Amaaaazing Books?

[peanutbuttermnm]

BOOKS: Ella Enchanted and the Two Princessess of Bemaire (Gail Carson Levine), A Little Princess (Frances Hodgsen Burnett), Lumber Camp Library, Time Traveler's Wife, Three Musketeers (Alexander Dumas)

AUTHORS:Gail Carson Levine, Gordan Korman, TAMORA PIERCE, John Flanagan

SERIES: Gone by Michael Grant, Anything Tortall related by Tamora Pierce, Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan

I miss reading...

[Bartosz jez]

My favorite genre is definitely science-fiction.

I would like to recommend Stephen King, Nick Perumov, Harry Potter and maybe give The Wheel of Time a try.

If you like historical novels try both of Conn Igguldens series.

If you like Sci-Fi books, you should definitely get in common with Stanislaw Lem and Strugatsky brothers (Roadside Picnic is fantastic).

[Julia32]

The Catcher in the Rye is an amazing read. I highly highly reccommend it!

[Arrowhead]

My favourite books are so varied and so many!

Classics: Everything Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and my absolute favourite is Persuasion), Emma and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, War and Peace by Tolstoy, Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, Cold Mountain by Frazier.

Fantasy: The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series by JRR Tolkien, Harry Potter series by JK Rowling, Eragon and The Inheritance Cycle by Paolini, Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Riordan, The Dark Tower series by Stephen King, Poison Study by Synder, Priestess of White Trilogy and The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan, The Pellinor Series by Croggon.

Fiction: The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Hosseini, Thief Lord by Funke, PS I Love You, Where Rainbows End, If You Could See Me Now, A Place Called Here, and The Book of Tomorrow by Ahern, Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.

[Daedalus]

My favourite books are so varied and so many!

Classics: Everything Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and my absolute favourite is Persuasion), Emma and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, War and Peace by Tolstoy, Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, Cold Mountain by Frazier.

Fantasy: The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series by JRR Tolkien, Harry Potter series by JK Rowling, Eragon and The Inheritance Cycle by Paolini, Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Riordan, The Dark Tower series by Stephen King, Poison Study by Synder, Priestess of White Trilogy and The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan, The Pellinor Series by Croggon.

Fiction: The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Hosseini, Thief Lord by Funke, PS I Love You, Where Rainbows End, If You Could See Me Now, A Place Called Here, and The Book of Tomorrow by Ahern, Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.

Admit it - this is basically every book you've ever read, isn't it.

[pink panther]

The Picture of Dorian Gray definitely.

Favorite author Oscar Wilde. Anything by Wilde. I just about worship Wilde

and some other amazing books in my opinion: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Love in the Time of Cholera, Without Dogma (by Henryk Sienkiewicz), Notre-Dame of Paris, The Count of Monte Cristo

My favorite genre would probably be simply put fiction, though I particularly enjoy magical realism, if it could be called a sub-genre

[Arrowhead]

Admit it - this is basically every book you've ever read, isn't it.

You would be surprised, but it isn't. The reason being that my house is a part-library. My mother is a Literature Major and she makes her money as a literary scholar, critiquing works and writing reviews and the occasional University guest lecture. Our home actually has an entire room that was intended to be the Guest Room, turned into a library. Granted its not something like Hogwarts' Library (), but its pretty impressive.

Classics are my favourite kind of novels, so most of the books up there are the classics I've read, there are a few more that I might've missed out. Fantasy is my obsession, the books I mentioned are just a few of the many, many I've read because I've been reading Fantasy books since as far as I can remember. I didn't mention the others like CS Lewis' works (Space Trilogy as well as Narnia) or The Lionboy Series, and tons more, because they're very juvenile (IMO) and from my younger days when I was innocent. As for Fiction, those are my favourites, but there are a few more novels, as well as a ton more romance novels I've read. I went through a summer of reading only romance novels, from victorian-esque romances to utter smut, I read a lot. Cecila Ahern was the only romance writer that made me bawl like a little girl at the end of every one of her books.

Reading is more than my hobby. But I guess it comes across more when someone asks me about a new show on the telly or some such, I generally have very little idea and I see a movie once every two months or so. My life revolves around books and reading, I don't think anyone in my family or friend circle has ever seen me without one.

Edited July 23, 2011 by Arrowhead

[Daedalus]

.

Why did "God" post that? I'm only Daedalus ...

I mean, I'm clearly nowhere near as dedicated to literature as u are (if all you say is true) but I am going to study literature and I did read loads of fantasy as a kid, and as far as your book choices, most literary readers would say quite a few of them are absolute crap.

Examples ... Eragon is a complete ripoff with about 3 original ideas in as many books -- anyone who's read Ursula Le Guin, Robert Jordan, Robin Hobb, or even has a general familiarity with Star Wars and Tolkien should be able to point that out. Paolini's also incapable of good writing, particularly speech. Angels and Demons is similarly shoddily written -- completely hinges on its plot and an awkward character called Robert Langdon who girls mysteriously and inexplicably like. Harry Potter is well and good but it's a children's book, like The Hobbit, kind of awkward to be among your "amaaaazing" books...

[Arrowhead]

as far as your book choices, most literary readers would say quite a few of them are absolute crap.

Oh I completely agree with you. Not some, but many of the books on my shelves are crap from a literary standpoint. Trust me when I admit this, my mother points that out to me every time I come home with "another useless book with no depth and all the hoo-hah of sorcery and unbelievable clichés." But I like pulp fiction, it passes the time well and I personally am not a huge fan of books that always make you think of things and the millions of things they can or cannot mean.

About Eragon, yeah there are times when I feel like a particular event in his journey to wherever the book is taking him is strongly reminiscent of Sparrowhawk in Earthsea. I mean the beginning is a complete rip off when Eragon's village is attacked in search of Sylvia and Ged's village is attacked as well, but he repels them ultimately and becomes famous for the feat. The manner in which Ursula talks about the importance of names and the significance they can hold in fantasy worlds became a very popular idea and you see it reused in Butcher's Dresden Files (Mab, Mab, Mab and the Winter Queen is right there!). Arha reminds me of Auraya from Age of Five so much its scary. But even then Ursula's books just never managed to hold my attention for very long, I always found myself getting bored. As far as Jordan is concerned, I'm pretty sure that I have Eye of the World somewhere on my shelves, I don't think I ever managed to delve more than the first 20 pages in that book. I know its hugely popular and what-not, it just never held my attention for too long.

Insofar as Harry Potter and The Hobbit are concerned, the reason I find them amazing is that despite being children's books, they have some very mature undertones, HP more than the Hobbit in overt terms. The first time I read the HP books, I enjoyed them in childish glee, but just before Deathly Hallows came out I reread the entire series and had a completely different perspective about them. Recently (last year), before DH Part 1 came out, I reread the books again to reacquaint myself and I found it to be fascinating and enthralling. Where once I noticed Bella's fanatical service had sexual tension and an almost slave-like love, I began to notice other things, like equality in different forms and discrimination beyond what meets the eye, attributes about Dumbledore's character which, for the first time, distinguished him from Gandalf the Grey's shadow.

The books I've mentioned may not be the most noted in literary circles, in fact they may be deplored, but I still love them and read them because they hold my attention. Maybe characters like Sparrowhawk and Harry Dresden can be considered more three-dimensional and believable than the ever-righteous and do-gooder with a perfect hero-smile at all times like Eragon, or a clueless dolt like Harry Potter, but the latter two still hold my attention more and make me want to read about them, and that makes them amaaazing in my books.

Edited July 23, 2011 by Arrowhead

[pink panther]

as far as your book choices, most literary readers would say quite a few of them are absolute crap.

Oh I completely agree with you. Not some, but many of the books on my shelves are crap from a literary standpoint. Trust me when I admit this, my mother points that out to me every time I come home with "another useless book with no depth and all the hoo-hah of sorcery and unbelievable clichés." But I like pulp fiction, it passes the time well and I personally am not a huge fan of books that always make you think of things and the millions of things they can or cannot mean.

About Eragon, yeah there are times when I feel like a particular event in his journey to wherever the book is taking him is strongly reminiscent of Sparrowhawk in Earthsea. I mean the beginning is a complete rip off when Eragon's village is attacked in search of Sylvia and Ged's village is attacked as well, but he repels them ultimately and becomes famous for the feat. The manner in which Ursula talks about the importance of names and the significance they can hold in fantasy worlds became a very popular idea and you see it reused in Butcher's Dresden Files (Mab, Mab, Mab and the Winter Queen is right there!). Arha reminds me of Auraya from Age of Five so much its scary. But even then Ursula's books just never managed to hold my attention for very long, I always found myself getting bored. As far as Jordan is concerned, I'm pretty sure that I have Eye of the World somewhere on my shelves, I don't think I ever managed to delve more than the first 20 pages in that book. I know its hugely popular and what-not, it just never held my attention for too long.

Insofar as Harry Potter and The Hobbit are concerned, the reason I find them amazing is that despite being children's books, they have some very mature undertones, HP more than the Hobbit in overt terms. The first time I read the HP books, I enjoyed them in childish glee, but just before Deathly Hallows came out I reread the entire series and had a completely different perspective about them. Recently (last year), before DH Part 1 came out, I reread the books again to reacquaint myself and I found it to be fascinating and enthralling. Where once I noticed Bella's fanatical service had sexual tension and an almost slave-like love, I began to notice other things, like equality in different forms and discrimination beyond what meets the eye, attributes about Dumbledore's character which, for the first time, distinguished him from Gandalf the Grey's shadow.

The books I've mentioned may not be the most noted in literary circles, in fact they may be deplored, but I still love them and read them because they hold my attention. Maybe characters like Sparrowhawk and Harry Dresden can be considered more three-dimensional and believable than the ever-righteous and do-gooder with a perfect hero-smile at all times like Eragon, or a clueless dolt like Harry Potter, but the latter two still hold my attention more and make me want to read about them, and that makes them amaaazing in my books.

generally I see your point and respect your reading choices. But didn't you say just two posts ago that your favorite things to read are classics? You seem to be contradicting yourself slightly. But again - don't take it as an attack - your defense of non-classic books is convincing enough.

[febreezick]

I'm absolutely in love with the Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness. I have a few reasons why:

1. I find the characters easy to relate to, nuanced, and heartbreaking. You catch yourself loving the protagonists and fearing the antagonists while simultaneously being disgusted by good people and sympathizing and aching with horrible, awful people.
   
2. Patrick Ness is positively poetic. I want to carve some of his words into me soul so I can always keep them close.
   
3. The issues dealt with in the series are familiar enough to recognize but distant enough to analyze and reevaluate without getting feeling like it's talking about.
   
4. It's a YA/SciFi/Fantasy series that does not ignore racism, diverse female characters, genocide, sexism, or homosexuality. It. is. wonderful. (and uncommon and I could love the series just for this reason)
   
5. The morals speak to someplace deep inside me. (Don't forget who you are, discrimination is wrong!, you are the choices you make, you have the ability to change, you do have a choice, love is more powerful than hate, ect.) I'm tearing up just thinking about it all.
   

I cannot sing the trilogy's praises enough. I've recommended it to a lot of my friends and they've all enjoyed it.

Edited July 26, 2011 by febreezick

[khalid]

Death of a salesman, by Arthur miller. I really liked how the american dream is portrayed, as well as obsession with success. It really portrays the reality of today's world

[dandoon96]

I liked Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, and The Kite Runner by Khalid Hossieni.

Something about that second book that is absoloutely incredible and moving by all means. I learnt alot of valuable and interesting information about a country that i never knew even existed. WOW. is all i can say .

[khalid]

We also read Wuthering heights, but I found it a bit boring, and much ado bout nothing was funny and interesting

[Mort]

CHERUB!

[Pazuzu]

I just finished reading Jane Eyre a few days ago and I'm still swooning over how amazing it was. My favorite book of all time is The Catcher in the Rye though. I reread that one quite often. I often reread the Harry Potter books as well.

If you loved Jane Eyre, then you MUST read "Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys!!

It'll change your WHOLE perspective on everything! I felt a hole in my stomach after I did!

[Tallulah]

My favourite books are: " The curious incident of the dog in the night-time" Mark Haddon, "Hound of the Baskervilles" A.C. Doyle, "Wuthering Heights" Emily Bronte, and something different like whole Harry Potter series or "Black book of Secrets" F.E. Higgins, "Pride and Prejudice" J Austen

Favourite authors: JK Rowling, AC Doyle, Jane Austen

[The Rainbow Connection]

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

[Ollexandra]

Hunger Games by Suzanne Colins and "Tommorow" series by John Marsden.

I used to like Artemis Fowl series back in the past, but right now I feel like they're too childish for me. I had a great time reading those books few years ago, though. I read one of them during only one night

[Babydolleyes]

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is simply amazing. Harry Potter, too. There are so many great novels out there! I love it when a story draws you in and makes you emotionally invested (oh, how I cried when Sirius, Dumbledore and Dobbie died!). I also loved The Notebook. So beautiful!