'k, so I need books to read, cause my job is boring and I won’t have any for two weeks since school starts in a week and I’m a lazy bitch that procastinates.
Any suggestions? Note : I will not read anything sci-fi or fantasy, as I find those genres suck and are majorly overrated. Exception is Terry Pratchett, 'cause that guy sure can write.
Over the course of the summer, I have read the following books (just to give you an idea)
-Art of War by Sun Tzu (re-read)
-Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (re-read)
-The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett (re-read)
-The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett (re-read)
-Gnome Trilogy (or whatever it’s called, I had a crappy french translation) by Terry Pratchet (re-read)
-120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade (re-read)
-On The Road by Jack Kerouac (re-read)
-Aline and Valcour by the Marquis de Sade
-Interviews With Confucius by …a bunch of chinese guys I can’t remember the name of
-The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
-The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
-Family Traditions in the Art of War by Yagyu Munenori
King Rat by James Clavelle. It’s about a PoW camp in Japanese-occupied Asia during World War II, but it has more to do with Malaysia and Java. I think you’d like it. It’s only about 450 pages long, too, so it’s an easy book to read.
I’m looking for books I don’t KNOW of. Christ, do you think that after reading the first two, I’m gonna decide to ignore the REST of the Discworld series?
Dunno if you’d consider it sci-fi, but Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is good. It doesn’t really focus on technology though. Not sure what to call it.
There’re also 3 more in the series, called Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind. And then there’s the Shadow series. They’re all good reads.
I know, but you didn’t say you hadn’t read that. And fine, Bill Bryson’s good or, if it’s published there, McCarthy’s bar is better. Red Dust or To Kill a MockingBird is good.
I don’t know whether this kind of book would appeal to you, but Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Fraken is pretty cool. It’s the usual liberal exposure of the right, but he writes far better and funnier than Michael Moore does.
I dont know if youd like Historical Fiction, because Piers Anthony’s Geoddessy series is incredible. Also Tatham Mound by Anthony is pretty good Histrical Fiction.
The Once and Future King by T.H. White Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr. Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (I think) Survivor by Chuck Phalaniuk The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Macbeth by William Shakespeare
If you like dystopias, A Handmaid’s Tale by Atwood isn’t that bad.
I’d suggest some Hemingway, my favorite being The Old Man and the Sea.
You said no fantasy, but I find the original three books of Earthsea (Wizard of, Tombs of Atuan, Farthest Shore) by LeGuin to be much better written and interesting than your typical fantasy story of knights trying to find magical stones versus dragons. They’re heavily influenced by Taoism, and the first one is also very Jungian, but not to the extent of Heart of Darkness (which should be noted is a hard read).
The Grapes of Wrath is very enjoyable. Huck Finn is too.
It’s a short story, but I found The Devil and Daniel Webster to be good. Same goes for The Lottery.
Do you dislike surrealism and romantic realism as you do sf and fantasy? If not, try Kafka, he’s always fun.
Lost Horizon, maybe? Or one of James Clavell’s historical novels. You might already have read Shogun, but try Tai-Pan, it’s very good too, and it’s apparently underappreciated.
And, considering you like Pratchett, you might try a sf spoof novel called Bill the Galactic Hero, by Harry Harrison (same guy who brought us the Stainless Steel Rat, another goldmine of space comedy).
Or dig into horror. Lovecraft is always a safe bet, and authors like C.L. Moore (usually considered an sf author) and Robert E. Howard (who wrote the Conan, Kull the Conqueror and Solomon Kane stories) have written effective stories in the tradition of creepiness. I don’t personally find Stephen King meaty enough, despite his knack for characterization.
Other than that, I can’t much help, because I’m thoroughly embedded in the sf/fant section.
To kill a Mocking Bird is good and so is Watership Down. Even though Watership Down is fantasy it is mainly a nature related book like My side of the Mountain
