Another shout out for Dune. Tried to read it when I was mighty young and just couldn’t get my head around it so read LOTR instead (Dune was much less subtle in it’s heavy political and economical message which I couldn’t understand at the time). Both authors have my utter respect though and will likely continue to be re-read till my end of days.
[quote]IamMarqaos wrote:
[quote]pgtips wrote:
Whats your favourite book / series of books you have read?
My Favourite book of the many I have read is - The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie. I Love all his other books aswell.[/quote]
Dune (series) - Frank Herbert (his son’s continuation of the series is palatable)
Eon- Greg Bear
Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
All Star Superman (comic series) - Grant Morrison[/quote]
x2 on Eon
[quote]Stern wrote:
Another shout out for Dune. Tried to read it when I was mighty young and just couldn’t get my head around it so read LOTR instead (Dune was much less subtle in it’s heavy political and economical message which I couldn’t understand at the time). Both authors have my utter respect though and will likely continue to be re-read till my end of days. [/quote]
I’ve heard lots of good things about Dune. Theres too many good books to read lol
[quote]Stern wrote:
Another shout out for Dune. Tried to read it when I was mighty young and just couldn’t get my head around it so read LOTR instead (Dune was much less subtle in it’s heavy political and economical message which I couldn’t understand at the time). Both authors have my utter respect though and will likely continue to be re-read till my end of days. [/quote]
That’s one of the reasons I love Dune is that I started it when I was about 15, got about 50 pages in two different times, but didn’t actually finish the whole thing till I was in my late 20s, so as I read it I had a lot of nostalgia, like I was back in 1989 while I read it.
I’ve since read the first 3 books twice and am halfway through Heretics of Dune right now.
[quote]StevenF wrote:
Nards…should be Nerds. Y’all think you’re so smart readin’ them there big fancy books. Only book I ever read was ‘How to kick some ass’ written by ME. [/quote]
[quote]Derek542 wrote:
[quote]StevenF wrote:
Nards…should be Nerds. Y’all think you’re so smart readin’ them there big fancy books. Only book I ever read was ‘How to kick some ass’ written by ME. [/quote]
Why do you have a southern accent?
Your from Michigan
thats like being from Delaware
yea we are in Delaware…[/quote]
You do know that half of Tennessee and Kentucky moved here to work in the auto plants right? That’s why we have Taylortucky, Ypsitucky, Walltucky… well you get the idea.
[quote]Edgy wrote:
I have read thousands of books.
novels, biographies, autobiographies, history, fantasy, and everything else inbetween.
and believe it or not.
the best book I have ever read.
X2
ever.
is ‘Lonesome Dove’, by Larry McMurtry.
[/quote]
[quote]IamMarqaos wrote:
[quote]pgtips wrote:
Whats your favourite book / series of books you have read?
My Favourite book of the many I have read is - The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie. I Love all his other books aswell.[/quote]
Dune (series) - Frank Herbert (his son’s continuation of the series is palatable)
Eon- Greg Bear
Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
All Star Superman (comic series) - Grant Morrison[/quote]
was reading Blink again today at college, really interesting read, malcolm gladwell is awesome i recomend even more the book “Outliers”
[quote]IamMarqaos wrote:
[quote]pgtips wrote:
Whats your favourite book / series of books you have read?
My Favourite book of the many I have read is - The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie. I Love all his other books aswell.[/quote]
Dune (series) - Frank Herbert (his son’s continuation of the series is palatable)
[/quote]
Take that back.
Take that back right NOW!!!
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]IamMarqaos wrote:
[quote]pgtips wrote:
Whats your favourite book / series of books you have read?
My Favourite book of the many I have read is - The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie. I Love all his other books aswell.[/quote]
Dune (series) - Frank Herbert (his son’s continuation of the series is palatable)
[/quote]
Take that back.
Take that back right NOW!!!
[/quote]
I stopped after “Children of” but did give the Butlerian Jihad a try a few years ago and found it flat and disjointed. It was a damn shame as well as I was really looking forward to getting my teeth into the history of the feud between House Atreides and Harkonnen and the war against the machines. =(
[quote]Stern wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]IamMarqaos wrote:
[quote]pgtips wrote:
Whats your favourite book / series of books you have read?
My Favourite book of the many I have read is - The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie. I Love all his other books aswell.[/quote]
Dune (series) - Frank Herbert (his son’s continuation of the series is palatable)
[/quote]
Take that back.
Take that back right NOW!!!
[/quote]
I stopped after “Children of” but did give the Butlerian Jihad a try a few years ago and found it flat and disjointed. It was a damn shame as well as I was really looking forward to getting my teeth into the history of the feud between House Atreides and Harkonnen and the war against the machines. =(
[/quote]
If by flat and disjointed you mean a steaming pile of shit that anally raped the arguably best sci-fi series EVA and then slit its throat, raped the gaping wound with a baseball bat and set its house on fire afterwards, we totally agree.
Oh, they are called “Fremen” because they are “free men”, you dont say…
You dirty, talentless sons of cheap…
RAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEE!!!
The Agony and the Ecstay - Irving Stone. It’s a biographical novel about Michaelangelo. A major theme of the book deals with the integrity of the artists vision versus his patron’s vision. It’s much like The Fountainhead but without the political and economic dogmatism.
The Road - Cormac McCarthy. You ever watch a survival movie and wonder if you’d be able to keep yourself and your loved one’s alive in the same circumstances? I do, and usually wind up anxious for days. The whole time I read this, I had my oldest son in mind as the boy protagonist and wound up crying, repeatedly. Really a dark, beautifully written book.
The Tidewater Tales - John Barth. My first exposure to metafiction as practiced by David Foster Wallace. I love when an author show’s an awareness of his reader, sometimes narrating the story, sometime addressing his audience. In this case, Barth interrupts his story of a married couple on a boat to educate the reader about nautical matters, New England history, etc. A terrific story in the best sense of the word. I think Barth considers himself first and foremost, a storyteller.
[quote]StevenF wrote:
[quote]Derek542 wrote:
[quote]StevenF wrote:
Nards…should be Nerds. Y’all think you’re so smart readin’ them there big fancy books. Only book I ever read was ‘How to kick some ass’ written by ME. [/quote]
Why do you have a southern accent?
Your from Michigan
thats like being from Delaware
yea we are in Delaware…[/quote]
Careful son, you keep usin’ them big fancy words n you’ll find out what my book is all about!
[/quote]
Lol.
Just because my Dads name is steve doesnt mean you can be my daddy.
[quote]Testy1 wrote:
[quote]Derek542 wrote:
[quote]StevenF wrote:
Nards…should be Nerds. Y’all think you’re so smart readin’ them there big fancy books. Only book I ever read was ‘How to kick some ass’ written by ME. [/quote]
Why do you have a southern accent?
Your from Michigan
thats like being from Delaware
yea we are in Delaware…[/quote]
You do know that half of Tennessee and Kentucky moved here to work in the auto plants right? That’s why we have Taylortucky, Ypsitucky, Walltucky… well you get the idea.
[/quote]
Lol actually no I did not, last time I spoke to my family in Tennessee has been about 6-7 years ago.
Well that explains it then.
cannot think of a single favorite…i’m currently reading a few, which pisses me off, preferable is to not start so many at once.
Infinite Jest, been reading here and there for a while.
The Corrections, recently began…200 pgs in, moderately invested.
Flashman, some big fat guy at the book store said it was “the book that changed his life.” I bought it, I’ve read a little thus far, it’s not changing my life as of yet.
The Road, began it a while ago…read it at night in bed w/ the lights off, it’s good but very bleak, not generally a “end of the world, then what?” type of reader.
I grew up in Albany, NY and my mother use to go to Troy and Albany to watch/see Jack Nicholson during the filming of this movie. The book has me hooked thus far, it’s jumped to -primary read- right now, it’s a quick one too. Iron Weed.
[quote]pgtips wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]pgtips wrote:
Whats your favourite book / series of books you have read?
My Favourite book of the many I have read is - The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie. I Love all his other books aswell.[/quote]
The Harry Potter series…and I prefer non-fiction.[/quote]
I loved the Harry Potter books. Started reading them in Middle school, and always wished I was at Hogwarts instead! haha[/quote]
I read them as an adult and enjoyed them immensely. I think it’s better as an adult, for a ‘kid’s’ book there were some linguistical turns and some references kids just wouldn’t get. I know my son didn’t get them as I read them. I am just amazed at well, detailed and natural she was able to make that world. Like ‘Of course it exists, it’s right over there.’
I read the LOTR trilogy and the hobbit and all the C.S. Lewis stuff, they were good and enjoyable, but HP was damn addictive.
Funny thing is I was resistant as hell when somebody suggested I read it to my kids, but I was hooked by page 10. Consequently, my wife took her love for HP waaaaay over board. Most of our pets get HP names despite my resistance.
Read them again as an adult some time, I think you’ll really appreciate it even more.
I am back in my non-fiction world now. I usually like real shit because hell it’s stranger than fiction. I am reading ‘Imperfect Justice’ the Casey Anthony story from the prosecuter who tried her, Jeff Ashton. Can’t put it down… Truth being stranger than fiction certainly applies here. Nobody has a good enough imagination to make this shit up. If they did, it would come off as too far fetched.
If you liked the “Gates of Fire” by Steven Pressfield, he also has other books out, like “The Profession” and “Virtues of War”, which I highly recommend.
I am not quite sure whether tthese are objectivelky awesome books or whether I just happen to like them a lot.
Anyhow, “Gates of Fire” should work as a gauge for you.
Explaining Hitler by Ron Rosenbaum AND Psychopathic God by Robert G.L. Waite
-the latter is a psychohistorical analysis of Hitler and the root of his evil (buried underneath a LOT of pathologies) and the former is about the various attempts on the part of the heavyweights of Hitler scholarship to explain how someone like him “happens”. Both are VERY fascinating reads and I highly recommend them to anyone with any interest in WW2.
There has been a huge debate about Hitler since his death concerning his involvement in the Holocaust. Some people point to it as the final, twisted result of various personality disorders brought on by a traumatic, abusive childhood and exacerbated by the trauma of WW1 and the possibility (dubious at best) that Hitler’s paternal grandfather was Jewish.
Others (and I would recommend Hitler: A Lesson In Tyranny by Allan Bullock as the definitive encapsulement of this view) view Hitler as the epitome of evil, with no real beliefs or ideology other than to gain power for power’s sake. This would remove the possibility of psychosis and place the blame for Holocaust squarely on his shoulders. In other words, would Hitler be fit to stand trial or would he be found unfit for trial by reason of mental defect? Did he believe his “ideology”, an ideology produced and fueled by pathology OR was a master manipulator, Machiavellian in every sense of the word who knowingly and consciously pursued evil for the power it granted him?
Rosenbaum’s book covers the problems historians have in addressing this. Psychologists almost invariably point to psychosis as the root cause because this is what they are familiar with and see everything through this type of lens, while virtually every Jewish scholar points to pure, unadulterated and conscious evil as the root cause, because to say that he was the result of deep, extreme pathologies worsened due to childhood abuse is to absolve him to some degree. It’s a classic case of people knowing where they want the discussion to end up at and then finding the path to get there in the available evidence, rather than employing an abstract, objective approach.
If this sort of shit fascinates you, and it certainly does fascinate me, then I would recommend all three books mentioned, but specifically the first two.
Really liked Gates of Fie and Virtue of War. Found Tides of War hard going. Liked the Afghan Campaign. What about his more contempory stuff?
[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:
The Agony and the Ecstay - Irving Stone. It’s a biographical novel about Michaelangelo. A major theme of the book deals with the integrity of the artists vision versus his patron’s vision. It’s much like The Fountainhead but without the political and economic dogmatism.
The Road - Cormac McCarthy. You ever watch a survival movie and wonder if you’d be able to keep yourself and your loved one’s alive in the same circumstances? I do, and usually wind up anxious for days. The whole time I read this, I had my oldest son in mind as the boy protagonist and wound up crying, repeatedly. Really a dark, beautifully written book.
The Tidewater Tales - John Barth. My first exposure to metafiction as practiced by David Foster Wallace. I love when an author show’s an awareness of his reader, sometimes narrating the story, sometime addressing his audience. In this case, Barth interrupts his story of a married couple on a boat to educate the reader about nautical matters, New England history, etc. A terrific story in the best sense of the word. I think Barth considers himself first and foremost, a storyteller.
[/quote]
You may find this David Foster Wallace essay interesting.
http://www.liberatormagazine.com/community/showthread.php?tid=1077