Literature

[fguy64]

Well we've had movie threads, what about books. I'm mostly interested in what works of fiction you enjoy, but include anything you want.

I'll pose my favorite novel as a trivia question, anyone who has read the book will know the answer.

The title character swam the Wakonda Auga river.

[reed9]

Top of my list is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I know many people argue that Sometimes a Great Notion is a greater work than One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but I still prefer the latter.

[fguy64]

Top of my list is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I know many people argue that Sometimes a Great Notion is a greater work than One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but I still prefer the latter.

We have a winner!. I like both stories. Sometimes a Great Notion is very artistic in its use of the metaphor, as shown by the quote below. Did you ever read his novel Sailor Song? I'll keep my eye open in the used bookstores for "100 years"


Along the western slopes of the Oregon Coastal range...come look: the hysterical crashing of the tributaries as they merge into the Wakonda Auga River...

The first little washes flashing like thick rushing winds through sheep sorrel and clover, ghost fern and nettle, sheering, cutting...forming branches. Then, through bearberry and salmonberry, blueberry and blackberry, the branches crashing into creeks, into streams. Finally, in the foothills, through tamarack and sugar pine, shittim bark and silver spruce - the green and blue mosaic of Douglas fir - the actual river falls five hundred feet...and look: opens out upon the fields.

Metallic at first, seen from the highway down through the trees, like an aluminum rainbow, like a slice of alloy moon. Closer, becoming organic, a vast smile of water with broken and rotting pilings jagged along both gums, foam clinging to its lips. Closer still, it flattens into a river, flat as a street, cement-gray with a texture of rain. Flat as a rain-textured street even during flood season because of a channel so deep and a bed so smooth: no shallows to set up buckwater rapids, no rocks to rile the surface...nothing to indicate movement except the swirling clots of yellow foam skimming seaward with the wind, and thrusting groves of threaded bam, bent taut and trembling by the pull of silent, dark momentum.

A river smooth and seeming calm, hiding the cruel file-edge of its current beneath a smooth and calm-seeming surface.

[techieMoe]

I've been reading a lot more since I got my Kindle, so here's some authors/series I enjoy.

• Anything by Neil Gaiman
• The first 8 books of The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
• The first 8 books of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series
• The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher
• Fire in the Mist by Holly Lisle (free here)
• Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
• Most things by Ray Bradbury
• Those cheesy 80s pulp novels about Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Older Stephen King (Salem's Lot, Pet Semetary, The Stand)
• The Red Dwarf series by Grant Naylor

[reed9]

I'll give you Neil Gaiman, but Robert Jordan, I don't know. In the sci-fi realm, I'd say

• Anything by Octavia Butler
• Anything by Harlan Ellison
• Any of the Dune books actually written by Frank Herbert
• Snow Crash and Anathem by Neal Stephenson

The list is really endless.

I'm afraid I haven't read Sailor Song.

I'll leave with a trivial quote from One Hundred Years of Solitude, but one that sticks with me.
"The world must be all f**cked up when men travel first class and literature goes as frieght."

[oz]

I've never been much of a reader of fiction, but do like to read various educational materials. That said, I remember being totally obsessed with The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, and somewhat so by some of his other works.

[elija]

Where do I begin?

Gormenghast
Magician
The chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Anything by Piers Anthony
Anything by Terry Pratchett
The war of powers

The list is endless...

[fguy64]

I've never been much of a reader of fiction, but do like to read various educational materials. That said, I remember being totally obsessed with The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, and somewhat so by some of his other works.

Yeah I was obsessed by Rings back (way back) in high school. I figured any book that Led Zeppelin sang about must be pretty cool. Hobbit for us was some kind of a drug term, I forget the exact meaning, perhaps something you see when you are really stoned.

I don't read a lot of sci-fi, but Heinlein impressed me a lot, especially Stranger in a Strange Land which I thought was brilliant. There is another sci-fi book called Illegal Alien, by Robert Sawyer, which has the perhaps the best ending ever, I damn near stood up and cheered.

I remember the day I opened my first Henry Miller book, Tropic of Capricorn . I was instantly caught up by his energy, and tore through his entire collection forthwith.

[jayd512]

I don't read a lot of sci-fi, but Heinlein impressed me a lot, especially Stranger in a Strange Land which I thought was brilliant.

Actually, that's one that I recommend to just about everyone I know.

[psic]

Damn, if there's anything I really couldn't live without, it would have to be books.

You guys already mentioned a few of my favorites (Neal Stephenson, mmmm, Snow Crash is just awesome), here's some more stuff I enjoy:

-Lord of the Rings: I know, I know, you've all read it, and you probably love it. I'm currently re-reading it for the n-th time.
-Catch-22: hands down the funnies book in the English language. I re-read this every few years, and laugh every time.
-On The Road: probably my favorite book ever.
-The Gentleman Bastards series by Scott Lynch: awesome fantasy, I'm waiting for the third book in the series, which should be coming in the second half of this year. It's very well written and just pulls you in, I seriously recommend this.
-Legend by David Gemmell: I've just read the first book in this series, it's been around for a while but it's quite good. Very easy reading, but still interesting. Heroic fantasy.