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First off, sorry if this has been done before, I did a forums search and did not see anything in the PYF forums (Or elsewhere for that matter) Rules: Do not disrespect others because they like a book that you hated Include why you liked it and possibly a quick blurb of the plot, like something you would find on the back cover And if you include spoilers in your post, use spoiler tags! So, I shall start this off, my favorite book of all time is Fahrenheit 451 Fahrenheit 451: "Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books in a futuristic American city. In Montag’s world, firemen start fires rather than putting them out. The people in this society do not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations. Instead, they drive very fast, watch excessive amounts of television on wall-size sets, and listen to the radio on “Seashell Radio” sets attached to their ears." (First paragraph from SparkNotes of the Plot Summary) It is one of my favorite books because I have always enjoyed Dystopian books. And I have also always enjoyed Ray Bradbury as he is also one of my favorite authors. I enjoy how things are described and how Bradbury 'puts you there' in a way that makes it easy to understand and visualize the world. The story and plot itself is a very interesting one I believe, and a future I fear (Or I am just paranoid) will happen. The latter third of the book is my favorite of the entire book, as it is quite pulse-pounding as Montag escapes from the city. I like the ending of the book when Montag meets up with 'The Book People' after escaping the city and moves on to find other survivors after watching his city get bombed. Ah, I never do anything justice when I describe it. Alright, what are some of your favorite books of all time?
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 05:57 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 03:27 |
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 "Probably the most powerful work of imagination ever written." - Arthur C. Clarke Before man achieved victory over gravity and sent satellites into orbit, before the existential threat of nuclear weapons entered the psyche of the human race, Olaf Stapledon published this masterpiece hybrid of philosophy and science fiction in 1937. Admirers of this publication included H. G. Wells, Virginia Woolf, Jorge Luis Borges, Arthur C. Clarke, and Freeman Dyson (who attributes the idea for his "Dyson" sphere to Stapledon, who invented it in this very book). Wikipedia posted:Star Maker tackles philosophical themes such as the essence of life, of birth, decay and death, and the relationship between creation and creator. That short description makes it sound like a religious text, and indeed, I had a mind-expandingly religious experience reading it. Though I AM Christian, it was spiritual on a more human level, and in fact, C. S. Lewis described the book as "sheer devil worship" due to the conclusions of the penultimate chapters, and the book actually pushes Darwinian and Marxist laws of development. Regardless of your religious affiliation or non-affiliation, if you have an open, curious mind, and have ever pondered the fate of the human race, you should be able to appreciate Stapledon's work. Fair warning, the biggest criticisms are that the book is dry, characterless, and difficult. In true science fiction fashion, it is definitely a book that highlights ideas, processes, and questions, more than individuals and their achievements. The story begins with an unnamed narrator leaving his house to get some fresh air (likely after a tiff with his wife). He summits a nearby hill and begins to ponder the beauty of the stars when he suddenly begins to have an out of body experience, his consciousness leaving his body and traveling through the vast relative emptiness of space. Eventually, he finds other beings living on another world, documents their similarities and differences to us, and makes record of their histories, cultures, and the eventual collapse of their civilization (for a more in depth exploration of the ideas presented in this section of the book, read his previous novel, Last and First Men, which follows the human race's development over two billion years). At this point, he encounters other consciousnesses traveling through space and merges with them to gain greater perspective and control over his observations of space and time. This observation and growth process repeats itself continually through the book until, as a cosmic awareness, he/they briefly come into contact with something greater than the entirety of the universe: the Star Maker, who stands as an artist in relation to his great work. Though Stapledon himself categorized his books as philosophical novels rather than science fiction, he covered, sometimes introducing for the first time, the following science fiction tropes in this book: Dyson spheres, and other methods for harnessing the energy of stars. Entire worlds as spacecraft. Genetic engineering. Hive minds, including collective swarm intelligence, telepathy, and a fascination with networks. The relative emptiness and harshness of space. Evolution on planets very different than Earth. Virtual reality. The fate of the universe being a dark, dead, and cold place. Ascension of the mind. Causal disconnection. Multiple universes. I'm probably missing some here and need to reread it ASAP. However, perhaps Stapledon was right. He doesn't go into too much depth with these concepts, instead preferring to mull over how they apply to our own lives and the innate potential of the human race. I will end with this quote from a review I read. David Soyka posted:As Kim Stanley Robinson puts it, "Every few pages contain all the material of an ordinary science fiction novel, condensed to something like prose poetry." The problem, at least from a story-telling point-of-view, is that this material rarely rises above the level of a sketch. That's because Stapledon isn't interested in developing narrative about his fantastical (although it start outs with Darwinian notions of adaptation and survival of the fittest, Stapledon's aliens aren't any more scientifically sophisticated than pulp models that giants must live on giant worlds and have big noses to breathe methane) aliens, but to metaphorically meditate on the state of humanity. Given that the book was written by an English pacifist in the darkening days of Nazism and fascism spreading throughout Europe, it's not surprising that his depiction of the predilections of so-called intelligent life forms for war and strife isn't overly gracious. That said, there is an underlying optimism about the inherent capability for humanity to overcome its baser inclinations and the role it plays in the larger spiritual meaning and machinations of an immense universe of multiple universes. Here is a free legal electronic version of the book: http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2029/star-maker
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 09:05 |
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One of my favourite books of all time is The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. Basically it's a children's book about a boy called Milo who mysteriously finds a tollbooth in his bedroom and goes on an adventure! It also has one of my favourite quotes of all time in it, when talking about a set of people that are born in the air and grow downwards until they reach the floor, it's mentioned that some people are born upside down, Milo asks what happens to them and the reply is "Oddly enough, they often grow ten times the size of everyone else," said Alec thoughtfully, "and I've heard that they walk among the stars." It also has a literal Watchdog, princesses, kings, and a lot of silly word play.
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 14:11 |
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Starmaker and Last and First Men are both incredible works of fiction and deserve to be read by absolutely everyone. One I'd recommend would be Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny. It's this incredible account of the rise and fall of a religion set on a not-quite-earth world where men have become Gods and gods men. I really can't do it justice in writing (and the blurbs on the back of every copy I've ever seen don't either).  It's got some of the most spine-tingling writing I've ever come across: "His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circumstances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit. Silence, though, could." and the beautiful: "Death and Light are everywhere, always, and they begin, end, strive, attend, into and upon the Dream of the Nameless that is the world, burning words within Samsara, perhaps to create a thing of beauty." I love it so much that I picked up a fair few editions, including the first edition (the picture above) for £12 from Oxfam. Zelazny's other books are .... hmm.... pretty good, I guess, but for some reason, everything just clicked to produce Lord of Light and it remains this absolutely stunning novel, one of the very best stories ever written in Science Fiction in particular and literature in general.
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 15:03 |
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I'm a sci-fi person too, don't get me wrong, but Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals is the one I reach for whenever I'm unhappy. It covers five years of Gerry's life as a child in Corfu with his gorgeously eccentric family. He grew up to be a famous naturalist, and in the book he describes all his hundreds of awesome pets in minute detail: spiders, scorpions, an epic fight between a giant stick insect and a gecko, a black-backed gull that bites, a moody pet pigeon, an owl, snakes that get put in the bathtub during a party, adventures in at-home bat taxidermy... “Each day had a tranquility a timelessness about it so that you wished it would never end. But then the dark skin of the night would peel off and there would be a fresh day waiting for us glossy and colorful as a child's transfer and with the same tinge of unreality.” Sigh. Read this book.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 05:14 |
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I like The War of the Worlds for the powerful description of the destruction of society and how a few characters react to it. It's also early sci-fi, what with the Martian invasion, but it's a clear satire of British colonial policy. I'm currently reading War and Peace and I love it, because the characters are very human and relatable. I'm only 800 pages into this giant thing, but when I'm finished it might go down as my favourite fiction book of all time.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 05:25 |
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 There is nothing else like this book. It's basically about a couple of idiots who try to steal a prizewinning racehorse, but it's pretty much a description of hell. It was Flannery O'Connor's favorite novel. She called it "a nightmare from which you cannot awaken," and that's as good a description as any.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 05:42 |
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For me it's hands down The Jackal of Nar and of course the other two books that complete the trilogy. I remember I got the trilogy about 10 years ago as a Christmas gift from my parents. I was in a "gently caress reading" phase at the time and didn't even bother opening the first book till months after but when I did hoo boy, I finished all 3 books in a few days. The greatest part of it was my brother was also in an even deeper "gently caress reading" phase but after telling him how awesome these books were he devoured them too. Feels good to share stuff like that with people. Runner up would have to be the Wheel of Time series. I can't wait to get my hands on the last one.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 06:11 |
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The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I don't know if it's my favoritest book ever, but it's definitely a book I can read over and over again and never get tired of. Unlike a lot of other people, I didn't read it when I was a little kid. I didn't read it until right before the first LoTR film came out in fall 2001, when I was a senior in high school. But I had seen the Rankin-Bass animated film several years earlier and enjoyed it. I doubt there's a lot of people who don't know what happens in the book but just in case: Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit (a race of human-like people who are like 3 feet tall, have big furry feet, and live an insular agrarian lifestyle) who is chosen by Gandalf, a wizard, to accompany a bunch of dwarves on a quest to reclaim the lost dwarven kingdom of Erebor, also called the Lonely Mountain because it's just a big single mountain that the dwarves built a city inside of. A long time ago, Smaug the Dragon attacked the Lonely Mountain and drove out all the dwarves, and now Thorin Oakenshield, descendent of the old dwarven kings and heir to the kingdom, wants to get it back. Bilbo is swept up in this adventure, even though he initially wants nothing to do with it, and along the way he encounters trolls, goblins, spiders, wolves, elves, and finally Smaug himself. He also encounters Gollum, a loathsome (and lonesome) creature living near a subterranean lake and who has a ring that makes you invisible when you wear it, which Bilbo ends up keeping and making a bitter enemy of Gollum. I'm a 29-year old adult, but this is a book I can read and enjoy consistently over the years. I think it's actually quite a bit better than The Lord of the Rings because it's MUCH more accessible. I like the light, whimsical atmosphere. There's also a lot more mystery in the setting, whereas with LoTR it's like everything's well-known and explained. Smaug is also a much more interesting character than Sauron. I just really like the fairy tale feel to it all. Oh, and no racism. There's no "dark men from Far Harad" or Easterlings acting as villains. The bad guys are all fairy tale goblins, trolls, big bad wolves, evil spiders, and a loving dragon. I think almost anyone can enjoy The Hobbit.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 06:12 |
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I have to name The Martian Chronicles as my all-time fave. Ray Bradbury has such an amazing way with characterization and weaving plotlines together (he wrote all the stories independently in different publications and still managed to tie them together). While it's not as grand and far-reaching as the Dune series (which I also love) it's an amazingly cohesive and compelling narrative that you will not be able to put down. I've read it at least five times and it never gets old.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 06:25 |
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I have two, one from my childhood and one from adulthood: (hosting mine, image yoinked offa amazon) This is A Murder for Her Majesty by Beth Hilgartner. It is a story of 17th century England, music, murder, and crossdressing.  Basic plot is that Alice, the main character, witnesses her father's murder and bails her family's estate due to the fact that they want to axe her too. She seeks shelter at the Yorkshire Cathedral where she is befriended by a bunch of the choir boys. They decide that it'd be a lark to dress her up as Alistor - 'Pup' - Tucker and put her into the choir since she's a bomb-rear end singer. Intrigue and shenanigans ensue and it's generally awesome. Review says: "Elizabethan York, especially as Hilgartner describes it during the Christmas season, is an appealing setting. Her descriptions, while accurate, never dominate the story. This page-turner will attract readers; it may even entice some to go on to read other historical novels." Also this book is for kids but I absolute adore it and read it every Christmas and at least once or twice during the year. My copy is falling apart.  The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is probably the most beautiful book I have ever read. The author is a fine artist, specializing in print and paper making, and with every word blends together to create this absolutely wonderful and evocative novel of love over the course of time. I can't say too much because I'll gush the entire story, ending and then some about this book. Needless to say, I've read it at least ten times and each time I draw a little bit more out of the world that Nieffengger's created and I fall more in love with it.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 06:47 |
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While I don't truly have a specific favourite, the book I have the most fond memories of and that has moved me the most would have to be Jack Whytes The Skystone. It's the first and most memorable book of Jack Whytes series A Dream Of Eagles. It follows a roman centurion during the fall of the roman empire and their withdrawal from Britain. As the military recedes so does the stability of the area and soon the stragglers are forced to try and defend their home as invaders begin to migrate to the newly unoccupied land. The centurion and friends turn countryside villas into veritable cities. All the while the same centurion is pursuing his grandfather's tale of a forlorn material capable of creating a peerless blade. This thread is already really awesome. I'm going to make a trip to the bookstore after I compile a list of these novels.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 12:54 |
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I think a lot of what makes it my "favorite" book has to do with timing. I've read better epic fantasy/sci-fi books but I was just at the right age for Barker's blend of Sci-Fi/Horror/Sex for it to really leave an indelible mark on me. Imagica by Clive Barker Amazon link If you're going to read it, I recommend not doing to much research on it, because the opening to the book has a nice reveal as you get to know the main characters. It is EPIC, and crosses five different worlds, with many memorable characters. Like most of Barkers books it revels in the idea that there are fantastic worlds just beyond the reach of our mundane existence, and he walks you through them not missing any detail in creating the beauty and horror of them. Plus the character Dowd is the ultimate bad-rear end bad guy. I actually just re-read it not too long ago, and it still holds up. The inspiration and many of the ideas for Imajica came to Clive Barker in dreams, and so inspired, he worked at an intense pace to complete the novel. Barker has stated he wrote the novel in fourteen months; writing fourteen to sixteen hours a day, seven days a week.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 13:54 |
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Tennance posted:
Yeah I think I'll compile these into an Amazon list or something like that. Goon reading is the best reading.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 14:13 |
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schwenz posted:Imagica by Clive Barker For some reason I liked Weaveworld a lot more, but Imagica is also pretty drat cool.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 15:43 |
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Alright, I'm in. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five is always one of the first, if not the first, thing that comes to my mind whenever anyone asks me for my favorite novel. It may not be my favorite every day of the week, but it is more and more often than anything else I can name. The novel is a blend of war story, science fiction, and mock-autobiography. It is the story of a man's life, the focal point of which is his experience as a POW in Dresden as the allies bombed the city. In keeping with Vonnegut's sardonic style, the novel doesn't shy away from being critical of all sides in World War II, but also doesn't get lost idealizing any argument. It moralizes without seeming to moralize. It is an exploration of war and its effects on the human psyche and by extension society as a whole. It is, in a roundabout way, a novel about Vietnam. It also has involuntary time travel and plunger-shaped aliens named Tralfamadorians. So it goes. Vonnegut has a style that is paradoxically both simple and complex, and as a young writer I foolishly tried to emulate his style rather than just learn from it. I am told it is a common mistake. His style ends up getting a lot of punch out of each word. This is a novel that can (and does) move me to tears, even having read it several times already. I'm not sure what else to say about it since a lot of goons have read it, or at least something in Vonnegut's catalogue. If you haven't read it, it goes without saying to say: check it out. I'm a fan of a lot of Vonnegut's work (Cat's Cradle, The Sirens of Titan, in particular), but Slaughterhouse-Five has always stood out in my mind.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 18:53 |
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Railing Kill posted:Alright, I'm in. I actually came here to post this. I've read it and reread it about four or five times. Its semi-short, so its worth a read for anyone who hasn't read it yet. The film's not half bad either, and its on Netflix instant.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 19:00 |
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I'm a big old nerd. The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende. You've seen the movies. The first one... works, but leaves out a lot of what makes the book such a triumph. The second is an abomination and the third must not be mentioned. The book itself is a masterful piece of children's fiction with revelance well into adult life, an exploration of the mystique of fantasy as well as concepts of love, honesty, self-deception, pride and other big, adult words pared into adventure fiction so fantastically represented that anyone can understand. It's one of those stories I've chewed on well into my adult life ("Holy crap, Xayide killed herself!"), picking apart the meanings and quoting as an easy way to explain concepts that don't find words easily. And it's a monster of a book, so describing the plot and its relevance is going to be a word wall - all I have to say is that if you've only seen the movie, you're doing yourself a severe disservice. I have a strong personal connection to this story - to the point where I have AURYN tattooed on my left arm (as the first in what may well become a bodily temple to the written word). When I was five years old, my grandfather took me to the World's Biggest Bookstore and let me pick out any book I wanted. I was a poor kid growing up, and a budding nerdlet, supremely frustrated by the inability of my parents to fund my desperate appetite for words and occasional mad science experiments. Much like Bastian did in the novel, I was fascinated by the idea of a story that never ended, and so the Neverending Story was my choice. This turned an appetite for words into an obsession, and started me on a long, wonderful, eye-straining relationship with the English language that has become the most defining aspect of my character. My grandfather died when I was still a teenager. He didn't die easily, either, struck with the dual sabers of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's late in life, which transformed the vibrant, intelligent, inquisitive chemist into a shivering invalid within the course of a few years. Thanks to financial mismanagement and a literally psychopathic wife, he died penniless - my mom still has his last $5 in the world in a photo frame in her office. Though I received nothing physical to remember him, I have him to thank for my love of literature and fascination with science, things which are now so ingrained into my psyche (and my skin) that nothing will ever shake them free.
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| # ? Feb 27, 2013 22:41 |
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HighClassSwankyTime posted:For some reason I liked Weaveworld a lot more, but Imagica is also pretty drat cool. I love that one too. And the whole Art Trilogy (that isn't a trilogy yet).
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| # ? Mar 1, 2013 14:32 |
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Dune, by Frank Herbert. I first read it when I was 12, and I didn't get everything out of it, but I got a lot. I've re-read it every couple of years over the last 20 years, and I seem to somehow get more out of it each time. You only really get to see what's happening on a single planet over a couple of years time, but there's somehow a sense of history, vastness, and complexity beyond "some guys do politics and war on a desert planet, it gets pretty weird and there are sandworms". It's just some incredibly evocative writing, and Herbert manages to create this vast universe without going into over-exposition or having to include an account of the thousands of years of history you can feel while you're reading it. Stop after the first one if you just want one Dune story, the third one if you need to find out what happens, and the fourth one if you want a story about what's going on 4,000 years after the first book. Hint: things have gotten really weird. The fifth and sixth books aren't terrible, and everything else with the Dune name is garbage that was written by other people. The Companion or whatever is good if you find all the names confusing, but it's really not necessary. The original Dune movie, while cool, kind of misses a lot and changes a lot of the book. The miniseries is closer to the original story, but still kind of misses out some cool/important parts, and the set design and effects aren't really that great compared to what was in my head. Neither movie really captures the scale of what's going on, and I'm not talking about how big the harvesters and worms are. Read the book.
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| # ? Mar 1, 2013 14:48 |
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Umbilical Lotus posted:I'm a big old nerd. The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende. I just have to say that this was a very beautifully written post and I was not expecting such. Good job.
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| # ? Mar 1, 2013 16:15 |
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AlphaDog posted:Dune, by Frank Herbert. The second miniseries for Dune: Messiah had better production values than the first miniseries, but it still wasn't perfect. It was good in that it approached being accurate to the book and was a bit better made and the cheapness didn't get in the way of the storytelling as much. As for the Lynch film, I see it as it's own thing. I like it for the sheer Lynch-iness of it, but certainly not as a version of Dune. But, yeah, the novel is great. I read it in my early teens and have revisited it every few years since. I also keep getting new things out of it even having read it five or so times. Good stuff.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 02:06 |
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What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson This is the first, and still the only, book to ever move me to tears. I still tear up thinking about it. It hit me pretty hard the first time I started to read it, so it took me a couple of tries to pick it up and get through it. I can't think of a way to describe it without sounding too cheesy, so I'll use this brief summary: Wikipedia posted:The plot centers on Chris, a man who dies and goes to Heaven, but eventually descends into Hell to rescue his wife. I have a particular soft spot for this book, because when I read it I found myself swapping out the main character and his wife for myself and my boyfriend. Every time I'd close the book after an emotional chapter (i.e. all of them), I'd wonder "would I do that for him?" and each time I answered "yes, I would. In a heartbeat." My sappiness aside, the book itself is beautifully written. It can come across as a bit new age-y/fluffy, though I believe that comes with the territory when reading a book about a hypothetical afterlife. I found that the movie doesn't even come close to depicting some of the imagery set forth in the book - which creates vivid, lush imagery, on top of knowing just how to punch you right in the gut and tug on your heartstrings at the same time. The movie is pretty shallow in comparison, but I'd still recommend it because I love Robin Williams Have another, since I got all sappy on that one: Spin by Robert Charles Wilson One day, all the stars in the sky disappear, and every satellite falls out of orbit. It turns out that the earth has been encased in a mysterious membrane that has slowed down time significantly - 3.7 million years pass in the rest of space for each second that passes on earth. The plot is from the perspective of Tyler Dupree, and how his life, the lives of his two friends, as well as the rest of the world are changed because of a possible looming apocalypse. Surprisingly, this looming end of the world is not the forefront of the story. Rather the focus is on Tyler's life, in relation to the end of the world. It's always in the background of every action he takes, however. Overall, without giving too much away, it's an excellent mix of hard science fiction with a strong human story to keep you interested
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 10:37 |
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Candide, by Voltaire. It is a criticism of the concept of a just world. The narrative centers around Candide, a naive aristocrat who gets kicked out of Westphalia after getting involved with Cunegonde, the beautiful maiden. After that he, along with everyone else he runs into gets hosed over by lovely things that happen until he ends up in a sort of ok situation with the rest of his cohort, where he can better himself and the small world left around him. I'm kind of simplifying everything and skipping over what actually happens, which is hilariously pointless and unpleasant acts of cruelty in the "Fall into an open sewer and die/eat own buttcheek" depicted in this incredibly dry and matter of fact tone. I was lucky enough to see a theatre version of it, starring stand-up comedian Frank Woodley, and that loving ruled. If we can bring up plays, I'd also mention Accidental Death of an Anarchist which is probably the most LF thing ever in a good way.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 11:27 |
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My two favourite books - an original and a sequel - are Lost and Found and Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers.  (couldn't find a correctly-coloured and reasonably-sized picture for the second image, sorry) Lost and Found is about a boy who finds a penguin in his small home town and they become friends. The book is quite short, so to say any more would give away the plot. Up and Down continues the story of the unlikely pair, in which the penguin attempts to learn how to fly while the boy helps. The art style is absolutely charming and I will always stop what I am doing to read Jeffers' works whenever I come across one that I haven't read. Here is a Guardian article featuring some helpful pictures from Jeffers detailing how to draw a penguin.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 11:31 |
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Not "a" book, but the Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust. Currently 13 books out with a total of 19 planned for the series. Wikipedia has a much better synopsis (link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_Taltos#Vlad_Taltos), but it's about a Human assissin/witch in a world of Dragaerans, basically humans but averaging 7' tall who live around 2,000 years. He works in the Dragaeran House that is the criminal organization, runs a territory, and just tries to make money and survive day to day. Since the main character is a witch he has a familiar, a creature called a jhereg which basically is a dragon brought down to cat size without the fire breath. I wasn't sure when I started reading the series if the familiar would work out but Brust uses the medium very well in my opinion, especially for inserting sarcastic comic relief. His format changes a few times during the series, but I've found it adds a little something instead of being frustrating, but that's just me. Most of them read like mystery novels, like the problem gets resolved near the end,and then you get an explaination as to how Vlad worked/figured it out. The books were released out of chronological order in the storyline, but either reading by release or chronological order would work fine. I love the series because while it is fantasy, the main character is very relatable. Not so much a cookie cutter hero, but someone who does what he has to even though he's stressing out or pissed off. Vlad is sarcastic as hell and not above pushing his friends and acquaintances to the brink of violence, either because he thinks it's funny or because they deserve it. I just love a sarcastic character who can't keep his mouth shut.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 17:19 |
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 The Book of Mormon
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 22:36 |
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Flowers for Algernon I'm apparently one of the only people in the entire world who wasn't forced to read this in high school, and I'm not sure if I'm upset about that or not. On one hand, it meant I spent many years having not read the book... but I also didn't have the book ruined by being forced to read it, and I was old enough to really appreciate it the first time through. Hrm. Also, it's a "challenged" book which was banned a lot, so apparently a lot of schools are given a version which has a ton of content cut out because we must protect our precious children from ideas like drinking alcohol and lewd behaviour oh my! I'm glad my first encounter with it was the unabridged version... The story (if you're not already aware) is of a man with an extremely low IQ who is given an experimental treatment to raise it. I'm fascinated by neuroscience and focused a lot of my education on brain function, so I went into the book with a healthy understanding of things. I was expecting 1950's "science", but it was surprisingly not jarring at all. The book is framed as the journal of the protagonist, so the writing itself evolves as his IQ improves through treatment. It's masterfully crafted in both writing and in portraying the social situations and the psychological implications of the situations involved.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 22:55 |
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Anathem by Neal Stephenson How do I even... He's most famous for creating the near-future sci-fi worlds of Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, so it was a huge surprise for me when this book began by completely enveloping you in the world of an essentially medieval monastery. Of course, instead of worshipping religious figures, the saints, or as the language of Orth in the book would have it, "Saunts" are all philosophers and scientists. There may be a Saunt Muncoster, but once you infer that he essentially created relativistic physics, you see that he's an analogue of Einstein. The book just convinces you of an alternate Earth where learned people segregated themselves into monasteries to preserve the progress of knowledge in a turbulent world, and then absolutely turns everything on its head in one of the most brilliant and complete plot twists ever, in my opinion. I love how Stephenson weaves a narrative about many-worlds cosmology, the alteration of time and causality, and still manages to create his trademark unforgettable badass supporting cast and sideplots. I can read this thing over and over again, still enjoying new discoveries. I have to say that I found this book at a point in my life where I was really open, and although it sounds cliche, it totally changed the way I thought about reality. That's the highest recommendation I could give.
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| # ? Mar 5, 2013 23:32 |
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Tagra posted:Flowers for Algernon I didn't have to read it in high school, either, though I did have to see Charly in a high school psychology class. I picked it up about five years ago when I started trying to make up for a pretty bad literary education. I didn't care much for the beginning or end, but the middle is fantastic. Main Street (Sinclair Lewis). Possibly the book that's resonated with me the most. It really put my background in perspective. It's set in Gopher Prairie, Minnesota in the 1910s and is small town living in a nutshell. How outsiders are treated, the social strata, changes in society and changes attempted to be forced on society, that type of thing. Despite growing up in a different era in a whole different part of the country, I can relate to every bit that doesn't involve Dr. Kennicott making his rounds as a doctor using a horse instead of a car. Main Street made me more understanding of my background but simultaneously more frustrated.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 00:11 |
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Dr. Teeth posted:Not "a" book, but the Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust. He also did a few books about the Dragerian Empire that happen way before Vlad comes into play, The Phoenix Guard is the first of them. I think he just wanted to get his Shakespeare on, because they are crazy wordy, but I liked them. To be honest, the Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks is the single book I have read the most. It took me a couple books to figure out he basically uses the same formula over and over. Maybe that's what you call an authors style?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 00:29 |
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Quidam Viator posted:Anathem by Neal Stephenson I found this book extremely hard to get into. How far in do you have to go before it starts getting good? There was too much setup for me. Just remembered another favourite book - The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. It's about a man who runs an inn, who is telling a story. There are wizards. They do not wear hats.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 01:08 |
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Dreggon posted:I found this book extremely hard to get into. How far in do you have to go before it starts getting good? There was too much setup for me. If I remember correctly, it took almost half of the book for the plot to really start rolling. If you're not interested in playing "spot the theory" it's interesting, but probably not exceptional. If you're not interested in physics or philosophy, a lot of it will probably feel like a slog...
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 01:15 |
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 Definitely White Noise for me. I'm terrible at describing things but it's basically a Wes Anderson movie with more likeable characters.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 02:54 |
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Kinda cliche but definitely Catch 22. It got me reading again after dropping out and I will always be glad I picked it up. I have read it 4 or 5 times and the absurdities and juxtapositions within still get me thinking. Upon the first reading, I was kinda  on some of the points Heller was trying to make but I burned through it in a day and have a much better understanding of it now. It really got me into other authors like Vonnegut, Bukowski, Hemmingway, Dostoyevesky. I owe my love of literature to that book and I'm glad I picked it up on my own accord and didn't have it assigned in high school.Edit: nthing Slaughterhouse-Five as a tie for second with Cat's Cradle. I'm a huge Vonnegut fanboy though and have enjoyed everything I've read of his. Backup Snacks fucked around with this message at Mar 6, 2013 around 04:23 |
| # ? Mar 6, 2013 04:19 |
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Backup Snacks posted:Edit: nthing Slaughterhouse-Five as a tie for second with Cat's Cradle. I'm a huge Vonnegut fanboy though and have enjoyed everything I've read of his. I like Slaughterhouse Five and I really like Cat's Cradle, but as I've grown older my favourite would have to be The Sirens of Titan. It was his second book, and it feels like a positively raw version of Vonnegut's style everyone loves. It's a shocking experience, reading the book; settings change rapidly and without warning. Much of it takes place on Vonnegut's versions of Mars, Mercury, and finally Titan, which is a literary wet dream for a space lover like myself. Here's Douglas Adams' opinion: Douglas Adams posted:Sirens of Titan is just one of those books – you read it through the first time and you think it's very loosely, casually written. You think the fact that everything suddenly makes such good sense at the end is almost accidental. And then you read it a few more times, simultaneously finding out more about writing yourself, and you realize what an absolute tour de force it was, making something as beautifully honed as that appear so casual.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 04:43 |
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Backup Snacks posted:Kinda cliche but definitely Catch 22 Also one of my favorite books, I've been overdue for a reading, might just get the Kindle edition of it (Just checked, 9.99 on Amazon for the Kindle) I've always enjoyed books that jump around like Catch-22 does, gonna also look into Slaughterhouse-Five Seems like some pretty awesome books so far, so much to add to wish list and to-read lists
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 10:01 |
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I think mine (at least currently) would have to be The End of Eternity by Asimov. I've found what I've read of Asimov's work, in general, to be full of great ideas and really thought provoking but not as strong in terms of writing. I think End of Eternity represents his best writing, or close to it. It's also still full of incredible ideas. In addition it is probably my favorite take on time travel ever. It understands how powerful and world altering a technology like time travel would be and presents a society where it does not simply exist, but has been used to regulate and control every point along the timeline of its own existence. That's way oversimplifying it but I don't want to give to much away. It's a story that asks questions about society and how the control of ideas can cause huge differences in the path it takes. It has a protagonist I found easy to identify with and it also has a lot of twists and turns and intrigue to it so you should really just read it.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 12:05 |
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It's really hard to pick a favorite. I'm a fan of many renownrd works such as 1984, Animal Farm, Brave New World or Flowers for Algernon but I think John Brunner's The Sheep Look Up is underrated for a novel of such insight. Pollution, social unrest, war, overpopulation, global warming and guest starring President
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 12:38 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 03:27 |
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Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It's enormous and features more than 100 pages of small-font footnotes, which makes it a good e-book to read. This makes it a hugely fractured and interrupted narrative, which was part of the author's intent, since our culture is so used to TV and the internet. The book centers on a tennis school and a nearby halfway house, and documents the beginning of the decline of society as it comes in contact with a movie that's so entertaining that nobody can stop watching it. It's screamingly funny and has Wallace's typical pressing of the boundaries of vocabulary. Its size and crazy prose can make it intimidating, but it is rewarding and I found that it, much like the movie within the book, ruined a lot of fiction for me and compelled me to keep returning to it. Another one I keep returning to is The Secret History by Donna Tartt. It's something of a murder mystery in reverse - you're told in the first chapter who's done the murder and how, but the why ends up being the focus of the story. It takes place in a Vermont liberal arts college and centers around a small class of Classics scholars who have something of an antiquated approach to life. It is terrifically beautiful prose and riveting dialog, and I can never put it down once I start it. I think at the time it was published, Tartt was given the largest advance ever for a first-time novelist, and it's justified. Also, Blackbird Betty, I love My Family and Other Animals and I'm delighted you brought it up on page one.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 13:13 |
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