Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Gunner-Chan]

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is a great series. The last book is a bit of a downer ending, but I see it as him saying, "Fuck this, I'm done," which I would be too after writing four completely nonsensical books about the same character.

Oh, I've been meaning to get back to those... Although I hear that the downer ending was somewhat unintentional as I think he meant to get back to it but he died before that... So it's like... A double downer ending.

[kcwong]

A big list of books to check out... I don't think I can get bored (except from bad writing ) all the way to 2010!

[Little]

The Running Man by Richard Bachman

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

[chaoticag]

I second Odd Thomas, but it can get pretty dark at times.
Right now, I have a laundry list of Discworld novels and a few other miscellaneous ones I plan on getting through.

[Jude]

The best American novels of this century are Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities", "A Man in Full," and "I Am Charlotte Simmons." Hands down. Read them or fail in life.

I'm also quite partial to Gore Vidal's historical novels (not the ones about robot transsexuals or whatever). Julian, Lincoln and Creation are all great especially Julian, although that just might be because I'm named after him.

[Onlyhestands]

A book series I've fallen in love with is The Dresden Files

Just stay away from the horrible T.V series based on it

[Little]

Fight Club by Chuck Palanuik.

His name was Robert Paulson 

[chaoticag]

Wait... it was a book? I had no idea, and it made a good movie too. Thats like a paradox or something.

[Kagus]

Odd Thomas was alright, but Dean Koontz can't do monsters worth crap.  He's terrible at making up supernatural stuff.  Rather unfortunate that he insists on doing it all the time.

The sequels should not be touched with a ten-foot pole, unless you are a devout Christian who just wants to read about how great God is.  Bible-Lite.


As for long-winded descriptions throwing people off, I'd like to point towards a relatively well-known writer named STEPHEN KING. 

The guy can go on for pages describing the space of a few minutes.  But you know what?  You're begging for every word.  It's not the long-windedness of something that degrades it, it's just how good you are at pulling it off.  It's not like a shorter summary is better, it's just that some people are better at writing long descriptions than others.  Same goes for shorter descriptions, really.  Or anything else for that matter.

Oh, speaking of which, Richard Bachman is Stephen King.

[kcwong]

As for long-winded descriptions throwing people off, I'd like to point towards a relatively well-known writer named STEPHEN KING. 

As a kid I watched the movie version of Stephen King's "It"... I never did like clowns, and I started hating them after that.

But Stephen King has so many books... which one would you recommend?

[Heavy Flak]

As for long-winded descriptions throwing people off, I'd like to point towards a relatively well-known writer named STEPHEN KING. 

As a kid I watched the movie version of Stephen King's "It"... I never did like clowns, and I started hating them after that.

But Stephen King has so many books... which one would you recommend?

The Stand.  Hands down the best book he wrote.  I'd recommend picking up a couple others as well, like The Tommyknockers, IT, and one of my personal favorites Needful Things.

King also references other books within his books, so a character from Needful Things might show up in Cujo, for example, or an event in IT is mentioned in The Regulators.  The more you read, the more you notice.

[codezero]

Or "the better you look, the more you see".  - Ellis
I recommend you read as much fantasy as you can first, because you won't go back to it. IMO.
Two I enjoyed that won't get mentioned otherwise are Threshold and The Iron Dragons Daughter.

Then I suggest: (really an excuse to list my favourites)
Money - Martin Amis
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis , or if you prefer your sex scenes without violence then : The Rules of Attraction (contains more homosexuality tho, might be a good one for you)
Paul et Virginie (french, but translated)
1984 - George Orwell
Robinson Crusoe - Daniel DeFoe
The Princess Bride - I forget who, or watch the movie.
Moby Dick - Herman Melville (fiction, history and philosophy in one)

Some good B graders are Tarzan, Eddie Shoestring and The Lost World (Arthur Conan Doyle). And a Sci-fi about a man who goes to sleep in some cave and wakes up on mars, he can jump real high and fight real well (gravity reasons) and ends up practically saving the world.. anyone know what it is??

[Mephisto]

As Stephen King was brought up, I would recommend The Dark Tower series. I found the one where he picks up the schizophrenic wheelchair-bound lady to be kind of dull, but the other ones were good. It's probably because the whole series is ACTION ACTION ACTION _{pick up Suzannah} ACTION ACTION ACTION

Also, this series is probably where all of the dead baby jokes originate.

[Kagus]

Listen to the Dark Tower audio book.  Frank Muller does some absolutely incredible readings, but is then replaced by George Guidall when he crashes his bike and turns into a vegetable.

Also, it's just funny knowing that you're listening to over 24 hours of someone reading to you.


Now, as for Stephen King recommendations...  Sadly, I haven't actually read that many.  But I can recommend all the ones I've read (except for Desperation...  Started out fine, then went flat.  If you're highly Christian it might work for you).

I would like to recommend Rose Madder and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, however.  Rose Madder is a bit of an oddball book, but I liked it.  A rather unusual blend of fantasy and realism.  TGWLTG is just another one of King's wonderful mind-warpers. 

[Jude]

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis , or if you prefer your sex scenes without violence then : The

Lunar Park doesn't have sex (IIRC) or violence, just references to being bisexual.