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Post by eyemyself on Dec 23, 2013 16:59:55 GMT
Just adding unrelated commentary that Ulysses is the worst book that it has ever been my profound displeasure to not be able to avoid encountering. I actively went out of my way to avoid it after being forced to slog my way through "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." Joyce does well with short fiction, his novels make me want to poke my own eyes out and I like most modernist literature. |
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Post by Daedalus on Dec 23, 2013 19:01:30 GMT
Wait, they didn't make High Schoolers read that thing did they? Heads would explode. They did indeed. I think I was the only one who finished it. |
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Post by GK Sierra on Dec 23, 2013 19:30:17 GMT
Wait, they didn't make High Schoolers read that thing did they? Heads would explode. They did indeed. I think I was the only one who finished it. I remember one time we were reading "And Then There Were None" at the typical high school pace of 5-7 pages a day (read: glacial), so I decided to read ahead and ended up finishing it. Then the teacher asked us what our bets were on who the murderer was, and I pretended to guess correctly. 16-year old me felt like such a boss that day. Then I doodled spaceships for the rest of the semester. The only thing worse than that was how the glacial pace and incessant busy-work assignments brought me to loathe To Kill A Mockingbird, which is a tragedy because that book is awesome. No wait, I take it back, Romeo and Juliet was a thousand times worse. |
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Post by zimmyhoo on Dec 24, 2013 4:54:21 GMT
Just adding unrelated commentary that Ulysses is the worst book that it has ever been my profound displeasure to not be able to avoid encountering. I actively went out of my way to avoid it after being forced to slog my way through "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." Joyce does well with short fiction, his novels make me want to poke my own eyes out and I like most modernist literature. They did indeed. I think I was the only one who finished it. I remember one time we were reading "And Then There Were None" at the typical high school pace of 5-7 pages a day (read: glacial), so I decided to read ahead and ended up finishing it. Then the teacher asked us what our bets were on who the murderer was, and I pretended to guess correctly. 16-year old me felt like such a boss that day. Then I doodled spaceships for the rest of the semester. The only thing worse than that was how the glacial pace and incessant busy-work assignments brought me to loathe To Kill A Mockingbird, which is a tragedy because that book is awesome. No wait, I take it back, Romeo and Juliet was a thousand times worse. Funny, I went out of my way a few years ago to read Portrait...Young Man, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm really sorry that you didn't like TKAM. I'm a homeschooled student and I read abnormally quickly, so I devoured my family's none-too-small library in my first few years. It's both a blessing and a curse - I got a ~300 page book from the library and consumed it in a few hours between cleaning the house. Now I've got nothing to read again  I couldn't *imagine* having to read with glacial pace and incessant bust-work assignments - no wonder somebody would hate books. Man, you guys; you don't know what you're missing. |
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Post by GK Sierra on Dec 24, 2013 5:14:45 GMT
Funny, I went out of my way a few years ago to read Portrait...Young Man, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm really sorry that you didn't like TKAM. I'm a homeschooled student and I read abnormally quickly, so I devoured my family's none-too-small library in my first few years. It's both a blessing and a curse - I got a ~300 page book from the library and consumed it in a few hours between cleaning the house. Now I've got nothing to read again I couldn't *imagine* having to read with glacial pace and incessant bust-work assignments - no wonder somebody would hate books. Man, you guys; you don't know what you're missing. That's the thing, though, I really loved TKAM, but only the first time, and not in pop-quiz spoonfuls every single day for the rest of the year. I was home-schooled briefly in middle school, but then my mom got pregnant again so I got tossed back in the mix. Luckily in California there is this test called the CHESPE which you can take starting 2nd semester of sophomore year of HS, so I only had to do 2 years of hell before getting a diploma in the mail. Happiest damn day of my life. Also, I feel your pain about books, dude. They go by way too fast, especially the good ones. I have to swap out the ones on my shelf about twice a year, and it's a chore.  |
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Post by Daedalus on Dec 24, 2013 5:25:16 GMT
I feel your pain: I read about 2000 words per minute, so buying books is a losing proposition. I used to go to bookstores (bringing my own chair) and work my way through bookshelves as the afternoon passed. Good times.
My favorite book has always been Watership Down (also the first long book I read, in kindergarten). I'm also partial to science fiction (especially David Brin's Uplift sequence). Today I finished Attanasio's epic Camelot rebelling called The Dragon and the Unicorn.
What books do you all like?
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Post by Gotolei on Dec 24, 2013 5:29:38 GMT
Watership Down..did so many reports on that thing. There's more tape holding it together than spine. Am I the only one who re-used the same powerpoint for different teachers year after year, just adding a few things to it each time?  |
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Post by Daedalus on Dec 24, 2013 5:30:55 GMT
Watership Down..did so many reports on that thing. There's more tape holding it together than spine. Am I the only one who re-used the same powerpoint for different teachers year after year, just adding a few things to it each time? I've actually never had to do a report on it. Loved it, though. And no, of course you're not the only one. No one ever liked literature projects. |
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Post by The Anarch on Dec 24, 2013 5:40:20 GMT
In 11th grade English class, my teacher wrote the names Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Steinbeck on the board and proclaimed them the three greatest novelists of the 20th century. Having already read The Old Man and the Sea and The Pearl, it only took reading The Great Gatsby later in that class for me to decide that I hated great novelists with a fiery passion because their books are so damn awful, torturous, and pointless.
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Post by GK Sierra on Dec 24, 2013 5:41:40 GMT
My favorite book has always been Watership Down. What books do you all like? Ah, that's a great choice! It's like Redwall on steroids with none of the sequel fatigue. I could spend all day on that question, honestly... Street Boys by Lorenzo Carcaterra is one of my favorite pieces of historical fiction. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is particularly haunting. Ray Kurzweil's "Age of Spiritual Machines" is an eye-opener about the progress and general upward trend of modern technology. The War Nerd by Gary Brecher is also a must-read. Nothing less than the modern equivalent of Sun-Tzu's "Art of War", except with more caustic personal anecdotes and zero moral accountability. James Harriot's tales of being a rural animal veterinarian (All Things Bright And Beautiful, All Creatures Great And Small) are always nice whenever I need something heartwarming. Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll, the story of a Berkley astronomer who, in the process of auditing a 25 cent glitch in a computer, stumbles across an international computer espionage ring based in Germany and directed from the USSR. Best part is that every word is true. Anything by Hunter S. Thompson, really. As far as I am concerned that man never had an unoriginal thought in his life, which is probably why he blew his brains out. |
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Post by Daedalus on Dec 24, 2013 5:49:52 GMT
I could spend all day on that question, honestly... I have acquired some new items for my reading list. Thank you. (I've read a couple, but I'm pretty sure Age of Spiritual Machines is my cup of tea). I also really, really want to get to The Long Earth. In 11th grade English class, my teacher wrote the names Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Steinbeck on the board and proclaimed them the three greatest novelists of the 20th century. Having already read The Old Man and the Sea and The Pearl, it only took reading The Great Gatsby later in that class for me to decide that I hated great novelists with a fiery passion because their books are so damn awful, torturous, and pointless. To be fair, The Grapes of Wrath is amazing. If you want American writers of the 20th century, though, nothing beats some of Sylvia Plath's work for emotion, diction, and writing style. It has to be read out loud, though, with knowledge of her life story. And has anyone here read any of the five Uplift books by David Brin? |
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Post by The Anarch on Dec 24, 2013 5:52:49 GMT
I am a horribly uncouth person completely without class. All my favorite writers are science-fiction, fantasy, and horror writers.
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Post by Daedalus on Dec 24, 2013 5:56:27 GMT
I am a horribly uncouth person completely without class. All my favorite writers are science-fiction, fantasy, and horror writers. Bradbury, Clarke, and Tolkien were my childhood. Along with Jordan, Brin, Asimov, and Rowling. Good to know someone else appreciates these genres of literature. No Poe for me, though. Ugh. Or Lovecraft. |
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Post by GK Sierra on Dec 24, 2013 5:59:48 GMT
I also really, really want to get to The Long Earth. Do it. The concept is brilliant. One wishes Terry Prachett could live forever. Just be prepared to be disappointed by the sequel. It was a joint effort between Terry and another guy (a more sci-fi type), and as Terry's Alzheimer's advanced, his contribution to the series declined, and it was readily apparent from the prose and the plot. No Poe for me, though. Ugh. Or Lovecraft. Crows, murder and tentacle monsters not your thing I take it? Not a fan of those either. I can see how people call Poe a genius though. |
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Post by The Anarch on Dec 24, 2013 6:04:58 GMT
Bradbury, Clarke, and Tolkien were my childhood. I just finished re-reading the space odyssey books a little while back, in fact. Though they did progressively decline in quality, they were all still good, and 2001 the novel should definitely be the classic that everyone remembers when you bring it up instead of that horrific movie. A good bulk of my book collection is made up of Crichton, King, Koontz, Foster, Hickman & Weis, Gibson, Gaiman, and Niven. Poe is alright as long as you stick to just one or two stories. Read any more and you realize you're just reading the same one or two stories over and over again. Lovecraft, on the other hand, I can completely agree. I despise his work and that of his disciples. It's disgusting, poorly-written drivel. |
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Post by sapientcoffee on Dec 24, 2013 7:54:21 GMT
Authors, eh? Butcher, McGuire, Adams, Nix, Fforde, Jones, Gaiman, Schroeder, Sanderson, Dillard, Lewis, Buechner, Nouwen, Austen, Westerfeld, Bujold, Alexander, MacDonald, Peake, Gould, Ness, Carriger, Flinn, George, Palahniuk, Meyer, Korman, Montgomery, Pierce, Moon Exhaustive, if not complete. =) James Harriot's tales of being a rural animal veterinarian (All Things Bright And Beautiful, All Creatures Great And Small) are always nice whenever I need something heartwarming. Did'ja ever see the tv show? |
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Post by alpacalypse on Dec 24, 2013 14:29:30 GMT
I have this weird love hate relationship with books. I hate reading, but I love reading books I like. I tend to fly through them if I have enough free time. I just have a hard time finding books I like. I think English class ruined books for me because I didn't like all the "classic" books and other titles we were forced to read, then forced to write papers about in a limited amount of time. One book that seems to have gotten left out of this conversation is the Odyssey. My classmates all hated it, even though we didn't read the whole thing and skipped around chapters. I don't think I ended up reading the whole thing myself, but I read most of the chapters we didn't read in class during class. Finally picked up the Song of Ice and Fire series, and what I've read so far has been magical.
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Post by The Anarch on Dec 24, 2013 15:11:19 GMT
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Post by zimmyhoo on Dec 24, 2013 15:27:55 GMT
My favorite book has always been Watership Down (also the first long book I read, in kindergarten) Hey, I'm going to join the Watership Down club here. I always loved that thing, but because of it I could never get into Redwall. It, and any other anthro, were physically painful to read. Anybody else here find that 2010 was a *lot* better than 2001? The books, of course. |
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Post by eyemyself on Dec 24, 2013 15:42:24 GMT
I grew up on a steady diet of Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Now-a-days I read mostly lit fic. American Post Modernists, Foreign authors who make it into English translation, short fiction, and the occasional "cheap escapist trash" as my father would say. Currently working on "Fierce Pajamas" and the "Grass is Singing." My recent favorite is "My Name is Red" followed closely by "Numbers in the Dark." I devoured "Hunger Games" and "Game of Thrones" last year. Have a soft spot for genre fiction. My own writing tends to stark snapshots of reality, like Raymond Carver or Lorrie Moore.
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Post by GK Sierra on Dec 24, 2013 17:52:05 GMT
Did'ja ever see the tv show? I didn't. How was it? Bonus points for listing Chuck Palahniuk  |
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Post by Intelligence on Dec 24, 2013 18:42:41 GMT
Back on topic!
GK Sierra's rating:
Avt: Moddey Dhoo. 10/10
Txt: That's good, I suppose. 10/10
Sig: Very much in perspective. 10/10
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Post by nightwind on Dec 24, 2013 18:54:22 GMT
I like my Lovecraft! And Poe writes really good poems. I'm reading very much, nearly all of it SciFi or Fantasy... or both. And Horror. And RPG-Sourcebooks, lots of them. Names and authors? Too many. Does anybody here know Perry Rhodan?  |
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Post by sapientcoffee on Dec 24, 2013 20:32:10 GMT
Just in case you've not heard about it: you might like the Welcome to Night Vale podcast (see their twitter for a sample of the humor). I like the 'inexplicable as mundane' aspect of it. Did'ja ever see the tv show? I didn't. How was it? Bonus points for listing Chuck Palahniuk It's utterly fabulous in that 1970s BBC way. And it follows the books pretty well. Still the only show I know of that has the actors actually up to their shoulders in cows/horses. It also has this (longish) scene. Grier's a right bastard, but I still laugh. Came for Fight Club, stayed for just about everything else. |
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Post by The Anarch on Dec 24, 2013 20:34:24 GMT
Just in case you've not heard about it: you might like the Welcome to Night Vale podcast (see their twitter for a sample of the humor). I like the 'inexplicable as mundane' aspect of it. I've only heard the first episode so far, but I did indeed enjoy it and intend to go back for more at some point. |
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Post by zimmyhoo on Dec 24, 2013 22:23:49 GMT
Back on topic! GK Sierra's rating: Avt: Moddey Dhoo. 10/10 Txt: That's good, I suppose. 10/10 Sig: Very much in perspective. 10/10 Yay, on topic. Must not let it be buried. AVT: I never liked your av, but it's become so engrained into my perception of who you are that I couldn't invision you changing it. 6/10 TXT: Hehehe. 9/10 SIG: I smell a portal reference. 8/10 |
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Post by KMar on Dec 24, 2013 22:38:46 GMT
Author lists! Yay! Or not. Didn't plan spending all of my 2-week holiday writing a list of authors I like. I remember one time we were reading "And Then There Were None" at the typical high school pace of 5-7 pages a day (read: glacial) What I don't even. ... (See the avatar on left for my reaction. It's useful for situations like this.) That's no the way to treat Dame Agatha. Either you read Christie like you liked it (that is, want to read more than 5-7 pages at time), or then you really should read something else entirely, if you're to read anything at all. (I, for one, sought refuge in Christie at the age of 8 after the all of the A. Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes the local library could provide was thoroughly read twice and enjoyed.) edit. And I'm somewhat confident one can't even come to appreciate the plot of "And Then There Were None" if you're not quite well-versed in the conventions and tropes of murder-mystery fiction and to really see why that title is different. The only thing worse than that was how the glacial pace and incessant busy-work assignments brought me to loathe To Kill A Mockingbird, which is a tragedy because that book is awesome. No wait, I take it back, Romeo and Juliet was a thousand times worse.
I read Romeo and Juliet some time ago, and it was quite... This is the piece of work they call the pinnacle of Western fiction about tragedy and love? What are those people thinking? This could be enjoyable if read as a comedy about idiotic teenagers fallen in love with their dream-picture of being fallen in love... so, terrible. Except for "I bite my thumb at thee!" bits. I guess it ought to be accompanied with a class in history of literature to really learn to appreciate it, at least I didn't.
In 11th grade English class, my teacher wrote the names Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Steinbeck on the board and proclaimed them the three greatest novelists of the 20th century. Having already read The Old Man and the Sea and The Pearl, it only took reading The Great Gatsby later in that class for me to decide that I hated great novelists with a fiery passion because their books are so damn awful, torturous, and pointless. (...) Poe is alright as long as you stick to just one or two stories. Read any more and you realize you're just reading the same one or two stories over and over again. Lovecraft, on the other hand, I can completely agree. I despise his work and that of his disciples. It's disgusting, poorly-written drivel. I can see how that kind of introduction to those authors could go downhill. Or actually, any introduction that begins with "this author is (one of) the greatest of (...)" (or amounts to about same). Not to even begin with the fact Great Gatsby is apparently analysed into pieces (and then some) in American schools (this I gather from numerous rants which are abundant in the Internet), which sounds like such a procedure that many a mere good novel would not survive unscratched as an enjoyable reading experience.. and I actually quite like it, it's one of the good ones. It may even have been a great one when the 1920's were a living memory. Poe is quite much to my liking, as I recently discovered, because if you read more than two of his works (and if it doesn't bother you that all of the Gothic fiction is quite similar alltogether, and in addition to that Poe's characters tend to be variations of each other) one notices that he's one of the great grandfathers of most western genre fiction (which I have always liked) and usually a writer of more than acceptably good capabilities. Detective fiction (as codified by 'Sherlock Holmes')? Meet Murders of the Rue de Morgue and C. Auguste Dupin. Pirates with hidden treasures and maps (as codified by Treasure Island by R. L. Stevenson)? Meet Gold-Bug (also, in addition to the Pirates, every work featuring cryptographic puzzles ever.) And there's the "science fiction"-to-be stuff too. And Lovecraft... well, concerning 'poorly-written', I can't really disagree and he isn't as awesome as some of the fans tend to portray him, but the 'cosmic, psychological horror' stuff and all that is still relevant. About 'disgusting'... there is a reason why horror genre is sometimes considered a morbid interest? |
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Post by GK Sierra on Dec 24, 2013 22:43:44 GMT
I read Romeo and Juliet some ago, and it was quite... This is the piece of work they call the pinnacle of Western fiction about tragedy and love? What are those people thinking? This could be enjoyable if read as a comedy about idiotic teenagers fallen in love with their dream-picture of being fallen in love... so, terrible. Except for "I bite my thumb at thee!" bits. I guess it ought to be accompanied with a class in history of literature to really learn to appreciate it, at least I didn't. I know, right? It's like Shakespeare's cheap cash-in blockbuster production. They could get students so much more involved if they did Henry the 5th instead. I also liked the thumb biting, and the joke about "maidenheads", which my teacher refused to explain to the class so everyone was staring at me wondering why I was laughing like a fool. |
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Post by fwip on Dec 24, 2013 23:14:16 GMT
I have heard of maybe a tenth of the authors mentioned. I really need to do more reading. (I asked for a Kindle for christmas, so that should help.)
I read Kim Stanley Robinson (Mars series), Arthur C. Clarke (2001: a space odyssey), some Asimov short stories, and... no one else famous, really. I used to be proud of having read A Tale of Two Cities in seventh grade, until I saw that daedalus read Watership Down in kindergarten. I also used to enjoy a lot of fantasy as well, which did a good job of counterbalancing the hardcore sci-fi.
Edit: forgot to mention, I really like Watership Down, although everything else by the author pretty much sucked.
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Post by sapientcoffee on Dec 25, 2013 0:29:32 GMT
I read Romeo and Juliet some time ago, and it was quite... This is the piece of work they call the pinnacle of Western fiction about tragedy and love? What are those people thinking? This could be enjoyable if read as a comedy about idiotic teenagers fallen in love with their dream-picture of being fallen in love... so, terrible. Except for "I bite my thumb at thee!" bits. I guess it ought to be accompanied with a class in history of literature to really learn to appreciate it, at least I didn't. I'm convinced it's taught as a "SEX KILLS" message. We never got to read any of the fun stuff. Or anything fun at all. Dead dogs, beatings, killing, selling oneself, rape, and madness were A-OK, but 'happily-ever-after'? NOPE. Thank god I'd already learned that reading could be fun. I have heard of maybe a tenth of the authors mentioned. I really need to do more reading. (I asked for a Kindle for christmas, so that should help.) Nice! Some sites you might know about, but I'mma share anyway: www.gutenberg.org/www.baenebooks.com/c-1-free-library.aspx...actually just see here wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Free_eBooksand for software, calibre-ebook.com/ |
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