The off topic discussion about LOTR in another forum sparked this idea. I was curious which books you guys enjoy reading. I'm a very big Clancy fan. I am working on reading his entire offerings right now. I used to be a big fan of Dean Koontz, but haven't ready any of his stuff in a LONG time. I also really enjoy Micheal Crichton since all his storries are so good. I really enjoyed Timeline and was very happy to see it come to theater. I really enjoyed the movie. I plan on reading the LOTR books when I get done with Clancy. I also plan on reading some C.S. Lewis at some point. I hear nothing but good things about his work. I just found out they are doing a movie on one of his books. It is being directed by the guy who did Shrek. :gunsmilie:
I like Stephen King, mostly his old stuff though. I even like the books penned under his Psudonym, Richard Bachman. He started getting rather weird lately. His Dark Tower series is great. He has written several of what I consider, the greatest books written. Don't ever watch his movies, as there is no way you can put on film what he puts in his books. There is just no way to get inside someones head in the 2 hours you get to spend in a film, like King does in his books. The Stand just blows my mind. The frist 150 pages of charachter introductions is rather rough to get through, but once the tale begins the last 1000 pages are gone in a flash. Cujo is the first book of his I have read. The first person viewpoint from inside the mind of a rabid dog is simply world class. The depth of charachter development of a killer rabid dog, and the ability to get inside it's insane mind is gripping to say the least. Pet Semetary, Oh boy... read it. Start with the older stories first, then move up to the presant. I'd say in the last 8 years he has started getting a bit wierd. Aside from King and Tolkien, I have found very few authors I enjoy. I have read hundreds of books and I'd say an easy hundred authors, but few have ever really stuck out. I enjoyed Alfred Hitchcock for a while, but after a few books I found them too similar, choppy, and they tended to get you thinking about the end while in the middle of the story. I don't know if it was trying to outwit the author, or simple boredom well concealed by mystery authors as "part of the story" . I'll go with the boredom thing. Agatha Christie was terrible. I tried a few of hers after my realisation of "boredom concealment" by Hitchcock, so maybe I was a bit biased. It all boils down to I prefer Horror and Fantasy. Funny how as a general rule I don't like horror or fantasy movies, but I find no other genre of book to be worth reading. However, King cannot really always be classified as Horror. In fact, I find many of his stories more devoted to fiction as being more entertaining than his horror books. Still, Tolkien and King are the only 2 authors I consider to be worth mentioning positively.
King goes into too much detail in his books. There is a fine line between not enough, just the right amount to let the reader know whats going on yet not boring them, and then boring them with details. King falls into the later of that categories IMO. Although his books are good if you can make it through the usually long introduction of characters. Read the JRR Tolkein Lord of the Rings series as well as The Hobbit about 5-6 years ago, amazing work. Really enjoyed that series of books, but I didn't find myself engulfed in it like I have been in some other books. The tale is classic and so many authors have been inspired by him, but in Fellowship of the Ring there is also a huge introduction part at the beginning, and it bores a little, but once it gets going its awesome. If you like those kind of books, I HIGHLY suggest checking out an author named Terry Goodkind. He has a series of books called "The Sword of Truth" and it's amazing. Its more adult oriented than Tolkien's LOTR with dominatrix type slaves imprisioning people, quite alot of lust throughout the 6 or 7 book series, and it has a little more magic than LOTRs has as well, and some really good combat as well. Really a good series of books, and I often found myself reading an entire book in a weekend's time just because I couldn't put it down. The story line and details really paint an awesome picture while keeping the story moving at a fast pace. Definantly check it out, my friend got me into them and I swear by that series of books. Another type of book thats interested me are books that could be true, but aren't. If you've ever read Richard Preston's Hot Zone about biological warfare, thats another type of book I like. I haven't read Hot Zone, but I have read the second book, The Cobra Event. That book is flat out AWESOME. Really makes you see how fragile your life is. All it would take would be one person with a vile of a hot biological agent on a subway and he could pretty much take out a whole city with a very gruesome and painful airborne disease. Also makes you think about stuff the government doesn't tell us, tests they run and how they sometimes go wrong, as well as other countries biological programs. Definantly a good read, check it out if you want something good to read. Richard Preston's Cobra Event. Good stuff.
I used to be a big fan of Kootz back in the 6th and 7th grade... moved onto fantasy stuff after, from Terry Brooks - read the whole series of the Shannara books, well, up to that time anyways... after high school, I barely read any books at all, preferring to read magazines like Time, Life (which is no longer around), Macleans, Scientific American, Discover, lots of home 'handyman' type magazines, photography magazines, etc... just anything that seemed remotely interesting, and could help me fall asleep at night Read most of Crichton's stuff - it's pretty good, but I find his writing style kind of simplistic, and it reads pretty much like a movie... good stuff nonetheless Of c.s. lewis, the only book I could understand was the lion, witch and the wardrobe... I never really got into the rest of the series... Recently, I've been working my way through some interesting non-fiction books - Fast Food Nation, and No Logo.... and a fantasy series called The Wheel of Time series, by Robert Jordan...
Nitchkie? Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spake Zarthusa. It is tough reading, but it is good information if you can get through it. My boss read a bit of it, and his interpretation was differant from mine. I find it interesting that the same thing can be read by 2 people yet they apply them differantly in their thinking. The end result is the same, but what we apply it to in our lives are differant. Really interesting. Uhmmm, easier yet as tantilizing is Kiran Gilbrahn's The Prophet. All very worthwhile, if it is to your liking. Josh, That is typical of what I hear from people who don't like King. Sometimes I find it a bit difficult as well, but in the end we have a tendancy to feel more about the charachters he developed with so much detail in the books. I think that is what I find so gripping, is simply how much we feel for each charachter in the book, weather negatively or positively. I tend to find myself reading untill 2 or 3 in the morning when I am going to wake up at 6:30 in the morning, simply because I am so engrossed in what is going to happen to my friend. My thought is that the bond he creates between reader and the charachters in the book is why I find myself going back to him when I am looking for a truely gripping novel. My wife feels the same way as you, she prefers a more light hearted novel less deeply rooted in the charachter as a whole person. She prefers the now, over the entire being. And that is cool, because ultimately the novel we are reading is about the now. I've just always been a deep person I guess, maybe because I am Itallian. We are known for our passion for everything (foods, wine, cars, women... you know).
I do agree with that in general, but Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series does build alot of character, just not all at once. He'll build a little and tell the story, and as the story unfolds, you learn more and more, the surprises never stop. Honest to God, the Sword of Truth series of books has had my best friend, a heartless bastard, in tears over what was happening to the leading character, and I've almost been there as well. Never has a book effected me like that. Most people dont listen to me, but I wish they would. If you even remotely like LOTR or that type of material, check out Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, the first book being Wizards First Rule. Most authors dont interest me, and I find myself reading magazines more than anything else. Car and Driver, MotorTrend, etc.
Ya'll read The Stranger.... very good book, I am into the existential point of view kind of books, but I am not a hardcore existentialist. I like about all of Camus books. Hemmingway isn't bad. All kind of American authors tend to be to my liking though... Right now I am working on Absalom, Absalom!, and The Sound of Fury, both by Faulkner. That is taking me a while, I find Faulkner to be a genius author, but hard to comprehend.
Magazines, magazines, magazines... Motor Trend, DUB, Automobile, Sport Compact Car, Lowrider, Lowrider Euro, EDGE, Performance Auto and Sound, Auto Sound and Security, Car Audio and Electronics, Stereophile, Street Trucks, Truckin', Mini Truckin, Sport Truck, Super Rod, Rides, Transworld Skateboarding, Kiteboarding, Kiteworld, Big Brother, Street Chopper, Modified mag, HCI, VW Trends, Hot VW's, Euro Tuner, Max Power (British versions only ), FAST car, Rally, CAR magazine... And that's just what's sitting here in the office... I've got boxes in my basement going back to 1992... reference material, man... Oh, and of course the Parts Express catalog, can't forget that essential bathroom reader...
Speaker books, technical speaker books and magazines, speaker industry news magazines, older Stereophile magazines about speakers and amplifiers, sportbike magazines, muscle car magazines (Super Chevy, Chevelle, Hot Rod, etc), fitness magazines, Maxim, Stuff, the Rhetoric of Aristotle, a River Runs Through It, etc.
wow.... how much to do you pay in subscriptions every year?!? ...unless it's paid for by the 'company'...? I also like to read short stories.... murder mysteries and stuff... things that make you think.... used to love those encyclopedia brown books... oh, and the hardy boys series (the originals)... those were classics! lol
It would actually be more practical if I DID subscribe to more of those... considering I buy many of them at least every other month. I've got subscriptions to Motor Trend, Performance Auto and Sound, DUB (but I won't renew that), Sport Truck, Street Trucks, Lowrider Euro (now EDGE), Automobile, and Kiteworld. It actually costs a lot more unfortunately to pick them up at the newsstand than it does to subscribe to them.... ironically, the first thing I do with a mag is rip out and throw out all the annoying subscription cards... oh well...
I like more of the pulp fiction type books (no, not the movie...). Elmore Leanord would probably be my favorite author for that genre. I've read at least 20 of his books. I'm also a big fan of economists who write books illustrating how various socio-economic theories work and how they have succeeded/failed in practice (mostly in the 20th century). Thomas Sowell, by far, would be my favorite here. Milton Friedman is right up there, but his stuff is a bit more intellectual and requires a little bit of thinking :lol: I just went to Wyoming with my g/f this New Years and picked up a John Grisham novel (The King of Torts) at the airport. Not bad so far, but I'm only 80 pages in at this point. I've seen his movies, but never read one of his books. Maybe I'll get hooked like the other trillion people. I remember as a kid seeing my mom devour all Stephen King's novels. "The Stand" is the one I always remember because it was, and still is, one of the thickest damn books I've ever seen. As far as magazines, I get all the car audio rags, all the "mens" magazines (Maxim, FHM, Stuff, etc...), and a few far too liberal music mazines like Rolling Stone and Spin. "Home Theater", "Sound & Vision", "Stereophile", and "The Perfect Image" (PI is very snooty, however) are regulars, too.
The Sound and the Fury is one of the hardest books to understand... I applaud your effort.... I started that book, I once I figured out the entire first part was told from the perspective of a retarded guy I just kinda gave up trying to understand it.... Faulkner is a genius no doubt.... I gotta go get that sword of truth series.... sounds interesting Tolkien will always be the master though :yes:
