Favorite Books and Authors [Archive] - Unofficial forum of group TATU

russkayatatu

15-10-2003, 05:07

We already have threads on favorite classical pieces, favorite bands, favorite movies...does anyone have favorite books or authors that they'd like to share? First, do you like to read? What novels/poems/plays do you enjoy the most or have meant a lot to you?

For me, I have a lot of favorites:

William Somerset Maugham - I've had friends laugh at me for liking him because they say "everybody thinks he's wonderful when they're twenty" :heh: but I like almost everything he's written - Of Human Bondage, and recently I read The Painted Veil, which I thought would make a good film. Not many people I know have heard of it, but Theatre is a fantastic novel; I love his style, the way he writes, and his ideas too: I keep turning them around trying to see where they fail but they stand up pretty well. :gigi: So at the moment I am enjoying liking Somerset Maugham :D

Thomas Mann, with his Death in Venice - sometime last spring I reread that novella again and I've remembered it over and over since then - especially one passage about "the communion of a mind and a body," when the hero is watching Tadzio on the beach and in the hotel, thinking over what his name could be and watching him from afar - maybe being alone so often this summer in crowds of people had something to do with it ;) but anyway, I think this is a beautiful book.

I used to love Sartre's plays: "Huis Clos," "Les Mouches," "Les Mains Sales" - I still like them, but not as much as I did. I like Hesse too, Steppenwolf and others - Kafka's stories - The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This summer I picked up Immortality by Milan Kundera and kept returning to passages long after I'd read them the first time...I think I like Kundera :) I also read Haruki Murakami for the first time, his novels Norwegian Wood and Sputnik Sweetheart, which after hesitation I decided were pretty good. And now I'm reading Vladimir Nabokov's Russian works, which I like much, much better than I thought I would; a long time ago I thought his Lolita was absolute genius - several English novels later I decided he wasn't so great after all, which is still sort of what I think - in some ways he is too narrow-minded for me - although his Russian works are pleasant to find, a real treat - Nabokov at his best is like twentieth-century classical music ;)

I like VS Naipaul too; his books disturb me because they're so depressing, somehow, but somehow I feel like it's very accurate, and pointed, and right to the heart :dead: I don't know how to explain exactly...I liked his Enigma of Arrival and A Bend in the River.

Huh, I guess that's more than enough (and a REALLY odd collection), although there are a lot more that I like...anyone else here have books they like? Can be any book, by anyone, doesn't even have to be fiction :)

thegurgi

15-10-2003, 05:16

Very Simply

HOCUS POCUS by KURT VONNEGUT. Man is convicted of a crime he didn't commit, he doesn't care, he's dying anyway, and the library at the prison is just way too cool. Written on scraps of paper. Weirdly Amazing. GO READ IT

oh, and Slaughter House 5 by the same.

actually, Anything by Vonnegut.

The Master and Margarita by Mihail Bulgakov, the devil comes to moscow during early soviet rule... and meanwhile a man who's retelling the tale of pontius pilate finds 'love' with the woman who is obsessed with him. IT'S AWESOME....

ummm...too many books to talk about at bed time!
bye.

Lux

15-10-2003, 05:53

for fun but stimulating reading, steven king: dolores claiborne, the shining, desperation, needful things, the tommyknockers [to name a few].

for oddly intriguing reading, anne rice: the vampire chronicles 1-4

for deep albeit slightly extreme philosophical reading, ayn rand: the fountainhead, atlas shrugged

for stylistically beautiful reading, john steinbeck: east of eden, grapes of wrath, travels with charlie

for utter indulgence, charles dickens: great expectations [one of my all time favorites]

oy there are so many more..aldous huxley, tom robbins, ethan hawke [the hottest state], max danielewski [house of leaves - but only if you want nightmares], eve ensler [vagina monologues!!! w00t w00t], david sedaris, the counte of monte cristo, jane eyre [or anything by the bronte sisters], pride and prejudice [classic], the great gatsby [classic], one hundred years of solitude....
oy it goes on and on, and i really should start recreationally reading again

but this should be a good start ... for anyone who wants to start with classics http://www.geocities.com/craigsbookclub/books.html

angeljas01

15-10-2003, 06:06

My favorite book of all times is "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky....It's really an amazing book that won't take to much time to read.

And if you want something grotesques I suggest "Splatter Punks"...a little bit of warning this is not for the weak of heart or stomach.

Tom Violence

15-10-2003, 11:52

I read The Master and Margarita very recently. During the week between finishing my university course and my university library card expiring, I decided to attack the Russian Literature section of the library. Not literally. It's a figure of speech, see.

It's a fine book, the magic realism puts me very much in mind of Gabriel Garcнa Mбrquez. Who is, of course, dynamite himself. A friend recently told me that he would buy and read any one book I recommended to him. Of Love and Other Demons was my choice. On reflection, Love in the Time of Cholera may be better. I love the sentiment that devoting a lifetime to apparently fruitless romance is a valuable way to spend ones days.

As it goes, I've been reading a great many novels in translation lately. They were off-limits during my English Literature course, so I've been overloading myself with them since. Next I intend to tackle Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov. I will admit it was solely the title that reeled me in. And the short chapters will suit my attention span.

Bringing poetry in, I would propose Miguel Algarнn is worth a few minutes of anyone's consideration. He founded the Nuyorican school of poetry. I once wrote a long essay about the use of the '/' symbol in his work. So there you go. Body Bee Calling from the 21st Century is a fine and frisky number.

LenochkaO

15-10-2003, 16:02

Originally posted by Tom Violence
Next I intend to tackle Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov. I will admit it was solely the title that reeled me in.

I like the sound of the title as well, for some reason.

I have "The Master and Margarita" on my bookshelf, but I've not been doing a lot of reading this year, for various reasons that I myself don't really understand, so it remains unread.

I used to be pretty keen on Kafka and Camus, and I loved Doctor Murke's Collected Silences by Boll, when I read it for German A-level. I loved "A Wild Sheep Chase" and "Dance Dance Dance" by Murakami Haruki (an old university friend of my bf's is Murakami's Russian translator, inkidinkily). I'd also recommend "The Castle of Dreams" and "The File on H" by an Albanian author called Ismail Kadare.

Charles

15-10-2003, 20:45

In on particular order:

Terry Pratchett - Discworld series
Isaac Asimov - misc. robot stories
Robert Heinlein
Arthur C. Clarke - 2001, Childhoods End, Randevous with Rama
Ursala K. Le guin - Dispossessed, The Lathe of Heaven, Earthsea Trilogy
Lous McMaster Bujold - Vor series
David Drake - Honor Harrington series

Granted, much of that is to literature as popcorn is to fine dining, but still fun to read.

QueenBee

15-10-2003, 21:22

I donno.. I don't read books very often. :/
Any phisophical/psychological books out there you would recommend?

nath

15-10-2003, 22:11

Hello Russkayatatu!..hehe....I Love Thomas Mann!...."Death in Venise" is beautiful..but try too "Tonio Kroger"...

My favourite writer is Tennessee Williams and all his novels and his plays...
I love Truman Capote, too....i love the man.
I adore Carson Mc Cullers..: "The Mortgaged Heart", "The Ballad of the Sad Cafй"(novels), "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" ...
For a long time, I thought that Hemingway was only a macho which was satisfied to go to fishing and to kill out of the savage animals, at the time of safaris. I discovered his writings which report his life in Paris "Paris is a festival" and I discovered there a man of a great sensitivity which can describe with wonder all these small simple happinesses of the life.
F.S.Fitzgerald : "The Great Gatsby", "Tender is the night".
Love Marguerite Duras: "La maladie de la Mort" ("Death's ill"), Stefan Zweig, Virginia Woolf, Ibsen, Oscar Wilde, Colette and Tchekhov... I adore Tchekhov..
I lived a great moment reading "The Sophie's Choice"..
William Boyd made me much laugh with "English in the Tropics"..

When I passed my baccalaureat (our French examination of end of studies), I put each time "Lolita" on my table of examination, it was my book "amulet"... hehe...

In this moment, my book of bedside is "Shadows on Hudson" of Singer(I liked enough the atmosphere of "Meshugah") but I will take your advice and will try to read "The Master and Marguerite" because that made 20 years that I intend to say that it is a good book...

haku

15-10-2003, 22:55

The 6 volumes of Dune by Frank Herbert.

1- Dune
2- Dune Messiah
3- The Children Of Dune
4- God Emperor Of Dune
5- Heretics Of Dune
6- Chapterhouse

I've read them over a dozen times.

parrish122

15-10-2003, 23:39

Robert Heinlen--Stranger in a Strange Land

Alice Sebold---The Lovely Bones

Pat Conroy--The Prince of Tides

Spider Robinson--The Stardance series.

Parrish

LenochkaO

16-10-2003, 02:39

Originally posted by Charles

Terry Pratchett - Discworld series

Doh! How could I forget Pratchett?! Interesting Times is a particular favourite of mine because of the Oriental (Auriental?) flavour :)

John Wyndham's books (Day of the Triffids, Midwich Cuckoos, Chocky, etc.) are vvvv.good.

Bill Bryson's books usually make amusing reading, particularly Notes From a Small Island.

guesshoo

16-10-2003, 03:07

the coldest winter ever - sistah souljah
whatever it takes - poisonous truth
the best laid plans - parrish
learning, loving, living - poisonous truth

(yes, 3 out of the 4 books were written by persons on this mb. :D )

teeny

16-10-2003, 11:28

Stephen King and John Grisham books.
Among the favorites: Stephens "Dreamcatcher" and Johns "Rainmaker"

But I liked Lorenzo Carcaterra - Sleepers, and Meave Binchy - Circle of Friends too.

lolitagirl

16-10-2003, 22:09

Catcher and the Rye - JD Salinger

Poems by Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Sappho and me. Yes I am a writer/Poet

Khartoun2004

17-10-2003, 05:18

Oh I just love books. You should see my house, most of the vertical space in every room is bookshelf after bookshelf full to bursting with books. But then again that's what happens in a house full of pack-rat book collectors.

my favorite author of all time is Ayn Rand. I know most people that have read her stuff either don't understand it, totally miss the point or don't agree with her, but She's changed the entire way I look at things. my favorite by her is The Fountainhead. It's absolutely amazing and I really wish I had a girlfriend that looked like Dominique. :dead: Oh and Kira Argounova from We the Living has to be the my favorite character from any book. I love her perseverance, strength, and will to live her life by her own standards, not anyone elses.

Charles, I really enjoyed Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy also. You gotta love Ged, and Tenar kind of reminds me of Yulia with long hair and black robes.

Another must read is of course Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings - Trilogy. My mom read it to me when I was six and I've read it once every year since i was about 12 I think. (Return of the king comes out on Dec. 17! :D )

Anne Rice is always excellent. I love her still and the way she portrays Vampires as more than just blood-sucking fiends. They have personality, depth and something that just makes them seem so romantic and beautiful. It almost makes you wish they really existed.

I think I'll stop now. I could go one and on for pages upon pages about the books I've read. I think I have a stack of 10 waiting by my bed to be read before next semester when I have English.

denial

17-10-2003, 06:56

... I tried .. I never finished any novel .. last year I tried to read that Vanish from Susan Sarandon ...still not finish ...lol ..

Post edited :none:

shizzo

17-10-2003, 07:12

I'd think that it's a bit difficult, considering how many books
a person must have read while literate, to narrow down all
that literature to select a list of favorites.
A more appropriate description of my preferences would be
a "contemporary list of potentially momentary interests".

:D

I've read a lot of William Blake's poetry, which I think is an
awesome collection of works. He has two volumes of poetry
which are meant to coincide [and contrast] one another :
"Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience". Nicely
different and oddly alike. I lufs!

As for novels, I'd been a big Christopher Pike fan [before he
hiatused for years and broke off the steady churning out
of books he'd had going]. Paulo Coelho's "Veronika Decides
To Die" is cleverly written and highly appealing to one's sense
of what matters in life and the entire interconnectedness of
everything. Profound on several levels.

As for my current favorite books... hmm.
Thomas E. Payne's "Describing Morphosyntax : A guide for field
linguistics" comes to mind. A textbook on the history and
grammar of the Afrikaans language is also of interest at the
moment. [I ьberlufs Afrikaans.] And the French version of the
novel "The Little Prince" ["Le Petit Prince"] also should be
named, since it's been an ongoing favorite for quite a long
time.

[I don't often stray far from the linguistic genre of books. Half
of my literary collection consists of language textbooks.
It's honestly a sad thing to realize at times. :P]

// Loki

luxxi

17-10-2003, 10:10

R. Heinlein-Starship Troopers
S. Pressfield-Gates of Fire
S. Pressfield-Tides of War
E. Bradford-Thermopylae, the Battle for the West
N. Chomsky-Fatefull Triangle
A. Beevor-Stalingrad
S. Huntington-The Clash of Civilisations
E. Manstein-Lost Victories
H. Guderian-Panzer Leader
H. Turtledove-Darkness series
H. Turtledove-Worldwar & Colonisation series
H. Turtledove-Great War & American Empire series
R. Harris-Fatherland
V. Bartol-Alamut
L. Hart-The Other Side of the Hill

raven ryuu

17-10-2003, 14:15

I rarely read books. My ADD keeps my attention span to a minimum :P So, I basically read magazines and the newspaper. Things have to be short and to the point. But this year, I was able to accomplish one of my life's goals, which was to read War and Peace by Tolstoy. It took me 5-6 months to finish it, but I was able to do it :D I think the only thing that kept me interested in reading such a long novel was the love stories within it :) I didn't care much for the historical context of it...Napoleon Bonaparte and his wars was never an interesting subject for me.

The only other things I read were requirements for school.
I was very fond of Jack London's "Sea Wolf". I can't remember the author, but Where The Red Fern Grows was a very moving story.

russkayatatu

18-10-2003, 00:00

nath - I like your books !! I remember reading "Moderato Cantabile" by Marguerite Duras in my French class and enjoying it...and Truman Capote, his stories and Breakfast at Tiffany's - the first time I read it I almost cried at the cat with no name and her when she drove away :grustno:

Chekhov, Chekhov's short stories are wonderful; I have a 4-volume edition of all his works at home...I have a lot of Russian literature because books in Russia are much cheaper than they are in the United States, so I have incredibly luxurious editions of Lermontov, Mandel'shtam, Pasternak - the one I don't have is Tsvetaeva, I couldn't find a good collection, which made me sad because she's one of my favorite poets. I had a friend who liked her too and I would tease her sometimes by quoting poems to remark on something she was doing - making it ironic and funny; it became like a game, especially fun because she didn't even believe I had READ these poems, much less knew them by heart :D Hahahaaa, for example, one time I wanted to go out - and paaarty :coctail: - and she didn't, she kept complaining that she was too tired; she'd gotten up early and she wasn't in the mood, so I sighed and started quoting: "Vam odevat'sya bylo len' / I bylo len' vstavat' iz kresla / A kazhdyi Vash grydushyi den' / Moim veselym byl by vesel" (You were too lazy to get dressed and to get up out of your chair, but every one of your future days through my cheerful one would be made cheerful). :cool: It was especially funny because this poem is from a cycle of Tsvetaeva's called "The Girlfriend," about a love affair she had with a lesbian poet who was several years older...so....my friend (who is also several years older ;) ) was in total shock that I knew it - I took a few graduate seminars on Russian poetry so I'd covered almost all the famous 20th century poets' works - and applied it to her :heh: :laugh: it didn't work though, after she finished laughing she said she was really, really too tired, sorry :rolleyes:

Hemingway...the only thing I have read by Hemingway so far is a short story about a boy with a fever who thinks he's going to die - I don't remember the title any more; it is only 3 pages long but it's very memorable, at least for me.

Another thing I have in my bookshelf is a memoir by Francoise Gilot called Life With Picasso - she was his wife later in his life when he was already famous, and it's an interesting book, well-written too.

The Sherlock Holmes stories and novels are great; I also liked Agatha Christie at one point, and Jules Verne, especially Journey to the Center of the Earth, Around the World in 80 Days, and From the Earth to the Moon.

I forgot to mention: Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, I like her too - and Rudyard Kipling, esp the Just So Stories and "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi".

For comedy :p I can recommend:

Nice Work by David Lodge
3 Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome (this is old but it is classic :done: )
"Private Lives" and "Blithe Spirit" by Noel Coward [plays]

Right now I am reading William Auden - he's a 20th century English poet - and Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon along with Dar - The Gift - by Nabokov, but thanks for these...

Madonna

18-10-2003, 00:53

OK, so the best book ever is.... (drumroll...)

Memoirs of a Geisha -by Arthur Goldern

If you havent read this book READ IT! It is great. It's about a geisha...that's all I can say I don't wanna give anything away. I bought this book in 2000 and read it like 10 times. It is awesome.

-Madonna

nath

18-10-2003, 01:16

Originally posted by russkayatatu
[B]nath ...and Truman Capote, his stories and Breakfast at Tiffany's - the first time I read it I almost cried at the cat with no name and her when she drove away :grustno:

Hemingway...the only thing I have read by Hemingway so far is a short story about a boy with a fever who thinks he's going to die - I don't remember the title any more; it is only 3 pages long but it's very memorable, at least for me.

Another thing I have in my bookshelf is a memoir by Francoise Gilot called Life With Picasso - she was his wife later in his life when he was already famous, and it's an interesting book, well-written too.

- and Rudyard Kipling, esp the Just So Stories and "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi".

Hehe...russkayatatu..."tastes' family[:b]".."links everywhere"..hehe...you know this scene with the cat..when i was a little girl , i didn't go to the cinema but i watched movies on the tv..and one sunday(10 years old)..,i saw a movie..the tittle in french was "Diamants sur canapй"("Diamonds on a sofa/sette?")with Audrey hepburn & George Peppard...and i CRIED and cried when she was under the rain searching and crying for her cat...5 years later, i went in New-York..and the thing i wanted to see in first was the "Tiffany"'s shop...because i remembered Audrey Hepburn looking through the window...
5 years later, i discovered that "Diamonds on sette" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's " were the same...and i loved Truman capote...and when i read biography about him...i discovered he loved all the people i loved: Tennesse Williams, Colette, Carson mac Cullers ....and always about these "heart/tastes families" after you discover that Tennesse Williams liked or worked with Maria Callas, Luchino Visconti, Anna Magnani... persons that i adore too...it was "magic" for me..

The Hemingway's book is "Les neiges du Kilimandjaro" "The Kilimandjaro's Snows"...in this book , there is a link with Paris too..in true , it's a little autobiographical..because at the same time, i think Hemingway was in separation with her 1rst wife with who he was very happy when they were poor & unknown , living in Paris.

In Paris, he was friend with Picasso too..beccause they had a same friend : Gertrud Stein...so you see, you too ...russkayatatu...you have "families" in the books you read..

"I also liked Agatha Christie at one point"...I read all her books..because when ,in your life, you don't want to think..these books slacken and make travel throughout the world... I dream to go to "Petra" because I discovered this place in his books ..
http://www.photo.fr/laterre/europafrique/textes/jordanie/jordanie3b.html

"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi":..oh! What such great memory of my childwood!....and Kipling!....love so much..humm...in french "Tu seras un homme, mon fils" ("You will be a man, my son")..I posted this poem on the wall, beside my desk, where I work ..:)
http://www.feelingsurfer.net/garp/poesie/Kipling.If.html
http://www.escale-japon.com/kipling.php

madeldoe

18-10-2003, 18:36

i've always found it amusing that Memoirs of a Geisha was written by a guy..lol :gigi:

as for me:

fitzgerald - tender is the night [i adore this book, didnt turn out the way i expected, but thats the reason why it had such an profound impact :D]
maya angelou - i know why the caged bird sings [whats not to like about this book?]
freud - [im still trying to decipher the book..but its interesting to say the least lol :D]
bret easton ellis - the rules of attraction
helen fielding - brdiget jone's diary
salinger
louis sachar - sideways stories from wayeside school [Love, love this book hehe ]
eddings
dickens
hawthorne - [ive always loved the scarlet letter]

nath

18-10-2003, 19:21

Nataku, if you liked "Tender is the night", you might read "Save me this dance" an autobiographical novel from the Fitgerald's wife: Zelda Fitgerald...
"Tender is the night" was inspired by Zelda.

LenochkaO

18-10-2003, 19:44

Originally posted by nataku
i've always found it amusing that Memoirs of a Geisha was written by a guy..lol :gigi:

Aye, well, it is fiction. He did do research by interviewing an actual geisha, but she said that he distorted what she told him and she ended up writing a book of her own (not sure whether it was translated into English).

For a pretty accurate book on geisha, I'd recommend Geisha by Liza Dalby. Interesting and informative. It was one of my major sources when I wrote my dissertation about the past, present and future of geisha.

haku

18-10-2003, 21:01

Originally posted by nataku
i've always found it amusing that Memoirs of a Geisha was written by a guy..
Not knowing a subject has never stopped a man from talking about it anyway! :D

guesshoo

18-10-2003, 21:15

what is a/who is giesha?

luxxi

18-10-2003, 21:36

Originally posted by guesshoo
what is a/who is giesha?

Japanese equivalent of courtesane, altough a bit different. Less emphasis on sex, more on entertaining men with dances and such.

LenochkaO

19-10-2003, 02:31

Originally posted by luxxi
Japanese equivalent of courtesane, altough a bit different. Less emphasis on sex, more on entertaining men with dances and such.

Actually, there were courtesans as well in Japan. Geisha originally started off as entertainers who would go to the brothels to entertain (with music and dance) men visiting the courtesans (who would also watch the entertainment). In fact, the original geisha were men. In time, geisha entertainment became popular in its own right because they were cultured and amusing, and had a certain novelty value. There are very few geisha now in JApan and if you go to Kyoto and see a woman who looks like the stereotypical image of a geisha, the chances are she's a tourist who's paid $100 or more to get dressed up like a maiko (apprentice geisha) for a couple of hours.

ypsidan04

19-10-2003, 03:16

Here's some books that I would recommend. There's different reasons for each, but they are all good. I don't know if all of these are available worldwide or not.

Napalm and Silly Putty by George Carlin - Basically, his take on life: almost anything you can think of, he talks about it. Very funny and very topical (also contains generous use of cuss words).

Brain Droppings by George Carlin - Haven't read it, but if it's anything like the above, it will be worth a read.

I'm Back For More Cash by Tony Kornheiser - This is a great mix of humor and seriousness. It's a collection of his columns in the Washington Post over several years. He's now doing a TV show on ESPN, and no longer writes for the Post, and his last column is included in the book. He also talks about many things: His family, his friends, sports, politics, and a lot more. Some are hilarious, and some make you feel sad.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King - I couldn't put this book down. I actually got emotionally into the story, just like the first Tatu fanfic I ever read (http://www.taty.ro/willow/) It's pretty tame by his standards: nobody dies, but there is the threat of dying throughout the whole book. And what happens to her could happen to anybody - that's what makes it so interesting. I don't want to spoil the plot, but if you like suspense, then you should read this.

Black Boy by Richard Wright - It's an autobiography about his childhood - growing up in the Southern US in the mid-20th Century. He had to deal with racism, family problems, and had to live with not enough money and food to go around. A good look into how life was for many African-Americans in the South at that time. Again, funny at times, and sad at other times.

madeldoe

19-10-2003, 03:38

Originally posted by sunwalk
Nataku, if you liked "Tender is the night", you might read "Save me this dance" an autobiographical novel from the Fitgerald's wife: Zelda Fitgerald...
"Tender is the night" was inspired by Zelda.

oh? thank you for the recommendation ms.sunwalk. Soo would it be safe to assume that Fitzgerald had an affair of some sort? or did i totally misinterpret your usage of 'inspired'? :D

spyretto

19-10-2003, 05:29

Reading for me is like classical music...I used to read for pleasure but don't read any more, not even at home ( not to mention I find those people who read in trains, planes etc. a bit wierd; you know who I'm referring too. ) :D I hardly even watch movies anymore.
I tried to read Umberto Eco's Baudolino last week and gave it up instantly ;) Yet, I was surprised to find out that I know many of those novels mentioned, as a matter of fact I thought that people would write about Jackie Collins or Harry Potter - or others I don't even dare to think about - yet most of you mentioned books from classic literature...you have very good taste, my friends.

The Master and Margarita is of course a favourite of mine. Slaughterhouse 5 too. Both are very entertaining, the former in particular with its morbid humour and finally a character I can relate to: the devil himself :D
or I could be Tralfamadorian, for a change...
Death In Venice is a masterpiece too, its diction is incredible ( I read an English translation, imagine how it'd be in its native German? ) I'm surprised you mentioned that and not Magic Mountain which I haven't read, perhaps because the former is substantially shorter? You can enjoy a book like that, Lolita the same, for the beauty of the language, not only for its titilation.
One I enjoyed immensively was Foucault's Pendulum, a lot more than the Name of the Rose, strangely enough. I don't know why, maybe that apocalyptic atmosphere of Templar Knights and conspiracy theories is more entertaining to me than a detective monk :D
About the holocaust I've read something by Duras but can't remember the title, it was a collection of 3 stories; the more interesting one was about a person subjected to the horrors of Auschwitz who is brought back to his family and is barely a human being, more like a living dead. With the same subject deals The Periodic Table by Primo Levi, which is highly recommended.
Neuromancer is a book I've read quite a few times, and although the effect wanes after a couple of reads, the claustrophibic atmosphere it creates is incomparable. Also highly recommended.
Two more books I recommend are from the American writer E. Annie Proulx. One is The Shipping News which was made into a film recently - the film was alright but it doesn't even come close to the book, naturally - about a hapless man who finds love in the more adverse of circumstances - I've wrote a piece on that book. The other one is called Postcards and it's a very bleak and unsentimental story about another man who lives his life on the run. The most preposterous character is the "hero" of the book the Pigeon by Patrick Susking. I couldn't imagine there are individuals like that one but who knows...
Hmm, I've actually read more books than I thought. Notes from the Underground by Dostoyeski features yet another of those antisocial characters. From other classics, I particularly enjoyed reading Shakespeare, Balzac, and hmm...no, definitely not Dickens. Thomas Hardy and Henry James are a bit of alright though; Cervantes too ;)
For me the best G.G. Marquez novel has to be One Hundred Years Of Solitude but I've also read Evil Hour and Love and Other Demons which is good but not a masterpiece ( in my humble opinion ) I presume everybody here have read Kiss of the Spider Woman and Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit ?? :D
Of those futuristic novels, I mentioned Slaughterhouse 5 but there's also Huxley's Brave New World which is absolutely wonderful. 1984 and Lanark are also quite interesting, though not in the same league.
The Scot James Kelman can be quite blunt at times but I enjoyed reading How Late It Was, How Late, which also won the Booker prize? am I right?
oh and, people may love Toni Morrison but I find her narrative technique quite wandering and frustrating. I cannot but marvel at a masterpiece like Beloved though.
There must be some more that I've enjoyed in the past they're in the tip of my tongue. Though I doubt you'd like to read any more on the subject any time soon...;);)

oh, I forgot to mention Greek writers: Nikos Kazantzakis and then, it's chaos and void. Greeks are a lot better as poets than prose writers.

oops, and Frantz Kafka..how could I forget him??? and Manuel Achebe's Things Fall Apart

nath

19-10-2003, 07:31

Originally posted by nataku
Soo would it be safe to assume that Fitzgerald had an affair of some sort? or did i totally misinterpret your usage of 'inspired'? :D [/B]
Yes Nataku....Fitgerald and Zelda lived in Paris and in the south of the France at the beginning of the years 20...In 1924, Zelda had a love affair with a French aviator in Saint-Raphaлl (south of France on the seaside) and she suffered from serious psychological disorders... if I remember well, she died in the fire of the convalescent home where she was because she trully had become insane. Fitzgerald took as a starting point all that and by their own life in France to create the character of Nicole Diver.

Uhaku

19-10-2003, 09:05

With a bachelor degree, I still feel uneducated and inexperienced. I'm impatient. So all those books I bought, I rarely finished them. These are the fortunate fews:

Greta Garbo: a life apart by Karen Swenson.
The Beach by Alex Garland.

Lord of the rings - only the last chapter. So it doesn't really count. -_-'

madeldoe

20-10-2003, 00:44

Originally posted by sunwalk
Yes Nataku....Fitgerald and Zelda lived in Paris and in the south of the France at the beginning of the years 20...In 1924, Zelda had a love affair with a French aviator in Saint-Raphaлl (south of France on the seaside) and she suffered from serious psychological disorders... if I remember well, she died in the fire of the convalescent home where she was because she trully had become insane. Fitzgerald took as a starting point all that and by their own life in France to create the character of Nicole Diver.

ohh wow, im definately giving that autobiography a read. Was the incident between Dick and Rosemary purely fictional? or was there some amount of truth in that account too. all this talk, has inspired me to read 'tender' again :D

russkayatatu

20-10-2003, 20:39

Aa, geia sou Spyro ! Pou isoun; Haven't seen you for a while :)

Hmmm, unfortunately I haven't read a lot of the books you mentioned (20 to be exact; I just counted) - although I liked Huxley's Point Counter Point - and I thought Beloved was something like a masterpiece too; I read it last spring when I was stuck in a hospital waiting room (along with a biography of Madonna; I read all kinds of books ;) ) and it was very good :done:

You want to read about the devil himself? :D You should read The Brothers Karamazov, also by Dostoevsky, especially if you liked Notes from Underground. My other favorite book by Dostoevsky is The Idiot... when she is going to let the money burn.. :hmmm: it is something incredible

Ahh, when you mentioned Balzac it reminded me of Flaubert, I can't believe I've forgotten him until now: L'education sentimentale...The Sentimental Education... sunwalk, there are so many good novels in French, and poetry too, tu sais - I remember reading Du Bellay and Ronsard, then later Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and a volume I don't remember the author of but it was called Delie (also really old, from the Renaissance); I can still remember a few by heart :)

In German I don't know the poets very well; I only know Rilke, a little....ehhh, and nath this is where the "familes of taste" come in: the letters between Tsvetaeva and Pasternak and Rilke are one of my favorite things to read. Tsvetaeva's prose is as good as her poetry sometimes, and their letters are something special. It's true what you say, too; although for some reason I go outside of my "families" all the time, so it seems strange for a lot of people when I recommend, for example, Transparent Things by Nabokov, which has almost nothing in common with anything but some of Nabokov's other works, but for a time it was fascinating for me to trace what it said and how it related to what he'd written before...so no one could understand why I wanted to talk about this book ....but in general I think you're right, I have "families" too: for example, Tennessee Williams admired D.H. Lawrence :). And Gertrude Stein...I read a little of what she'd written and thought some of it was all right, some much more and some I couldn't see at all...you need a lot of patience to read her books, I think.

I am so glad you know "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" - and Agatha Christie - I read mostly the stories about Poirot and Tommy and Tuppence, but she is amazing of that reason; it's the best kind of "light reading"...hmmm... when I was little I read Pinocchio and scenes like the bringing in the coffin when he doesn't want to take his medicine scared me to death...and the tree...but I liked these stories, other fairy tales too.

Another author: I don't like Oscar Wilde's plays very much but I like The Picture of Dorian Gray and De Profundis, which I don't think is "overwritten," like Harold Bloom said - but - oh well ;)

spyretto, I've been meaning to start Nikos K.'s Zorba the Greek :) When I have a little more free time I will. Also I haven't read Foucault's Pendulum but it's another one I've been meaning to.. and Shakespeare, I love Shakespeare, but especially watching the plays or listening to them on cassettes; I don't like reading them so much.

Edit: just remembered one of my favorite books: Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh.

ps/ spryo I'm impressed that you like to read Shakespeare in English - most non-native speakers I know think it's too hard (even when they know English really, really well), and if they're Russian they usually prefer to read Pasternak's translations. Which are good, I agree, but I'm biased towards the original nevertheless ;)

thegurgi

20-10-2003, 20:55

Originally posted by spyretto
Of those futuristic novels, I mentioned Slaughterhouse 5

Umm, you can't really call Slaughterhouse Five a furturistic novel. As it does rather accurately discribe the historical events of World War II. Forget Not, that Vonnegut was using his own experiences in the War and in Dresden for those parts. The book is written on no specific timeline, and is event driven. Besides, one theme of the book is that time is not important, since he jumps from event to event as if living them while viewing them at the same time. Not able to prevent himself from doing anything he wished not. It's a very fatalistic theme. But just because Vonnegut projects himself into the future, it never goes out of the near future. Like, i don't think his time line goes higher than 2010 or something, and that's not too far off. On the other hand, 1984 IS a futuristic novel, because it is so based in the altered future from the author's perspective. Slaughterhouse 5 isn't because Vonnegut doesn'r really describe anything of the future, and his life in the future other than how he dies. and he doesn't die by being shot with like a laser rifle, but with a gun we use today. So... I've stated my arguement... you can disagree. But, i've read too much Vonnegut to not know how he works.

And i'm telling you all, READ VONNEGUT, it's an experience.

luxxi

20-10-2003, 21:40

Originally posted by thegurgi
On the other hand, 1984 IS a futuristic novel, because it is so based in the altered future from the author's perspective.

Not necessary. Some critics claim Orwell is writing about 1948's UK, which was dark & unpleasant place and he got much inspiration from that.

thegurgi

20-10-2003, 22:04

Originally posted by luxxi
Not necessary. Some critics claim Orwell is writing about 1948's UK, which was dark & unpleasant place and he got much inspiration from that.

but he is still projecting into the future. I think he even says so in the book... but because he uses a contempory thing for reference doesn't take away it's futuristicness. Like, taking it backwards, how The Crucible,while historically based, had inspiration from the MacCarthy Trials where MacCarthy was hunting down communists. ... i'm ashamed that i can't remember who wrote The Crucible... i'm sure someone knows [it's on the tip of my tongue]. But if Orwell was project a contemporary issue into the future, it still makes the novel itself futuristic with having :: ahem :: contemporary issues. Social Commentary... gotta love it.

nath

20-10-2003, 22:11

Arthur Miller=The crucible

russkayatatu

20-10-2003, 22:13

Arthur Miller ( sunwalk I see you beat me to it )

It's interesting, one of Orwell's primary inspirations was a novel called "We" by the Russian author Zamyatin, also futuristic, written in the '20s...I've never read Nineteen Eighty-Four actually :o but "We" isn't bad ;)

thegurgi

20-10-2003, 22:24

sunwalk, Thanks! It was Killing Me that i couldn't remember it!

nath

20-10-2003, 23:11

Russkayatatu...it's funny because you "beat me too"..hehe...i was just thinking about Zamiatine and "Nous autres"("We" in french)....
"The Idiot", Rilke ..i liked them!....Oscar Wilde is, for me, of course, associated to "DE profundis " and "La ballade de la geфle de Reading"(something like that...written in prison , too)..i don't like his plays, neither but i adore his short novels for children "Le rossignol et la rose" , "Le prince heureux" et "L'anniversaire de l'Infante"("the nightingale and the rose", "the happy prince" and "the birthday of Infante") ...

Don't worry about "Gertrude Stein and the understanding"... nobody understood what she wrote excluded her..Hehe.... for me , she has interest only in the fact that she helped a lot of young painters and writers,as a "patron"(mйcиne in french)....but "A rose is a rose is a rose..."... it is a little boring!....and somebody who writes "I met only 2 geniuses in my life: Me and Picasso.".. that gives me desire for leaving while running... she was pretentious to die...!!!....but the book of her girlfriend is very interesting about artistical life in Paris after the 1rst World War : "The Gertrude Stein's Autobiography" by Alice Toklas..

Spyretto..i don't know "The pidgeon" but i've always heard great things about "Le parfum"("Das parfum") by Patrick Suskind...Henry James is great!

Lux..i agree with you Steinbeck is marvellous...

thegurki...you welcome..

I stopped reading for a long time (just a book or two a year now)..but this thread gives me desire to read again a little more...Thanks Russkayatatu....
And i think.....GOLD (Arthur), FIZDALE (Robert) : "Misia La vie de Misia Sert"(Misia the Misia Sert's Life) is a very interesting book too....she was a "mйcиne"(patron) and she knews a lot of artists and was the friend of Coco Chanel...very good biography....

russkayatatu

21-10-2003, 01:55

sunwalk, you are more than welcome :rose: Thank YOU, it's amazing for me to talk to someone who has read and loved the same books...yes, I don't think the "Alice Toklas" book was the one I was reading, although I thought about reading it...maybe now I'll try it again. And I'll be sure to see about Oscar Wilde's stories for children... Thanks everyone for recommendations; now I'll have to go find Periodic Table (for example) and Steinbeck and Vonnegut (which I still have not read :o ).

I read all the time, although most of it isn't "serious reading" - there are books I have to read slowly and pay a lot of attention to, and there are books I can read in one (short) sitting, mostly nonfiction: travel narratives, biographies, history, psychology; I like to read them occasionally, just for fun - like instead of watching TV :D Most books aren't wonderful - in fact most are garbage - so when I read these "other" books I usually just skim and can get everything out of it that way - although if it's something I'm really interested in, then even books that aren't very well-written become much more valuable just because of their subject matter - this is kind of the way that I read a lot of history; the last books I read like that were A Concise History of Bulgaria and Einstein and Picasso :gigi: Kafka said something about how a book should be like an ax cracking through our frozen mind; if it's not deeply affecting us, our opinions, and our way of looking at the world then why are we wasting our time? This is what I like to get out of reading, a look at life as if from someone else's window. :)

Here are some books that I've liked that aren't fiction:

A Mathematician's Apology by G. H. Hardy. I like this book not so much for the "apology," which is fine, but for the foreward by C. P. Snow, which I've read several times; I think it is GREAT - it is mostly a portrait and biography of G. H. Hardy, who was a famous mathematician. It made me want to read more by C. P. Snow, who has written some novels and and addresses - when I was in Europe I saw some of his novels but at the time I didn't have enough money to buy them and I thought I'd wait until I came back to the states...bad idea...now I can't find them :(

I also liked Men of Mathematics, by E. T. Bell, and The Man who Deciphered Linear B (about Michael Ventris, an architect), and Gods, Graves, and Scholars (about archaeology and archaeologists like Petrie, Woolley, Layard, and the decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, Champollion). I liked it so much I read a great biography of Austen Henry Layard - now I don't remember what it's called - and another one of Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor)...so apparently, a lot of biographies - also Les Mots (by Sartre, about his childhood), and Roald Dahl's Boy and Going Solo, and Robert K. Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra, about the last tsar of Russia. Also when I lived at home we had a 2-volume book on the composers, so for fun I would read those, all about Clara and Robert Schumann, Wagner's pretentious early work, Wolf being so poor he had to read piano scores like they were books.

Other good books: Blessings in Disguise, by Alec Guinness, and...I am getting back into fiction....Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, and some of the Bond books by Ian Fleming: From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Dr. No, Octopussy...the later Bond movies took the titles but not the plots of the original novels, but the early ones are faithful. They're only OK, I guess, but kind of fun.

Something else that people like to read...does anyone read comics? In my opinion the best series is FoxTrot, by Bill Amend - it's very clever stuff - I highly recommend it :gigi: . He's been doing it for almost 20 years, probably, and there are several collections out ;)

luxxi

21-10-2003, 09:40

Guy Burt-The Hole. Just finished it. Damn, that's one fine book. A bit short but IMO even if it was longer it wouldn't be much better. Much, much better than movie, which one can expect (OTOH I liked the movie a lot).

Off to start Himmler's biography. It's supposed to be good....

spyretto

25-10-2003, 07:42

I guess you're right about Slaughterhouse 5 thegurgi, and I wouldn't contradict you since you're a fan of Vonnegut and it's been such a while I've read that book. But they're futuristic elements in it, and they function as a cautionary tale, like the whole of 1984 does... so I think...

russkayatatu what's happening? soon enough you'll be speaking Greek better than I do :p

spyretto, I've been meaning to start Nikos K.'s Zorba the Greek When I have a little more free time I will. Also I haven't read Foucault's Pendulum but it's another one I've been meaning to.. and Shakespeare, I love Shakespeare, but especially watching the plays or listening to them on cassettes; I don't like reading them so much.

Zorba is just wonderful, very easy to read...and very idealistic :)

I love Shakespeare, but especially watching the plays or listening to them on cassettes; I don't like reading them so much.

Naturally, those plays were written to be performed. But I always have the book next to me while watching, ( not so easy to follow if you're not an English native speaker - but if you do that it's as easy as 1,2,3, ;))
I'd like to read "the Idiot". I'll probably do one of these days in the distant future :D I also tried to read something by Evelyn Waugh but didn't finish. I can't even remember what it was ;) - not the one you mentioned.

Haha, now I remember the last book I read "How to succeed in job interviews" LOL

denial

26-10-2003, 18:29

Originally posted by denial
... I tried .. I never finished any novel .. last year I tried to read that Vanish from Susan Sarandon ...still not finish ...lol ..
[/B]

:lol: ahahahahaha .. after I bought that 'Thelma and Louise' movie, I just realised that Susan Sarandon is an actress .. :lol: I don't remember who wrote that Vanish book :lol:

Post edited :none:

spyretto

26-10-2003, 21:13

yes, if u also include Brit Spears' biography....

russkayatatu

30-10-2003, 04:25

Pearl S. Buck is another good author: I've read The Good Earth, The Three Daughters of Madame Liang, My Several Worlds, and some collected stories ... My Several Worlds is a great book: her autobiography - her life was fascinating; she was an American, the daughter of missionaries who grew up in China and lived there when she was a young wife as well. The Good Earth won her the Nobel Prize, but I'd recommend My Several Worlds before it ... also her short stories; some of them are good. I like her style of writing: very simple and direct; it's kind of cleansing to read after you haven't for a while - at least I think so. At her worst she sounds old-fashioned and too simplistic, but I don't think they're real faults - she has some interesting things to say, and My Several Worlds in particular is definitely worth reading :done:

Lena410

30-10-2003, 18:30

I don't really have time to find all the titles of the books I like. I'm awful at remembering titles and writers.

One book I completly adore though came to my mind.
I absolutly love Dostojevsky's "Crime and Punishment". That book is just awsome. I would read it again if I had enough time.

Gutter Flower

06-11-2003, 22:16

I haven't read that many english books yet, but I really like
Speak
Happy Potter (all 5)
To kill a mocking bird
Bud not buddy

freddie

07-11-2003, 00:08

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clark
Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
Contact - Carl Sagan
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Overcoat by Nikolay Gogol
Arthur Hailey - almost everythig, from Flight Into Danger Airport, Wheels, hotel to Moneychangers and Strong Medicine.
Catcher In The Rhye - JD Salinger's
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupйry's (everybody should read this...it has SO many layers)

cirrus

07-11-2003, 01:33

I don't read much, unfortunately, because I'm a slow reader. Not in a handicapped kind of way. It just takes me forever to finish a book because, when I read, I want to catch every detail. I also have a short attention span and I'm easily distracted.

But, I have read some great books. Most were for school, but others were just for the hell of it. Right now I'm almost finished with Jack Kerouac's "On The Road." After that I'm gonna read Angelina Jolie's journal from her refugee work. I've read "Anthem" and "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand, and classics like "To Kill A Mockingbird," "Brave New World," "Inherit the Wind," "Wuthering Heights," "Catcher In The Rye," and "Their Eyes We're Watching God" (one of my personal favorites).

I read "One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich" by Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The novel is a grim display of Soviet work camps. I also want to read books by Thoreau, Nietzche, and Anias Nin.

russkayatatu

01-04-2004, 21:48

His Master's Voice, by Stanislasw Lem is one of the best books I've read in a long time.

Paul Bowles :eek: I was thinking of going to Morocco so I looked him up and read a few of his stories, which are unlike anything I've ever read before ... don't know how to explain, exactly ... I'll think about it, but I would say, maybe ... he places you in the position of the victim of torture, of an awful situation - one, moreover, that has NO SOLUTION - you know you're going to die, or realize it soon enough. People are killed usually without knowing exactly what's going on or how they could have prevented the attack; the violence seems senseless from their perspective, because there's intrigue, plotting unknown to them ... and they have premonitions, but usually don't act on them, or are unable to act on them, and then at once they're caught and no longer what they were - and soon after that, dead.

I have no idea what to make of these stories but they're rare and scare me to death :eek: And Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal thought he was amazing. Has anyone here read anything by Paul Bowles? :ithink:

And this will sound strange :gigi: but there's a book out there called New Stories from The Twilight Zone, an anthology of all the stories that were adapted for episodes for the revival of "The Twilight Zone" in the '80s - and all of them are pretty good. They're all stories I'd like to see adapted for the screen ... if I ever find a copy of this show it oughta be fun :gigi:

Also, Richard Matheson's teleplays :D there are a few volumes of his Twilight Zone episodes - I like Richard Matheson, and I like his scripts. Together with Rod Serling and Charles Beaumont he wrote most of the Twilight Zone episodes in the early '60s - he's also written short fiction and at least one vampire novel, but those are not really my thing, although I understand they're of high quality too.

edit: Recently I also read an article on Gandhi by Arthur Koestler, and he mentions facts I didn't know and conclusions I've never thought of before. Highly recommend anything by him; he's incredible. :)

I also saw that Deirdre Bair has a new biography out - on Jung :done: That's the trouble about working on one topic, I can't sit down and read a big biography on Jung, or the Iliad - I have to keep to my paper :cool: but I read her biography on Simone de Beauvoir, along with other biographies of Simone de Beauvoir, and I thought hers was the best. :done: Check her books out sometime if you want to or happen to be interested in the people she writes about: aside from Jung and de Beauvoir, she's also written a biography of Beckett, and one of Anais Nin.

Lux

20-01-2006, 01:21

yes. but ok, books are like..music. it's too hard to pick favorites sometimes. but name a few you absolutely love. adore. can read over and over. your personal classics. this way, we can all share literature that we love. go on.

i love Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead. I love Steinbeck's East of Eden...Crime and Punishment, the Brother's Krazmakov (or however that's spelled LOL).

As for authors, I find Socrates and Plato to be fascinating. Dante isn't bad either. The epics The Odyssey, the Illiad, are also great. I also like..the House of Leaves, a hard read. And I also had a thing for Stephen King once, when he was really good. Not so much anymore. what else what else...Zola, Tom Robbins, .... can't think of anymore in this state right now.

Rachel

20-01-2006, 01:27

*cough*ermmm (http://www.libertas.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ID=731&CID=)*cough* :lalala:

Lux

20-01-2006, 01:28

oy. i could've guessed.

spyretto

20-01-2006, 01:39

I read on the internet; the subtitles of foreign films, the signs in the streets when I'm looking for directions and instructions for use of new electrical and electronic devices. The last one I read was the instructions for my battery charger.

That's enough reading.

Which reminds me: I need to re-read the instructions for my mobile phone.

KillaQueen

20-01-2006, 02:00

my all time fave books are:
Liviu Rebreanu (Romanian author) - The Forest of the Hanged
Paulo Coelho - Veronika Decides to Die
George Orwell - 1984

when i was younger, i read a lot of Alexandre Dumas and later John Grisham. right now i don't have as much time as i'd like to read, but i tend to focus on sci fi, also because i'm doing my BA on the subject.

spyretto

20-01-2006, 02:03

1984? I thought Brave New World was better. More entertaining and less stressful, while making exactly the same statements.

100 Years Of Soltude is a brilliant one I think.

KillaQueen

20-01-2006, 02:10

i am ashamed to say i haven't read Huxley's book. also wanted to read "A Clockwork Orange" and oh so many more (*loves dystopias*), but i need time, time, time :(

Lux

20-01-2006, 02:16

i've yet to read 100 Years of Solitude. i can't wait. no time right now..but definitely will

spyretto

20-01-2006, 02:22

There's no shame in that, I haven't read so many that I'd like to read. But It was one of those books that gets you hooked straight away because it's so well read and yet "flows" so easily; Like Lolita for example. Only few books can have both of these qualities. Not to say that
Orwell's 1984 is not an excellent one in its own right .

i've yet to read 100 Years of Solitude. i can't wait. no time right now..but definitely will

100 Years Of Solitude is a heavier one but it's the best example of magical realism. It gives you feelings that you cannot describe in words.

Lux

20-01-2006, 02:26

that's another!!! a friend of mine told me to read it ages ago when it first came out ... still haven't :none: there's too many

madeldoe

20-01-2006, 02:56

1984? I thought Brave New World was better. More entertaining and less stressful, while making exactly the same statements.

Never read 1984, but Brave New World is a really good one! When i was watching The Island (with Scarlett Johansen and Ewan Mcgregor) the whole time i was thinking that i had seen this premise before..not completely the same but had a lot of similarities.

i havent really read a book i didnt like so im not gonna name them all. but i did read Da Vinci Code in less than 6 hrs cuz i enjoyed it so much!

Lux

20-01-2006, 03:25

that movie was crap

i like Brave New World better than 1984 but i haven't read 1984 in ages.

KillaQueen

20-01-2006, 04:28

"1984" is a book that i personally consider great because it manages to portray very well the socialist regime in which i've spent a small part of my childhood. i was too little to experience it fully, but reading the book brought back some memories. i remembered what i was feeling back when i was 5-6 years old, when coming back from kindergarten and the first thing i would say to my parents would be: "do you love nicolae and elena ceausescu?" and they'd say "yes" and only AFTER that we'd ask "how are you?" or whatever. there were pictures of ceausescu on the first page of every book or magazine. you weren't allowed to go to church. i seriously tell you that, as a child, i was made to believe ceausescu was a sort of almighty being. and i seriously believed that. i didn't even know what the word 'God' meant as it was never used. you weren't allowed to express your opinion about the regime, you weren't allowed to complain even to your own family members because ANY ONE of them could have been members of the 'securitate' (a sort of socialist secret service). or they could have planted bugs in your home. as a normal citizen, you weren't allowed to go abroad. all the mail coming from other countries was sorted, read and you were supposed to give declarations and say who is the person who's sending you letters, why do you communicate with them etc etc etc. you weren't allowed to watch movies and shows from the west. you couldn't anyway. almos all that was aired were patriotic marches and shows featuring the visits of ceausescu to different factories. and i tell you, as a child, i was a perfect product of that socialist environment. in december of 1989, when the revolution broke out and ceausescu was on the run, i couldn't understand why my family was so happy. i even remember now: i was outside, playing. my nan called me to come upstairs. when i entered the appartment, she just ran to me and took me in her arms and said: "ceausescu ran away!" and i couldn't understand why she was happy. i mean didn't we love ceausescu? that's what i was thinking with my 6 year old mind. and even after his execution and the fall of socialism, i was personally sorry for not becoming a 'pioneer' anymore (that's what you were called in elementary school). anyway, many of these aspects were caught in that novel and i felt ashamed and guilty while reading it, because as a kid i honestly believed and loved that regime. the book almost made me feel like i was raped back then, like i was deprived of a normal education, and it reminded me once again to treasure the freedom we have now. so "1984" is not so much sci fi or dystopic to me as it is a reminder of a reality in which i lived. speaking of which, has anyone read "Fahrenheit 451"? now that is a slightly exacerbated example of the reality in which we live today.

PowerPuff Grrl

20-01-2006, 05:47

KillaQueen

20-01-2006, 06:33

Dude, Killa, dude!
That is quite possibly the most introspective post ever made in this forum.

I just have to ask; did the Romanian Revolution start off when hecklers booed Ceausescu during his speech from his balcony?
(Wait this has to do with the topic!)
I read in a book* that Ceausescu actually stopped, went inside his palace then back out into his balcony and resumed his speech but the fact that he stopped in the first place made people realize that the God-like figure he created was a sham. Thus sparked the Revolution. The fact that it was televised made the Revolution so widespread in very little time.
well, the initial revolution movement in Romania started in Timisoara a few days earlier. people in Bucharest started finding out and ceausescu organized a public gathering so he could address the people and condemn the events in Timisoara. but yes, the actual revolution in Bucharest started with the booing. but the actual live broadcast was stopped at some point, yet it had already allowed people watching tv to see something was happening down there, so people started getting out in the streets.
How exactly did Ceausescu get overthrown?
after the failed speech, he and his wife got in a helicopter and tried getting to their house in Snagov and then Targoviste (outside Bucharest). in the mean time, the minister of national security (dunno how to translate this.. lol.. the guy in charge of the army in socialist times) commited suicide (though people believed he was assasinated because he refused to carry out ceausescu's orders), and so another guy (in favour of the revolution) took over the army and ordered them to stop shooting at civilians and support the revolution. anyway, ceausescu abandoned his helicopter close to Targoviste as the army had closed in on him and his wife and got in a car. he was eventually arrested with the help of a road block. this was on the 22nd of dec, i think. and then on the 25th, he was 'trialed', but basically just sentenced to death. he and elena ceausescu were executed by a firing squad in Targoviste. damn, that footage made me sick. i've watched it like 2 or 3 times. but i remember the last time, it really made me sick.

you know, we haven't developed as much as ex-communist states and so.. and some people believe we are cursed because not only were we the only communist nation to execute their leader back then, but we also did it on Christmas Day. anyway, this is just an interesting 'fact'.

sorry if i didn't make much sense. i'm SUPER tired.

nath

20-01-2006, 07:07

Woooah!!! Thanks for this wonderful post KillaQueen!!!

Since I'm on this forum, I've read such posts attesting ""How Horrible, dictatorial, America and Americans and American Society and American Policy are...."....but I've never read until this fabulous post just one critical post (in negative or positive direction) about what was a REAL dictatorship .

Thank you for this "balance" which I thought definitively lost in this forum.
Just thank you. Cause your post just sounds the authenticity.....I've particularly appreciated the part , when AFTER the Liberation, people really dare to show a little what they fell, what they really think.....Before too much fear... :(

I've read "Fahrenheit 451" and I really loved it.
In the same idea, there is a book called "Nous autres" from Evgueni Ivanovitch Zamiatine...."We...others"(?difficult to translate this title for my poor head this morning).
It was written in 1920 and forbidden in URSS/USRR. It's an anticipation book too. I think you would like it, Cris.

I still have "100 Years Of Solitude" -Gabriel Garcia Marquez-on my shelves...
I tried to read it when I was around 20 years old but just stayed at the beginning. Think I wasn't attracted by the South American atmosphere at this time.

By the way , you have a similar thread here http://forum.tatysite.net/showthread.php?t=5570

Rachel, you're too funny...hihi....

rosh

20-01-2006, 10:18

i used to like ayn rand till i realised her books were more a tribute/testament to ayn rands ego and how in love with herself she was. and then i got super bored. "atlas shrugged" was super boring ! "the fountainhead" was good but "we the living" was the best of the lot.

i like anne rices earlier books but lately, shes just lost her edge man. now shes also heading into super boring territory. laurell k hamilton is nice for some unrealistic escapism :)

aldus huxley got robbed ! i saw soooo many similarities between "brave new world" and "1984" and all i have to say is george orwell totally ripped huxley off. i cant recall all the examples offhand but when i read "brave new world" after reading "1984" i thought geez orwell didnt even hide how much he stole from huxleys book.

[for the record, huxley wrote his book first]

i also enjoy reading history books and encyclopedias. tres interesting. have a complete set of the history of the world books at home my dad got me. they span from ancient egyptian times until just after world war two [quite old books, published in the 50s]

i have gleaned some interesting things from them. for example macbeth was actually not a bad guy. banquo was. haha at you shakespeare ! check your facts next time ! macbeth won scotland fair and square in battle and his wife wasnt a crazed power hungry psychopath either.

anyway ... books i like are gothic horrors, historical novels, thrillers. i like dan browns ideas but not his writing style.

tainted_chick

20-01-2006, 10:39

At the moment i am really into books by Therese Szymanski! Her Brett and Allie adventures are fucking hot!! Brett is the butch and Allie is the femme and Brett is always cheating on Allie but wow great books! I think there are about 6-7 books to read and Ive read them all so far.. im now awaiting to read her new one "When First We Practice" :D

Lux

20-01-2006, 11:53

"atlas shrugged" was super boring ! .

how can you say that? oh my god. man, you are missing out ;)

spyretto

20-01-2006, 12:05

Woooah!!! Thanks for this wonderful post KillaQueen!!!

Since I'm on this forum, I've read such posts attesting ""How Horrible, dictatorial, America and Americans and American Society and American Policy are...."....but I've never read until this fabulous post just one critical post (in negative or positive direction) about what was a REAL dictatorship .

Rachel, you're too funny...hihi....

I don't know who is saying these things in tatysite but it surely isn't me!

you know, we haven't developed as much as ex-communist states and so.. and some people believe we are cursed because not only were we the only communist nation to execute their leader back then, but we also did it on Christmas Day. anyway, this is just an interesting 'fact'.

The fact that they hanged their bodies in the square for the world to see was a little barbaric, I think. But I remember those times and only then it occured to me how evil Ceausescu was to his people. I was in Greece back then and the media wouldn't elaborate in his activities, after all he was the favourite world leader for the Greek prime minister's international releations :rolleyes:
Yeah, I can see how 1984 can be relevant to such a regime.

rosh

20-01-2006, 12:21

how can you say that? oh my god. man, you are missing out ;)

haha the onlly thing im missing are the few hours it took to read the book. i want them back damnit !

she was a selfserving egomaniac. honestly. nevermind that though, her writing style sucked. her characters were all wooden and stifled.

and i completely disagree with her attacks on altruism. but hey thats just me ! =)

Lux

20-01-2006, 13:01

you read 1000 pages in a few hours? that's hard to believe. your opinion differs from much of the intellectual world. :none: i find it hard to believe and i definitely disagree.

rosh

20-01-2006, 13:15

i speed read so yes, i read in a matter of hours.

disagreeing is fine :) i think ayn rand was a pompous egomaniac and im sure there are other people who feel as i do :) just cause many think she was a great philosophical thinker doesnt necessarily mean she was. and just cause i think she wrote to feed and show off her own ego doesnt mean anyone has to either.

ive stated why i have a terrible opinion of her and her books [except for we the living, i quite enjoyed that one]. out of interest, whats your reason for disagreeing ?

KillaQueen

20-01-2006, 13:16

The fact that they hanged their bodies in the square for the world to see was a little barbaric, I think.
spy, they didn't hang their bodies anywhere. they backed them against a wall and shot the crap out of them. and that didn't take place in a square or anyhing. it could be called a public execution if you consider the fact that it was filmed and later aired on national television, without censoring anything. but, you know, people were a little bit sadistic, yet i guess that was the only solution. and i say that trying to put myself in the shoes of the people who really knew what was going on and the hell in which they were living (including my parents). ceausescu actually hanged on to his status until the very end. he looked like a mad man while on that trial. he talked and acted as such. his wife as well. i tell you those people weren't right in the head. and it was pretty clear that he wasn't going to willingly quit his postion as he'd made an official visit to Russia one month before the revolution and Gorbachev asked him to quit, yet he refused. he wasn't open to any sort of reform. he refused to see eastern europe was changing once the berlin wall fell. sort of like hitler refused to believe he could be defeated? yeah, it was like that. and by the way he was acting, he didn't look like he was gonna shoot himself, so i figure that ad-hoc 'jury' who condemned him and elena did everyone a huge favour. i tell you, the majority of romanians didn't shed a tear for him, but took pleasure in seeing him meet his maker. i remember now how my mom encouraged me and my brother to take out all the books from the library and start ripping the first page (with his picture) to pieces or draw on it or whatever. and i remember walking down the street after the revolution and seeing ripped pictures with his face on the asphalt that other people had thrown there. it was such a view, i tell you. such a view.

Lux

20-01-2006, 13:23

i have to go, but will post later ;)

taty994945

20-01-2006, 13:40

.....

spyretto

20-01-2006, 14:01

spy, they didn't hang their bodies anywhere. they backed them against a wall and shot the crap out of them. and that didn't take place in a square or anyhing. it could be called a public execution if you consider the fact that it was filmed and later aired on national television, without censoring anything. .

Oh I see...I think the Greek media were a bit misleading there, the way they presented the footage and the comments of the reporters suggested that he and his wife were hanged from a square into public display. :bum:
They probably wanted to draw analogies with Mussolini.

rosh

20-01-2006, 15:01

Who the hell is Ayn Rand? :confused:

a homphobic writer who was in lurv with herself ;)

but thats just my opinion, hehe

serious answer : [tho she was homophobic]

she was an author who wrote lots of novels espousing her theory of objectivism.

objectivism is a philosophical theory which regards reason and logic as absolutes. it says that all knowledge is based upon evidences which your 5 senses can perceive and understand. so any beliefs or theories you hold need to be proved by logical methods of inquiry, then tested by logical methods to verify the belief.

so its very scientific in its approach to all areas of knowledge.

taty994945

20-01-2006, 15:17

.....

Rachel

20-01-2006, 16:53

Can't say I've ever heard of these books :lalala:

I guess my head is too buried in smut :rolleyes:

coolasfcuk

20-01-2006, 17:32

PowerPuff Grrl

20-01-2006, 18:59

reading is over-reated! :gigi:

of course, i read lots of architecture related stuff, but i am excited to be taking a seminar over in the film department, which reaquires reading lots of Maurice Merleau-Ponty... as well as some Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Lacan, Hannah Arendt.
I've always wanted to take a class with a hardcore feminist, and well, the woman teaching it is one, in fact she is very hard core, her interest include: Feminist theory, Psychoanalysis, Film theory, Cultural studies, Designated emphasis in women, gender, and sexuality. I hope it's FUN!

Laura Mulvey's essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" is practically the ultimate feminist contribution to film theory. Other names you could check out are Althusseur and Susan Sontag.

ETA:
I myself am totally into the social science, history, and political science of non-fiction.
Last several books I've read have been Naomi's Wolf's Fire with Fire, basically describes why feminism fell apart during the nineties, why nobody these days claims to be a feminist, and why it is now practically synonymous with dyke, man-hating and communist.

Then there's Fareed Zakaria's Future of Freedom, he argues that democracy and liberty are too completely different things that are often confused in the West. He proves how nations that are democratic often have very little liberty and that democracy is a horrible transitional mode of government. Liberty can exist without democracy and that nations that are attempting to achieve democracy have a better chance doing so with very restrictive governments (in a representative sense).
He also proves that too much democracy can be a bad thing, as is the case with the US.

Right now I'm reading Debra J. Dickerson's End of Blackness; it's about how the Black civil right's movement is currently failing because it continues to harbour a sense of victimization, Naomi Wolf's book also said that same thing about feminism in that now the main coarse of action should be to empower women, in Dickerson's case Blacks.

Some other books I have read and loved were: What is the Matter with Kansas by Thomas Frank, Samantha Power's A Problem from Hell, The trouble With Islam Today by Irshad Manji, and Down and Dirty Pictures by Peter Biskind (<-- very interresting if you're into films).
Books I'm planning on reading are the The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, Voltaire's Bastards by John Ralston Saul, and Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

So many books, so little time to mention all of them.

If anybody can recommend some cool non-fiction books I would sincerely love it!

PS: Thank you so much Killaqueen, for answering.