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WhiskeyClone
Not here


Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 16,509
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Canada ...
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Re: Recommended reading. [Re: mayfly]
#7970133 - 02/02/08 07:33 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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I would hate to be sentenced to ten hours of bad writing for having the misfortune of picking up a book I don't like. Be ruthless; cut them loose if they aren't serving you. There are millions of books still to be read.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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dfernandez90
Bueno



Registered: 09/21/07
Posts: 274
Last seen: 6 years, 4 months
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The Giving Tree.
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mayfly
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Registered: 01/05/08
Posts: 800
Loc: planet home
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Well I am an exceptionally fast reader, so I've never had to suffer through 10 hours of bad writing. But perhaps I should learn how to let go a little easier.
-------------------- "The important thing to remember: if we ship all our fat-bottomed girls off to foreign countries, the terrorists win."
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WhiskeyClone
Not here


Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 16,509
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Canada ...
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Quote:
OneLessForeskin said:
I always shunned her, I don't know, for some reason I had attached the label "supermarket checkout literature" to her name. No idea why. She's an EXCELLENT writer. When I'm done with The Slynx I intend to read her novel, The Blind Assassin.
Ooh I never lumped her in with the grocery store lit crew... she's a national treasure up here. I always just assumed her work would be depressing and difficult like Carol Shields'. I may give her another shot someday too.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers



Registered: 03/06/03
Posts: 21,287
Loc: The Ocean of Notions
Last seen: 5 months, 23 days
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Quote:
OneLessForeskin said:
Quote:
WhiskeyClone said: I'll check out Margaret Atwood on your recommendation.
I always shunned her, I don't know, for some reason I had attached the label "supermarket checkout literature" to her name. No idea why. She's an EXCELLENT writer. When I'm done with The Slynx I intend to read her novel, The Blind Assassin.
I read Oryx & Crake on your recomendation and LOVED it. Great book. The Blind Assassin was okay, but not mind blowing. Alias Grace was terrible, I didn't even finish it.
Atwood is a very hit or miss writer for me. It seems like I either love it or hate it...
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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kriminalelement
"jesus wept."



Registered: 09/26/07
Posts: 1,201
Loc: Ay! los popos estan aqui!
Last seen: 13 years, 6 months
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Re: Recommended reading. [Re: jewunit]
#7970227 - 02/02/08 07:46 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
The only books I ever finish are Bukowski because they're short. If it takes me too long to read a book I never finish.
HELL YEAH. Bukowski is awesome. Have you read Ham on Rye? I think it's the most autobiographical. Post office is the funniest by far.
I liked Ender's shadow too, I thought it was the best out of all the Ender books. Somehow I always liked Bean more than Ender, he seemed a little more realistic. I was sad when he married Petra in one of the later books. It destroyed my image of both of them.
-------------------- While there is a lower class, I am in it While there is a criminal element, I am of it While there is a soul in prison, I am not free. Eugene V Debs
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Pukgandi
Paranoid Kidhead



Registered: 12/28/07
Posts: 286
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Eeeee Eee Eeee
I never liked reading until i read that book this past week
-------------------- Orange Esplosion
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g00ru
lit pants tit licker



Registered: 08/09/07
Posts: 21,088
Loc: georgia, us
Last seen: 5 years, 1 month
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Quote:
kriminalelement said: I loved Ender's game as a kid, but when I went back to reread the quartet I realized that Orson Scott Card is a really terrible writer. He has no style, and like most science fiction writers, no concept of pacing. This holds true even for the first book, which is a stylistic nightmare. I like his ideas, but the execution is terrible.
I'm pretty sure he wrote it like that so that it could be accessible to kids also, especially in the case of ender's game. I don't really read SF for excellent prose, I read it for the stories.
For instance, I really like the Hyperion books by Dan something-or-other, even though they're pretty much classic trash sci fi, they just have really really cool plots and very cinematic events that I imagine vividly in my brain.
Sometimes with slower books I actually get bored with my mental images
-------------------- check out my music! drowse in prison and your waking will be but loss
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d33p
Welcome to Violence

Registered: 07/12/03
Posts: 5,381
Loc: the shores of Tripoli
Last seen: 10 years, 8 months
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Re: Recommended reading. [Re: g00ru]
#7971504 - 02/03/08 12:52 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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If you like moorcock, read "Dancers at the End of Time"
If you don't like moorcock, read it anway. awesome book
-------------------- I'm a nihilist. Lets be friends. bang bang
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blackegg
...has left the building.



Registered: 01/25/06
Posts: 1,021
Last seen: 15 years, 6 months
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Re: Recommended reading. [Re: Ferris]
#7971718 - 02/03/08 02:06 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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I liked Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix. It's old and a few chapters too long but otherwise very good.
I always have like ten books open at once. Lately I've been reading a Leary bio, some R.U. Sirius stuff, Mind Wide Open and Impolite Interviews by Paul Krassner.
Sherlock Holmes is pretty good. I read a 'fake' Sherlock Holmes called Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon which was fun if you get bored of re-reading the other collections.
-------------------- 'Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain and leave the Shroomery.' ~ Jim Morrison
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blackegg
...has left the building.



Registered: 01/25/06
Posts: 1,021
Last seen: 15 years, 6 months
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Re: Recommended reading. [Re: Ferris]
#7971726 - 02/03/08 02:14 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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I'm agreed with whoever said 50 pages then decide. There's at least ten books being published every hour.
-------------------- 'Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain and leave the Shroomery.' ~ Jim Morrison
Edited by blackegg (02/03/08 02:23 AM)
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EternalCowabunga
Being of Great Significance



Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 7,152
Loc: Time and Space
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Re: Recommended reading. [Re: blackegg]
#7971767 - 02/03/08 02:39 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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I read Ender's Game as a kid. I thought it was a great read and really sparked my imagination when I was younger but I don't doubt it wouldn't be as good going back to it now.
I really didn't like The Handmaid's Tale, but that could be because it was mandatory reading when I was in grade 12. For a dystopia novel, it really wasn't that dark and I didn't get the same sense of overbearingness and dread as when I read 1984 and Brave New World - two truly great dystopia novels.
To the original poster, awesomebastard, it's hard to say what books I would recommend to you based on that list you gave, because i've read 90% of those books and I think those are just good books no matter what genre or kind of book you're in to. I haven't been reading much fiction lately, but one book I think you might like is Ishmael. It's about a guy who buys a monkey because the circus is going out of business or something like that and the monkey talks and he is like a guru for this man and teaches him about the errors of humanity and civilization.. it's pretty awesome.
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BurningBeard
The IncomparableMr. Flannery

Registered: 01/23/08
Posts: 327
Loc: The bottom of the bottle.
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Re: Recommended reading. [Re: g00ru]
#7971851 - 02/03/08 06:10 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
guruu said: The Dark Tower books are fuckin amazing, the entire 7 book series is like one big thought loop. I don't think stephen king was influenced by drugs or anything but it's certainly a very trippy series.
Another good series is A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin, if you're a fan of fantasy in any form these are an absolute must read.
And Cormac McCarthy is also quite good, read Blood Meridian if you want a brutal, awesome as shit novel.
I'll second Martin and McCarthy.
I'm re-reading the Ice and Fire series again right now actually.
I like Martin because his fantasy is more a take on medieval Europe... no magic, fairies and elves... just people, ambition, and all the fucking over that occurs in the struggle for power. Very intriguing characters witha lot of grit.
And The Road by McCarthy is also awesome. OMR, it's post apoc if you wanted to know.
Some authors I would also recommend:
Terry Pratchett for a quick dose of humor. The Brits know how to laugh and he proves it.
Phillip Roth
Hiruki Murikami(sp?) Japanese author with very trippy novels about higher concepts. Any psychadelics fan would love his stuff even though drugs rarely feature in his novels.
William Gibson: Cyberpunk future run by corporations is his common theme. Very good stuff.
Robert Silverburg: Sci-fi dominated by characters instead of technology. Dying Inside is my favorite by him... it's about a man who has been a telepath his whole life, and in his middle years he starts to lose the gift. Takes place in the early seventies. Very good read.
The Alvin Maker series by Card is another good set to check out.
-------------------- Daedalus, your child is falling and the Labyrinth is calling. Renegade heaps, humanity abandoned Bower of the vowels, you lit them and fanned them. Mercury, the courier, celestial messenger Bed with Dawn, your bride. Arrowhead of Diane, pierce the mind of a man, Tongueless muse of time
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mushbaby
woodswalker




Registered: 09/30/06
Posts: 2,645
Loc: in my own lil world
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Quote:
awesomebastard said: I read books and so should you. some books i like incude The ender qaurtet ( enders game, speaker for the dead, xenocide, children of the mind.) 1984 Brave new world Heaven and hell Doors of perception Lord of the flies Catcher in the rye of mice and men and Sphere
and am currently reading Gods debris, a thought experiment Ape and essence.
Fuck T.V. read a book.
If you like these, have you read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury? That and 1984 are my two fav books in this type of genre.
I didn't care for Catcher in the Rye. When I was growing up there was this big hoopla over banning the book, so I read it. Meh, never saw what the big deal was. But 1984 still sticks with me.
I have recently discovered the author Anna Lee Waldo. She takes real people and real facts and writes engrossing stories about them. You learn history while enjoying the story. At the beginning of each chapter she gives the actual facts (giving references) then proceeds to make it come alive. So far I have read Sacajawea and just finished Circle of Stones.
The first title is self-explanatory, the second is about a druid shipmaster named Madoc who legend claims discovered America in the late 12th century. This book deals more with his mother Brenda the mistress of the Welsh prince Owain of Gwynedd and the civil war that erupts after his death. This is also the time when Christianity was starting to take over and the druids were being persecuted. One of the reasons Madoc becomes interested in finding new land. Can't wait to start the second book in this series!
But be warned, these are not short books. But they are interesting enough to keep the pages turning.
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Colonel Kurtz Ph.D
What What?


Registered: 07/22/04
Posts: 11,113
Loc: Shadow Moses
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Re: Recommended reading. [Re: g00ru]
#7971946 - 02/03/08 07:28 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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The hyperion saga was hard to read for me, but if you take the effort to get thru ~3000 pages it's actually very good.
Of course, anything by Dick, Clarke or Asimov is worth reading... The foundation series is probably the most amazing thing I had ever read when I first discovered, and in fact I have ~60 books by Asimov.
The Last Question is probably the best post-apocaliptic, sci-fi story ever IMO.
The Last Question
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There's no better way to rock out than with your cock out!!
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Oracle Of Delphi
I, Phantom



Registered: 06/23/02
Posts: 1,135
Loc: State of Disrepair
Last seen: 15 years, 2 months
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Quote:
awesomebastard said: I read books and so should you. some books i like incude The ender qaurtet ( enders game, speaker for the dead, xenocide, children of the mind.) 1984 Brave new world Heaven and hell Doors of perception Lord of the flies Catcher in the rye of mice and men
Fuck T.V. read a book.
heh heh heh, this looks like the syllabus of my 9th grade class. but - seriously - READ A BOOK KIDS
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oldwirehands
freakin outsquares



Registered: 07/30/07
Posts: 13
Loc: chemist country
Last seen: 15 years, 11 months
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I'm currently reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I like it a lot so far.
-------------------- I make music. -Electronic- -Epic- -Heavy-
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AaronEvil
The GuitarVillain



Registered: 09/27/04
Posts: 1,706
Loc: California
Last seen: 12 years, 8 months
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Also, "Fooled by Randomness" is a great book thus far. I am reading it right now and nearly complete.
--------------------
There is not a lot of difference between a fox hole and a grave; but knowing that you dug your ditch and climbed in anyway.
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MiddleFinger
Is cooler thanyou

Registered: 02/12/06
Posts: 1,402
Last seen: 14 years, 7 months
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Re: Recommended reading. [Re: AaronEvil]
#7972520 - 02/03/08 11:34 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore and Wind Up Bird Chronicles Dave Eggers' Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius Don DeLillo's Americana and White Noise Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled
-------------------- History says, Don't hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up And hope and history rhyme.
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KetamineKatalyst
Skyhighatrist


Registered: 01/26/08
Posts: 1,647
Loc: Koma Kluster
Last seen: 13 years, 5 months
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I whole-heartedly recommend The Illuminatus Trilogy, or almost any Robert Anton Wilson book, but especially that one. Definitely one of my all-time favorites so far.
I just picked up this fiction book from an used book store called Child of Fortune by Norman Spinrad (came out in 1985). Anyone heard of it? What caught my eye first was the trippy cover art, then I read the back and Timothy Leary says "It's a Homeric space voyage, a Joycean interstellar trip, a Huck Finn saga of humanity's next adventure. It's a literary masterpiece."
I'd never heard of it before then, but will start it soon. I'll follow up.
I also picked up Marshal McLuhans The Gutenberg Galaxy, which was recommended to me. Not really sure what to expect, except from some hard concepts to chew on.
Take care!
-------------------- "Cosmic Love is absolutely ruthless and highly indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not." John C. Lilly
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