NytestrykerZ wrote:Readers thread? Unexpected but very cool.
I'm a big fan of classic literature and rock bios. In the past year I've read Eric Clapton and Keith Richards' autobiographies, a biography on Duane Allman and am working on Gregg Allman's book right now. The Clapton and Richards ones are definitely good reads for any music fan. As a lot of you know while I was awol from this place the first couple months of this year I read the entire Song Of Ice & Fire series which is also well worth it (Which I believe you've already read/are reading, Merinda). Some of the classics are always good as well like 'The Hobbit' or any of the Greek epics ('The Iliad', 'The Odyssey', 'The Oresteia') and in the same genre.
A few others I highly recommend in other genres are books like 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (Oscar Wilde), 'A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man' (James Joyce), 'Wise Blood' (Flannery O'Connor), 'The 25th Hour' (David Benioff) and despite the hell I had reading and writing an essay for it 'The Corrections' (Jonathan Franzen).
I'm interested to see how this thread grows.
Oooh, I like the sound of the Clapton and Richards bios. Gonna have to check them out. Yep, I'm sort of stuck on ADWD. It stopped thrilling me and I found myself skipping a sentence every now and then just to get through certain chapters I found boring and so I just stopped myself reading them. Once I get the urge I'll go back to them no doubt.
gbruin wrote:Now this topic is a great idea, Min. I hope this catches.
I just finished The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddartha Mukherjee. The book is subtitled A Biography of Cancer, and that's exactly what the book is about. It goes back to the earliest medical descriptions of cancer and follows the subsequent history of the understanding of cancer and the progression of the various treatments. It is fantastically written, and very simply described, so non-doctors can easily follow (Mukherjee is an oncologist). It won the Pulitzer for non-fiction last year. Absolutely fantastic book.
History is my favorite topic, and I love books like this that retrace the history of scientific issues. My all-time favorite book is The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. The way he goes beyond the stuff we all know about WW2 and examines how the complicated sociologic and economic and political and academic processes from the turn of the century came together to result in one of the greatest (and at the same time, one of the worst) scientific achievements of all time is totally fascinating. It says a lot about a story when you are glued to it, even though you already know the ending. Barbara Tuchman's history of the first month of WW1, The Guns of August, is another great example of this. Both of these won the Pulitzer for history.
Three incredible books. Go read them.
I'm gonna! Some of those sound full on. History is also my favourite topic. In school it was my favorite subject and still today I find myself on Wikipedia going through historic figures for up to a few hours at a time. I've always been fascinated by Egyptian history and the pharaohs and pyramids etc so always looking out for books like that.
Timotheus wrote:If you like Asoiaf I think you'll like the 'Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn' series too. Not as epic as Asoiaf, but still a very entertaining read.
If you want to read some fun-fantasy I recommend David Eddings. His books are always a fun read. He's very predicable, but he's created some of the coolest characters in fantasy ever in his Belgarion series
I like the sound of some of these! Especially Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series.. they certainly sound like a captivating read. Hopefully they are.
abw1987 wrote:The last books I read were the three Hunger Games books. I was not at all fond of the whole "love triangle" that teenaged girls were raving about. But besides that, all the technology and the future dystopian dictatorship was really cool.
I've heard very little about these books. I only know about the big movie. Worth reading?
zazthespaz wrote:Spent the last 6 months reading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Excellent series, I felt really attached to the characters and interesting plot turns and twists - I'd definitely recommend it. When I told people it was by Stephen King, they asked if it was scary, but it's not, so don't hold that against it. Right now I'm reading The Wind Through the Keyhole which is part of the series, but was written a couple of months ago and takes place in the middle of the series. It's kind of hard for me to get into because it directly involve the characters and it's hard to get attached when I know the outcome. So read it in the middle I guess if you do.
Ahhh.. my boyfriend tried to get me into these early last year. Managed to get halfway through The Drawing Of The Three before I lost interest. I always picture the Gunslinger as Aragorn out of The Lord Of The Rings. Might try and give the series another go.
Nick wrote:Currently, I'm reading a collection of essays by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels because they seem like interesting dudes. My big project, however, is to read all ~4,000 pages of the Proust epic In Search of Lost Time. I'm currently halfway through the first of 7 volumes. It's beautiful, amazingly thoughtful, and a little overwritten. It's very challenging but I'm determined to work my way through it.
Wow... that's ambitious. Good on you.
Thanks for the suggestions and whatnot. Let's not let this thread die yet. I'm enjoying it. Still deciding what I'm going to invest my time in when it comes to some of these books. Have been keeping myself amused for a little while by reading the R L Stine Goosebumps books. I had dozens of the buggers when I was a kid and downloaded a whole bunch of PDF's and am now re-reading them again. Fond memories from those books. Only takes an hour to read one now tho.. which is the only downside.
Also going through my Roald Dahl collection again. Currently on Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. More fond memories coming from reading it. One silly little thing that irks me about the way Dahl has written it. Every second time someone speaks he uses the word 'cried' rather than 'said'.. eg 'Welcome to my factory, children!' cried Mr Wonka. I dunno why it annoys me.. but it does.
well at least you won't run out of loo roll for awhile
