Do you buy and/or read books, too?
If so, post 'em here.
In the last weeks I bought a lot of books for my studies, mostly about the Chinese language, China, Japan, Taiwan, Linguistics and stuff. I won't post all these, though.
I'll post only the ones I buy/read for personal enjoyment. ;)
Last month I read "Don't stand too close to a naked man" by Tim Allen. Very funny and a nice read. Surely recommended. ;D
Last Friday I ordered a used copy of the book "Edda" in the German translation by Hans von Wolzogen. It's written in old German script ("Fraktur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraktur_%28typeface_sub-classification%29)" <- link inside) and published around 1880. I also have a translation of the same text by Karl Simrock, published 1926.
Did I mention that I love old books? :D Later I want to try to find a copy of the first impression of the text, which was published around 1812.
For those who aren't familiar with the term Edda, have a short look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edda)
The complete translation of the Edda can be found online here:
http://www.cybersamurai.net/Mythology/nordic_gods/LegendsSagas/Edda/PoeticEdda/Index.htm (http://www.cybersamurai.net/Mythology/nordic_gods/LegendsSagas/Edda/PoeticEdda/Index.htm)
My favourite chapter is the Völuspá.
http://www.cybersamurai.net/Mythology/nordic_gods/LegendsSagas/Edda/PoeticEdda/Voluspo.htm (http://www.cybersamurai.net/Mythology/nordic_gods/LegendsSagas/Edda/PoeticEdda/Voluspo.htm)
Anybody else into Norse mythology eventually?
I'm almost finished with Chuck Palahniuk's latest novel "RANT". It's excellent.
:D. Good topic!
LOVE books. One of my all time favorite stories is Flowers For Algernon...sad stuff.
I last read Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is a great book.
Two of my favorite books:
The Giver by Lois Lowery
Holes by Louis Sachar
Quote from: FamicomJL on June 18, 2007, 02:51:29 pm
:D. Good topic!
LOVE books. One of my all time favorite stories is Flowers For Algernon...sad stuff.
I last read Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is a great book.
Flowers for Algernon is the book about the mouse and retarded guy right? I read it and saw the movie. Can't say it makes my favorite books list, but it is an interesting read nonetheless.
To be honest, I haven't read a book in a LONG time. Plus, I don't have a job so I can't buy any books... Borrowing books from the public library isn't appealing either cuz driving all the way across downtown isn't that fun.
The last book I read was "Hardball" by Chris Matthews for AP Government. Hehe, that was a while back and school has been out for a month already for me.
Correct. I thought it was just such a beautiful work.
Finally amazon had the book in store I tried to buy for months.
Japan - Handbuch (Japan-handbook), by Hammitzsch. It's THE standard handbook in Germany for all you wanna know about Japan. Set me back 64 Euros, though. (approx. 86$) :(
Bought another version of the Edda.
Now I ordered some Simpsons guides (2books for seasons 9-12) from the UK. I hope to get them this week. :)
I'm reading two books.
One of them is really about building up my soul:
No Man is an Island - Thomas Merton
In this amazing book of reflections, this monk talks
about how much are we all humans connected.
I recommend this one for everyone, because it is
actually a masterpiece. Merton started this thought
after reading a poem from John Donne. Here goes
a quote:
No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death
diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.
The other is about sociology, economics and religion:
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism - Max Weber
I think it is a classic... I'm reading the original after hearing
to many times about it.
I'm reading...nothing. I really have to find a book. :(
Yay, my Simpsons guides came today. ;D
Reading those I discovered that there are some episodes in seasons 11 and 12 I haven't seen yet! :o I hope they release those DVDs fast.
Anybody read Starship Troopers? I heard it was really good & better than the movie.
Quote from: Jedi QuestMaster on September 02, 2007, 03:56:04 pm
Anybody read Starship Troopers? I heard it was really good & better than the movie.
Hrm...the book has mechas, but the movie has boobs...a difficult choice!
I'm now reading "wagahai wa neko de aru" (吾輩は猫である) (=I am a cat) by Natsume Soseki.
It's difficult, but I finally can appreciate reading it in Japanese. :D
A little bump for the new members. ;)
I'm reading (... well, I try to...) a very old Japanese book that I bought the last time I was there. It's a schoolbook from 2 centuries ago. Interesting, but difficult. ???
About to read Game of Shadows, about Barry Bonds. Should be good. :D
I have tons of books on ebay right now so if you like them bid!
http://myworld.ebay.com/kite200
I'm reading books on babies right now. That's how things chance in a matter of days... ;)
Books, eh? i really enjoyed 1984; I saw it as a reflection of the modern Christian church. I really like Larry Niven's stuff, as it's realistic science fiction, not like Star Wars. Terry Pratchett is just plain weird. He's got a whole universe. There's a turtle riding through space. It has four elephants on its back. On the four elephants' backs is the Discworld... Which is a really big disc. I like it...
I like A Clockwork Orange.
There are many great reads out there.
Robert E. Howard's stuff is particularly addicting.
I read a fair bit of Forgotten Realms, and Warhammer 40K books... most titles have been great worlds to sink yourself into for a while.
I'll second 1984, AND A Clockwork Orange. I'll also drop a note for All Quiet on the Western Front.
If you like sorta serial/pulp fantasy... Fritz Lieber is pretty awesome.
I made a thread with the same title a long time ago.
Please do a little search before opening new threads.
I'll merge the 2.
I don't really like books, even though I'm in an advanced English class :-\
I don't read unless I absolutely have to...and if I do, I make sure I find a book that I will remotely enjoy...
A couple of years ago, I read Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie and the other two books that author wrote...I liked his books when I was younger. Right now. I'm reading Slash; a biography about the famous guitar player.
Fun fact: He drank, smoked, did drugs, and had sex all when he was only 12 :D
Been reading Brave New World during my lunch breaks. Started reading scans of The Watchmen just recently.
My friend read The Watchmen...
I think I'll read that next time I have to read something..
"Watchmen" is really good... it's quite a complex comic
also almost finished with
"Less Than Zero" by Brett Easton Ellis (author of "American Psycho")
interesting read....
I do a lot of reading... and I mean A LOT of reading.
Have done so since March 1990, when I picked up this book:
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/STEELE03.png)
It was indeed "Book #3" in a Men's Adventure Action/Sci-Fi series
but got me hooked at age 11. One month later I managed to track
down Book #4 (below):
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/STEELE04.png)
And basically that was it. I was 12 years old, and no longer interested
in reading the bullshit that my Junior High School's Curriculum expected
of me, and would only read this kind of stuff. By the time the Summer of 1990
happened upon me I was looking for Book #1 and Book #2 of the series (as the
series at that time for STEELE was only at book 5), but the B. Dalton Books didn't
have any available. Instead, I discovered the following series...
THE WINGMAN
-----------------------------
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/Wingman01.png)
and the book above clocked in at a whopping 460 pages long! But I was visiting
my grandmother in a sleepy town on the Texas border and had nothing better to
do, so I finished the whole novel between 1PM and like 3AM. Went back the next
day (to the B. Dalton Books) and purchased both books #2 and #3...
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/Wingman02.png)(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/Wingman03.png)
Shortly put the series dealt with a post nuclear world, where America had been
back stabbed and we were united no more. Hawk Hunter and a bunch of others
basically fight from the skies and ground "New Order America" and everyone from
the Commies to the Fourth Reich Nazis, to New Age Vikings in Submarines etc.
Totally nuts but highly entertaining, but much to the chagrin of my teachers there
were also "Bed Scenes" that had more than explicit articulation of sexual encounters,
but I managed to still get them to agree to let me read and do book reports on THE WINGMAN.
The series would go on for 16 books in all, which I own every one of.
As of right now in 2009 I'm currently reading (as of today) the following:
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/EDGE45.png)
from a kick ass violent Western series of 61 novels (49 published in the USA)
compliments of a British author named Terry Harknett under his pen name
here of George G. Gilman
...and Book #11 of
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/RatBastards11.png)
which is about the US Army's small group of "Recon" guys in the Pacific theatre
of World War 2. All fictional but based on actual accounts between Americans and
the Imperial Japanese Army. All these books have been Out-of-Print for at least a
decade or more, but outside of retro gaming, my real passion is collecting and reading
all of this stuff. In fact I prefer it over watching movies 90% of the time really. I will say this
though, anyone who liked either ROBOCOP and/or THE TERMINATOR should probably
track down the STEELE series, not at all hard to find through ABEbooks.Com or eBAY,
though books 1-6 are the best by J.D. Masters. Books #7 and #8 by some other dude
named S.L. Hunter sucked royal ass.
The Steele series books 1-6 are below if anyone might find any of this interesting...
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/STEELE01.png)(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/STEELE02.png)
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/STEELE03.png)(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/STEELE04.png)
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/STEELE05.png)(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/STEELE06.png)
Seriously the above series is *AWESOME* And goes much further into detail than
Terminator or RoboCop ever did. Just something to think about.
Being a history major I read a lot. I'm currently reading "The Birth Of Tragedy & The Genealogy Of Morals" by Friedrich Nietzche, and in the past month or so I've read:
"The Origins Of The Modern World" - Robert B Marks
"Mayflower" - Nathaniel Philbrick
"The Communist Manifesto" - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
"Time, Work, and Culture In The Middle Ages" - Jacques Le Goff
"Facing Racial Revolution: Eyewitness Accounts of The Haitian Insurrection" - Jeremy D. Popkin
Quote from: son_ov_hades on February 22, 2009, 07:07:14 pm
"The Communist Manifesto" - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
I haven't read that in probably 14 years or so, probably should again though. As a "Historian" (self study, not recognized) myself, especially of *Military History* I have found both Guerrilla Warfare by Ernesto CHE Guevara and
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by Major T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) to be Very fascinating works as well. Deep insight, even if as of 2009, a lot of what was written (moreso in the case of Che Guevara) is outdated. A lot of the troops fighting in the middle east today would do good to be handed out "The Seven Pillars" by T.E. Lawrence if it could be found easily, but it cannot. It was a limited publication and (at least for me) the only copy I ever had the privilege of reading was someone else's whom they paid a whopping $2,000USD for. Very old indeed. I wish someone would scan page for page that particular book, unless some UK publisher has done reprints I don't know about? In my studies however, I cannot find anything of the like. If for some reason you've never read Che's work, I'd highly recommend trying to locate THIS ONE:
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/GuerrillaWarfare.png)
It's got the "A Method" revision and case studies included concerning rural/agrarian as well as urban "irregular" activities and proliferation of Guerrilla Warfare overall. I don't know how hard it is to find these days, but compared to the soft cover version that can be had through Amazon.Com currently, it's a much more in-depth read. Also his Biography (Che Guevara) is interesting as heck, but hella long to read:
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/CHE.png)
This might not be you're cup of booze laced java at all, but if you did enjoy reading "The Communist Manifesto" you'd probably get a lot out of the works I've mentioned.
Going back onto the more fiction stuff I also recommend people look for the following...
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/SwagTown01.png)(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/SwagTown02.png)(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/SwagTown03.png)
Only way to describe this series is to say it's a cop action/drama of contemporary violence meets a near future post societal economic collapse setting. In fact the preface to SWAGTOWN (Book #1), is highly disturbing, because it paints a very EXACT picture of just how destroying the global economy via terrorism from highly motivated groups where only 2 bullets are ever fired... would work. Of course it's little more than an excuse for the main character himself Swag to do his stuff, where everyone is an opportunist and nothing is what it seems. Highly recommended, seeing as how it's only a 3-Part series.
The other one is...
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/StormriderBook01.png)(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/StormriderBook02.png)(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/StormriderBook03.png)
Post Nuclear (A Meteorite struck Earth, no ICBMs and WW3 here) action series that combines the high octane insanity of MAD MAX with Mysticism and the Gun Frontier of the American Old West with Native Americanisims and equal parts George Orwell's 1984. Again, a 3-Part series from the early 90s. Highly recommended.
I've never read Che Guevara, but I don't have any time to read unless it's for class. Maybe I'll check it out this summer, thanks for the recommendation.
I read "Death of A Revolutionary" for english, it was the only copy of the only book about Che in your skewl library.
Books of Blood Vol. 1 by Clive Barker
Sandman: A Doll's House by Neil Gaiman
I began to read Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars and Enslaved Your Children, but haven't gotten fully started yet. Other than that, nothing really.
I dunno if anyone here ever read any of Don Pendleton's
EXECUTIONER series featuring Mack Bolan, but this British
flavored version by the same guy who wrote those EDGE western
novels I love (George G. Gilman) this time under the pen name of
Joesph Hedges had "The Revenger Series" for NEL (New English
Library) in the 70s. Nice thing was it was only a 12-Part series, so
it's easy to collect, whereas Mack Bolan's adventures are still going
to this day.
Anyhow, as of today I began what I believe is Book #7
of the John Stark series known as THE REVENGER...
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/TheRevenger07.png)
First (6) of the 12 books were released in the USA under the
name STARK, since "The Revenger" was already used by
another author for a similar series. About a dude at war with
the Mafia. Pretty good so far.
Finished that REVENGER novel and started
(re-reading for the 28th time since 1992) this
kick ass Mickey Spillane novel...
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/Bloody-Sunrise.jpg)
If you've never read one of his 1st person "Tough Guy"
hard-boiled mystery crime novels, I'd highly recommend
Spillane. The dude died in 2007 at age 82, but was still
kicking right up until the end with his final Mike Hammer
novel *Goliath Bone* (http://www.amazon.com/Goliath-Bone-Mike-Hammer/dp/015101454X) just been published, and Dead Street (http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bios.cgi?title=Dead%20Street)
was made available last year. ***TIGER MANN, was Spillane's
answer to Ian Flemming's James Bond for America, and the
dude was just as violent/crass as P.I. Mike Hammer, and fights
the reds during the whole Cold War paranoia. Dated sure, but
still lots of fun and food for thought.
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/seeyouinhellboy.gif)
Books of Magic- Neil Gaiman
finished that Mickey Spillane book awhile back now,
but I'd been playing me a lot of FAMICOM and SFC
and finally got back to "the book reading" thing. Started
reading...
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/Spur21.jpg)
eariler today. I picked it up just to see if I'd care for the series
as a whole. I'm into Violent Western novels like EDGE
and The Trailsman, and this is more of the same, though
it's marketed more of a Men's Harlequin type deal, where this
dude Spur McCoy (secret service) agent always manages to
lay pipe on every other woman in the wild, wild west... AND get
himself into some FUBAR shit all the time, while doing his job.
Might have to start this series from book #1 afterall. I'm usually
"SOLD" if the book cover art draws me in, and the backside
synopsis sounds interesting enough.
Been reading Dracula through the Stanza app on my iPhone, which is a surprisingly pleasant experience. It's also handy because I always have my phone, so I can read whenever I have a minute to kill.
A Crack in the Line is pretty good. A teenager finds a parallel universe in which he's a girl, and his mom isn't dead. The plot gets more intricate than that, though.
I'm currently reading "Have Spacesuit- Will Travel". I forget who its by at the moment...
Finished Brave New World a week or so ago. Started reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.
finished up that SPUR book, moved onto this today...
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/TargetforTonight.png)
interesting read so far.
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/Ghetto-Blaster.gif)
I have to read "Discipline and Punish", and write a paper on it tomorrow. Fuck my life.
After reading 1984 and then comparing it to the 20th century government of Communist China, the two seem nearly identical.
America is (kind of) heading in that direction right now too ^
...anyhow, finished up that old school mystery novel yesterday night
and began a new book today:
(http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll294/MX_5000/TheRommelPapers.png)
Picked up this non fiction book on "The Desert Fox"
Erwin Rommel of WW2 fame but never got around
to reading it. Figured it was long over due, though
I'm familiar somewhat with his exploits. He was
respected enough as a worthy adversary by the
great General George S. Patton, so I figure he'll
be interesting to read about.
finished "Less than Zero" a while ago, now reading "Shinjuku Shark" by Arimasa Osawa
an interesting detective novel..
>_> I swear, I never am not currently reading a book.
(http://www.mumblemagazine.com/707buyersblitz/707markvonnegut.jpg)
A couple months ago I read "The Eden Express" by Mark Vonnegut, his autobiography. Which might have been boring like most biographies if Mark Vonnegut hadn't happened to be a schizophrenic hippie. Definitely worth reading, doesn't drag on too long either.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/56/The_smoke_ring.jpg)
After that I read "The Smoke Ring" by Larry Niven, the sequel to "The Integral Trees", a book about a group of evolved humans living in the ring of breathable gas around a neutron star. Really interesting how Niven kind of had their language evolve, and the physics are pretty interesting. Like steam-powered rockets and stuff.
But then I read "Vacuum Diagrams", and discovered the Xeelee Sequence series.
(http://www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/large/9/9780061059049.jpg)
This one is just a collection of short stories taking place from about the year 3500 all the way to 500,000,000 AD, at the destruction of all of the hydrogen in the universe. Every time I think about this book I smile. It's the first truly "epic" book I've ever read, I think. But the series spans from the Big Bang, where it talks about the monads, creatures of cosmic immensity that started the whole expansion, to the lifeforms that developed in the first thirty seconds after the singularity, including the eponymous Xeelee, who humanity spends over twenty millennia fighting against them only to have them leave of their own accord, after fearing that humans would do too much damage to Chandra, the black hole at the center of the galaxy serving as the Xeelee's method of producing nightfighters, ships with wings created from spacetime flaws as well as a computer of sorts, having transcended the mass-energy constraints of normal computers. Chandra also houses the monads, which were deemed as precious by the Xeelee, inexplicably. The science is mind-blowing. It makes me enjoy theoretical physics, reading about the Qax's evolution into the fabric of probability itself, masses of quantum wave functions, to things like monopoles and black holes. The writing is just incredible. I never find myself having to reread a sentence to understand it, but the books are just at the right level for me in difficulty.
HOW DID I FORGET THE RING
The Xeelee, having fought a losing war against the photino birds, an exotic race of dark matter lifeforms, decide that instead of wasting more lives, they should escape altogether. This is accomplished by the construction of "Bolder's Ring", named after the human that discovered it, a ring of incredibly dense superconductor material, thousands of lightyears across. Upon its completion, it creates a rip in the universe itself, through which the Xeelee escape to another universe, one without photino birds. Paradoxically, the Xeelee leave the last of the humans with a means to escape to the Ring, when they've gained enough intelligence back. The last few million humans are sealed in an immense cube, after their persistent assaults on the Xeelee put the human race in danger of extinction, to save them from themselves. Eventually, a group of around thirty make it to the Xeelee ship left for them, and escape to the other universe after witnessing a last-ditch effort of the Qax to stop the photino birds, in which they launch a goddamn star as a weapon. Through the portal of the Ring, the humans wait inside their ship as it terraforms a planet for them, which they call Old Earth, and humanity proliferates again.
If you choose to only read one sf book for the rest of your life, make it one from the Xeelee Sequence.
But read Vacuum Diagrams first, so you understand the concepts. Then read Exultant, which goes way deeper into the human-Xeelee wars. Then just read the others in any order. I love this series, after reading only three of the books. There are more than ten in total. READ THEM. Unless you don't like science fiction. in which case you're really out of luck with this series. :P
Also, thanks to the miracle of Stanza for the ipod touch, I'm reading "The Antichrist" by Nietzsche, Karl Marx's "Selected Essays", and "The Colour out of Space" by H.P. Lovecraft. All are good.
Edit: Just to clarify, I was talking about the Xeelee Sequence as a whole when describing the plot, not just Vacuum Diagrams. >_>
Wow, what a review! For that kind of admiration the book must really be something, I look forward to checking it out.
Yeah, I tend to talk a lot about things I like. :P They're definitely worth checking out if you're into SF of any kind.
I don't read for leisure a whole lot, because I usually can't find a book that holds my interest for very long. There are a few books that I really like though. I found my new two favorite books this year, in fact. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, which can be downloaded in it's entirety under the Creative Commons license (issued by Doctorow himself) here (http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download), and Veins by Drew Merriweather; the author of the Toothpaste for Dinner webcomic (http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/), which can be purchased from his website for only $9, or on Amazon in eBook format for $4.99.
I definitely recommend checking these two out if you're a fan of quirky, dark humor (Veins), or a good story about a teenager fighting the system in a heavily-monitored environment (Little Brother). I'm terrible at describing things, especially books, so you'll just have to check them out for yourself.
Quote from: nintendodork on May 18, 2011, 09:09:40 pm
I'm terrible at describing things, especially books...
Yeah, me too, especially movies. I think it irritates me as much as it does other people. Glad I'm not the only one.
what is this Ba-uk thing you speak of? i dont think ive ever heard of it....
Oh man, somehow I missed this thread. ;D
"Anybody else into Norse mythology eventually"
-YES! Kevin Crossley-Holland does a very nice, not overly complex translation of many of the prominent myths. I think there is a recent edition out as well. Should be able to find it cheap at a store... or hit up amazon, and buy just about any edition. Reading Bellows' translation of the Poetic Edda... it's in two volumes, broken up between the Mythological poems, and the Heroic Poems. I tend to favor the Havamal, but that is largely good sense in lyrical form. The Voluspa is rather great in itself.
Also, Saga of the Jomsvikings was rather enjoyable, though short. It does so a little bit to establish some link between the Norse, and the Isles, but is overall what I like to call "history with some flair." Oveall, very enjoyable. If your budget is tight, there is a B&N budget book titled "Children of Odin." I haven't worked entirely through it, but it does lay out much of the basic Norse pantheon information, and would make a good entry-primer for starters.
As a general rule, I am a compulsive book hoarder. I have sold a lot of my collection, and my shelves are still bent. I love the Norse stuff, and folklore in general, but also enjoy general fiction/sci-fi, and a handful of "graphic novels." Mostly I read Hellblazer, and Walking Dead, but also have a 6 volume set of Akira. Took a while to track that one down in entirety, but well worth it. I also dig Robert E. Howard, and have most of his notable works (Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn), as well as being a fan of Lovecraft. For sci-fi, I have read less. But Phillip Dick is pretty good. John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" was a rather fresh take on the genre. Need to read through Ravenor Omnibus, which is a collected 3 volumes from the 40K universe, I think Dan Abnett wrote that one.
I'm a book junkie...
I can't believe I haven't posted this yet:
Right now I'm reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by the one & only steam-punk worshippers' idol, Jules Verne.
I'm one chapter away from finishing The First Part.
Did you read Journey To The Center Of The Earth? That one's awesome too!
This is the only Jules Verne book I've read so far.
Journey to the Center of the Earth has been of great interest to me after I saw the movie the The Core. :P Bad movie. :(
Also on my list is The Mysterious Island.
Finished the second part of Twenty Thousand Leagues earlier this Spring & blazed through The Hunger Games in two weeks! :o
The hunting motif makes me want to go back & finish reading all the Gary Paulsen Hatchet (http://www.amazon.com/Hatchet-Gary-Paulsen/dp/1416936467) books I started reading as a child. ;D But there's only one book (http://www.amazon.com/Brians-Hunt-Gary-Paulsen/dp/0385746474) left. :'( It's so sad finishing a long series.
Just reread the whole series. Especially if it's after a longer time the story may feel completely different when you're older.
I'm reading Ayn Rand's Anthem right now. I love the concept!
Quote from: manuel on May 12, 2013, 04:15:50 am
Just reread the whole series. Especially if it's after a longer time the story may feel completely different when you're older.
But I like it that way. I read
Hatchet in middle school,
The River in high school,
Brian's Winter in college, &
Brian's Return in Iraq.
I also have a list of books to read that's populating so fast that I'll never have time to read anything short of a novel twice.
If you have lots of other stuff to read, then you don't have to bother. :)
I got an iPad for my birthday on Saturday (which is what I'm currently posting from), and this thread is going to give me some great fodder for iBooks! I'm currently reading Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Foer, as well as going back and forth between a few alt lit eBooks that no one here is probably interested in. :P
Just finished:
Water Margin: The Outlaws of the Marsh
I readh the J.H. Jackson version
It's a really old book, somewhat of a Chinese Robin Hood story, based on history.
It wasn't a bad story, I like how many characters are protrayed as both heroic and realistic criminals.. Unlike Robin Hood which tries to make them seem altruistic, these characters feel a lot more like real outcasts of society. They don't shy away from stomping the head of an infant or two in the struggle for freedom from oppresion :)
the ending is a bit dissapointing, despite there being major changes happening in the [hi]story near the end, I didn't feel like the dramatic changes really came across in the book and it just felt like more of the same at the end.
Now I've moved on to reading the Bible.. New International version. I expect to be on it for quite a while :)
Oh I always wanted to read this some time. It's very famous in Asia, just like "Journy to the west", "Dream of the red chamber" and "Romance of the three kingdoms" and it originates from the same tradition of wandering storytellers in China. It's called Suikoden in Japanese.
Yes. I would recommend Three Kingdoms over Water Margin as a starting point into the classic Chinese novels, but I was also a lot more familiar with the characters of Three Kingdoms going in, so my opinion might be a bit biased. It definately takes some decent effort to keep track of the sheer number of characters (all with unfamiliar sounding names of course) in either book probably moreso in ROTK. I haven't read Journey to the West yet, but I think it's supposed to be the easiest. Maybe I'll pick it up next when I get tired of trying to get through the Bible again :)