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 Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 9:38 am
Let's see, the latest books I've read were the complete Chronicles of Narnia (finally) by C.S. Lewis and just before that I had finished Lost, Wicked, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Mirror, Mirror (not nessecarily in that order) all by Gregory Maguire. I plan on getting the sequel to Wicked, Son Of A Witch, when it comes out in paperback.
Among my favorite books would have to be:
Gulliver's Travels
The Hobbit
The Lord Of the Rings Trilogy
The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe
The Harry Potter Books
Plus a couple dozen I can't think of right now.
I used to have this thing for anything Stephen King wrote, but I haven't actually bought one of his books in awhile. Now that I think of it I don't think I really have a favorite author at the moment either.
As for favorite subject matter, that bounces around from time to time but I read whatever may catch my eye. Most of the time though it's fairytale or fantasy related.
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Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 11:52 am
Greta Hayes I plan on getting the sequel to Wicked, Son Of A Witch, when it comes out in paperback.
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Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 12:20 pm
Dinah Lance Greta Hayes I plan on getting the sequel to Wicked, Son Of A Witch, when it comes out in paperback.
EDIT: Hell, it's in paperback now but I don't have the cash to get it yet.
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Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 1:28 pm
Hey, a book thread. Seems a perfect place for...
Green Metropolis!
Cheap books, free shipping, save the world, yadda yadda.
Speaking of sequels, I just found out, we're supposedly going to get the oft-promised sequel the The Princess Bride, Buttercup's Baby, in 2009. I hope it's for real, I'd wig out if it gets to 2009 and we don't get it.
Hunt-down-William-Goldman-and-exhume-S.Morganstern wig out.
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Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 4:50 am
biggrin That's three of your favourites that I first put in your path. smile I am the Dolly Levi of reading matter. We've still never discussed Nights at the Circus though...I think I might start an Angela Carter thread over in the Books forum tonight and see what happens. I'll post my favourites here in a bit too...though I'm always nervous that I'll leave out something I later realise is the MostImportantBookinMyLife. Though Dinah, aren't your tastes a little more austere?  (Ahhhh, when superheroes are written as adult humans rather than walking action figures.)
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Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 5:42 am
Doreen_Green biggrin That's three of your favourites that I first put in your path. smile I am the Dolly Levi of reading matter. Quote: We've still never discussed Nights at the Circus though...I think I might start an Angela Carter thread over in the Books forum tonight and see what happens. Quote: I'll post my favourites here in a bit too...though I'm always nervous that I'll leave out something I later realise is the MostImportantBookinMyLife. Quote: Though Dinah, aren't your tastes a little more austere?
S'there!
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Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 1:45 pm
More used books (it's a drug, I tells ya!) today:
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse (in hardback, if it please you)
Chocolat by Joanne Harris
Doctor Who: The Resurrection Casket by Justin Richards (Doctor Who! Pirates! Space Pirates!)
Killer In The Dark by Colin Foreman
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Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 2:07 pm
I tend to distrust the whole idea of 'escapist' fiction - using books to run away and hide inside just seems a waste of what they're capable of. I'm not going to trot out that Calvino quote again, but if a novel hasn't changed my life I want my money back. I'm not too hot on 'realist' fiction either - more often than not it seems a lot of fuss to try and create simulacra of the world we live in by denying yourself accesss to the really big technicolour metaphors that fiction can deploy. So my tastes tend to run towards Magical Realism, high Modernism, the 'New Weird', the sort of literary novels that could have gone out as SF/Fantasy if not for accidents of publishing and the sort of SF/Fantasy novels that could have gone out as literary fiction if not for the same. I want stories that create spaces in which I can find myself confronted with some truth, but I want to be all wrapped up in myth, fireworks and horror when it happens. Here are some of the places I go for that...
Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter
Cities of the Red Night - William Burroughs
Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
Dhalgren - Samuel Delany
Henry and June/Incest - Anais Nin
The Cornelius Quartet - Michael Moorcock
The Complete Short Stories - Jorge Luis Borges
The Complete Short Stories - J.G. Ballard
Lemmony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events - Daniel Handler
The Marvellous Land of Oz - Frank Baum
Journey to the West - Wu Cheng'en
Marked for Life/Does it Show?/Could it be Magic? - Paul Magrs
The Passion - Jeanette Winterson
The Scar - China Meiville
The Crime Studio - Steve Aylett
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
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Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 2:09 pm
Kay_Challis The Marvellous Land of Oz - Frank Baum Journey to the West - Wu Cheng'en
D'oh...
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Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 2:24 pm
Dinah Lance You show me books I go ga-ga over, I try to do the same with comics. domokun That seems to be the pattern... smile Dinah Lance I'll try and help out, but I might be Otherwise Engaged tonight. I might leave it then. Work's left me a little too tired anyway to adequatly summarise the debate about whether or not Socialists are allowed to be interested in fairy tales and Feminists are allowed to enjoy SM. And since I've rarely been in a Carter seminar that didn't turn into a ruck about those topics then I fear a thread could go the same way. Quote: I edited my list of favourite books seven times to make such additions. I find this sort of thing vaguely stressful - I know I'll be sitting up bolt upright in bed later and thinking " VALIS! I forgot VALIS!"
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Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 4:30 pm
Read very little literature for pleasure ... attempting to break habbit.
Books I find exceptional:
Tai Pan - James Clavell
LOTR : Return of the King - Tolkien
Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
The Crucible - Arthur Miller
Currently reading The Iliad ... way Greek's worded things ... lost.
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Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 2:47 am
I'm currently reading The Silver Wolf by Alice Borchardt, a book I haven't read since it first came out in 1998, and have discovered that my tastes make me wonder if this is still my kind of book. While my 14 year old self liked this book a great deal, reading it now makes me think the author is tryin far too hard and the whole thing reads like her very own Mary Sue. It's not bad, it's just not a book I'd ever buy in this day and age. This also makes me realize why I shied away from all the other books she wrote in this "series." (they involve the same characters at different points in their lives and are not actually connected besaides "so and so was in this book"). I'm also annoyed at someone once again romanticizing Guenevere. You ******** your husband's best buddy, you're a b***h (and an idiot), deal with it.
I'll be working my way through some Larry Niven next I guess, although I may re-evaluate that and make an attempt at Lord of the Rings again. I try to read it, really I do, but it's just so dry. If that man's work were any dryer I'd get dehydrated just turning the pages.
(anyone know if The DaVinci Code is worth it? It's gotten so much hype that I'm shying away from it)
My reading tastes are eclectic. In actually I'll read just about anything you put in front of me. I've like Emile Zola, Bret Easten Ellis, William Gibson, Kristen Britain, Neil Gaiman, tons of the classic authors, the list goes on. I'll try just about anything, but I can't garantee I'll like it.
When purchasing, I like history and biographies for nonfiction. Fiction, I like fantasy but I like it with lots of politics and cloak and dagger stuff. Books with thieves are a huge bonus, but the endings are so trite that I've given up on the bulk of them. Not everyone turns over a new leaf you know. Some of them just like stealing and will keep on stealing and no ammount off frowning and shaking heads and saying what bad people said thieves are will change that.
I also like a good vampire novel. This is why I haven't read many of them.
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Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 9:40 am
Ms. Selina Kyle (anyone know if The DaVinci Code is worth it? It's gotten so much hype that I'm shying away from it) It was pretty good, not worth all the hype but still pretty good. I'll lend it to you.
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Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 9:55 am
Sleena, if you're a fan of history and such skip the Da Vinci Code and read up on the ideas and theories that Brown borrowed to make it instead. I mean hell, The Da Vinci Code really isn't that far off from The Magdalena. Seriously.
If you like Easton Ellis, give Palahniuk a try. Fight Club, Survivor, or Lullaby would be good choices.
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Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 11:47 am
KittyPryde Ms. Selina Kyle (anyone know if The DaVinci Code is worth it? It's gotten so much hype that I'm shying away from it) It was pretty good, not worth all the hype but still pretty good. I'll lend it to you. Sweet! I have heard good things about Fight Club. That's somewhere on my list, but not very near the top until I finish House of Leaves.
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