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RE: Favorite Book - 9/6/2007 10:49:27 AM   
treadingwater


Posts: 11
Status: offline 		My reading tastes are quite strange  I tend to look for books by the author and not by the title or what the book may be about. So, my favorite books, by my favorite authors would be
 
The Immoralist by Andre Gide
and
Man's Fate ( La Condition Humaine ) and Picasso's Mask; both by Andre Malraux
 
These are two of my favorite authors

(in reply to satyrsnymph28)
Profile   Post #: 21
RE: Favorite Book - 9/6/2007 11:03:45 AM   
Mercnbeth


Posts: 11766
Status: offline 		Too many to pick one - but I'll bring up one of my more obscure "favorites".

The Long Walk (1979),  - Richard Bachman (A pseudonym used by Stephen King)

I read it as part of a collection of 'Bachman Books' that included  Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Road Work (1981), and The Running Man (1982). The last 'Bachman' book, and the only one published as a hard cover, was Bachman's 1984 novel Thinner .

A bookstore clerk refused to accept that Bachman wasn't King despite denials from King and his publisher. The clerk located publisher's records at the Library of Congress naming King as the author of one of Bachman's novels. Bachman was 'killed off'. The cause of Bachman's "death"was supposedly from "cancer of the pseudonym, a rare form of schizonomia".

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RE: Favorite Book - 9/6/2007 11:46:03 AM   
curiouspet55


Posts: 133
Joined: 10/13/2006
From: Indiana
Status: offline 		1984 by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
- I like Orwell because his writing can apply now, in the past, and in the future, and is both politically and socio-economically applicable as well.
Brave New World ..AWESOME book.
The Crucible It's a play, but I still think it counts.
The Federalist Papers I'm a nerd like that.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. My all-time favorite, not only because of the themes presented but because of the style Morrison uses.
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise. It is a twisted relationship, which is interesting.

That's all for now. But, I do love the authors Diana Palmer, Julia Quinn, Lisa Kleypas, and Johanna Lindsey. I'm an avid romance reader.

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Profile   Post #: 23
RE: Favorite Book - 9/6/2007 12:22:48 PM   
spiral23


Posts: 1053
Joined: 1/10/2007
Status: offline 		lots by IAN BANKS ,CHINA MIEVILLE,  JG BALLARD are worth checking out...

two books id recommend also are

stuart, a life backwards by alexander masters
dangerous parking        by stuart browne


(in reply to e01n)
Profile   Post #: 24
RE: Favorite Book - 9/6/2007 12:29:14 PM   
YourhandMyAss


Posts: 5516
Joined: 6/25/2006
From: Sacramento
Status: offline 		why not get them at your local library instead. If you like them then go out and buy a few, if not no money lost. much more finacially feasable then blowing a whole paycheck.
quote:

ORIGINAL: satyrsnymph28

This is turning into an AWESOME list!!! I'm so excited ;)

I"m gonna go spend my paycheck at the bookstore now...

<3




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RE: Favorite Book - 9/6/2007 1:13:41 PM   
satyrsnymph28


Posts: 379
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: YourhandMyAss

why not get them at your local library instead. If you like them then go out and buy a few, if not no money lost. much more finacially feasable then blowing a whole paycheck.


I can't always find what I want at my local library... and they always have what i'm looking for... or they can order it... at the bookstore

our library sucks like that...



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Profile   Post #: 26
RE: Favorite Book - 9/6/2007 2:09:45 PM   
nmjardine


Posts: 116
Joined: 7/31/2005
Status: offline
quote:

I can't always find what I want at my local library... and they always have what i'm looking for... or they can order it... at the bookstore

our library sucks like that...
quote:

ORIGINAL: satyrsnymph28

quote:

ORIGINAL: YourhandMyAss

why not get them at your local library instead. If you like them then go out and buy a few, if not no money lost. much more finacially feasable then blowing a whole paycheck.


I can't always find what I want at my local library... and they always have what i'm looking for... or they can order it... at the bookstore

our library sucks like that...


I spend way too much money on books. They are my secret vice, the only things I like shopping for. I will spend hours in a bookstore, bigbox and independent. Used bookstores are the best. My house is packed with books. I buy them because I reread them. I will remember a story that I loved or an author I want to enjoy again and the hunt will be on.

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Profile   Post #: 27
RE: Favorite Book - 9/6/2007 4:19:43 PM   
Joseff


Posts: 505
Joined: 6/2/2007
Status: offline 		I remember books, I miss them. Maybe when we get moved, I'll get a chance to read again.... Anyway, my 2 favorites are: Okla Hanali by R.A. Lafferty,
Enemy Mine by Barry B Longyear
Joseff

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Profile   Post #: 28
RE: Favorite Book - 9/6/2007 4:31:07 PM   
Saraheli


Posts: 178
Joined: 1/2/2006
Status: offline 		Anything by Barbara Tuchman, particularly Through a Distant Mirror

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RE: Favorite Book - 9/6/2007 8:46:33 PM   
YourhandMyAss


Posts: 5516
Joined: 6/25/2006
From: Sacramento
Status: offline 		yeah, I order mine from saclibrary.org, and they come in from all over the county, I don't mind waiting, however I also go to book stores with a journal and a pen and write down titles of books to look for at the said library. I love it. only problem is Iget like 100 and can't read them all fast enough or end up loosing about 3 or four no matter how hard I try not to. I have a box for them all, but it's when you're in the midsts of reading that they disapere.
quote:

ORIGINAL: satyrsnymph28

quote:

ORIGINAL: YourhandMyAss

why not get them at your local library instead. If you like them then go out and buy a few, if not no money lost. much more finacially feasable then blowing a whole paycheck.


I can't always find what I want at my local library... and they always have what i'm looking for... or they can order it... at the bookstore

our library sucks like that...




(in reply to satyrsnymph28)
Profile   Post #: 30
RE: Favorite Book - 9/6/2007 9:23:08 PM   
slaverosebeauty


Posts: 1941
Joined: 12/12/2004
From: Cali
Status: offline 		Head for your local used book stores and thrift stores. You can find a LOT of popular authors there as well as others that you may not have thought of. I have made friends with a few local used book store clerks to keep an eye out for certain authors for me, its paid off already, I get to go and pick up about 10 books this weekend for less than $50 total.

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Profile   Post #: 31
RE: Favorite Book - 9/7/2007 10:50:36 AM   
e01n


Posts: 1472
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: spiral23: lots by IAN BANKS ,CHINA MIEVILLE, JG BALLARD are worth checking out...
Me, I'm kicking myself for forgetting Ballard.

Crash (the novel) was "helpful" to me... Dad got it for me when I was laid up in a hospital for months after almost getting killed in a car wreck (great sense of hhumor, he had). The movie Cronenberg made diverges wildly, but is good in it's own right.

Empire of the Sun is also brilliant. Much different in tone from his other work, but well-crafted and poetic.

Atrocity Exhibition is probably the most "Ballard" of Ballard to me - and a pretty good intro to his work IMNSHO. It's not a "normal" novel (I say "novel" because I see the connections between the "stories") by any means... very big influence on the Cyberpunk and Splatterpunk genres as well as being Literary in that Kundera/Cheever sort of way.

Not familiar with Ian Banks off the top of my head. Any suggestions for us?

< Message edited by e01n -- 9/7/2007 10:51:22 AM >

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Profile   Post #: 32
RE: Favorite Book - 9/7/2007 11:10:48 AM   
daddysprop247


Posts: 1712
Joined: 6/24/2005
From: DC Metro area
Status: offline 		my favorite novel would probably have to be "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck...the whole trilogy is great, but that first one is just unparalleled. a second favorite would have to be "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison...although i LOATHE the author as a person...she's arrogant, egotistical and condescening beyond description...she is a gifted writer, and Bluest Eye touched me to my very depths.

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Profile   Post #: 33
RE: Favorite Book - 9/7/2007 2:01:55 PM   
slaveluci


Posts: 4294
Joined: 3/2/2007
From: Little Rock, AR
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: daddysprop247
a second favorite would have to be "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison...although i LOATHE the author as a person...she's arrogant, egotistical and condescening beyond description...she is a gifted writer, and Bluest Eye touched me to my very depths

Since you are at least the second person to mention "The Bluest Eye" here as a favorite, I thought I'd comment.  I have read several of Morrison's books but never this one for some reason.  A few weeks back, I was reading a new book (can't remember the title now) where many authors listed their top 10 favorite books of all time.  Many of them mentioned "The Bluest Eye" so I went by the library and picked it up a couple weeks back.  I have a few ahead of it but will be reading it very soon.  I'm extra anxious now since it's been mentioned here as a favorite.  I'll have to see if it rates as one of my faves too........luci

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To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor’s prohibited list. ~John Aikin

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Profile   Post #: 34
RE: Favorite Book - 9/7/2007 2:11:40 PM   
slaveluci


Posts: 4294
Joined: 3/2/2007
From: Little Rock, AR
Status: offline 		I've posted on several different favorite books threads here before so I just went back to some of those.  Here's a reposted reply:

Fiction I would recommend because it gives me goosebumps and/or brings tears to my eyes:
*"Grapes of Wrath" - John Steinbeck.  The ending scene of this book is perhaps the most hopeful of any novel I've ever read. 
*Anything by Thomas Hardy but especially "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" and "The Mayor of Casterbridge."  Hardy wrote soap opera plots in the 1800's!
*Anything by Carson McCullers.  She makes me feel like I'm right there in her stories.
*Anything by James Lee Burke, especially the Dave Robicheaux series.  I love them all but "Purple Cane Road" is the absolute best.
*"Gentleman Junkie" by Harlan Ellison.  A collection of short stories that never gets old.  I've read them over and over and they grab me each time.

Nonfiction.  I love nonfiction and there are so many but here are some that I've read over and over.  I love them because they are either so touching or I learned so much from them:
*"Shot In The Heart" - Mikal Gilmore.  Written by Gary Gilmore's youngest brother (who also wrote for "Rolling Stone" magazine), this bio of their life growing up is unforgettable. 
*"The Glass Castle" - Jeannette Walls.  Now a gossip columnist for MSNBC, Wells grew up in poverty with very eccentric (some would say abusive or neglectful) parents.  Her teenage years were spent in a southern WV coal town.  This story of her life growing up and after she'd "made it," is hard to put down.
*"Gift of Fear" - Gavin deBecker.  This book is about our "gift" of intuition and how we have repressed it, much to our danger.  Very interesting.
*"Freakonomics" - S. Leavitt.  Sounds dry but is very interesting.  A "rogue" economist digs into such subjects as how a drug-dealing empire is structured much like McDonald's and how children's names at birth may/may not affect their course in life, etc.  Really eye-opening.
*"Redneck Manifesto" - Jim Goad.  Great book about how classism, not racism, is the real issue we must fight.  Great take on how "rednecks" are the only group that it is still socially acceptable (and even encouraged) to make fun of and how if money and power is what really enables "institutional racism," then how can dirt-poor, powerless rednecks really be at fault for it's perpetuation?
*"Something Permanent" - a collection of old B&W Walker Evans photos taken during the Great Depression are paired with modern poetry written by Cynthia Rylant.  Never fails to bring tears to my eyes every single time I open it.

Just a few of a million wonderful books..............luci

I'd also add: 
"Heart Shaped Box" - Joe Hill.
Any of Greg Iles' fiction
The Agent Pendergast novels by Lincoln Child/Douglas Preston




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To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor’s prohibited list. ~John Aikin

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RE: Favorite Book - 9/7/2007 2:59:04 PM   
lazarus1983


Posts: 828
Joined: 2/25/2006
Status: offline 		For those that enjoy 1984, there's a video of a journalist posing as a tourist that went into North Korea. It came out a few years ago, the first time that N Korea opened its borders in decades to outsiders. I don't know the name, but you need to go watch it. It's almost exactly like 1984.

There is no commercial advertising whatsoever, only billboard after billboard with propaganda on it. There is no TV or radio except for two hours at night, and that is all propaganda too (except when the tourists were there, then the TV and radio were giving instructions for people to smile and wave if they saw any of the visiting tourists).

They had footage from the hotel room down to the ground, and they noticed that everyone walks the same way. No one's running, no one's jogging, they're all at a very even, controlled pace. Not a smile, not a nod, not any look on their faces at all.

Each building that the tourists went into, each room in each building, had a picture of Kim Jong-Il in it.

At one point they went into a school, and the journalist was talking to a little girl who was on her umpteenth hour practicing writing. The journalist asked her if she ever got tired, and the girl responded without looking up, "How can my eyes be tired when I have such pretty colors to look at?"

It horrified me, that somewhere on this planet, 1984 is really happening.









Sorry to hijack the thread. Anyway, my favorite books would have to beeeeeeeeeeeee...ummmmmm...a lot.

Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert

(in reply to slaveluci)
Profile   Post #: 36
RE: Favorite Book - 9/7/2007 3:20:05 PM   
chellekitty


Posts: 3923
Joined: 3/27/2005
Status: offline 		Robert Asprin's Myth books...not so much the newer ones but the old ones, before Myth-Inc..when Skeeve did a lot of Dimension hopping...i grew up with the books...my mom would read them to me as bed time stories before i could read at that level, earliest i remember is 4, because thats what i asked for...at about 7 or 8 i started reading them on my own...i want to do a Pervect...damn...anywho...
paranormal...vampires, shapeshifters, witches, timetravel...all that....throw in romance and/or hot and steamy sex scenes and i am all over it....i can read it without the romance too...but much more interesting with..

(in reply to lazarus1983)
Profile   Post #: 37
RE: Favorite Book - 9/7/2007 3:25:25 PM   
PatentOne


Posts: 4
Joined: 3/5/2006
Status: offline 		How about the Honor Harrington series by David Weber?  Or The Arnaggion (spelling??) Rag by George R. R. Martin?   Or for those of us who are still young at heart, try the Groo comic books. 

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Profile   Post #: 38
RE: Favorite Book - 9/7/2007 3:28:43 PM   
SuspendedInGaffa


Posts: 188
Joined: 8/17/2007
From: Wales, UK
Status: offline 		Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys. Sort of a prequel to Jane Eyre, detailing how the so-called 'madwoman in the attic' came to be that way. Nothing's ever quite explained, and it leaves you haunted for days after reading it.

Revolution in the Head - The Beatles' Records and the Sixties - Ian MacDonald. Every single Beatles record put into its historical context. It's very anal in places ("listen for the duff bass note at 1:53"), but its boyish enthusiasm is totally irresistable, and it really gets across how thrilling it must have been to have been there at the time.

Without Feathers - Woody Allen. Just pick it up and go at any page. Timeless, brilliant stuff.

Get in the Van - Henry Rollins. Life at the nasty, dirty end of rock and roll. Hard going, intense, but brutally honest.

Unreliable Memoirs - Clive James. How to do an autobiography properly. His rapier wit is as sharp as ever, but it's also wise, touching and superbly written.

The Giant Under The Snow - John Gordon. I read this at school when I was about 10 and it has lived in my memory ever since. Fabulous mythological, ghostly tale that's sadly hard to get hold of now. The fact that the most memorable baddies are called the 'leather men' may well be of interest to Freudians who might want to study me...

< Message edited by SuspendedInGaffa -- 9/7/2007 3:32:36 PM >

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Profile   Post #: 39
RE: Favorite Book - 9/7/2007 4:17:31 PM   
UR2Badored


Posts: 506
Joined: 2/3/2007
Status: offline 		I have so many favorite books.....I, too, cannot pick one...I was just thinking of a book I read in college a moment ago that left an impression on me.
Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is available online and now is a requirement in some high schools.  You can read it in it's entirety on the web.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/JACOBS/hj-site-index.htm

Some of my favorite authors would be Charlotte Perkins Gillman, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, John Cheever, John Updike among many others.

< Message edited by UR2Badored -- 9/7/2007 4:40:56 PM >

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