• Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!

BOOKS

I've just finished reading a few good books. These are:

Christine by Stephen King
I, Alex Cross by James Patterson
Nothing Lasts Forever by Sidney Sheldon
Pegasus Descending by James Lee Burke

And you'll never see me in public without a well read paperback in my hand and a few more in my bag. Some of my all time favorites are Chasing The Dime by Michael Connelly, Beneath The Skin by Nicci French, and the Dark Tower Series by Stephen King.

I'm currently reading a selection of books (I go through a couple books every few days), which include:

1984 by George Orwell,
Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut,
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

EDIT: I've just had a book given to me by my mother, A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. I'll be reading this pretty soon.
 
Just finished reading Inheritance by Christopher Paolini, which came out here today.

It was a good enough read, but the last few chapters and their blatant fanservice was rather painful and annoying.
 
Just finished reading Inheritance by Christopher Paolini, which came out here today.

It was a good enough read, but the last few chapters and their blatant fanservice was rather painful and annoying.
Click to expand...

I could never get into Eragon. I found that I could skip entire chapters and not miss anything because sometimes nothing would happen over the course of 30 pages. I've heard a lot of mixed things about this series.
 
Feathers said:
I could never get into Eragon. I found that I could skip entire chapters and not miss anything because sometimes nothing would happen over the course of 30 pages. I've heard a lot of mixed things about this series.
Click to expand...
Well Eragon was meh, but Eldest was pretty good and I really enjoyed Brisingr, I personally think it's the best in the series.( haven't read Inheritance yet, won't be able to get it until the 12th)

But how can someone read an entire book in a couple of hours? I mean do you even think about whats going on in the book? I don't know maybe it's just because I'm a slow reader(It did take me a month to read Deathly Hollows).
 
Eragon was an okay read. It's just that if it wasn't for the fact his parents were publishers, it never would have seen print.
 
The Diverman said:
Well Eragon was meh, but Eldest was pretty good and I really enjoyed Brisingr, I personally think it's the best in the series.( haven't read Inheritance yet, won't be able to get it until the 12th)

But how can someone read an entire book in a couple of hours? I mean do you even think about whats going on in the book? I don't know maybe it's just because I'm a slow reader(It did take me a month to read Deathly Hollows).
Click to expand...

Well I got the book at around 10am, and finished it at about 6pm. I suppose I rushed reading it near the end cos it just got annoying and CP was doing nothing but tying up loose ends.

But yeah Brisingr probably was the high point in the series, it really picked up on the idea of going wider and including multinarrative viewpoints in the story. Really helped to add depth to the world which had pretty much just been focused entirely around Eragon and what he though of everything.
 
Eragon was ok when I was 12. I enjoyed it, but the sequels got a bit tedious.

I'm currently reading The Picture of Dorian Grey. I'm about halfway through, and I love the writing style of Oscar Wilde. His characters present wonderful contrasts and development, and description and wordplay of his kind isn't even seen nowadays. Does anyone have more suggestions for good classics? I've read the Bronte Sisters' novels, and I'd like to know more authors in their romantic, intricate style.
 
Invective said:
Dean Koontz used to be an author i read a lot back in high school until i finally got weirded out by all the fucked up sexual tones/deviants that were present in about half his books. Some of his books were really good (the Odd Thomas and Frankenstein series) but then some of the times I just couldn't finish the books (that one book with the guy with 4 testicles who was born and raised by his hermaphroditic mother who fucked herself to become pregnant with him). That was the last chance I gave him with books that weren't a part of either the Frankenstein or Odd Thomas Series.
I did however, thoroughly enjoy the first 3 books of the Frankenstein. The plot takes a new twist to Frankenstein and his monsters and I really got into the characters, especially Jocko. I think we can all identify with Jocko on some level.
Click to expand...

you should read lightning! Koontz does tend to have very sexual undertones to some of his characters, aspects that are highlighted throughout the story, but I don't find it offputting! and the one you were describing is called "The Bad Place." I very much enjoyed how demented yet supernatural all the mother's children were, simply because she impregnated herself and raised all her babies to be a little nuts. The main focus, Frank Pollard, finds himself teleporting at random, but can never remember the events. he also starts to discover that his physical being is unraveling, as it becomes increasingly difficult to perfectly put himself back together after each teleportation! I grew up reading koontz books, so I'm a die hard fan, but there are still a few of his older/newer books that I haven't read yet, including finally finishing the frankenstein series. It took him like 10 years to come out with the third book. !_!
 
Paolini's books were good... when I was in middle school eighth grade. At this point in time, his writing style strikes me as bland, his characterization is pretty cliched and not expanded well enough and much of the plot is very predictable.

I heard Inheritance had a very cliched and predictable ending. I'll probably read it if I get around to borrowing it from the public library in the future.

Back on the topic of books, the book I half finished so far and abandoned a month and half ago was the Count of Monte Cristo. It's a good book, but I find a lot of it is very very tedious and has a lot of entwining plots. In my sleep deprived state, I found it almost impossible to derive any enjoyment out of the book, and thus, am waiting for the school semester to end so I can enjoy the book coherently.
 
Eraddd said:
Back on the topic of books, the book I half finished so far and abandoned a month and half ago was the Count of Monte Cristo. It's a good book, but I find a lot of it is very very tedious and has a lot of entwining plots. In my sleep deprived state, I found it almost impossible to derive any enjoyment out of the book, and thus, am waiting for the school semester to end so I can enjoy the book coherently.
Click to expand...

I enjoyed the movie more.
 
the only books that i read are philosophy books; i get my fiction fix from movies, shows and vidya games. for some reason i just get bored reading a book and never finish it, but with philosophy its different--especially if im reading some trippy metaphysics.
 
I just finished Inheritance and eh, it was filled with cliches and a lot of it was really bland, but I felt that it was an okay but expected ending. I didn't expect anything better really, but it was a satisfactory ending.
 
I'm really enjoying the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy. They're basically fantasy detective novels, and they're quite fast-paced and funny, with moderately interesting characterisation. Most of the books I read are science books, so when I read fiction I tend to like easy escapism that doesn't make me think too hard. That probably means I have terrible taste, huh.

As for Inheritance, I gave up after Eldest, and I thought they were quite bad on the whole-- the author seemed like he was trying to be epic, but in the process lost all relatability in the characters. The only interesting one was Saphira, for me anyway.
 
Because of my relatively recent religious skepticism, I started searching about many things, and of course stumbled upon the famous evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. By seeing his videos including the documentary "Root of all evil?" I was hooked and that made me want to read his books. Since I am a skeptic first book I wanted to read was The God Delusion, which is what I am reading currently.
 
reading mrs dalloway by virginia wolfe and hundred years of solitude by garcia marquez atm, reccomend both!

favourites probably perks of being a wallflower because it's the last book i read
 
My new job is pretty work-lite so in the past month I just blazed through Wuthering Heights and Ivanhoe. I'm kind of on a 19th century literature kick now, so does anyone have anything from that era to recommend?

Also, SMZ, are just looking for books to validate your skepticism or are you at all interested in any material that may justify faith?

edit: 1001 posts?! When did 1000 happen?...i was hoping to make some kind of gif or something
 
I just finished the game of thrones tv show and can't wait to get my hands on the books. sooooooo good. recently I finished 'o aleph' by paulo coelho, which was a pretty awesome read about self-discovery, and am finishing up the golden compass by philip pullman.
 
Manafii101 said:
Eragon was ok when I was 12. I enjoyed it, but the sequels got a bit tedious.

I'm currently reading The Picture of Dorian Grey. I'm about halfway through, and I love the writing style of Oscar Wilde. His characters present wonderful contrasts and development, and description and wordplay of his kind isn't even seen nowadays. Does anyone have more suggestions for good classics? I've read the Bronte Sisters' novels, and I'd like to know more authors in their romantic, intricate style.
Click to expand...

I also read the Bronte Sister's novels and The Pircture of Dorian Grey. If you liked the gothic style of Jane Eyre, Dracula and Frankenstein are great books.

One books I read that isn't gothic in style, but does have romantic elements would be, Pride and Prejudice.

I also started reading The Scarlet Letter. It deals with the psychological aspects of guilt, love, and revenge.

On another note, reading the ending of Inheritance made me a little depressed. I thought Paolini's works up to that was okay, but the ending was plain horrible.
 
The last two books I read were Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and the Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Both were wonderful with delicious prose. Right now I'm reading a Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Eglund and 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.
 
I don't know if these have been/will ever be translated, but if they are/will, I recommend these books:

Herman Koch - Het Diner (The Dinner)
Herman Koch - Zomerhuis met Zwembad ( Summerhouse with Swimming Pool)
 
Eraddd said:
I just finished Inheritance and eh, it was filled with cliches and a lot of it was really bland, but I felt that it was an okay but expected ending. I didn't expect anything better really, but it was a satisfactory ending.
Click to expand...
Agreeing, although I did enjoy it a good deal. The only thing I had a gripe with was the very ending, bastard built it up and pulled the rug out :(
 
Eraddd said:
Back on the topic of books, the book I half finished so far and abandoned a month and half ago was the Count of Monte Cristo. It's a good book, but I find a lot of it is very very tedious and has a lot of entwining plots. In my sleep deprived state, I found it almost impossible to derive any enjoyment out of the book, and thus, am waiting for the school semester to end so I can enjoy the book coherently.
Click to expand...

Count of Monte Cristo is absolutely one of my favorite books, but it suffers some pretty heavy drag in the middle section. the first part of the book is amazing, the last part of the book is fascinating how everything comes together, but the middle part is hard to get through if you don't understand what's going on.

Just finished reading William Gibson's Neuromancer, which was a fun read, and interesting to look at considering it was written before the internet as we know it today was even conceived, but Gibson is just really not a very good writer.

Also recently read The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi and it was absolutely amazing, it's an awesome cyber-punk without computers (bio-punk I think they call it) set in thailand post-global warming/petrol/bioengineered plague and it is one of the best sci-fi books I've ever read.

Now on to read Snow Crash before my _____-punk phase ends and I go back to Asimov for my go-to sci-fi
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top