NationStates Jolt Archive

What kind of books do the people of NSG read? I read the following:


Aviation
History
Politics
Horror
Paranormal
Detective

Right now I'm reading it by Stephen King, and it is the longest book I have ever read in my life.

Right now I'm reading it by Stephen King, and it is the longest book I have ever read in my life.

You obviously never read War & Peace.

erotica/porn
sci-fi/fantasy
assorted fiction
poli-sci/current events novels
latin american authors (in Spanish)
law books/lots of aboriginal law books


That final one unfortunately has made up the bulk of my reading over the past year.

You obviously never read War & Peace.

Who the fuck would want to. It's an utter bore.

Playboy, Jugs, Tits and Ammo. :p

I probably should read more. I have the time too, but really prefer to sleep.:p

Who the fuck would want to. It's an utter bore.

I never said I read it by choice. ;)

I never said I read it by choice. ;)

It's a scientifically proven fact that no one has read it, not even Tolstoy himself who said, and I quote - "I can't believe I wrote such lengthy crap, no idiot will read that' - though he said it Russian obviously.

Therefore...you lie!

I have a friend who is a English professor, so I just read the crap he talks me into.

Or if for some reason I run across a premise that intrigues me. But I'm kind of shit at finding my own stuff to read.

It's a scientifically proven fact that no one has read it, not even Tolstoy himself who said, and I quote - "I can't believe I wrote such lengthy crap, no idiot will read that' - though he said it Russian obviously.

Therefore...you lie!

Hahahaha, nice one!

Na, I read it too, just to see what all the fuss was about. I was into Russian authors for a while, before I became so depressed that I started to gnaw at my wrists. Though I blame Dostoevsky for that.

To lighten things up I turned to the German authors. :D

Religion
Politics
Sci-fi
Fantasy

hehe, at least now I know somebody else had to read it.

I read sci-fi/ fantasy, Aristotle, and I find myself more often than not hunched over the pages of Ecce Romani...

I read mostly Silver Age science fiction, with a good few current "hard SF" authors thrown in for fun.

I read mostly Silver Age science fiction, with a good few current "hard SF" authors thrown in for fun.

What is Silver Age Sci-Fi?

I like fiction, so I mostly read the newspaper.

I like fiction, so I mostly read the newspaper.

lol! You win the thread. :)

If I were to read, I'd read books essays like Cathedral and the Bazaar, Autobook, and The C Programming Language.

Science Fiction
Mysteries
Historical Fiction (good stuff like Winds of War, not the bodice rippers).
Biographies
Suspense
Histories

Ok, I read anything I can get my hands on.

Poetry
Non fiction (just borrowed Freakonomics)
Literary Criticism (when I have to)
And right now I'm working my way slowly through The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Aviation
History
Military related
Political
Sci-Fi
Some classics
Some Detective (well, Sherlock Holmes)


Currently, I am reading some Sherlock Holmes, The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, and Children of Dune by Frank Herbert.

When I am done with these, I'll be reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine, and Guerrilla Warfare by Ernesto Che Guevara. Then I'll be buying some more books. Probably also find that World War I American aviation book I have lying around here somewhere.

Might want to pick up another Tom Clancy, or re-read Red Storm Rising at some point.

I likes me some historical fiction - not sure exactly why, but I've always loved it.

Someone recently talked me into reading Kafka, citing him as their favorite author. I was a bit underwhelmed, but I enjoyed The Trial a good deal. The Castle was a bit more frustrating, and of course the ending... yeah. :p

What is Silver Age Sci-Fi?

Silver Age is usually dfined as the high-productive periods of Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov and early Heinlein, being between the Golden Age (EE "Doc" Smith, HG Wells et al) and the rise of the New Age Sci Fi writers (Moorcock, Ellison and the Dangerous Visions crowd).

I read mostly modern Sci Fi, some older stuff, political works and the ocasional technothriller.

I'm illiterate. I have made it this far on NSG through phenomenal luck and a building desperation to figure out how the hell I get the fire flower so I can put out that evil eye at the top. *nod*

- Sci-Fi/Fantasy
- Music History
- Poetry (mostly Dada or Modern)
- Romance (Yes, I've heard the quip you're about to spew. Keep it to yourself)

- Romance (Yes, I've heard the quip you're about to spew. Keep it to yourself)

Have we found a girl on the internet? If not I shall quip away.

I read:


History
Politics
Economics
Comic books


At the moment, I am reading Military Rule in Chile: Dictatorship and Oppositions. Fairly dry stuff, but interesting, and very balanced and non-biased.

Who the fuck would want to. It's an utter bore.

:fluffle:

- Romance (Yes, I've heard the quip you're about to spew. Keep it to yourself)

There's nothing wrong with a romantic plot or subplot in a novel, I find. Years ago, I decided on a whim to read 'the classics,' generally. A surprising number of 19th Century literature is quite unexpectedly explicit, and often contains a central character driven by what you'd call a romantic interest. Good stuff though. :p

Have we found a girl on the internet? If not I shall quip away.

No, you haven't. And don't bother. I've heard it before from far more interesting people than yourself.

I read

Miltary History
Boys Own ((Just William, Sapper , Biggles , commando and the like ))
Gothic Horror
pulp detective novels
SteamPunk

No, you haven't. And don't bother. I've heard it before from far more interesting people than yourself.

Bah, I wasn't planning to quip anyways. I was just actually hoping we had found a girl.

And me, not interesting? :(

I am curious though, now, what you meant by "romance". I've been expanding my reading horizons as of late, but most of the time when I think of romance books it is those ones you find at the department store with the drawings of men with big chests and cloth blowing in the wind and such that come out every week.

Is there something better out there I should be looking at?

Anyone read The Dark Tower series by Stephen King??? Fantasy....absolutely brilliant. I cant put them down.

I guess I read politics and whatever penguin books say is a classic

all in all it depends on what my library wants me to read

And me, not interesting? :(

Well don't take it too hard.

I am curious though, now, what you meant by "romance". I've been expanding my reading horizons as of late, but most of the time when I think of romance books it is those ones you find at the department store with the drawings of men with big chests and cloth blowing in the wind and such that come out every week.

Is there something better out there I should be looking at?

I'm not too fond of that kind. My taste runs more towards crossover Fantasy/Romance, not the modern equivalent of dime novels. Pure Romance is damn dull, sure, and I'd avoid that like the plague, but crossover stuff actually has a plot. :p

I wish to sound grand so I am reading Pretentious Book by Obscure Author
:D

*whispers*
When I get the chance I read
Terry Pratchett
H.P. Lovecraft
various Mythos authors (Clark Ashton Smith, Arthur Machin, Ambrose Bierce, William Hope Hodgeson, etc)
Cyberpunk various (Gibson, Morgan, etc)
Dilbert
wikipedia

I can also recommend "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova. It's a good re-working of a classic horror novel. I too have read a great deal of Silver Age SF but don't read so much of it now, in fact it's been years since I read some.

Music research books
Comedy (Pratchett, Rankin, Heller)
SF/Fantasy (Scott Rohan, Clarke, Le Guin, Herbert)
Occasional psychology/philosophy-related book (currently Sophie's world)
Some poetry
Have some Michael Crichton lined up, after hearing good things about his books.

Not much in the last year. I've started reading Peter Jackson's biography but haven't gotten very far... am thinking of reading The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult at some stage soon (it's sitting on my shelf).

i hardly read books because a) i find it difficult to get into them unless i'm really interested, and b) reading tends to give me a headache (dyslexia = have to concentrate hard)

however, when i do read i tend to go for non-fiction books about economics or politics. the last one i read in full was Hard Work: Life in Low Pay Britain, by Polly Toynbee, last year. since then i've read most of God Won't Save America by some bloke (can't remember), which was interesting, and bits of a new scientist book i got for xmas.

I also like

The Nail In The Bannister by R. Stornoway
Why I Became A Gynecologist by Seymour Flaps

:D

I just finished "A short history of chemistry" and now I'm reading "The world of carbon" both written by isaac asimov


Science!!!!!

Hahahaha, nice one!

Na, I read it too, just to see what all the fuss was about. I was into Russian authors for a while, before I became so depressed that I started to gnaw at my wrists. Though I blame Dostoevsky for that.

To lighten things up I turned to the German authors. :D
Nietzsche FTW!

I tend to read 6 books concurrently


mystery or true crime
non-fiction theology/philosophy
non-fiction parenting/education theory
fiction kids book (with the kids)
fiction book for book club
small no-brainer book for use waiting at the doctor's and such

I'm not much of a reader, but when I do, it's usually the Penny Arcade books, comedy (Hitchiker's, Real Ultimate Power), or epic (LOTR, Romance of the Three Kingdoms).

I like non-fiction books about modern history and conflict, political books, Harry Potter series, and fiction books that are rather realistic, although I did like Eragon. Some of my favorite authors include Richard Clarke, he's pretty smart, and I do enjoy Mark Bowden's books Killing Pablo & Black Hawk Down. I've got the Tom Clancy / Jack Ryan series but I haven't read it yet although I did almost finish Red Storm Rising and was enamored with it.

Currently I'm reading Ender's Game, before that it was Myst: Book of Ti'ana and Book of D'ni. Before that my memory gets a bit hazy.

On my bookshelf are a few classics (Naked Lunch, Count of Monte Cristo), historical epics (Iliad, Odessey, Romance of the Three Kingdoms), the entire Dark Tower series, all of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time novels to date, the Bourne Trilogy, both Eragon and Eldest, and a handful of books I kept from my reading lists as an English major (Mister Timothy, highly recommended).

My favorite genre are essays. I'm currently restarting "State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century" by Fukuyama. I read mostly case studies by McKinsey and Gartner, as well as some good quality journalism (Time, BusinessWeek)

science fiction but not fantasy

mysteries written by women

the occasional book written for teens (like harry potter)

books about obscure bits of history or history from an unusual angle.

politics/current events

Scifi
Comics
Porn
Science/Tech

Not nessassarily in that order.

Does that make me a geek?

Scifi
Comics
Porn
Science/Tech

Not nessassarily in that order.

Does that make me a geek?

yes, yes it does.

Nowadays history, particularly really well written history about important and interesting things.

Never any agenda-driven/revisionist/marginalized unimportant/crap.

Anyone read The Dark Tower series by Stephen King??? Fantasy....absolutely brilliant. I cant put them down.

They are awesome. I'm about a third of the way through 'Wolves of the Calla' at the moment :p

My list:
Fantasy
Sci-fi
Horror
Thriller

Young Adult Fiction and Manga. That's pretty much it. Ocasionally i'll pick up something about film or something.

Sci-fi
Technology
Science
History
Classics
General Fiction

I just finished The Picture of Dorian Gray and am currently reading Khrushchev: The Man and His Era.

Sex and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Almost all of what I read is nonfiction. I love history, science, and books on politics.

They are awesome. I'm about a third of the way through 'Wolves of the Calla' at the moment :p

Just finished that one yesterday. All I have to say: epic.

I tend to run more to the fantasy genre, one of my favorite trilogies being The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix.

Wow, trilogy always looks like I'm spelling it wrong, but I'm fairly certain I'm not.

Sci-fi/fantasy
Fiction
Philosophy
Technology
Non-fiction

For the most part if I'm going to read I do it purely for entertainment. Things that I despise reading include most anything on any school reading list with a few exceptions.

For the most part if I'm going to read I do it purely for entertainment. Things that I despise reading include most anything on any school reading list with a few exceptions.

I've found that books on required reading lists are good, but only if you aren't forced to read them.

You obviously never read War & Peace.


He never said it was the longest book, he said it was the longest book he read. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is quite a bit longer than War & Peace too but he probably didn't read that either. :P

Fantasy, History for me mostly.

I read mostly Sci-Fi and Fantasy as well as other Fictions.

One series that I read that I liked a lot was the Ender Series.

It is my favorite series and if you like Sci-Fi I suggest you read Enders Game, the first book of this series.

The Halo Novels are also a great read for any Sci-Fi fan.

I also like a lot of Fantasy such as the Lord of the Rings series.

Natural History
Reference
Philosophy
Politics
Southern Fiction

Right now I am reading:

The Worldly Philosophers
The Ego and Its Own
Higher Circles
The Triumph of Conservatism
The Stranger

Depending on the mood I am in.

I mostly read fantasy and sometime historical fiction stuff.

Never romance. Or chick books. God... i hate those.

I mostly read fantasy and sometime historical fiction stuff.

Never romance. Or chick books. God... i hate those.

*opens Pancake's locker, a pile of books spill out*

And all of them have this on the cover:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2d/FabioComanche.gif/180px-FabioComanche.gif

*opens Pancake's locker, a pile of books spill out*

And all of them have this on the cover:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2d/FabioComanche.gif/180px-FabioComanche.gif

Hehehe. That wasn't my locker. My locker has been empty since June 8th. :p

But whose locker was it? :eek:

I mostly read plays. I just finished up Equus, which was amazing, and before that, I read a collection by the genius Tennessee Williams. Right now, I'm working on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which is funny, though a bit hard to follow.

I'm half way through the Cat in the Hat.........

I Lovecraft.

Anyone else think that James Herbert is fantastic?

Just finished reading Nobody True, awesome stuff!

David Weber. Eric Flint. Orson Scott Card. If anyone knows who these guys are, it gives you a hint towards my taste towards books. :)

* Fantasy
* Math
* Chess

Sadly the "classics" they give in english class are classically bad. Jane Eyre, for example, should not be classified as a book but as a sleeping aid -- ambien has nothing on it.

I like fiction, so I mostly read the newspaper.

Haha, that's pretty funny until you see some dead guy in your back yard. I mostly read various fiction, classic novels, and I occasionally like to read books on law and debates that occured in the past. Call me corny, but it's not that bad once you get past the boring parts.

haha just ordered Jennifer Government so basically

-Political
-Dystopian fiction
-Political Theorys (Communist Manifesto etc etc)

Umm whatever I can get me hands on, I seem to always be bookless, and relie heavily on the lending capacity of mates, family and work colleuges.

I'm working my way through Vonnegut right now. Just finished Slaughterhouse-Five.

Right now I'm reading a lot of American History, which started off because I had to but is now of my own choosing. It's interesting to see how some of the things that make the US unique began (example: the first English settlers were either right-wing religious fanatics or worked for a transatlantic corporation).

Anything that interests me. In the past month, I read :

"The God delusion" - Richard Dawkins
"Collapse : How societies choose to fail or to survive" - by Jared Diamond
"Every inch of her" - Peter Sheridan
"Fanny Hill" - John Cleland
and "Usagi Yojimbo - Glimpses of Death" - Stan Sakai

well for fiction, i see little point in fictional literature if it isn't of a speculative nature, providing REAL escape while simultaniously broadining ones horizons of considered possibilities.

most of my other interests are about tecnologies that are harmonious with nature and making them so, nature itself, and of course the presuit of ways for people to avoid messing everything up for each other.

i do most of my reading on line these days, and that, i must confess, consists more of looking for pictures that could as easily be taken in the kind of world i would rather be living in as in the one we mundanely do.

things which involve using tecnologies to be creative and exploring the exotic and unfamiliar often interest me. certainly more often then anything else.

'zenes include model railroader, mother earth news, and analog sf. the latter of which, i've finally, after all these years, gotten around to subscribing.

i don't get to book stores or libraries that often where and how i'm currently living, which is why anymore i get most of my reading off the net.

i do love to read though, as well as create and explore. reading, the kind of reading i do, is, of course, a kind of exploring too. and for the past decade and then some, pretty much the only kind i've had much chance to.

all sorts of tecnologies used in manufacturing interest me. as well as odd things like traditional exotic packaging.

and beliefs that don't overly resemble western monotheism.

(though nearly all do to SOME degree. largely, i believe, because western monotheism is, to a greater degree then most of its fallowers seem to realize, derived from earlier beliefs. by 'western' monotheism, i mean judaism, christianity, islam, and baha'i, which i see as being not really seperate beliefs at all but a progression of the same belief.)

=^^=
.../\...

Read!? Books!?:confused:

Anything that interests me. In the past month, I read :

"The God delusion" - Richard Dawkins
"Collapse : How societies choose to fail or to survive" - by Jared Diamond


Neat! Read these two a couple months back - I really enjoyed Diamond, great stuff. Dawkins was witty, but he spends (what was it?) two paragraphs, give or take, on the history of arguments for the existence of a god? Meh. :p At least my library had it, so I didn't have to shell out the $19.99. :)

I'll read anything Tamora Pierce, Christopher Paolini, J.K. Rowling, John Grisham..so mainly Fantasy.....Fantasy Rocks!

Game manuals. Strategy guides. The occasional book by King, and of course, books on birds. :D

Neat! Read these two a couple months back - I really enjoyed Diamond, great stuff. Dawkins was witty, but he spends (what was it?) two paragraphs, give or take, on the history of arguments for the existence of a god? Meh. :p At least my library had it, so I didn't have to shell out the $19.99. :)

Dawkin's book was a little bit all over the place, I though. But great thoughts and interestins perspectives :D
I enjoyed Diamond's book, very interesting facts. Although I have to say I liked "Guns, germs and steel" better, it was somehow more gripping. In "Collapse", I got the feeling that he got a bit repetitive after a while... it all boiled down to the same factors, over and over.

Dawkin's book was a little bit all over the place, I though. But great thoughts and interestins perspectives :D
I enjoyed Diamond's book, very interesting facts. Although I have to say I liked "Guns, germs and steel" better, it was somehow more gripping. In "Collapse", I got the feeling that he got a bit repetitive after a while... it all boiled down to the same factors, over and over.

I haven't read any of Diamond's earlier stuff - sounds like something to check out. :) 'Collapse' was certainly a bit dry, but it had been so long since I'd even read about half of that stuff that it was a great refresher, and a lot of it was new to me. Thank God for ancient garbage dumps. :p

i love reading. pardon me if instead of telling you the genre, i would list the authors i read.


harold robbins
robert ludlum
richard north patterson
john grisham
anne rice
stephen king
dean koontz
patricia cornwell
michael crichton
james patterson
j.k. rowling (harry potter series)
robert jordan (wheel of time series)
s.e. hinton


early this year, i went on a book binge, i bought all 12 books of robert jordan's wheel of time series. i only made it as far as halfway through book 7 when i got sidetracked with free ebooks from limewire when my dad gifted me with a pda. so now, am reading laurell hamilton's anita blake series.

Annnd still I have not seen any mention of Joe R Lansdale?

Whats going on people, come you Americans let me hear some support for one of the best writers to come out of your country.

there's no particular kind of book i read really. i generally read what seems interesting or what's been recommended to me by a friend.

Fantasy mostly, with the odd bit of silver age sci-fi and the occasional classic thrown in. Just finished the latest George R. R. Martin books, which are superb in my most humble opinion, fantasy books where heroes do actually die rather than endless incredible escapes.