[dcole]

Hello all,

I assume a few of you out there like to read. I have been enjoying doing so for about a decade now. Hated it in school. Have you ever read "The Stone Angel"? Look up a summary, you might agree its a shitty ass book for a grade 11 or 12 male student to read.

Currently I am reading "The Strain Trilogy" by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan as well as "The Dark Tower" series by Stephen King. I really like Stephen kings novels.

I think my favorite books are "The Hobbit" and "The Green Mile".

Whats your favorites and what are you currently reading?

 

[Wardo]

I've been reading the same dog-eared copy of a P.G. Wodehouse book for near on 40 years. Another one that I read a lot was Life At The Limit by Graham Hill but I haven't read it for a few years now. The big take away from Hill's book which I first read in or about 1972 was that you will be one step up the ladder in life once you realize that no one is going to help you.

 

[Robert1950]

Anything that has absolutely nothing to due with reality. Some recent Star Wars novels like Bloodline, The Aftermath Trilogy.

 

[zontar]

I am finishing up Why You Love Music by John Powell--interesting read--not sure I agree with everything in it--but lots of food for thought. & lots of stuff I can relate to.
Also re-started Of Other Worlds by CS Lewis--which is a collection of essays on writing--with some short samples.
His stuff on children's literature is quite interesting
And I am also reading Authority by D. Martyn Lloyd Jones

Overall I read more non fiction--including-but not limited to-books on music, history, theology & biography.
In fiction I prefer thrillers & action stuff-or humour.

 

[bw66]

I actually enjoyed "The Stone Angel" in grade 13, but largely because my grandmother was battling dementia at the time. Also, I had a male teacher, so that may have tempered my experience a bit...

Favourite books of all time is hard to nail down. Some that come to mind are "Anna Karenina", "The World According to Garp", and "A Tale of Two Cities".

These days, I mostly read non-fiction and I'm working my way through Bruce Cockburn's autobiography and David Byrne's "Bicycle Diaries". The Cockburn book has been very interesting so far. "Bicycle Diaries" not as much, but not bad - I keep it in my backpack for when I have a few minutes to kill. I recently really enjoyed "Quiet" and want to read "Outliers".

Best musical books, is an easier list: "Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy" by Robert Jourdain (thanks, @Mooh !); "How Music Works" by David Byrne; and "The Music Lesson" by Victor Wooten (not into the new-agey stuff, but the rest was gold!) are the three that come to mind right away.

Edit: "Who Has Seen the Wind" rocked my world too.

 

[KapnKrunch]

The classics!!
Dickens: Oliver Twist, Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevski: Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov
Victor Hugo: (Hunchback of) Notre Dame de Paris, LES MISERABLES (best ever, disregard all bastardizations)
Mary Shelley (19-year-old): Frankenstein (SO different than what you may think)

Modern?
Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan (1946), Gormenghast (1950), Titus Alone (1959) ["... more accomplished work than the contemporary and better known Lord of the Rings." -- Wikipedia]
H.G. Wells: War of the Worlds
Steinback: Travels with Charlie

I am getting ready to attempt Tolstoy: War and Peace

Contemporary? Sure, why not? Lots of good stuff out there.
Best living writer: Stephen King (he knows how to tell a... STORY!)

 

[Wardo]

I read Gormenghast when I was in HS. It wasn't on the reading list but then neither was Dylan Thomas and I read that too. Peake's description was such that I could actually see the places that he was writing about.

 

[knight_yyz]

sci-fi and fantasy nut. I'm actually re-reading American Gods right now by Neal Gaiman

Favorites? Battlefield Earth for pure sci-fi. The Expanse is an amazing series as well. Anything from Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Asimov. L. Ron Hubbard's Mission earth is an excellent satire and sci fi rolled into 10 books.

For Fantasy, Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series is at the top of my list, as well as MargaretWeis/Tracy Hickman's Death gate cycle. Game of Throne's obviously, Zelazny's Amber series.

I'm also into historical fiction, King Arthur, Knights Templar, especially anything by Jack Whyte. This guy has an amazing imagination. His take on the Lady of the Lake is just so different it blew me away.

 

[dcole]

Thanks for the replies guys! Lots of diversity out there. I am going to try the Gormenghast series. I hadn't heard of it before. I am a sucker for series of books for some reason. I've gotten through Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones), Harry Potter, Saga of the First King and probably some others I can't recall.

 

[BSTheTech]

Just finished Chrissie Hynde's book "Reckless: My Life as a Pretender". Good read. Mostly about her life growing up in Akron and moving to London before starting the band.

 

[Steadfastly]

I am pretty much a voracious reader. I have gone through spells when I haven't read but they are few and far between. I like books on history, a good mystery with lots of twists and turns. I don't care for science fiction as I prefer reality. Any fiction books I read I prefer to be based on a historical base, so I learn something as I read. I've read the Bible a number of times and try to do a bit of that every day.

When I was growing up we never had a library in our small village so getting books to read was difficult as we never had much extra money to buy books. My Mother got me a subscription to Reader's Digest and that was finished the same day. Our "reader" book that we got in school was finished in a few days and I have read three novels in one day many times. It has been one of life's pleasures for me from the time I could read.

 

[Guitar101]

Think about how good of a guitar player you would be if the time you spend reading was used to practice guitar. I'm pretty sure Stevie Ray didn't read.^)@#

 

[cboutilier]

I'm just finishing up Robbie Robertson's autobiography, and about to start Myles Goodwyn's.

My favorite books are the entire Middle Earth series from Tolkien. LOTR, Hobbit, Silmarillion, etc.

 

[allthumbs56]

In the past 10 years it's been anything by John Sandford, Robert B Parker, Robert Crais, Bernard Cornwell, and Lawrence Block.

 

[Ti-Ron]

I am currently reading "Le voyage de l'éléphant" bu José Saramago. I am a big fan of his works.

My favorite book of all time? What a hard question!
One of the most prominent book I've read in my youth was "Les particules élémentaires" by Michel Houellebecq.
This book opened my eyes so much.

 

[colchar]

I only read non-fiction, never fiction. But I do read constantly and currently have the following on the go (less than ten pages to go on the first one and, once that is done, something else will replace it unless I decide to pare down the current reading list a bit):

Modernity Britain: Opening the Box, 1957-59
Arnhem: The Battle for Survival
London in the 18th Century: A Great and Monstrous Thing
London in the 19th Century: 'A Human Awful Wonder of God'
Never Had it So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles
Tower: An Epic History of the Tower of London
The Royal Stuarts: A History of the Family that Shaped Britain
The Oxford History of Britain


Some of these books are on my desk, or close to it, but others are in various rooms around the house so that I always have one close at hand.

 

[colchar]

Hello all,

I assume a few of you out there like to read. I have been enjoying doing so for about a decade now. Hated it in school. Have you ever read "The Stone Angel"? Look up a summary, you might agree its a shitty ass book for a grade 11 or 12 male student to read.

The Stone Angel? Ugh. Thanks for the flashback.....the only thing worse would have been had you mentioned any of the Margaret Atwood tripe we were forced to read in high school.

 

[zontar]

The Stone Angel? Ugh. Thanks for the flashback.....the only thing worse would have been had you mentioned any of the Margaret Atwood tripe we were forced to read in high school.

I had an assignment in Grade 11 that involved reading three Margaret Laurence books--three...

 

[colchar]

I had an assignment in Grade 11 that involved reading three Margaret Laurence books--three...

You poor bastard.

 

[High/Deaf]

I pretty much exclusively read non-fiction and biographies.

Recently read one about Ian Fleming's time on Jamaica and his house there (Goldeneye: Where Bond was Born). Also one about a spinster heiress who died at over 100 years old - and no one in her family even new about her, but they all crawled out of the woodwork to get a piece of her fortune (Huguette Clark - The Phantom of Fifth Avenue). Years ago, I read Titan: The Life of JD Rockefeller and it stuck with me for years after. I will reread it some day.

I also like physics books and Brian Greene's 'The Elegent Universe' keeps blowing me away every time I read it. I learn something new on each read. Sagan's Cosmos, too.

I am gradually reading the Bond books over time and hope to try more fiction when I retire. I've always wanted to read a few of the 'classics' I've heard about for years, like something by Hemingway. And who knows, if I have the time, maybe I'll try the Game of Thrones set. Or I'll just reread Titan and The Elegant Universe.