Good Books?

Into the Wild & Into Thin Air, both by John Krakauer, are really good.

Out, by Natsuo Kirino. It's this murder / crime thriller about working class women in japan. Really good, suspenseful, and entertaining. Also check out her other book, Grotesque.

Invisible Monsters, by Chuck Palahniuk. See sig, <3. Much less known than his more famous books Fight Club and Choke.

I loved The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. Don't judge me please.

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. Most of us have probably heard of this one i think. A young Indian boy gets stranded on a lifeboat with a bengal tiger. However, this book is surprisingly deep. It explores Pi's experience with religion, a huge part of his life, and somehow connects it to his studies of zoology. Brilliant.

Also, the classics: Fahrenheit 451, Cat's Cradle, a Tale of Two Cities, A Clockwork Orange (<3),etc.
 
I would strongly recommend The Grapes of Wrath by Graham Greene. Not only is it a good read, but it can dramatically deeped you understanding of certain things (many of which are kind of diffucult to discribe, but you will see what I mean if you read it. It qualifies as literature too.
 
One of my favorites is the Warriors series by Erin Hunter. It's directed at a slightly younger audience, but it's still a great series. Props also to The View from Saturday. LOVED that book.
 
It's not a novel, but On Writing by Stephen King is one of the best books out there on the subject.

That and Strunk and White's The Elements of Style are my two favorite books, and the only books about writing that I own.
 
When recommending books and other potential fine art mediums, clarifying whether the book is good or entertaining is important. Length, difficulty and availability of quality adaptations [if you want to read kite runner, watch the movie instead] are also important factors. For literature, please consider whether the message justifies the length, difficulty and potential suffering on part of the reader.

For instance: Frankenstein is both good and entertaining. Movie adaptations don't do it justice.

The Awakening is semi-decent but a nightmare to get through if you're not female. It does get points for length though.

Bartimaeus Trilogy and many modern best sellers, while entertaining and well written, aren't good art.

I recommend reading animal farm instead of 1984. It's better, easier to read, more entertaining and shorter.

The Stranger and The Catcher in the Rye aren't that great, but because the first is short and the second is funny, they may be worth it.


Because entertainment is subjective, including genres is helpful.

Edit: don't read Brave New World. The characters aren't believable and the plot is a mess. The semi-original idea is sort of interesting but not worth reading the book. If you really want to get anything from it, just have your friend describe the society to you.

I know Kurt Vonnegut is popular, but Galapagos is much better than slaughter house 5--Read that one.
 
Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

Even if it was pretty famous back in 1974. Regardless, it's undervalued for this generation.

Another book is Post Office by Charles Bukowski. I know Bukowski has quite a following, but where I'm from, he's virtually unheard of :(
 
re: Alastair Reynolds

Maybe you would have to read all of his books to understand absolutely every allusion and reference, but he does a fantastic job of making them coherent and entertaining even if you read them individually or out of order.

I would throw out Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. He's not a no-name author, but he is, in my opinion, extremely hit-or-miss. Snow Crash appears to have gathered a cult following, but personally I really didn't like it at all. Other books such as Quicksilver / The Confusion can be pretty similar in style, but less interesting due to subject. It's hard for even the best authors to make an 800-page novel half about 17th century politics, expressed through veiled letters, interesting. Cryptonomicon combines everything I've ever liked about Stephenson's work; it's got the technical savvy of Snow Crash, the wit and irony of his Baroque Cycle, and keeps everything both active and intellectually interesting by basing it on WWII code-breaking.

p.s. Lexite, how can you stand Piers Anthony? I liked him a lot until I was perhaps 12. Even at that age I couldn't take how ridiculously repetitive his books had become, and the novelty of cheesy puns wears off extremely fast.
 
Ender's game
Stranger in a strange land
Brave New World
Childhoods End
October Sky
The world rushed in
their eyes were watching god
um...
yeah... Don't know if you like to read plays as well... if you do-
The glass menagerie
Street Car named desire
 
Ekypsekim said:
o yea and lord of the flies, its supposed to be about human psychosis or something right, I read a couple reviews on amazon, that said it wasnt that great
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Lord of the Flies is an acquired taste.. it's very dark. It's about a group of kids who end up going wild, and they start killing each other. I never read the book, but I participated in a play based on it.

I love Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy By Douglas Adams. The Movie doesn't do the book justice. It's hilarious. It's been a couple of years since I read it, but I still use quotes from the books (There are 5 books in the H2G2 trilogy) on a regular basis.

I really like anything by Diana Wynne Jones. She wrote Howl's Moving Castle (Remember that Miyazaki film that came out not too long ago? It was based on that book, but Miyazaki changed a lot of the story.) She's a British novelist, and often includes a lot of Magic in her stories. It's kind of like Harry Potter, only better and more light-hearted. One of my favorite series by her is The Chronicles of Chrestomanci

Also, House of the Scorpion was amazing. The only way to describe that book. It was one of he best books I've ever read, and it's not well known.

As for Classics,Sherlock Holmes is not as dry as you would think it would be for being written in the late 1800s. It's certainly easier to read than, say, The Bluest Eye which was written 30 years later. Hound of the Baskervilles was very good.

Also along the lines with magic, Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman is a good read. It's more centered toward women, but not necessarily in a chick-flick sort of way. It more deals with the relationship between two sisters and, later, their children.
 
Nate said:
p.s. Lexite, how can you stand Piers Anthony? I liked him a lot until I was perhaps 12. Even at that age I couldn't take how ridiculously repetitive his books had become, and the novelty of cheesy puns wears off extremely fast.
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I happen to like the puns ;p. I find them funny and entertaining, especially the ones that you have to figure out before they give the answer. Puns are an acquired taste.

I loved the first book when I read it when I was in high school and I just love reading them. Yes it is the same plot over and over again but I like reading about the new characters and seeing their development. I love Mertia and all the Centars and Dragons in the book and love reading about them in the books. I also like reading the cute little romance in each of the books too ;P. And as I said, I love the puns. On vacation I would read the books during out trip and would burst out laughing here and there from the puns. Differnt people have differnt types of humor and I for one love a good pun.

And besides, who doesnt want to read a book titled The Color of her Panties? And The Magic Fart, come on, you know that is going to be a funny book, it is the sequil to Pornucopia. I find them a great read, but apparently its not for everyone. Ive read all 31 in the Xanth Series sofar and I cant wait till October when Two to the Fifth comes out. Whoot! This one is about a Roc! Still need to read The Magic Fart though.


Heck, Pokemon is the same over and over again but I still play and I still like the show. I
 
I've read (almost) everything by my favorite humorist, P.G. Wodehouse. Although his writing has been criticized as overly formulaic, I particularly enjoyed Mulliner Nights and the Blandings series. He mostly writes airy, gentle satires of the Idle Rich in Edwardian England. Although he doesn't attempt to take anything seriously, all of his books are extremely diverting and less heavy-handed and self-important than other authors of his type, namely Evelyn Waugh, who also deserves a mention. I particularly liked Waugh's Handful of Dust and Decline and Fall.

A lot of people have become completely batshit crazy about Ayn Rand lately, but I happen to think that Atlas Shrugged is a piece of crap. I did, however, much enjoy The Fountainhead.
 
The Glass Castle
The World is Flat
The Kitchen Boy
Water for Elephants

^ the best books I've read in the past few months

edit: and The City of Fallen Angels too
edit 2 @ ascalon: I agree; also To a God Unknown was a good book of his
 
1 - The Strager/L'Étranger by Albert Camus. Great book. Short as a guy here said, but packed with subtle hidden meanings that you'll take time to fully understand this book.
2 - The Prince/Il Principe by Niccolò Machiavelli. This book is just epic, even more if you but an edition with Napoléon's comments as I did.
3 - Manifesto of the Communist Party/Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei by Karl Marx and Firedrich Engels. "WTF? Are you fucking reccomending me a Soviet fucking book?" You may say. This ain't USSR's Owner's Manual. This heavily influenced the general idea behind USSR, but the original idea wasn't the one used. This book ain't interesting for you to do a revolution, but to understand history, since most of it's ideas are outdated, but it's a amazing book. One of the most influential book ever too.
 
Definitely Playing to Win by David Sirlin. I wouldn't have a clue how to play Pokemon if it weren't for that. It's certainly the only work I've ever seen that can reasonably be classified as both "philosophy" and "gaming".

I also recommend The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest. The former is a very deep and dark deconstruction of Victorian perceptions of morality, while the latter is funny as hell. Both by the same author (who is awesome).
 
I just recently finished A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway. They did make a movie on it, but I doubt that many people here have seen it (it's from the 30's if I recall correctly). The book is not quite as good as some of his best work (I liked For whom the Bell Tolls better, as far as war novels go, and The Old Man and the Sea is better to in my opinion).

It's worth a read in any case.
 
I read a book called Cat's Cradle for school. It's a cool apocalyptic book that leaves you with a lot to ponder with.
 
I've been reading a lot of classics recently because I realised all I really read is the Dune series, Discworld and Rhebus. ANYWAY, the point is, while the following are well known, definitely worth checking out if you haven't already.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronté
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

And then, just to mix things up (mwaha?) check out some of George Orwell's earlier books, like Burmese Days or Down and Out in Paris and London. They're so completely different from 1984 and Animal Farm they're often overlooked and it's very unfortunate.
 
Xia said:
House of the Scorpon.
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I read this book twice, but it's been years since, was originally for a book report but I enjoyed it a good deal

I'm reading a book about Pink Floyd that Nick Mason wrote, I wanna read detailed histories of a couple bands that are worth it. So far he's doing a pretty good job too, he could be a writer if he wanted!
 
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