It's hard to give good suggestions without knowing me or what I like, but I'm willing to listen to what anybody has to say. I've read a bunch of Jonathan Franzen's stuff somewhat recently, and really liked "The Art of Fielding," by Chad Harbaugh.
Looking for Alaska by John Green. It's a young adult book about some teenagers that go off to boarding school together and get into some good ole tomfoolery. I laughed quite a bit, but I also teared up at some parts (which I don't normally do). I finished it in a sitting, it's pretty easy to read. The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I've only read the first two so far but I randomly picked up this gargantuan book with five of the novels in one. Definitely starting over from the beginning. This book tends to show up on internet forums all the time but I can't stress how funny it is. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. Not his best work but I read it a week or two ago and found it pretty funny. I'd classify it around fantasy/humor/adventure.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. It's about Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, his group of avant-artists, the Merry Pranksters, and how they pretty much birthed the movement that eventually resulted in the Summer of Love in Haight-Ashbury, San Fransisco, CA. Very good read, especially if you're interested in the realm of psychedlia and life in the 60s.
Are the first two, the non-whimsical, approachable by a read 21 year old? I like hearing about people's favorite things, it opens a window into their head. mk, I wanna see your brain. for the record, one of my favorite books -- the Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
The Gadfly is very accessible, and is short. Foucault's Pendulum is much less so, and I appreciated it for being esoteric and atmospheric. If you haven't read any Eco, I suggest The Name of the Rose first. It's a very enjoyable read, and every bit as engaging as FP but not as dense.
I have 30 books in my amazon cart. I'm going to move this to number 3-5, it looks very good. Will need to brush up on my latin, though. Danke
Had a good time with "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy. It takes some rifling through the dictionary (a Spanish-English one would probably help as well), but it has a great middle-of-the-desert hallucinatory vibe to it. I'm currently reading "Citizen Vince" by Jess Walter- considerably lighter, but a good easy read. Different genre- I really enjoyed "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" by Susanna Clarke. Give it a try if you're into more fantastical stuff. Looking at my bookshelf right now, two non-fictions jump out at me- "Team of Rivals" is great, although just about everybody's already read it at this point. If you haven't, it's good and long. "A Primate's Memoir" by Robert Sapolsky is hilarious and poignant and engaging. It's about baboons. Both my wife and my dad have been trying to get me to read "A Fine Balance" for a couple years now. I really should get to it. Or maybe you should get to it and report back to me, let me know if it's worth it. Supposed to be good.
I'm currently reading Vineland by Thomas Pynchon. It's my first Pynchon novel and I was excited to read what's the big deal with him. My first impressions, from the 150 or so pages I've read on it: The novel is witty. I personally don't find it funny, but it tries to be funny and does so well enough for me to find the humour witty. I can't help but feel that Pynchon is mocking his readers. The characters make references to pop culture of the times (A Character whistles a tune from the Flintstones, for example), but does so in what I think is a purely superficial way, as if to say: "If you understand this reference, there's a problem here". I'm not sure if that was his intention, but I get that impression. The characters act in a manner often reminiscint of Kafka's characters (At least I get a kind of feel of similarity between the character) at times, and at times it seems he's trying to mock us for our narcissism, trying to knock us down a peg through having our characters act serious about absurd things, like how the main character tries to jump off (fake) windows every so often in order to keep his government checks coming in, and all of his friends know this and don't discourage him or comment on it in any deeper manner (From what I've read so far in the book). It reminds me a lot of Catch-22, except there's no Yossarian, or if there is, he's as crazy as the rest. But hell, Wikipedia pretty much has it down better than I could ever describe it: That's what to expect in Vineland. I might want to note that the television addict thing is meant to be literally addicted to television like someone is addicted to meth. Alternatively, I just finished going through EVERYTHING by William Gibson and I could say if you like cyberpunk or even awesome fiction that deals with technology, political intrigue, espionage, conspiracies and so on in an intelligent manner, you should give him a try. Wikipedia has it righter than I could ever say again: And somewhere, I made a post detailing my top five favorite books, which were Don Quixote, Ulysses, Faust, The Castle and Plato's Symposium. I would recommend those to anyone looking for something that is worth a reading that will engage them in some way.In addition, the novel is replete with female ninjas, astrologers, marijuana smokers, television addicts, musical interludes (including the theme song of The Smurfs) and, naturally, metaphors drawn from Star Trek.
Leonard's review called Idoru a "return to form" for Gibson, while critic Steven Poole asserted that All Tomorrow's Parties marked his development from "science-fiction hotshot to wry sociologist of the near future."
Definitely sounds interesting. I can definitely see it being something awesome of way over my head - Catch-22 felt that way, but it could have been my age when I read it, back when I was in high school. I don't think I've read anything that would be qualified as cyberpunk, but enjoy the elements mentioned and intelligent manners, so I'll have to look into it. I've never tried Don Quixote, but I'm familiar with the story from The Man of La Mancha, so it's been on my radar before. A little random, but "quixotic" has to be one of my favorite words, for its uniqueness, its pronunciation, and its derivation.
If you do read Gibson, let me give you a fair warning: the most popular work of his, Neuromancer, reads like a steep cliff. I read it, went through about 10 pages of it, put it down and didn't pick it up for four years. I then read Idoru and enjoyed that so much that I read Neuromancer and then everything else he ever wrote. This video also helped: http://youtu.be/kWeWBnRwjnw Although I hate the guy presenting it.
Most Pynchon is hard going (a nice exception is the short, accessible, and terrific "Crying of Lot 49". I liked "Vineland" okay, and I like "V" more, but it was mostly over my head. "Gravity's Rainbow" has some great moments, but few and far between. It's overrated, in my opinion - probably because, again, I didn't 'get' most of it.
I think I skimmed every book assigned to me in high school, which covers a few from the board's list. I didn't take any english classes in college, but I did manage to read some major books during those years somehow. I'll have to give it another look, though I have to say I'm not one to slog through anything.
Haha - I don't mean that it counts - I mean that a few of the books I was supposed to read were on this list, but never actually read.
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Wintersson. Some of my favourite books. Be warned - Infinite Jest and The Count are proper undertakings; they'll take a while to chew through.
I've read some of David Foster Wallace's essays, but haven't had the gumption to tackle Infinite Jest yet, and from what I understand The Count is a serious effort as well. I'm generally hesitant to start anything that long, if only because I can get bored or discouraged easily. It's not the best trait, but it's why I've tried to read essays or shorter works by authors to get an idea of their style before delving into their lengthier volumes. I have been looking into books by Murakami to read - unfortunately they've been pretty consistently checked out of the library...
My personal favorite is Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling. It's the first of an ongoing series, so if you like it there are almost a dozen more to read afterwards. The book is centered around a small group of people near Portland, Oregon, who band together for survival after a mysterious event (a blinding, painful flash of light that is seen and felt by every human on the planet at the same time) wipes out all technology on the planet. Planes fall out of the sky, combustion engines and even steam power cease to function properly, gunpowder only fizzles and burns slowly instead of igniting in a powerful explosion. In short, the entire planet is thrust back into the Dark Ages overnight, and only those with the foresight to get out of the cities and into the country have any chance of surviving what is eventually known as "The Dying Time" once the food runs out. I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic fiction, and this book delivers.
I haven't heard of them. I really enjoyed Margaret Atwood's apocalyptic Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. Was a TV series made from these books? The concept seems a little familiar, but then again, a lot of post-apocalyptic premises share characteristics.
There is a show called Revolution that pretty much ripped off the general plot of Dies the Fire, but the characters & other details are completely different. The show is centered around a small group of 5-6 people, whereas the book series deals with entire communities, sometimes on different ends of the globe. There are also lots of massive battle scenes in the books, but the show is just a pretty standard hero/villain action flick. I watched it, and for what it's worth, I enjoyed it, but the books are better than the TV show by several orders of magnitude.
Nocturne: A Journey in Search of Moonlight by James Attlee
Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King, Crime and Punishment by Dostoyovsky, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, The River of Doubt by Candice Millard. I enjoyed all of these books for different reasons.
Weird coincidence - I am nearly finished with The Dark Tower (last book of the Dark Tower series). I may have to pick up "Eyes of the Dragon" next. SK is not exactly highbrow stuff, but I like a lot of his work anyway.
I read it as a kid, but I would bet that I'd still enjoy reading it as an adult. I like SK.
I tried reading The Corrections and wasn't able to get through it, although I enjoyed Freedom. I can see why it would get mixed reviews. I haven't read his first two novels, but I read his three essay collections (and technically Spring Awakening was translated by him, but I'm not really going to give him credit for that one), but I'm a sucker for autobiographical essays.
House of Leaves is great, but will take a lot of your time and energy.