Dante’s Inferno. Purgatory and Paradise, the other books in the Divine Comedy, are pretty yawn-inducing (especially Paradise), but Inferno is frigging cool. Even if you don’t enjoy it, displaying it prominently on your bookcase will make chicks think you’re smart.
If you read it, make sure you get a version with footnotes. Dante was a big fan of name dropping and you’d have to get a PhD in Italian history to identify many of the people burning in hell. Also check out the illustrations by Gustave Dore that accompany the book. Here’s an example:
[quote]Humbert wrote:
Best novel of all time: Lolita–Vladimir Nabokov. I can re-read this book 4 times a year and find something new every time. I own a first edition and an annotated copy. Seriously, read this one.[/quote]
I also LOVE this book. To think a russian dude could write SO cleverly in English also blows my mind.
And I pretty much can’t read fiction.
Also, I could be a paedo.
Also, Get a collection of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges and prepare to have your mind blown. I think the collection in English is called Labrynths and its really good. Plus, every 10 pages you will have read a new story and have your mind blown a different way.
[quote]GoingViking wrote:
Okay, just kidding about Twilight. My wife has read the whole series 4 or 5 times - I picked up the first book while I was on the john once and after 3 pages I was angry at myself for even picking it up. That writing is barely better that R.L. Stein’s Goosebumps books.[/quote]
“He turned then, with a mocking smile, and I stifled a gasp. His white shirt was sleeveless, and he wore it unbuttoned, so that the skin of his throat flowed uninterrupted over the marble contours of his chest, his perfect musculature no longer merely hinted at behind concealing clothes. He was too perfect, I realized with a piercing stab of despair. There was no way this godlike creature could be meant for me.”
You think that steaming pile of shit is actually better than Goosebumps in any way, shape or form? You have got to be fucking kidding me.
[quote]ZeroSleep wrote:
You think that steaming pile of shit is actually better than Goosebumps in any way, shape or form? You have got to be fucking kidding me.[/quote]
“… so that the skin of his throat flowed uninterrupted over the marble contours of his chest”
His neck is connected to his chest? Holy mother of…
“He was too perfect, I realized with a piercing stab of despair.”
“He was too perfect, I realized”? Not “He is too perfect, I realized”? Your character realizes things in the past tense?
Also, from the author:
“In my head, Bella is very fair-skinned, with long, straight, dark brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. Her face is heart-shapedâ??a wide forehead with a widow’s peak, large, wide-spaced eyes, prominent cheekbones, and then a thin nose and a narrow jaw with a pointed chin. Her lips are a little out of proportion, a bit too full for her jaw line. Her eyebrows are darker than her hair and more straight than they are arched…”
And of course this. Its two separate works together in one book, each one is nice and short, yet so full of information and ideas. No explanation possible, but look into it. You won’t be disappointed
Everyone knows the movies are fantastic but in all honestly The Godfather by Mario Puzo
is one of the best books I’ve read, definitely check it out if you haven’t.
+1 to the Conn Iggulden series, historical fiction centred around Caesar and Genghis Khan
really entertaining.
I can’t say i like of mice and men. Currently i am reading Prousts in search of lost time and Nietzsches thus spake zaraphrustra; I prefer them both to of mice and men, but they both have their own dull moments.
My favourite modern author is Flann O’Brien who wrote surrealist irish comedy in the first half of the 20th century
[quote]Harken wrote:
Everyone knows the movies are fantastic but in all honestly The Godfather by Mario Puzo
is one of the best books I’ve read, definitely check it out if you haven’t.
+1 to the Conn Iggulden series, historical fiction centred around Caesar and Genghis Khan
really entertaining.
I used to love the Redwall series :~>[/quote]
I actually read the first 3/4 of the books but have yet to read the last one lol.
I just ordered the book scratch beginnings by Adam shepard.
25$, a gym bag of clothes and a mission to survive a year in a random city and see if the American dream is still alive (2007). Its a response to the book nickled and dimed.
I’m excited about it lol.
I read to kill a mocking bird in high school and it was a good book.
I have to say…I hate how expensive books are, I know a good find can be in the 5-15 dollar range but to many good books are 20-35$!
I opened up “get a life” and saw this thread and thought…hey a good thread!..that I started? lol.
1984 anyone? Read this and soak it in. You’ll always remember it fondly.
Brave New world. Another one you cannot not read.
I am Legend (short read - explosive, claustrophic, clever)
Fevre Dream (excellent vampire novel set on the river, featuring awesome steamboats, slaves and well rounded vamps)
Above was written by George Martin which brings me to … Song of Ice and Fire. Yep that shit is so cool, I’m only two books through but again, excellent.
