Omg this thread exists I'm so happy ^_^ Ok for you literature freaks I HIGHLY recommend The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck A parallel to Exodus, set during the late 1930's during the Great Depression. Migrant workers of Oklahoma are forced out of their land due to drought and dryness brought on by the Dust Bowl. Unable to afford their land, the Joads' land is claimed by the bank and they set out on their journey westward to California in hopes of job opportunities, romance opportunities and a new life in general, a better life, because who would want a better life for their family and loved ones? Alas, tis not what was portrayed though, California isn't what the Joads expected . . . [[[ It is a VERY and I mean VEEEERRRRRYYYY dry read. Those of you who don't love literature for the sake of exploring the deep meaning within, and also those of you who haven't read the Old Testiment (the book often allusions the Old Testument, I suggest reading Exodus if you care about the meaning of the book [No it's not a religious meaning T_T]} I suggest reading it before you read the Grapes of Wrath. I also suggest listening to The Battle Hymmn of the Republic as well before reading the book. Pay attention to the tittle, and where ever you see the word grapes in the book, mark it and notice how it's used, how it's talked about, who's talking about it, why, in what context and in what tense. This was the first book I've fully found out the meaning myself, and I'm quite proud considering I'm only in 9th grade reading and figuring out the meaning of this book c; All bragging rights aside for you literature nerds I highly recommend this. Our Town: A Play In Three Acts - Thornton Wilder My lord. The meaning of this book. It's more obvious than the Grapes of Wrath. There's a song that shows up repeatedly in the book, something like the Ties that Bind or something like that, pay attention to that song, and read the full version. Also notice how in the play their are pairs of people, notice the constant continuing ... well it's not a theme, but it's not a topic really... errr well notice how there's hinting throughout the play. Characters hint at eachother, notice WHO IS HINTING WHO, but the main characters' hinting is different. They're more personal and they are the only ones out of all the pairs in the book that ever say "I love you" without hinting. During the wedding scene of the third act, notice what the stage manager says at the end about a good wedding once every1000 years. Other than that it's a beautiful romance story about George Gibbs and Emily Webb falling in love (it's short it's like 80 pages but plays are usually short with a lot of content). For you fantasy/fiction folk The Iron Druid Chronicles - Kevin Hearne (Native American Mythology, need I say more? If you love Uncle Rick's series then you'll love this) The Time Quintet - Madelaine L'Engle (One of the very few books who can explain the most abstract in the most scientific yet simple way possible, beautiful fantasy 5-book series) Dracula - Bram Stoker The Walls of Dalgorod - Benjamin Sperduto For you history freaks Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond, Telling why the world is the way it is today, and why Europeans once dominated in all 6 contenents of the world (6 because Antarctica isn't discovered yet, nor attractive >.>). Putting an end to the racial reasoning of "Clearly the white man's superiority to all other races of the globe explain the reason on why the white man dominated the land". Going into biology of disease, plants, and animals. The difference between taming and domesticating and how these animals played a huge role in Europe's domination. Why Europe ended up with the Guns, Germs and Steel to take out all 6 continents first. The Dead Do Not Die - Sven Lindovist, Really sequals Guns, Germs, and Steel and provides the European's stupid and unbeliebable reasons as to why they thought they dominated the land, and goes in to detail on the cruelty they enacted upon others. A colonialistic imperialistic explanation, compiling "Exterminate all the Brutes" and "Terra Nullius" into the mastery of The Dead Do Not Die Au revoir, adios et vale te, Peace, Stay PLUR and I'll see you in Mordor. MidnightTune
So the other day I was out, and I came up with this great idea for a book about an evil villain who can summon threads from the dead. I call it... The Necroposter. But then I realized writing that would require work and that it would be more fun to just act out the book myself. So here goes...
The mortality doctrine series by James Dashner is awesome! I honestly aint into books, but these 3 books i read them in less than a week! so addicting!
Recently (read: December of last year) I read the series The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. It's sci-fi/fantasy and takes a lot of inspiration from fairy tales
I've been reading mostly what is weird fiction. Originated in the later 1800s and early 1900s and it encompasses a lot of the themes of other fictions; ghost stories, scifi, horror, and fantasy. However, it predated the niche genre marketing that most would be familiar with today, so it was generally lumped into 'weird' fiction. My current collection includes: Bram Stoker's Dracula Ambrose Bierce Algernon Blackwood Zealia Bishop Robert W. Chambers Lord Dunsany August Derleth H.P. Lovecraft Edgar Allan Poe Clark Ashton Smith Nathaniel Hawthorne Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Robert E. Howard Frank Belknap Long Arthur Machen H.G. Wells I have a plethora of books, various fictions, history, and science. For a non-fiction recommendation, The Mathematical Experience by Philip Davis and Reuben Hersh. It is not a mathematics textbook, but a discussion on modern mathematics from a philosophical and historical perspective. I found it to be fascinating. For a few weird fiction recommendations, The Mound by Zealia Bishop (though almost entirely written by H.P. Lovecraft).
Although it's been about a year and a half since I achieved the financial independence to move out and get my own place, my sister managed that trick before I did. And she took all the Redwall books with her. So last week, I set about rectifying that particular hole in my shelf and ordered a whole bunch of them from Amazon (including a couple marked "used" in great condition, page edges all nicely yellowed and with that peculiar dusty smell you only get from an old paperback). I stopped keeping up with the books about halfway through, so I decided to start with "Marlfox," since it's one of the few I don't remember reading. Also picked up "A Closed and Common Orbit" by Becky Chambers - the sequel to her first book, which khixan recommended to me a while back (I think I may have mentioned it earlier in this thread). Just finished it last week, and it is amazing. Even better than the first one, IMO, despite its lack of Kizzy-antics. Plus, it's a fresh take on the idea of sentient AI, which is always a topic that grabs my interest. Highly recommended!
Green Eggs & Ham by Dr Seus Seriously, I will have to share this thread with my son. He will probably love it. By posting here it is easier for me to find it to show to him .
So I'm a 42 year old mentally ill shut in, so take my recommendations with a grain of salt. The REDWALL books are among my favorites, and there's only 22 of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwall
Sorry, guess I should've elaborated a bit more on that. Thanks for the link, Masterkism! But yeah, Brian Jacques' Redwall series is another of my all-time favorites. Medieval fantasy, and all the characters are woodland animals. The only real flaw is that - with few and specific notable exceptions - the animals all follow specific personality tropes. Hares are gluttonous and talk like Churchill, female badgers are motherly and males are the gruff silent-warrior type, shrews are hot-tempered, etc. Rats/weasels/foxes/(all reptiles) are universally evil and villainous by nature. Knowing a character's species typifies them to the point where it feels like it's the same character, just given a different name and backstory. At least, that was the case for the first dozen or so books as I recall - he may have broken that trend more frequently later on. (It also feels like anime at times - it's not a Redwall book if there isn't at least one feast, with lavish descriptions of an entire buffet.) Regardless, it's generally great writing and fun light reading.
One series that sticks with me is called The Last Dragon Chronicles by Chris D'Lacey. To try and explain the series in whole would be difficult itself as it does things in writing that should never be done, but for some reason Chris simply makes it work so well. Even though I can't give you a good description of the series I can tell you what it's about simply. David Rain is a British college student who ends up renting out a house owned by the Pennykettles. Elizabeth (the owner and mother to Lucy) makes clay dragons for a living, but there is more to the dragons than she lets on to David as he finds out when she makes him his own "special" clay dragon. The first book is more about squirrels oddly rather than dragons, but don't let that dissaude you. In this series every word, every action, everything has a purpose. In a way reality itself is played with in this series, of course that's only sometimes. In my opinion it is a must read for anybody who likes dragons or anybody who likes to have their expectations blown when reading a fanatsy series.
Always loved Redwall to death, but I suppose could be a bit tiresome to decipher to usual molespeak and things like that at times... and boy, did I get hungry at least once a book during those danged feast scenes.
Y'know, just a hunch, but I'm starting to get the sense that you really like dragons... Personally, I never had an issue with molespeak or other accents. And honestly, the species-stereotyping only began to bother me as an adult - when I was a kid and into my teens, it didn't really matter. One thing that's always thrown me for a loop though is trying to pin down the scale of Jacques' world. In the original Redwall, Cluny (the main villain) and his "entire horde" come racing up the road in a horse-drawn cart. There's also the matter of St. Ninian's Church. Both give the impression of a world where "humans exist" and animals are all at their proper sizes (respective to real-world counterparts). There's also the instance of Matthias "falling into Squire Julian's mouth," and so-forth. However, as the series (and even the first book) progresses, it suggests the characters are all relatively within the same physical scale. Mice are small, badgers are large, squirrels and hares somewhere in between, but it's the difference between a short guy and a basketball player, not "human vs beanstalk giant." I get the sense that Jacques initially intended to tell the tale from a real-world perspective, and realized later on that "mouse with a sword" standing up to a fox or a barn-owl at their proper scale just wasn't going to work.
Honestly I didn't read any of the content of this thread before I posted my Redwall support, I had no idea that the books had been discussed prior, I was surprised to see after I'd posted that my Redwall came directly behind another Redwall post.
I've been reading science fiction and fantasy regularly for about forty years. Many authors and stories I have enjoyed have already been listed here. When I am looking for a book to read there are a few authors who come to mind whose book I would want to read without even checking the cover because I trust that I will not be disappointed. Frank Herbert is the first. In my teens I had been reading mostly comic-bookish titles like Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and John Carter series, Howard/DeCamp/Carter's Conan books, Robert Adams' Horseclan series, and Piers Anthony's Xanth books. Once I was stocking new books in the store I worked nights at and read a few pages of "The White Plague". It was a bit more adult than I had been used to but it led to "Dune", then "Destination: Void" and the Pandora series which is my favorite of his. Parke Godwin: I mostly buy from used book stores and either no one seems to have read his books or no one wants to give them up after reading them. The result being that I haven't read as many of them as I would like and may not ever unless I break down and buy them first hand. I found his Firelord series first, and kept passing up a book named "The Masters of Solitude" because I simply didn't like the title. Eventually I picked it up and regretted judging by its cover for so long and this title is partly why I include him as a favorite. This novel surprised me in several ways I'll never forget. I also enjoyed Robin and the King and Sherwood. If I were to pick a favorite favorite, it would have to be CJ Cherryh. Both her and Herbert's writing can be what I sometimes call dense, but their stories are better because of it. One of the things that has impressed me most about her writing especially is her ability to immerse me in a foreign setting without forcing it on me as some authors seem to with goofy names and so forth. Everything seems tightly woven together like she's relating history and you are a part of it. The Faded Sun and Morgaine series attracted me first, then Ealdwood. More recently I've read her "Russian stories", Fortress and Foreigner series. There are still quite a few of hers out there I've been watching for. One on my to do list is The Kingkiller Chronicle. And Yes, I like series. I've read so many terrific novels that I wished had not ended so soon. There are others I feel like I should include but these are the three I've recommended the most to people because of my opinion of the quality and breadth of their work.
