Favorite Books

[anitram]

I can't stand reading long things on the computer and I can't imagine that it would be nice to read a book that way. I like to be able to lie on the couch or in bed or sit by the fireplace and read. So I have less than no desire to read anything in this format.

It's the one big problem I have even with reading case law. I live very environmentally friendly in just about every way but I really like to print everything and read it that way.

 

[purpleoscar]

ebook readers that are newere use eInk so it looks like a book and you will need a light for it as well.

My LCD screen is good to read on because it's 22" and when you zoom in the letters are much bigger and I can sit back. Of course if you read for hours on end your eyes would be tired. I tested the Sony eReader and it was good but I still want a bigger screen, and colour would be nice.

 

[anitram]

It's not what it looks like, it's that I have to look at a screen at all. I just don't want to sit in front of my computer when I don't have to.

 

[AliEnvy]

I also prefer print. A few people I worked with who have long commutes are addicted to books on CD. I tried it a couple of times on 4-5 hour drives - takes some getting used to. Wouldn't be so bad except I much prefer listening to music in the car.

 

[VintagePunk]

It's not what it looks like, it's that I have to look at a screen at all. I just don't want to sit in front of my computer when I don't have to.

Laptop?

I've been doing a lot more of my reading online/via .pdf lately. I'd like to find a decent reader, too. Adobe is missing one very basic thing that would make it more usable - the ability to bookmark which page you're on. I find it insane that they didn't build this into the program.

 

[anitram]

I use a laptop almost exclusively and still find it tough, don't know why. I think I'm just old school in this respect, heh.

I really wish I could get into audio books because I do drive quite a bit. I can handle comedy on there - really liked the Onion's book about the world on a drive to Ottawa once, and I also finished Colbert's book that way too. But with actual fiction I find it a bit hard to follow. I do have a short attention span though so that may be the problem.

 

[Se7en]

some books that won't land me on a homeland security watch list :

to kill a mockingbird... most definitely!
the fabric of the cosmos
1491
the quiet american
workers in industrial america
the grapes of wrath
children of grace
bury my heart at wounded knee

 

[No spoken words]

I do a lot of work/reading on my computer, but, when it comes to novels, I will read the physical book, only. That will likely never change.

I could make a lengthy list, but, for now:

East of Eden
The Fountainhead
Narcissus and Goldmund
The Road
The Books of the Long Sun
Dune
Hamlet (It's a play, but whatever)
The Stand
The Man in the High Castle
Catch-22
A Perfect Spy
Shogun
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Hyperion (Not the Keats poem)
A Tale of Two Cities
Love in the Time of Cholera
The Odyssey/The Illiad

That'll do, though, like music lists or movie lists, this could be slightly different in a day.

 

[Purplereign]

I find trying to make these kinds of lists so impossibly intimidating it makes me feel sick but here goes nothing

To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
The Kite Runner - Hossein (spelling )
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The House of The Spirits - Isabel Allende
Dirt Music - Tim Winton
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
Picnic At Hanging Rock - Joan Lindsay
The Bible
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
Like Water For Chocolate - Laura Esquivel

yes,there are more, and I feel like I am abandoning my friends not listing them all but the ole memory is a shocker and I can't be arsed walking round the corner to the bookshelf


fabbo thread btw - interesting to see what floats everyones boats book wise and have to agree that reading a book is so much nicer than trying to read it on a screen

 

[No spoken words]

The Secret History, nice. Always forget about that one.

And, yes, if I leave books out I feel like I was playing favorites and now the other books are sad. Does that make me insane?







No, seriously, does it?

 

[Pearl]

I hope I don't get slammed for not being intellectual enough with my book tastes, but here goes:

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Goldman
God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
The Good Earth - Pearl S Buck
Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant
The Princess Bride - ?
The Lovely Bones -
My Life as Emperor - Su Tong
Bono in Conversation - Michika Assayas
Mere Christianity - CS Lewis
What's So Amazing About Grace? - Philip Yancey
The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman
Boom! - Tom Brokaw
The Greatest Generation - Tom Brokaw
Leap of Faith - Queen Noor
How The Irish Saved Civilization - Thomas Cahill

I am now reading Kushiel's Dart, a sci/fi, fantasy book. Hopefully I'll get plenty of books this Christmas, so I could add to my list.

 

[purpleoscar]

The Odyssey/The Illiad

Can't forget about that.

 

[No spoken words]

I should add:

1984
Brave New World

and, without a doubt

Underworld

 

[yolland]

A current 'top 25,' literary and nonfiction:


Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain or Notes of a Native Son--can't decide
Borges, Collected Fictions
Buber, I and Thou
Camus, The Plague
Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
Dante, The Divine Comedy
Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Ellison, Invisible Man
Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury or As I Lay Dying--again, can't decide
Forster, A Passage to India
Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit
Heidegger, Being and Time
Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Levi, Survival in Auschwitz
Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Mahabharata (the Lal verse translation, which I'm reading as the volumes come out)
McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
O'Connor, Complete Stories
Percy, The Moviegoer
Plato, The Republic
Rushdie, Midnight's Children
Shakespeare, Hamlet
Tagore, Gitanjali



Unfortunately, I don't find much time these days to read newer nonacademic stuff. Of the newer books I've read in the last few years, I've probably enjoyed Michael Chabon's novels and John McPhee's nature writing the most, though I don't think I'd put anything I've read by either in my top 25.

 

[diamond]

 

[anitram]

A current 'top 25,' literary and nonfiction:

Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

I really like this one as well. You don't see it mentioned as much as the books by Wiesel and Frankl on the same event, but I have always found it the most hopeful of the three.

 

[AEON]

The Road -- Cormac McCarthy

I just read this last month. The best novel I've read in years. Great pick.

 

[TranceEnding]

i like all the books of Charles Bukowski

 

[TranceEnding]

My favourites include

Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Diary of a Drug Fiend - Aleister Crowley
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
Love in the time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts

 

[Pearl]

I forgot to add:

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt - Anne Rice

 

[Purplereign]

The Secret History, nice. Always forget about that one.

And, yes, if I leave books out I feel like I was playing favorites and now the other books are sad. Does that make me insane?







No, seriously, does it?

more than likely . . . but you're in pretty good company so why worry

I hope I don't get slammed for not being intellectual enough with my book tastes, but here goes:

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Goldman
God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
The Good Earth - Pearl S Buck
Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant
The Princess Bride - ?
The Lovely Bones -
My Life as Emperor - Su Tong
Bono in Conversation - Michika Assayas
Mere Christianity - CS Lewis
What's So Amazing About Grace? - Philip Yancey
The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman
Boom! - Tom Brokaw
The Greatest Generation - Tom Brokaw
Leap of Faith - Queen Noor
How The Irish Saved Civilization - Thomas Cahill

I am now reading Kushiel's Dart, a sci/fi, fantasy book. Hopefully I'll get plenty of books this Christmas, so I could add to my list.

I think thats why I hate making lists too - that whole judgement thing . . . v v intimidating . . . forgot 'The Lovely Bones' . . . great book

 

[corianderstem]

If anyone's going to judge you based on the books you read, fuck 'em.

 

[U2isthebest]

I have to add a few more.
Non-Fiction
Boom!: Voices of the 60s-Tom Brokaw
All The President's Men-Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
Against All Enemies:Inside America's War On Terror-Richard Clarke
The Assault on Reason-Al Gore
The Bush Tragedy-Jacob Weisberg
What Happened: Inside The Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception-Scott McClellan
Hubris: Inside The Spin, Scandal, and Selling of the Iraq War-Michael Isikoff
The Secret Message of Jesus-Brian McLaren
Into The Wild-Jon Krakauer
The Audacity of Hope-Barack Obama
Everyday Apocalypse-David Dark
Why The Christian Right Is Wrong-Robin Meyers
Jesus Wants To Save Christians-Rob Bell
Plastic Jesus: Exposing The Hollowness of Comfortable Christianity-Eric Sandras
Utter Incompetents: Ego and Ideology In The Age of Bush-Thomas Oliphant
Giving: How Each Of Us Can Change The World-Bill Clinton
U2 by U2
Bono: In Conversation: Mischka Assayas
One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters To Those Seeking God-Christian Scharen
Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2-Steve Stockman
Madonna: Like An Icon-Lucy O'Brien

Fiction:
The Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath
Fear of Flying-Erica Jong
Little Children-Tom Perotta
The Abstinence Teacher-Tom Perotta
The Bean Trees-Barbara Kingsolver
Notes On A Scandal- Zoe Heller
The Stepford Wives-Ira Levin
White Oleander-Janet Fitch
I Am America And So Can You-Stephen Colbert
The Harry Potter Series-J.K. Rowling ( I wasn't allowed to read these books growing up like everyone else I knew, because my parents thought they were "satanic". I'm on the fifth one now, and I love them.)

 

[A_Wanderer]

If anyone's going to judge you based on the books you read, fuck 'em.

One of the silliest statements I've ever heard on here.

If somebody declares that they only read the bible, I would justifiably judge them as narrow. If somebody put down Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, then I would justifiably judge them.

I don't see how anybody can't judge another person by the books they claim to enjoy reading.

 

[corianderstem]

Well, my post was addressing Pearl, who didn't list Mein Kampf or How to Kill Fluffy Bunnies With a Single Blow as her favorites, just some books that might not be considered "big, serious literature."

Sometimes a glib statement is just that, you know. I didn't actually mean you should go fornicate with someone who declared they didn't like the books you read, in case you took that too seriously, too.

So okay, fine. I meant this: If anyone's going to judge you because you don't read what they deem to be "real literature," then fuck 'em.

 

[A_Wanderer]

to specificity

 

[corianderstem]

Were my stomach not upset, I'd be having a post-work drink, and I'd raise it to you.

In the absence of a relaxing wee drink, I shall just do this lame equivalent:

 

[diamond]

 

[purpleoscar]

I think I laughed really hard at least once per chapter. Who would have thought a book about Stoicism could be funny.

 

[Irvine511]

How to Kill Fluffy Bunnies With a Single Blow

omg! i this book as a child.