I decided to change my ways and give books a chance. I'm looking for suggestions. Anything goes, fiction, nonfiction, sci-fi, philosophy, social commentary, biography, classics. I'm open to anything, but I'd prefer some old staples before I hit the latest and greatest stuff. BTW I love the thread title.

7/14/2006 8:01:13 PM

Enders Game

7/14/2006 8:01:53 PM

everything written by Michael Crichton

7/14/2006 8:03:07 PM

Dr. Seuss

7/14/2006 8:06:01 PM

http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=410293
http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=414932

7/14/2006 8:06:39 PM

Curious George
Goodnight Moon
Berenstein Bears
Where The Wild Things Are
The Very Hungry Caterpillar

7/14/2006 8:10:14 PM

I'd begin at chapter 1

...but seriously... try John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley- its a short, but good read.

[Edited on July 14, 2006 at 8:22 PM. Reason : f]

7/14/2006 8:14:51 PM

Johnathan Livingston Seagull. Start it in the early evening and still make it to the party...but definitely one of those books everyone should read. Same goes for Ishmael and The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide.

7/14/2006 8:26:32 PM

^ Oh my god I loved Ishmael.

So few people have read that one too.

Here's my list of fav books

Catch-22
Slaughterhouse 5
Mossflower (yes it is a kinda childrens book....still good!)
Wizards First Rule (just finished reading, cant comment on the rest of the series)
Enders Game
Dragonlance Chronicles (Dragons of Autum Twilight, Winter Night, Spring Dawning, Summer Flame)
The Return of Sherlock Holmes (collection of stories)
White Fang (not the movie, yes the book)
The Sun Also Rises
Lord of The Isles (first book in a series I think)
The color of magic (discworld)

I cant think of the rest right now but i havent had caffinne in ...too long.
And yes i'll probably get made fun of for that list too.

7/14/2006 10:52:32 PM

read catch 22

7/14/2006 11:01:52 PM

don't do that oprah's bookclub bullshit where you get somebody else to tell you what to read, just go brows the fiction section at your library until you find something that piques your interest, then maybe mix in a classic every now and again

7/14/2006 11:15:21 PM

the giving tree

7/14/2006 11:20:50 PM

FAULKNER
TWAIN

That's all you need.

7/14/2006 11:31:05 PM

The Hero and the Crown

7/14/2006 11:33:17 PM

The Robe and Wizard Hat.

7/14/2006 11:34:53 PM

Early michael crichton

[Edited on July 14, 2006 at 11:49 PM. Reason : 23]

7/14/2006 11:49:06 PM

Rush Limbaugh's See, I Told You So

I haven't gotten past the front cover I saw at Goodwill, but it's pretty much hillarious so far.

7/14/2006 11:50:08 PM

Quote :

"The Sun Also Rises"

I love many of Hemingway's books, but this one was way too boring.

7/15/2006 1:45:04 AM

You want anything? Here are a few.

Anything by Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow, V.)
Anything by Nabokov (Lolita, Pale Fire)
Anything by Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Identity)
Anything by Italo Calvino (If on a winter's night a traveler, Invisible Cities)

For good measure, I recommend these other authors:
Heller, Burroughs, Rushdie, Camus, Sartre, DeLillo, Hesse, Kafka

7/15/2006 1:58:31 AM

anything by steinbeck

7/15/2006 2:04:51 AM

I am going to go out on a limb here.

If somebody is "new to reading", whatever the fuck that means, they probably shouldn't start off with Gravity's Rainbow.

p.s. Highlights for Children.

7/15/2006 2:17:24 AM

Go pick up the following authors for philosophy:

Nietzsche, Heidegger, Husserl, Sartre, Aristotle


As if that won't keep you busy forever, if you need some fiction check out the Dune series. Ender's Game is pretty good too

7/15/2006 2:20:35 AM

Some middle school teacher should make their students read Gravity's Rainbow during the summer.

7/15/2006 2:43:22 AM

Quote :

"Wizards First Rule (just finished reading, cant comment on the rest of the series)"

you're in for a treat. the rest of that series is awesome. the last book or two isnt quite as good as the first 4 but I love them. I buy them the day they come out.

7/15/2006 3:38:13 AM

Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski and Wait until Spring Bandini by John Fante-

7/15/2006 11:02:11 AM

faulkner's light in august is one of my favorites

george orwell's 1984 is a classic too if you missed reading it in school (some how i never read it for school and ended up reading it on my own)

i also suggest the dune series-- start with dune & there is a list of the order of books on the inside

i also enjoyed fast food nation

thats a decent mix of different genres & none of them are terribly hard to follow along with

7/15/2006 11:49:44 AM

Twain
Melville
Conrad
Joyce

That should hold you off for a while.

7/15/2006 11:59:06 AM

America: The Book

7/15/2006 12:08:37 PM

Scifi:
Hyperion by Dan Simmons (and sequels)
Dune by Frank Herber t(probably not the sequels though)
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (and sequels and parallels)
Foundation by Isaac Asimov (a large series)
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

Fantasy:
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind
Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist (and the whole Riftwar and Serpentwar series)

Hard to classify:
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet

Non-Fiction:
The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene

Once you've gone through fantasy and scifi books like that you might want to try some of the more heady stuff mentioned earlier. Seriously though, don't start with "gravity's rainbow"

[Edited on July 15, 2006 at 12:21 PM. Reason : ]

7/15/2006 12:18:27 PM

Quote :

"Some middle school teacher should make their students read Gravity's Rainbow during the summer."

If I ever were to become a middle school teacher, this would be the first thing I would do. Kids need a good challenge; most of them are lazy readers, if they read the things assigned for classes at all.

1984 should only be read after reading We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, just so one realizes how unoriginal Orwell can be.

[Edited on July 15, 2006 at 12:27 PM. Reason : .]

7/15/2006 12:26:15 PM

Call of the Wild
White Fang
To Build A Fire (short story)

7/15/2006 1:29:21 PM

a collection of 3 short stories

flannery oconnor is a funny writer-- i enjoy her

7/15/2006 1:48:06 PM

ender's game is written for middle schoolers. but maybe if you're new to reading, then that would be a good thing.

7/15/2006 2:11:43 PM

someone delete this thread PLEASE

the title is infuriating

7/15/2006 2:14:52 PM

Fucked-up, hilarious, Southern Grotesque:
All We Need of Hell, Body, A Feast of Snakes, or Car by Harry Crews

Of course, everything Flannery O'Connor ever wrote

and lots of crime/mystery writers: Lehane, Walter Mosley, Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos

7/15/2006 3:05:02 PM

The Kite Runner by Kahled (I forget his last name) is an excellent page turner. Look online at the University Scholars' Program reading choices, they are usually exciting, page turning, intellectually simulating books.

7/15/2006 6:19:56 PM

you guys are awesome.

i already have enough suggestions to laat me for a very long fucking time. i picked up some hunter s. thompson and do androids dream of electric sheep (bladerunner), bob dylan chronicles, walden, and dune for the time being. and i'd probably be a fool to not investigate gravity's rainbow at least in the future. i read 1984 and have been hunting out animal farm in used books stores to no avail. thanks guys for some good suggestions. lets keep this thread rollin'

7/15/2006 8:45:52 PM

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis

the book is much much more graphic than the movie

7/15/2006 8:48:58 PM

Hitchiker's Guide series

7/15/2006 8:52:27 PM

^^^ dont overdo it buddy

7/15/2006 9:37:22 PM

Quote :

"and i'd probably be a fool to not investigate gravity's rainbow at least in the future"

This is debatable- people either love it or want to kill me for even recommending it. But I fully support your reading endeavors and wish you luck!

[Edited on July 15, 2006 at 11:13 PM. Reason : .]

7/15/2006 11:13:43 PM

cheap used books can be found on http://www.half.com as well

used bookstores are nice but i can sometimes find the same books for cheaper online

[Edited on July 15, 2006 at 11:38 PM. Reason : hgjhg]

7/15/2006 11:38:01 PM

So far, I want to kill you for recommending it.

But I'm only 50 pages in.


I've had about three people tell me it's amazing, about five tell me it's horrible. All fairly well-read people, I guess.

7/15/2006 11:38:10 PM

That's still eight really awesome people just for actually reading the whole thing.

I hate it when one of my friends decides to quit 100 pages into it. To be honest, most don't even make it that far.

[Edited on July 15, 2006 at 11:49 PM. Reason : .]

7/15/2006 11:48:17 PM

ibts

7/15/2006 11:55:27 PM

^ well who the fuck wants to read 800 pages to get any enjoyment out of it

READ STEPHEN KING'S DARK TOWER SERIES

START W/ THE GUNSLINGER

7/16/2006 12:02:13 AM

^ Yeah, the DT is awesome, and the Gunslinger especially kicked ass. Def. the best of Stephen King

7/16/2006 12:13:51 AM

Quote :

"The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist (and the whole Riftwar and Serpentwar series)"

All three of these are great. The Magician series is what got me hooked on reading in the first place.

Another book in this genre that I would suggest is the Taltos novels by Steven Brust. They are short and not heavy, but are very good and very funny. Also, the Coldfire trilogy by C.S. Friedman is pretty good.

7/16/2006 1:28:50 AM

Quote :

"well who the fuck wants to read 800 pages to get any enjoyment out of it"

You should be able to get enjoyment out of every page, hence why reading the entire thing is the most satisfying. The plot is not the key element in GR, and nor should it be.

7/16/2006 3:35:31 AM

i read airframe by michael crichton(sp?) in 3 days

7/16/2006 3:50:32 AM