*DAMN R6 Forum

    In the spirit of Brain's spelunking of the board members' psyches, what's your favorite book or books, and who is your favorite author or authors?

    For sheer reading pleasure, I've got to go with Mark Twain, Terry Pratchett, or Douglas Adams.

    For great science fiction, Harlan Ellison or James P. Hogan (or about a dozen others, but those two are at the top of my list).

    My favorite book is more or less a dead heat between Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, Stephen Levy's Hackers, and Twain's Letters From Heaven.

hmm...

Mark Twain and Douglas Adams are great, i also enjoy Dave Barry's pieces he writes for the papers.

Stranger in a Strange land was really weird, but good. Frank Herbert (Dune) and Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game) are my favs, prolly.

the author part is easy, crichton

the hardpart is picking which book i like best. i likefor me it is a tie between jurassic park(SOOOO much better than the movie) and sphere(again, the movie pales in comparison) also kudos for the illiad and the oddesy for making it into consideration
i have yet to read timeline, the LOTR series
ot the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, and wan't to read the harry potter series up to the current book(yea, i'm literature deprived, i know
best non fiction book i have read is the elegant universe
by brian greene(it's on  superstring theory, and a suprizingly facinating read, and NO mathmatical equations in the entire text)

? ? Eep. I totally forgot about Card. His less- and non-Mormon stuff is great, such as the Ender series and Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (SUCH a great book), but it's just plain annoying when he gets all LDS, such as in The Folk of the Fringe. You're right, though. He's up there on my list, too. : )

    Chrichton is a good one. I very much enjoyed Jurassic Park, and enjoyed even more being outraged at how badly the movie mangled it.

    Definitely read the Harry Potter series. They are marketed as kids' books, but that doesn't stop the universe Ms. Rowling created from being extremely enjoyable and entertaining. I'm looking forward to the latest book.

    Regarding cosmological theory, an interesting book for a rebellious alternative viewpoint is Eric Lerner's The Big Bang Never Happened. He presents rather plausible attacks on the Big Bang cosmology, and rather plausible alternatives. Quite interesting and thought-inducing, actually. : )

All Quiet on the Western Front is my favorite.

"beyond good and evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future" - friedrich nietzsche

think you are a cynic.  you are not even an amature compared to nietzsche.

Catch 22, my favorite author though is Issac Asimov

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (and the rest of the series) by J.K. Rowling.

I also read a lot of Lillian Jackson Braun (actually read everything by her), James Patterson, a few other series here and there.  I also like Arabian Nights, just wish I could find a version that has every story in it rather than having to read about 4-5 of them to get the full arsenal.

Bah, Hemingway.

Well, for pleasure reading, it would be a toss up between Crichton, Grisham, and Clancy.

Books would also be a toss up:

Crichton: Sphere, Jurassic Park,
Grisham: The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Testament
Clancy: Executive Orders, Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising (guess where he got the name of his company from, *hint* *hint*)

But Assassin!  All Quiet on the Western front (good choice cossack) is by Remarque!  You're probaby thinking "For whom the bell tolls" or "A farewell to arms."

Plus Hemingway wasn't that bad.  If none of his other work was, "The Sun Also Rises" was fucking genius.

My favorite authors are Vonnegut (Slaughter-house-five, Cat's Cradle) and Nabokov (Lolita, Pale Fire)

My favorite books is Catch-22.

And buccaneer, Neitzche was not a cynic.  He was a fool.  He thought that those who needed religon were weak.  He favored the hero.  I think he is weak.  Any man who needs a hero is as weak as the man who needs religon.  The strong man is completely and totally self-sufficent.  To honor a hero one needs emotion.  Emotion is the downfall of a man striving for more.  Now Camus, Sarte, Beckett, (and many of the other existentialists Neitzche and Kierkagaard's writings spawned)  they were cynics.

Roger that, i was indeed thinking of "a farewell to arms"...first time i have been made to look like a semi-tard in a long time. damn you roy!

Also, I was not knocking on Hemingway...I just dont find his books pleasurable enough for leisure reading. I am looking for a fast paced plot (even though Executive Orders is over 1350 pages of plot).

My favorite author has always been Stephen King. Author of books like 'Dolores Claiborne', 'It', 'The Tommyknockers', 'The Shining', ... You can't help admiring King's narrative skills and his versatility as a storyteller.

In story after story, the long reach of Stephen King's imagination and the no-holds-barred force of his storytelling will take you to places you've never been before. On a roller-coaster through the macabre and monstrous, via cutting-edge explorations of good and evil - and on the heartfelt piece on Little League baseball. You'll lose a good deal of sleep.

Another book I read awhile ago was Charlotte Bront?'s 'Jane Eyre'. This book is ranked as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction.
There is kindness and warmth in this epic love story, which is set against the magnificent backdrop of the Yorkshire moors.

I've read Victor Hugo's 'Notre-Dame de Paris', Bram Stoker's 'The Count of Dracula', Jonathan Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels'... These are all just a few, but they're my favorites.

I Think my most favorite author is Richard Marckino

and his whole rouge warrior series

it owns

    Assassin, I've never read Clancy's Executive Orders. I'll have to pick it up. I've read six or seven of his tomes, and didn't enjoy any save three: Red Storm Rising (ye gods, what a book), The Hunt for Red October, and Rainbow Six. Although I read R6 after becoming addicted to RS, so my judgement may have been clouded. : )
    Clancy seemed to me to have one story which he tells in an unvarying narrative monotone which for the most part simply plods along through the plot in a boring fashion. An author who's stuck telling all his stories in the same way does not produce works which are pleasurable to me.  It's why I don't read Piers Anthony anymore. Or Vonnegut. Or Bradbury. Or Stephen Donaldson (possibly the worst offender of the bunch).

    As for the rest of you, I'm making notes on the classics I need to catch up on. : ) Keep them coming.

Richard Marchinko could own tom clancy

Read Marchinkos books they own

    I heard from a trusted source that Marchinko's a poseur, but I'll read some of his stuff eventually, I'm sure. I read some of everyone's stuff eventually.

 Good books where I enjoyed the story....Hang Tough Paul Mather, Tom Sawyer, Of Mice and Men, Soccer Shock,  :)

    Tom Sawyer is great. Have you ever read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court? Good stuff, great satire. Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven is really good, too, as is anything from Letters From Heaven.

I loved Clancy's Rainbow Six. Excellent story, and disproves anyone who says R6 had no plot.  ;)


:-[                                                                   ::)?

bah, people have been saying RS has no plot, not R6.

You think hes a posuer?

OMG he was asked by the presedent of the united states to break into camp david


Guess what he did

yes he did it with ease

He is the creater of many SEAL teams and under no circumstances is he a "posuer"

Owned

I must say, ever since Clear and Present Danger nothing Clancy writes seems to be "up to snuff" with his first five novels.  Still, I've read most of them as quick and easy reads (even some of the Op-Center shit) and enjoy them in spite of my literary self.

well, i've never gotten into tom clancy (ok ok i admit it i've never picked up a clancy novel in my life) because action novels really aren't my thing, if there is such a thing. One of the best books i have ever read was the scarlet letter by nathaniel hawthorne. Some, in fact most, dislike it that i have seen but the ending left an impression on me like no other novel before. I also enjoy Arthur Golden, Hemingway, Friedrich Schiller, ayn rand, RL stevenson, F. dostoyevsky, etc. I also love any kind of WWII non fiction as well as tons of early colonial/revolution American history nf. I do also love Nabokov (mentioned above). Lolita is a great novel.

Also one of my favorite poets is Robert Frost  ;D ;D ;D


ok enough of this rambling, i've got a dentist appt in 5 hours.

    Clancy isn't an action author. He's a political/war author. About the only book of his that I would wholeheartedly recommend is Red Storm Rising. It covers the entirety of World War III in a highly realistic and plausible fashion, or at least what WWIII would have been back before the Soviet Union went kerflooie.

    As for me, I just found Lolita faintly disturbing and strongly weird. Nabokov's got an odd style.

    As for Ayn Rand... terrible author. Interesting philosophy. I tell people to read John Galt's speech from Atlas Shrugged, as it uses about a hundred-odd pages to give the philosophical picture which Rand torturously uses the other thousand-odd pages of the book to paint. Eh, and the way she portrays sex; that's just sick in the heed.

Rands style does kinda suck but it's the philosophy i read the books for...and atlas shrugged is my favorite.  ;D

Hmm, book about sex with a minor...book with sex that is sick in the head...I guess I should add these two to my list.

Acutally Lolita is on the top 100 books list which I plan to complete in my life, don't know about Atlus Shrugged but I think it is there too.

    The sex in Atlas Shrugged is all violent. Lots of hair-pulling, bruises, choking, painful bending backwards across knees, etc. Sick in the head.

I see, S&M, bondage, that type of thing.  Maybe a bit with a dominatrix?

So I guess that isn't really my thing, but I'm still all for Lolita.

Lolita is one of the most amazing books I've ever read.  Many consider it the fabled"great American novel." It certainly is in the running for the title.  Styalistically Nabokov is probably the best writer... ever.  in total, he's surely one of the top 5 writers (once again) ever.  one of  his other novels, "Pale Fire" is the most perfecly formed novel ever written.  Intro, 999 line poem, commentary, index, all vital to the twisted plot.  "Pnin" is also a great novel.

Nabokov is not for the feint of heart however.  He's one of my 2 favorite authors, and I'm still afraid to pick up his books, for fear it will be way over my head.  Everyone will probably have to read Lolita at some point in college, but I suggest reading a few of his short stories first.  "Details of a Sunset" is a great one.

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Ayn Rand is a crazy-ass ho if you ask me.  However, I kinda like the Objectivism she cherishs.

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(Sorry Cookie, this is where we part) Hawthorne is a fucking hack.  His writing is, in my opinion, piss-poor.  he is simply overrated because he was the first in the U.S. to publish.

Ironically, I am going to the college he attended.  Also, I'm going to the college of a Mr. Chamberline, who led the bayonet charge on little Round Top that changed the course of the civil war.  Sure is a pity I'm a southerner at heart.

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I forgot in my earlier posts my favorite non-ficton author,  Howard Zinn.  Admittedly, he's socialist and crazy, but I'm into that sort of thing. People's History of the united States," quality.

Once again it really isn't style i look at, it's the message and the impression a novel leaves on me that determines my opinion afterward. The scarlet letter, while not a particular jewel of literary fashion, had this wonderful impact on me upon finishing the novel because it left a little bit for me, the reader, to ponder. I hate novels that close all the ends and leave no room for imagination/interpretation.

Nathaniel Hawthorne?  Yeah, his writing stinks.  Read Young Goodman Brown in lit class this spring and I was like...ok so this guy is randomly having this thing to do and then he sees witches, wow what a shocker for a puritan era story.

For all you gamer atheletes Lance Armstrongs book was fucking amazing and i highly recommend it

Was that like '5 weeks to optimum riding skills'?

no, I think the book he wrote was on his battle to over come cancer, or am I thinking of somebody else?

It was about his life and of course the cancer thing, beefy your muscles don't get much of a work out eh?

bah, no one remembered to name "1984" by George Orwell?
or mb it just stinks. But 2001: a Space Oddysey is nice (so much for the sci-fi stuff)

{Last minute edit: The time machine}

Tom Clancy of course, i wubbed Rainbow Six, the Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising, and Without Remorse.

Stephen King deserves a spot here, along with J.R.Tolkien, and J.K Rowling

last of all a writer probably none of you know, but she wrote great books when i was a kid, Annie M.G. Schmidt.

for all of those hardcore gamer scrabble fans read the book Word Freaks its about the world of competitive scrabble, very interesting.
moo

    Mmm, 1984. Great, great book. It served to codify my personal definition of evil. While we're talking about Orwell, I should bring up Aldous Huxley.  ;D Not really random; the two authors have always been linked in my mind. Brave New World is still--unfortunately--on my list of classics I need to read. I've only read Island by Huxley, and I enjoyed it tremendously.

    The Time Machine! Of course! Never underestimate the level of enjoyment one can derive from proto-science-fiction. I've enjoyed every one of Wells' books that I've read, as well as the one or two Verne books. Good old-school stuff. : )

    Is anyone else here a fan of early pulp sci-fi? Stuff like Heinlein's "juveniles" and E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series. Classic golden age stuff, written in the 1930s and '40s when the giants of the genre were still struggling newcomers. It's great to read the really old stuff and realize that those authors actually created the conventions and ideas. Just like any dramatic author is re-using ground that Shakespeare laid, modern science fiction is re-using the stuff that those early authors created. Good stuff. : )

loth-
Funny you should mention it Loth, because I am reading "Brave new World" AS WE SPEAK! or type, or... whatever.

We read it in school this year, but as I didn't read it as assigned, I thought it wise to read it this summer.

If you ask me it's far better than 1984.  It strikes me as more timeless. Also, Orwell created a near perfect dystopia, whereas Huxley has created two utterly insane worlds (that of the savage and of civilization) but neither are purely good nor purey evil.  he refrains from making a value jugement on either, simply stating that like this world, abnormality promotes despair.  

Since you seem to be into utopian literature read "Walden Two" by B. F. Skinner.  He is really trying to describe a utopian society.  Of course, utopia stands for "nowhere" in its original language, and Skinner's dream is implementable, and therefore, flawed.  It's a great work to get you thinking though.

cookie-
Scarlet Letter left me thinking one thing: how warped puritan values are.  There are much better books to ponder over, in my opinion.  "Waiting for Godot" by Beckett (I know, it's a play, but you get the idea).  Anything by Nabokov or Camus will do that too.  Pnin or Pale Fire, (Nabokov) and The Stranger or The Fall (Camus) for example.

while were talking about books we read in school, has anyone ever read the book where the red fern grows? ?Excelent book, and so far the only one that has made me cry.

Yeah I read it, rather love all the books I read when I was in elementary...can't wait to have a child simply so I can fulfill my greedy desire to read the stories again ;).

Well I admit Harry Potter WAS pretty good but I still have to go with Gary Pulson and Matt Christopher as two of my top writers. Top Books include the series:

The Golden Compass
The Subtle Knife
The Amber Spyglass