good books to read

[butabara]

Ooh, I see someone has an Edgar Allan Poe quote as their sign. I must commend you on your taste, Leviyah! *beams* One of my favourite authors of all times is (you guessed it) Poe. Then there's H. P. Lovecraft - if you're into supernatural horror, his works are a must read. (Although I think the human protagonists of his stories are often scarier than the creepy-crawly minions of Chutulhu...).

I <u>also</u> love Pratchett's and Gaiman's books - they are too good to be ignored. (Whee! Saw -more like heard...- Mr. Gaiman at a booksigning in SFBok!) Terri Windling, Agatha Christie ( [img]redface.gif[/img] ), Virginia Woolf, R. L. Stevenson, Thomas Mann, Philip Pullmann (sp?), Tolkien etc. - there are many, many more ( I haven't listed even one of my fave Hungarian or Swedish authors!)

Right now I'm reading excerpts from Hagakure (The Book of the Samurai) by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Comedia Infantil (H. Mankell) and "Farewell to Shanghai" (gah! that's the English translation of the title from Swedish - dunno if it IS called that in English) by Anchee Min.
Yah, well, I'll just stop here, shall I? It's fun to read what you guys like! *hugs random people* [img]eek.gif[/img]

[crystalgryphon]

Originally posted by Risu-chan:
Barry Hughart!!!!!!!!

Barry Hughart RULES... I just didn't mention him because I figured it'd be way too hard to hook somebody on a guy whose stuff has been (last I heard) next door to out of print for ages

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Copies of Bridge of Birds really aren't all that hard to find if you've got a decent used bookstore in the area. On the other hand, tracking down Eight Skilled Gentlemen was a PITA--it took me two years. (Granted, I've been looking for a copy of Lorrah's _Ambrov Keon_ for a lot longer than that, but it went out of print a lot longer ago, too.)

A shame there aren't going to be any more books in the series--I understand Hughart pretty much gave up on writing after an argument with his publisher, to the point that he destroyed the manuscripts of the three books he had already published. When . . . was it NESFA Press? reissued all three books in a single volume a couple of years ago, they had to reset the text from copies of the previous editions.

Gryphon, who collects useless information as well as old SF novels.

[butabara]

Ray Bradbury!!!!!! (sorry for copying, Risu-chan [img]eek.gif[/img] )

I have read various collections of his short stories and his novel "Dandelion Wine"... Ray Bradbury is God. *worships* He is the Atheist God of Writing.

(shuts up for tonight [img]graemlins/shhh.gif[/img] )

[Deushi Yoshiharu]

I too haven't read as much as I use to. But it's mostly a financial situation than any loss of interest. And there just doesn't seem to be many good books at the library unless you're looking for classics. [img]graemlins/cry.gif[/img]

But here are the novels I've enjoyed:
(in no specific order)
*The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara (trilogy) by: Terry Brooks
*Harry Potter (series) by: J.K. Rowling
*The Icewind Dale Trilogy, Homeland, The Silent Blade, and Servant of the Shard by: R.A. Salvatore
*The Bounty Hunter Wars (trilogy) by: K.W. Jeter
*Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead by: Orson Scott Card
*Chronicles (trilogy), Legends (trilogy) by: Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
*The Farseer Trilogy, The Tawny Man Trilogy by: Robin Hobb
*Dune, Dune Messiah by: Frank Herbert
*Return of the Archwizards (trilogy? series?) by: Troy Denning
*The Catcher in the Rye by: J.D. Salinger
*The Importance of Being Earnest by: Oscar Wilde
*The Road to Mars by: Eric Idle
*Something Wicked This Way Comes by: Ray Bradbury

Some of these I read a long time ago and cannot fully say I'd enjoy them if I read them today. But I do recall a fondness for them.

<font color="#660033" size="1">[ November 10, 2003 01:59 PM: Message edited by: Deushi Yoshiharu ]</font>

[yukawai]

Leviyah: I read both those books.. au nom de la rose is pretty good, and I had to search a while to know if ew were talking aobut the same book (it's not litteraly translated v.v ) but The Story of a Murderer is pretty good... though I liked it most because of it's originality and because it's the first book who ever surprised me with a sex scene while I was sure there -couldn't- be any. An orgy, whatmorever (that's not a punch, it's a motivator) heheh

[Leviyah]

I forgot some books in my list.
"The name of the rose" by Umberto Eco and "Perfume the Story of a Murderer" by Patrick S??kind (a rather dark and pretty good book about a strange guy who murders people just because of their smell)

Oh, and thank you, butabara, I also love E.A. Poe =)

[Countess D]

Well since we're disscusing books here I guess its alright to post this here...

I'm desperate! I have to do a research paper and turn in a draft in a few days. The thing is that I need at least 3 *reliable* sources for that and I only got one T_T...

The topic I chose was an analysis of various fairy tales (yep. Ludwig has something to do with this).

Does anyone know of a book or url where I can find information on this?

[yukawai]

try Sources for the Analysis and Interpretation of Folk and Fairy Tales since it's .org, I guess it's reliable... just go on google and type [ame="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=fairy+tales+analysis&btnG=Google+Search"]"fairy tales analysis"[/ame]

[Countess D]

Originally posted by Yue:
try Sources for the Analysis and Interpretation of Folk and Fairy Tales since it's .org, I guess it's reliable... just go on google and type "fairy tales analysis"

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thanks for the links! I have found some really interesting things on them.

[Lady Elanor]

What a funny Topic idea. It's really surprising that most of you love the same books like me. [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

J.R.R. Tolkien (Kill Peter Jackson!)
Joanne K. Rowling [img]smile.gif[/img]
Madeleine L'engle (verrrrry interesting)
Terry Pratchett (sometimes confusing but strange enough to be great)
Anne Rice (Can't stand Lestat but love Armand)
C.S. Lewis (Hmmm was good but can't remember details [img]biggrin.gif[/img] )
Marion Zimmer Bradley (Darkover is great!)
R.A. Salvatore (Artemis Entreri rocks!)

Sure there are many more I can't think at the moment. Oh and momently I'm reading Goethe's Faust. [img]smile.gif[/img]