NationStates Jolt Archive

So... it's slow right now in the forumn... time for a filler.

The sequel to "Hows the weather where you are"...

So have you read any good books? I read Necronomicon by H.P. Lovecraft.

I'm being forced to read The Crucible for English IIH over the summer

Check out the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser. They are a series of historical fiction in the 1800s centering around an Englishman by the name of Harry Flashman. Or is it fiction? It is written as the memoirs of Flashman when he is a very old man, and finally comes clean about his wretchedly immoral life. Flashman has a "Forrest Gump" type life because he has a knack for being at some of the greatest events of his time, strictly by accident and usually trying to run away. The first book retells the British retreat from Kabul in the early 1840s.

Flashman is a total coward, an abject womanizer, and always comes out on top looking like a hero.

I recently read "The Name of the Rose" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0749397055/qid=1087331589/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_11_5/202-9450244-6983011) and "Foucault's Pendulum" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099287153/qid=1087331589/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_11_1/202-9450244-6983011)by Umberto Eco. Both absolutley fantastic and I had already read them before. The Name of the Rose being the better of the two.

I am currently reading My Autobiography (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0141011475/qid=1087331675/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_3_1/202-9450244-6983011) By Charlie Chaplin, which is also brilliant

The Phantom Tollbooth.

One of the best books ever.

I'm reading Devil on the Cross by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. An awesome read that he wrote while in prison. He got there after a play he wrote caused the than present regime too much controversy. Of course, they put him behind bars without trial, hoping to break the man, instead he wrote an absolute masterpiece of literature :)

I'm reading Excession at the moment, and just finished Consider Phlebas, both by Iain M. Banks.
If you like Sci-fi, you need to read them.

The Dark Tower Series by Steven King

ahh yeah, i had to do a project on the phanton tollbooth in 5th grade.

but recently, i've read a couple good books.

- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (okay so i read it a few years ago, but its my favorite book) by.. uh.. betty smith? i dont remember

- Slapstick, Kurt Vonnegut

- The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera

- Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (I'm reading it for the 2nd time... I have to read it for school next year)

- another really great book is Kaffir Boy, by Mark Mathabane.
actually, if you're interested in humanity stuff/apartheid/south africa, read everything by mark mathabane.
he is incredible. i even got a book signed by him.. i love everything by him.

and

The Power of One.. i cant remember who its by. but its fantastic

I just picked up Song of Suzannah, the sixth book of The Dark Tower series. I haven't opened it yet.

The Sharpe series, by Bernard Cornwell

I'm currently reading Boss Cupid, the last poetry collection from the recently deceased Thom Gunn. Hell of a writer and a very nice man.

Yeah, I read several good ones recently...

The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
Animal Farm by George Orwell.
The Official Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of JFK.

And, cool enough, I write in my spare time, and I'm working on one... (I'm in 9th grade, so I'm not like an author or anything).

I don't have a title for it, but the premise is there are two insane people, (conveniently I named them after several of my NS gov. figures, :P) Robert Steinhauser and Anthony Whitaker, and both are schizophrenics. Both think they've been charged separately by an angel and a demon to serve as warriors to the separate sides to end or save the world. In all reality, they're running off of their individual delusions. It's entertaining writing Steinhauser (the ending the world guy). He refers to himself in the third person constantly, and often screams for no reason, like he's on one really long and bad acid trip and the walls are oozing blood at him or something of the sort. In 'reality', he's talking to the demons who have really possessed his skull and are using him as an intrument to end the world, and the thing is, he doesn't want to do it. The best part is, Steinhauser manages to pass off his insanity as normality and works for the military in USAMRIID, in a Biolevel 3 facility. Don't you love it? You'll need to read it when I finally post a thread with the story in it to find how he manages to pass this off, but heh, it's really rather a good story so far.

I need a name to some effect... any suggestions? :P

And try to keep them to a minimum, so we don't entirely steal the thread, eh? Thanks.

Not fiction, but here's my self-imposed reading list for the summer:

Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man
Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy
Bill Emmott's 20:21 Vision: Twentieth-Century Lessons for the Twenty-First Century
John Bryan Starr's Understanding China

Those ought to keep me busy for awhile :) Oh, and I did read some fiction recently, especially Orson Scott Card's Ender Saga and anything by David Weber. Also read some stuff by Christopher Rowley, mostly just his Bazil Broketail series.

I read Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco about 6 months ago, but I didn't like it all that much. I've never had more than a passing interest in Templar lore, so most of those obscure references just went right over my head and I zoned out for large portions of the book because of it. Crucible isn't so bad, I remember when I had to read that for school a few years ago. Same goes for Brave New World and Animal Farm. As for Sun Tzu's work, I found that to be rather dissapointing. Much of it was repetitive (especially the parts about ruling All Under Heaven) or in some cases superstitious, but I suppose that is to be expected from a work written thousands of years. However, I will say that parts of it were very interesting, especially the sections that deal with the advantages and disadvantages of various terrains, and different strategies to use to deceive your enemies.

I've only just started on Fukuyama's, but its looking pretty good. I'm especially looking forward to Kissinger's book, but it is by far the largest so I didn't want to start with that. It is kind of annoying that all of these scholarly books use endnotes, as it makes the work harder to read. I wish people hadn't designed such stupid guidelines for writing novels and essays. Most of the time it's utter stupidity and detrimental to both the writer and the reader. Come to think of it, we should just ban all English Departments, since they're the source of all that drivel. Sorry about the rant, but the memory of writing papers that had to adher to those guidelines always makes me mad....

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. Hamilton is now one of my favourite founding fathers! :D

The Third Policemen by Flann O'Brien. It was good.

"Outlaws of the marsh" was an amazing story. Written sometime in the 1500's {mid- Ming dynasty} by classic Chinese Author Lou Guanzhong {writer of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms books} What a great book! full of blood, action, suspense, and of course, weird names. Those who think that clasic books are lame would be proven wrong by this book. I reecomend it to a fan of Asian History, {note that this IS NOT a historical novel by any means, and 99 % of the characters are fictional. I just say history because of the detail of 12th century warfare, andof the life of 12th century chinese bandits} and fans of action/adventure books. It contains the story of 108 men and women, forced into joining the great mounain bandits at Mount Liangshan {which was surrounded by a marsh} Each of them was forced their by, hunger, running from the law, murdering someone, or being the target of a plot, or being unable to return home due to reasons like defeat in a battle or disgracing their lord. i warn you, people who think the chopping people to pieces, and feasting on their flesh and organs is too disgusting for you, this is not the book for you. the violence and depictions of murder are horrifically detailed, and even i found myself disgusted by the content {for example, there are taverns in the middle of nowwhere, were the guest are fed drugged wine and dumplings stuffed with the meat of humans. the drugged people are then dragged to a cutting board, were they are chopped into pieces, robbed of their possesions, and are stuffed into dumplings for the next customers.} if you can handle this graphic violence, and could handle the many detailed battles, and could enjoy the complex strategies created by the chieftain's advisors, then this is for you.

I've just finished The Alchemist by Paul Coello (think I spelt that wrong!)
Now I'm reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

I'm currently in the middle of the Game of Thrones series by George RR Martin. High Fantasy and High Diplomacy in a series about a power struggle by various would be kings. Highly recommended.

"The Princess Bride" By William Goldman for the fifth time. And the movie ain't too shabby, as well.

Right now, I'm slogging my way through Merry Wives of Windsor for the class I'm taking on Shakespeare... and hating every minute of it. I like most of Shakespeare, but this play is boredom personified and trite attempts at humor fallen miserably flat.

On a brighter note, I'm making my way through the Empire Sequence by Raymond Feist, which are extremely good. In fact, I suspect that Shakespeare seems even worse when all I can think of is this series. :lol:

well, i was reading this topic but i got bored so now im reading nothing but you all listed great books most of which i read!

House of Leaves by Mark Danieleski is quite good.

This might seem a bit odd in NS, but i suggest George Orwell's 1984. It's weird at times, but i enjoyed it, and his Animal Farm. I'm actually going through Asimov's Foundation series right now.

I just reread Ender's Shadow , need to get some fresh books

Unfree, great choice. Feist is a fantastic author, and the Empire trilogy is his finest work, in my opinion. Take your time going through it. It's worth it.

1984 - George Orwell
Lord of the Flies - can't remeber
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Farenheit 451 -Ray Bradbury
The Communist Manifesto - Marx and Engels

I liked 'em all.

I've just completed The Count of Monte Cristo for English, and The Da Vinci Code. Jerry Jenkin's Soul Harvest wasn't bad, either, though I liked the other books in the Left Behind series better.

Unfree, great choice. Feist is a fantastic author, and the Empire trilogy is his finest work, in my opinion. Take your time going through it. It's worth it.
I'm loving it. Very difficult to put down. Even for NS, lol.

Discworld series, best books ever, zero competition :P

Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)

The Da Vinci Code...I can't put it down...

reread hitch hiker's guid to the galexy. awsome book.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

A Brief History of Time by Steven Hawking

The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay is one of the best books of all time.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is a good beach book.

I recently read Watership Down by Richard Adams, which was excellent.

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley is a classic.

reread hitch hiker's guid to the galexy. awsome book.

read all of his stuff. absolutly hailarious. I like the idea of the 5 part trilogy.

Just finished Michael Crichton's "Prey", an ok read but I got the feeling that he wrote this one thinking it would be turned into a movie like so many of his other books. Maybe he should just go straight to sceenplays.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time :P

Just finished Red Dust by Ma Jian
Aubrey / Maturin series by Patrick O'brien. I've read the whole series twice they are magnificent.