Favorite Books

PoppyForPenny

PoppyForPenny

Farmer
What are some of your very favorite books? What have you read and recently? What kind of books do you like?

Some of my favorites are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Ender's Game, The Time Traveler's Wife, and Poison (by Scott Wooding).

I love to read science fiction and fantasy, but not just all spaceships and magic forests. Like, some aliens, ghosts, clones, time travel, robots, and ancient curses!
 

Ereo

Helper
Hmm, I love books, but somehow the internet distracts me from reading as much as I used too.

Some books that I can read and reread again and again are Agatha Christie, and Terry Pratchett. I also like Dorothy Sayers. I don't enjoy newer crime novels so much, I feel most are more thriller than whodunnits, and I don't care for the detectives personal problems.

Books I really enjoyed in the last couple of months are
- the invisible library series by Genevieve Cogman, although the first were better because they just get more brutal, absurd and predictable.
- the dictionary of lost words
- all three books by Diane Setterfield. They are beautifully written, but I can't really summarize what the story is about. Except maybe the first one (Trigger warning: contains sexual violence and incest)
 
Azyad

Azyad

Sodbuster
So as a bookworm myself, I really enjoy books with a pop of color and really nice illustrations. The Geronimo Stilton series is literally top tier. It's for kids but I still enjoy them as a teen, the so many different storylines and the heavy illustration just sums everything up together so well.
 
Thaddeus_

Thaddeus_

Sodbuster
Favorite? I have like 40 favorites lol. White Fang by Jack London, Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, 20,000 leagues under the sea by Jules Verne, the Dune series by Frank Herbert, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's translation of Beowulf, The Narnia series by C.S. Lewis (He convinced Tolkien to publish the Lord of the Rings), and a bunch of other books. Oh and the Thrawn novels (old and new ones), and Darth Plagueis, and basically a mountain of books on top of that lol.
 
imnvs

imnvs

Local Legend
I hate that a large percentage of my favorite books, the books that impacted me most when I was young and even since... were written by unrepentant bigots. (sigh) And before I go any further, I refuse to mention them or their books by name, mostly because I refuse to advertise for them. All of them (and there is more than one) wrote books that included themes of acceptance and tolerance only to find out the authors only wanted those things for bigoted people like them. I'm sure many can deduce who at least one of the authors I am referencing is, but she isn't the only one.

Ones I am happy to mention?

Anything and everything by Neil Gaiman. No caveats. He is awesome in everything he does. Read his books. Read them. Stop reading what I'm writing now, go get one of his books, read it, and then return to read the rest of my reply here. Now. Go. Do it.

Okay, now that you're back...

The works of Raymond E Feist are also wonderful. If you start with his first major work Magician (sometimes this book is split into Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master), and then read each book that follows in order... it is an epic even larger than what Tolkien imagined, I kid you not. It starts with humble origins too, perhaps even more humble origins than Bilbo and Frodo, and escalates and escalates and escalates and escalates... and I don't want to even say how it escalates because I don't know how without giving away plot points! It's an amazing series. I highly recommend it to anyone that likes fantasy literature.

I love a lot of Anne McCaffrey's work, though I do find a few themes in a few books problematic. The "shellperson" series and "talent" series are hands down her best, imho, even though she's most famous for the Pern novels which I will also admit are what got me reading her work in the first place.

Finally? GRRM is good... but not great. I put McCaffrey above him, even though he's had more popular attention, the most of anyone I've listed here. There are quite a few of his philosophies on writing that I appreciate and hold dear... but I think the dude has a few fixations/obsessions about sex/violence that he might need to see a therapist about. Maybe that'll also get the last books in the series finished before he dies too, huh?
 
Lew Zealand

Lew Zealand

Helper
imnvs said:
I hate that a large percentage of my favorite books, the books that impacted me most when I was young and even since... were written by unrepentant bigots. (sigh) And before I go any further, I refuse to mention them or their books by name, mostly because I refuse to advertise for them. All of them (and there is more than one) wrote books that included themes of acceptance and tolerance only to find out the authors only wanted those things for bigoted people like them. I'm sure many can deduce who at least one of the authors I am referencing is, but she isn't the only one.

Ones I am happy to mention?

Anything and everything by Neil Gaiman. No caveats. He is awesome in everything he does. Read his books. Read them. Stop reading what I'm writing now, go get one of his books, read it, and then return to read the rest of my reply here. Now. Go. Do it.

Okay, now that you're back...

The works of Raymond E Feist are also wonderful. If you start with his first major work Magician (sometimes this book is split into Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master), and then read each book that follows in order... it is an epic even larger than what Tolkien imagined, I kid you not. It starts with humble origins too, perhaps even more humble origins than Bilbo and Frodo, and escalates and escalates and escalates and escalates... and I don't want to even say how it escalates because I don't know how without giving away plot points! It's an amazing series. I highly recommend it to anyone that likes fantasy literature.

I love a lot of Anne McCaffrey's work, though I do find a few themes in a few books problematic. The "shellperson" series and "talent" series are hands down her best, imho, even though she's most famous for the Pern novels which I will also admit are what got me reading her work in the first place.

Finally? GRRM is good... but not great. I put McCaffrey above him, even though he's had more popular attention, the most of anyone I've listed here. There are quite a few of his philosophies on writing that I appreciate and hold dear... but I think the dude has a few fixations/obsessions about sex/violence that he might need to see a therapist about. Maybe that'll also get the last books in the series finished before he dies too, huh?
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Hey thanks for this as I've read much of what you mentioned (but no Gaiman - I got some catching up to do!) and yes I get a few 'whos' you are referring to at the beginning, though I suspect you've read more and are referring to more authors than I'm thinking of. I like your description of how the tolerance is only for their in-group, I had not thought it through enough to parse out that detail.

Interesting take on McCaffrey as I ended up falling out of her series' about 35 years ago and haven't read anything since. I believe Killashandra was the last I read of hers and remember exactly zero of it (this is not a special occurrence!). Oh, and no GRRM for me either! But I read a lot of Feist and enjoyed them. Gaiman has been recommended to me for over 20 years.

Maybe. Just maybe.

It'll sink in.

Soooooooooon......
 
Jayamos

Jayamos

Farmer
Ursula K. Le Guin, brilliant, thought-provoking, and classy from start to finish. And willing to re-examine her own prejudices; the Earthsea series is an amazing evolution!
Jane Austen is prescribed in my family when illness renders one jelly. My own favorite is Persuasion.
Also enjoy Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, hoping the latter is not on @imnvs’s list, though I have never seen anything to get my dander up. (Maybe drop a wrathful emoji if there’s something we should know, though.) Pritchett is another good one for when I’m ill. And tis a pity about that, um, author who shall not be named.
Comix haven’t been mentioned but I’ve reread Jaime Hernandez’s story line, Las Locas, from Love and Rockets many times and always see something new. The writing and art are breathtaking and it’s one of the most compassionate works I know. Be aware that it’s R-rated at the least, though.
 
imnvs

imnvs

Local Legend
Jayamos said:
Also enjoy Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, hoping the latter is not on @imnvs’s list, though I have never seen anything to get my dander up.
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Terry Pratchett is not on my list of bigots, so, the only issue here is that I didn't mention him. I have an entire continent based on one of his novels even in my D&D world... but I haven't read nearly as much of his work. His and Gaiman's book Good Omens, I have signed by both of them, however.
 
FairyRing

FairyRing

Farmer
imnvs said:
Anything and everything by Neil Gaiman. No caveats. He is awesome in everything he does. Read his books. Read them. Stop reading what I'm writing now, go get one of his books, read it, and then return to read the rest of my reply here. Now. Go. Do it.
Click to expand...
yes so much yes!

also I haven't seen Charles De Lint mentioned. I love his stuff.Magical Fantasy/folk tales mixed in with modern day. He has many novels but also a lot of short story collections. Novel or short stories he includes a lot of the same characters, so you have a sense of getting to know them from book to book.
edit- oh yeah..the thread is about books....Dream Underfoot, Tapping the Dream tree, Moonlight and vines. Those are short story collections by De Lint
 
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Jayamos

Jayamos

Farmer
imnvs said:
Terry Pratchett is not on my list of bigots, so, the only issue here is that I didn't mention him. I have an entire continent based on one of his novels even in my D&D world... but I haven't read nearly as much of his work. His and Gaiman's book Good Omens, I have signed by both of them, however.
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I feel reassured. And I am curious about that continent.
 
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