That’s uncanny, those are the next three fiction books on my bookshelf, hoping to get through them all within six months.
Top five for me:
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Brave New World
The Road
In Pharaoh’s Army
The Transformation of War
You are going to love Blood Meridian. It’s one of those novels you can read over and over again without getting bored. I’d be interested to know how you think it compares to The Road…I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve heard it’s not McCarthy’s best.
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Blood Meridian is a great read. I actually felt bad for the Kid and Glanton, but then remembered that Karma is a bitch. The Judge is a great villain.
Working on McCarthy’s Border Trilogy and have to say that I like both All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing better than Blood Meridian. Hope to start on Cities of the Plain this weekend. McCarthy is the nuts. It is sad that The Road is on Oprah’s book list. As irrational as it sounds, I will have a problem reading a book that Oprah tells me I should read.
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War and Peace deserves it’s place in the Pantheon of great books. But if you haven’t read much Russian Lit keeping up with the names can be a pain in the ass. I would strongly recommend you keep notes. Also, though it’s a big assed book, it was published as a weekly serial in magazines, then later collected and published novel form, so feel free to take it in sections.
If you read this book, thoroughly, and make a concious effort to understand what is going on, you will never look at the world and life the same way again.
[quote]Molotov_Coktease wrote:
American Gods- Neil Gaiman…it was very good and I like this author alot, I plan on reading his other works.
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It was awesome, loved it, read it a bunch of times.
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The Gunslinger. First book in Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” series. If you like Sergio Leone films and want to experience an adventure this series is for you.
nonfiction: This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust
fiction: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
biography: Tunney by Jack Cavanaugh
and Wrestling Tough by Mike Chapman, which focuses on amateur wrestling but would be an inspirational read for anyone looking for stories of self-discipline, mental toughness and hard work
The Alphabet of Manliness
Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche
okay those are just fun to read, but Angels and Demons is a great book. I second the man who said A Clockwork Orange, the dialect definitely takes some getting used to though.
Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk is a great short read. It has nothing to do with that movie that came out. It’s kind of a collection of short stories. It really touched me because he wrote one about wrestling that I thought perfectly described what wrestling is really like.
Finished “What Dreams May Come” by Richard Matheson the other day.
A classic novel of love after death, from one our greatest fantasy writers. The premise is deceptively simple: Chris Neilson has died in a car accident, but his life-force–his spirit–is still conscious of this plane of reality. And he is still too in love with his wife, Ann, to completely let go. She in turn does not want to go on living without him, as each regards the other as their soul mate. What Chris will do to get back with Ann after she dies makes for one of the most unusual love stories ever told. Even though the story can be enjoyed as pure fantasy, what makes What Dreams May Come unique is how the author spent years researching the subject of life after death. (An exhaustive bibliography is included to verify this.) And while Matheson admits that the characters are of course fictional, he also states that “With few exceptions, every other detail is derived exclusively from research.” Whether, after reading this novel, one believes in life after death is of course a matter of opinion. At least you’ll entertain the possibility that, even though we may not live forever, true love can be eternal. --Stanley Wiater