith - Peter Carry
5. Brazzaville Beach - William Boyd

Actually, anything Shirley Jackson writes is gold. I highly recommend everything by her and each novel on this list.

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Do you think we're forever?

Personally, I prefer the literary works of R.A. Salvatore. Anyone else read his books?

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What if he shot you first instead of your secretary?

I suppose I'd have to catch the bullet, wouldn't I

Favourite book of all time is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith.
I'm also a fan of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

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..DDR..Maine..
..Hikaroo-chan no Deviantart..

<Tiddles> And I love how people suggest "Why not call it my great name?????" when their name is clearly the worst thing ever.
<Tiddles> "How about ; Mozilla Xplorer & Mozilla Xpress."
<Tiddles> How about you die in a fire?

Recently, I've been reading a lot of G.K. Chesterton and Gene Wolfe, two excellent and totally different authors. I'm currently reading The Man Who Was Thursday and The Book of the Long Sun, respectively. Chesterton has an old British wit about him that's absolutely charming even when his plots get somewhat ridiculous, and Wolfe doesn't have to sell a million copies to prove he's one of science fiction's finest authors. For video game fans, I also recommend Lucky Wander Boy by D.B. Weiss, an oft-overlooked piece of pop culture that's a must for anyone who's ever played Atari.

Favorite books all-time? I couldn't hope to come up with a list right here, so I'll just mention the ones I can think of at the moment - China Boy by Gus Lee, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, and of course The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. When it comes to short stories, I'm especially partial to those of O.Henry, particularly Transients in Arcadia and The Green Door.

This post has been edited by Super Moogle on 5th March 2006 22:23

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"I always have a quotation for everything - it saves original thinking."
~Dorothy L. Sayers

"The truly remarkable thing about television is that it allows several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely."
~T.S. Eliot

"Defeat is not defeat unless accepted as reality - in your own mind!"
~ Bruce Lee

Oh, is this a favorite books all-time thread? Well, my favorite books of all time are sort of spread out. In elementary school, my favorite books were No Coins, Please by Gordan Korman (anything by Korman is absolutely hilarious) and The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster; those two are excellent kids' books that I reread once a year or so, and they still hold up. My other favorites are a bunch of cliches (ajoutez un accent aigu): My Antonia (Willa Cather), The Power and the Glory (Graham Greene), The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger), A Game of Thrones (George R. R. Martin), and any of the Calvin and Hobbes collections (Bill Watterson). My favorite short stories of all time are Charles (Shirley Jackson), and After Twenty Years (O. Henry).

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
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I haven't read them, but Bobby Heenan's autobiography and Dances With Wolves are two books I wanna' read. I saw Dances With Wolves for the first time a couple of weeks ago in school, so now I wanna' read the book. White Fang, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, and Bram Stoker's Dracula are my favorite reads.

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"Thought I was dead, eh? Not until I fulfill my dream!"
Seifer Almasy


"The most important part of the story is the ending."
Secret Window


"Peace is but a shadow of death."
Kuja

DaVinci code, as well as the prequel, Angels and Demons.
Also, check out Colin Powell's autobiography.

This post has been edited by Barrylocke on 6th March 2006 16:41

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

Quote (laszlow @ 5th March 2006 14:56)

The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)

I can't believe I left out "Catcher". I hadn't read it in school and was a little upset that I didn't read it until almost two years ago.

I am an immense bookworm. Some books worth mentioning, just of the top of my head:

anything by Robert Rankin. Seriously. that man is an utter genius, make no mistake. Barry the Time Sprout!
more or less anything by Roald Dahl - his autobiography, boy and going solo, is extraordinary and a must-read.
Cliff McNish's Doomspell trilogy and the very weird Silver Sequence. Fantasy at its best.
Chris D'lacy's Icefire trilogy. Very interesting fantasy read.

Can't think of any others, but these spring to mind now.

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"Fire and steel
follow me through the lands
you will burn hordes of hell
in the deadly raging flames of revenge"

Rhapsody - Flames of Revenge

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The Princess Bride" by William Goldman.

Is that any better than the movie? i hated the movie.

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"Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden

i keep having to yell at my brother because he thinks geishas are hookers. i've shown him definitions and read him passages from respectable books. it consumes me.
didn't know that was a book too.

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White Fang, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, and Bram Stoker's Dracula are my favorite reads

what a coincidence! those are some of my favorite books from fifth grade. dracula confused me though, because i was only 10. it was still interesting though.
didn't tom cruise play a minor role in the outsiders movie? i think he was just as psychotic then.

I just remembered "nightfall" by isaac asimov and robert silverberg ( based on one of asimovs short stories). don't know how i forgot it. bunch of people live on a planet that is in perpetual light, due to having 6 suns ( maybe 7). so naturally they would go insane if the light went away, right? guess what happens next.

two topics without remaking an old one. livin' that dream...

This post has been edited by kuetipo on 7th March 2006 22:06

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Quote (kuetipo @ 7th March 2006 13:57)

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The Princess Bride" by William Goldman.

Is that any better than the movie? i hated the movie.

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"Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden

i keep having to yell at my brother because he thinks geishas are hookers. i've shown him definitions and read him passages from respectable books.
didn't know that was a book too.

I think that The Princess Bride book is much better than the movie. Many things were changed in the transition from book to movie. Though, if you hated the movie, you may not appreciate the book either, it has a lot of the same charms to it.

Memoirs is in fact a book too. In fact both of these movies were based on the books. As for the Geisha/hooker problem, some people just don't get it.

A lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines
This book is excellent, and i don't feel like giving any details.
this definately a book anyone would want to pick up.

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"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

I enjoyed the Kafka I read - The Metamorphosis and Amerika, two very entertaining novels. The first is short and to the point, definitely worth a read. Amerika is unfinished and very descriptive. It's a great piece of work and I really enjoy his writing style and use of dialogue. Karl is a great character to relate to. Kafka's portrayal of America is quite fallacious and exaggerated, but it makes for an interesting and lighthearted read.

In the same vein as Amerika, I'd definitely have to recommend 1984 by George Orwell. I'm partial to these kinds of stories - 1984 is a bleak depiction of a future nation (which we can only assume to be ours) under totalitarian rule. Good stuff, as is Animal Farm (another great Orwell story - slightly shorter as well).

Last but not least, Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. For the most part I'm not a fan of pointless thrillers and other such novels - I like substance, and whenever possible, a point to the story being told.

This post has been edited by Jlombardi13 on 8th March 2006 04:06

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Lou: There's a couple of guys fighting down at the aquarium, Chief.
Wiggum: Do they still sell those frozen bananas?
Lou: I think so.
Wiggum: Let's roll.

Quote (kuetipo @ 7th March 2006 16:57)

what a coincidence! those are some of my favorite books from fifth grade. dracula confused me though, because i was only 10. it was still interesting though.
didn't tom cruise play a minor role in the outsiders movie? i think he was just as psychotic then.

I have seen the movie, but it was a while since I last saw and don't remember who played who. I do know that Emilio Esteves played one of the characters.

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"Thought I was dead, eh? Not until I fulfill my dream!"
Seifer Almasy


"The most important part of the story is the ending."
Secret Window


"Peace is but a shadow of death."
Kuja

I tend to go back and forth in my reading. I enjoy what I consider "trashy" fiction and then I also enjoy slightly more literary work. Here's a short list of part of my library:

Trashy Fiction

- The Elenium Series by David Eddings. The plot is a little contrived, but the characters are thoroughly enjoyable. I laughed a lot through this series. Set in a fictional medieval theocracy. Church knights, violence, and pleasant banter.

- The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Even less plot, more humour. Sometimes I like it more, sometimes less. Really depends.

Not-So-Trashy Fiction

- Lord of the Rings. It took me a while to get through it. I didn't, and still don't, like the initial 1/8 of the trilogy. The rest is golden.

- Three Kingdoms. Good old chinese literature. I fully admit that most people will not like this book (or books). If you are going to give it a try, don't waste your time with the abridged version, its not worth it. If you're interested in reading it, PM me and I can give you the ISBN for the paperback 4-volume set. Roughly 2,000 pages long.

- American Gods, Neverwhere, Good Omens - all by Neil Gaiman. The first two are very well written, creative darkish fantasy. Good Omens was written with Terry Pratchett, so expect it to be very humorous, but I consider it to be of higher quality than the Discworld series.

Nonfiction I've Liked

- Anything by Bill Bryson. Particularly In A Sunburned Country and Mother Tongue. He's colorful, which is refreshing in non-fiction when you're used to serious academics. Also check out A Short History of the Universe, the first 2/3 are GREAT, the last 1/3 is.. not so great.

- Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. A classic book on how cultural interaction has been influenced by various factors.

There's a bunch of other stuff, but this is a pretty thorough list of stuff I think would appeal to many people, not just me and the other 10 people who bothered to by some book. I tend to go a little nuts in used bookstores...

Edit

Dragon_Fire, you're right, Chuck Palahniuk is great!!!

This post has been edited by WildHalcyon on 10th March 2006 01:40

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Oh sure, I don't have to get kicked in the junk to activate it, but I like it anyway. -- Thief commenting on the difference between Throw and Blue Magic.

James Joyce's "Dubliners" (the later version, including The Dead) is a great collection of intruiging short stories. Definatly worth checking out just for their realism. Also, his book "Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man" is a great, though sometimes confusing book.

Anything by Chuck Palahniuk is worth reading, especially Fight Club, Survivor and Diary. All dark-humored books commenting on our modern day culture's stupidity. Anyway, his stuff is great.

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Okay, but there was a goat!

Well, Perfect Works is a nice book. This book has everything deeply detailed about the Xenosaga/Gears story. It tells the story thaT spands milleniums of human history beggining in the year 2001. Humanity finally found the answer to one of history's most enigmatic question, how did we come to exist!

The game alone is incredible, and for those that love and enjoy to read a great book every once in a while, you might want to check this one out.

There's a great fan translation up in the GAMEFAQS web page. You can find it in the PSone section under the name Xenogears FAQ.

This post has been edited by SaffireWeapon on 10th March 2006 02:39

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PS3 tag: TipoDLuffy

"...quite possibly the greatest game ever made"

my favorite books are called fire and flesh(same book) and the diabl sereis i also like to read the halo series and stuff like magazines.

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Why is it that rpg's are now a dying breed?

America's Secret War by George Freidman. An excellent book that doesn't take a party line stance for either the Democrats or Republicans. It's pretty refreshing to read something that's as neutral as you can find regarding the events leading up to the American war on terrorism.

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Three Kingdoms. Good old chinese literature. I fully admit that most people will not like this book (or books). If you are going to give it a try, don't waste your time with the abridged version, its not worth it. If you're interested in reading it, PM me and I can give you the ISBN for the paperback 4-volume set. Roughly 2,000 pages long.

You can also view this for free on the internet. C. H. Brewitt-Taylor's translation is more comprehensive than the paperbacks and has full backing by Rafe Crespigny, one of the foremost scholars on the Three Kingdoms era.

This post has been edited by Kairo on 10th March 2006 19:14

Well "Natural cures "They" don't want you to know about" is very interesting and "The Samurai trilogy" is pretty awesome. Right now i'm reading the "Dark sword" books and they're pretty good so far "The Hobbit" is also a classic.

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"You know that feeling you get when you're on a merry go 'round, and you want to jump off to make the spinning stop, but you know it'll suck when you land? I feel like that all the time"- Keno

"I stab my girl until I fall down"
-Yukari
Do you like Horny Bunnies?