best book you've read thread

What's the best book (or the last good book) you have read? It doesn't have to be recently and it doesn't have to be a scholarly work - just a good read. Maybe there is more than one book you have in mind. Hey - we all can read or we wouldn't be online. Reading is fundamental. So what will it be then?

whats a book? :biggrinshoot:

I finally wrapped up The Dark Tower series, that shit has left an imprint on my soul it was so good. I don't have any new books to read at the moment, so I'm re-reading The Odyssey--I need new books to read, gimme ideas you schleps.

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For me it's got to be Hiroo Onoda's autobiography No Surrender: My 30 Year War. Lieutenant Onoda was stationed by the Japanese army on an island called Lubang in the Philippines and told to lead his platoon in guerilla warfare against incoming American forces. He persisted in his fight against the Americans and the indigenous population from 1944 to 1974 – alone since 1946 - believing all along that the war had not ended! It's a story about self delusion in the face of stark reality and about commitment to an ideal that exists in the soul of a soldier. It's absolutely fascinating and is my all-time favorite book. I have been thinking about it all afternoon and plan to buy a fresh copy from Amazon today.

The classic George Orwell tale 1984 comes in a close second. They should make a new, well directed (and casted) movie version of that monumental tome. Make it better than the movie rip-off "V for Vendetta" anyway. What a total rip-off of 1984 that was.

One last note on a good book I'm getting into now is Brotherhood of the Bomb by Gregg Herken. The dramatic interpersonal, professional, scientific and political developments that led up to the first detonation of an atomic bomb are examined in riveting and often humorous detail. I'm really getting into it. I've had it since last Christmas so it's about time!

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today, I have mostly been looking under G...

Njohnson, I just bought that book on your recommendation, I've heard little tidbits about it here and there, but the people who told me about were dumb-assess. A 1984 movie would own in biblical proportions, as long as Michael Bay didn't direct it. :rotflmao:

Well yeah, that probably would help, I bought No Surrender.

Njohnson, I just bought that book on your recommendation, I've heard little tidbits about it here and there, but the people who told me about were dumb-assess. A 1984 movie would own in biblical proportions, as long as Michael Bay didn't direct it. :rotflmao:

Which book? No Surrender is a quick read - simple in terms of language but elegantly so in my opinion. Brotherhood of the Bomb is good (although I'm not yet done with it of course) and 1984 is so classic that to recommend it would seem cliché.

I really hope you enjoy the book you bought - whichever one that might be.

Cool. No Surrender. Looks like both of us depleted the limited supply Amazon had in stock!

I really the WEB Griffin books, any 'fiction' book by "Demo" Dick(Richard Marchenko), father of Seal Team Six, I enjoy the supernatural stuff from Anne Rice, haven't read a bad story yet from Stephen King....anything with a good story told by a competent storyteller. Some authors get so bogged down in details that the story gets lost(read: Tom Clancy). I will read just about anything, but if I don't get into it in the first two chapters, I won't pick it up again.

not the best, i wouldn't say that about a book, but mostly i enjoyed south-american literature (Sabato, Marquez, Llosa) but the book most dear to me is Der Steppenwolf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppenwolf_(novel)) by Herman Hesse. anyway, i wouldn't recommend it to anyone as it was the book that reminded me why i am an antisocial:icon_suspicious:

I don't read that many books, but the last one I read was Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.
The book was pretty good, I thought it was a pretty cool story, and its not a long read either. I guess they are making a movie about it now, I am going to have to see that.
more about the book and story here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Wild

Oh it's just a little book, you might have heard of it. It's called THE BIBLE. You heathens.

Oh it's just a little book, you might have heard of it. It's called THE BIBLE. You heathens.

Be specific, n00by...:mad-pound:
Which version do you read?
I prefer it in the original Klingon myself...:fly::mod:

Fahrenheit 451, Nuff said.

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The five People you meet in Heaven.

It is a rather short book so that people with short attention spans can read the whole thing. It is an interesting look at what is heaven, and what happens after death.

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the last that I've entirely read ! :(

The Bible is the greatest comedy/drama/sci-fi book ever written. Has a bit of everything, and a huge heaping, steamy pile of cherry flavored bullshit to top it off.

In recent years I would have to say
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Pretty much anything by Terry Pratchett is a given. The original DragonLance books (mostly the ones by Weis and Hickman). 1984 is a classic, so is Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. All of the Black Company books by Glen Cook are great, its a fantasy but it isn't made just for kids.

^ indeed Terry Pratchett.....especially the Discworld series..... - good.... read the last book Wintersmith a coupla months back......but one's gotta start from the beginning of the series to really get into it...

following the same comedic vein.....P.G.Wodehouse....especially the Jeeves & Wooster and the Baldings series...very good.....old fashioned...absurd....but funny..

Kurt Vonnegurt is not bad......

Anybody got any other good suggestions for comedies....

other good books...

Salman Rushdie's - "Midnight's Children"

Ken Follet - Pillars of the Earth

Asimov - Foundation Series

Kane and Abel

Malgudi series - R.K.Narayan

Red Storm Rising - Tom Clancy as well as the Jack Ryan series of books starting with hunt for Red October....

Did I mention Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (5 books) yet?

Bill the Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison (about 6 or 7 books in the series) is a pretty good comedy series. Not even close to serious, but fun to read.

Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind
Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan
Otherworld series by Tad Williams
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (and other shit by him too)
Gunslinger series by King is excellent as well.
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Death Gate Cycle series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman (some others are good too)
There are probably a lot more, but those listed above are the best Fantasy/Sci-fi books I have ever read: engrossing, rich plot and such IMAGERY. Jesus.
I would like to add one more set to the list:
the Legends of Dune trilogy. They are prequels to the actual Dune series, written by his son Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson. Truly fucking amazing, the plot is cosmically epic. I read that trilogy instead of going to my finals last semester (I dropped out) and it was SO satisfying. Unfortunately I haven't had enough money to buy the actual Dune series yet...hmmm.

Eon by Greg Bear
Way of the Peaceful Warrior by dan millman

But my all time fav is the Myth series by Robert Aspin, (along with the phule's company series, and bug wars. He made a so-so series = thieve's world)

...and the Nobel Prize this year goes tooooo....:
"that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny"
Doris Lessing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Lessing)

playboy

playboy
UHUH and you get it just for the articles.....:flasher:

Ooooh a book thread and I nearly missed it!!

Adams and Pratchett have been mentioned but seriously check out Robert Rankin who is in a similar style only funnier and better at running gags than either of the them.

Just finished a Poe collection and had forgetten how good he was, The Raven is an incredible piece of prose. I could read that again and again.

I think on the whole people dont read back again enough. Check out the books you prolly did at school like 1984, Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men etc. and re-read them with an Adult brain you will be surprised. Catcher in the Rye actually made sense when I read it again

Also look out for the Laidlaw books by William McIllvaney, makes Rebus and Jack Bauer look like pussies.

And of course who can forget Mr Christopher Brookmyre (http://www.brookmyre.co.uk/)

Robert Rankin? Isn't he the guy who wrote Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse? If so, the man is a twisted genius of pure dark humor. I need to find some more of his work, hell, I'd actually get it in something other than e-book form.

Other good reads of late....

The Wasteland - T.S. Elliot. - I did my senior term paper on this work, very intriguing work, and probably his best known work. His whole collection is worthwhile if you're a fan of poetry.

Mien Kampf - Adolph Hitler. - Firstly, I'm not a skinhead by any extent of the imagination, I actually read it for the curiosity of it all, not as a damn bible. I had to read some passages of this book in high school for history class, and I didn't really pay attention. After they banned the book in Canada, I was curious why they had to ban it, as it's a needed text for university students. It does give an interesting look into the mind of the most ruthless dictator of the 20th century.