Does anybody have any recommendations on books or any favorites. I havent read a real good book in a while and I would like some advice.

Maybe I should shut up before I recommend something. What exactly do you enjoy reading?
The best book I've EVER read is "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Over 20 years ago, I gave it to "the woman I loved" as a present. She used to read several books a week, but she returned it a few days later because "it didn't have enough dialogue."

I later gave the same book to my wife (whom I didn't know when I presented it earlier) to read (she's apt to read several books a DAY), and she took a bit longer than normal but agreed that it may have been the BEST book she'd ever read. It's basically magical realism mixed with history/alternative history and magnificently-written poetic descriptions of "everyday" life covering an enormous amount of time in Latin America, or perhaps, some "alternative Latin America."


I can't remember the title now, but there was a non-fiction book a few years back about some guy hanging with primitive natives in New Guinea, I believe, and it was fascinating, as well as suspenseful, since there were still some cannibals around.

I'd also recommend the autobiography entitled "Brando."

Of course, none of these might be what you have in mind. Share some of your faves and I'll ask my wife. Her faves are murder mysteries.

Well, obviously "The Da Vinci Code" is a must-read, although I only thought it was very good, not great. The other books I would recommend are a few years old, so I don't know if you've already read them. But a few of the books I've enjoyed the last few years are:

"The Bonesetters Daughter" - Amy Tan - There are better writers, but few better storytellers.

"Angela's Ashes" - If you haven't already read it.

"Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" - A chick book for sure, but I loved it. Horrible book name though.

"Runaway Jury" - Best Grisham book, IMHO.

Any of this helpful? I'll stop at this point.

I've read the da vinci code. Thanks for the recommendations, ill look into them. Truthfully, I like fiction mostly. Sometimes I find a good non-fiction book but I find fantasy and imagination much more interesting. I really like mysteries, recently I've been reading Agatha Christie. I like fantasy and science fiction as well.

I read all the time (in between seeing movies, that is...although sometimes I read about movies too!) Two of the best novels I've read in the past year or so have been "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon and "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood -- if you like Kurt Vonnegut, you'll LOVE this one! I also really, really liked "Drop City" by T.C. Boyle; "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen; and "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer. All fiction, all very imaginative.

I told my wife that you liked Agatha Christie, so she mentioned a contemporary, Dorothy Sayers, and her Lord Peter Wimsey series. She specifically has hardbound first-editions of "Murder Must Advertise", "Hangman's Holiday" and "Strong Poison." She also said that if you love Christie, you should pay attention to Josephine Tey, M.C. Beaton, Jeanne M. Dams, Aaron Elkins, Rhys Bowen and Ellis Peters. That's just the murder mysteries; we'll save the sci-fi/ fantasy for later!

I suggest Michael Crichton. The author of Jurassic Park. His books were ruined by all of the bad movies that were created on them such as JP and Timeline. Both great books terribly done movies

The Public Burning- Robert Coover
(Along with my next suggestion probably my favorite fiction ever. Nails Nixon to the wall like nothing else ever, and it does it without going anywhere near Watergate. Pure genious, and one of the few truly shocking pieces of writing I have ever read. I didn't know you could write about Presidential Sodomy without being jailed.

The Glass Bead Game- Hermann Hesse
(A brilliant philosophical novel. The pinnacle of Hesse's stuggle with the question of rationality vs passion. Seems to follow Hegel's thesis, antithesis, synthesis idea over the course of one life. philosopherEric or others, any thoughts on this connection?)

Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter
A book that anyone can learn something from. Hofstadter gets a bad rap sometimes for being to popularist, but I think he is as great a thinker as we have in America right now. Read all of his books, and then cross your fingers that I get accepted to his graduate program at IU-Bloomington.

Philosophical Investigations - Ludwig Wittgenstein
(Best philosphy of the 20th century. Will be held up as a masterpiece long after the gang of french existentialists are revealed as the lightweights they are.)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon) is a very good, original mystery novel. It's not included in Metacritic's database, but you've probably heard of it by now anyway. It's had pretty consistent rave reviews, so I think it's a safe bet that you'll like it.

Anything by Palahniuk! I'm reading "Diary" as of now and it is quite wonderful.

Oh man I LOVED the Curious Incedent... that book was great. I read it on a vacation to Hawaii, and whats great is its such a short read you don't have to put it down. Its interesting and sad and funny, amazing.

Anything by Vonnegut, Chabon, Hemmingway, Charles Bukowski, Milan Kundera, and Fitzgerald is a good read.

Various choices:

1 - Ionesco's FRAGMENTS OF A DIARY (1988)
2 - Ernst Junger's A DANGEROUS ENCOUNTER (1985)3 - Peter Handke's ESSAY ON THE SUCCESSFUL DAY (1991)
4 - Early Lorca (1919,20,21,22)
5 - Eugénio de Andrade's SOLAR MATTER (1977 I think)
6 - Paul Celan
7 - etc.

By far the best book I've ever read was "Trainspotting" by Irvine Welsh. It was SPECTACULAR.

Very interesting list keylimetrev!!!


although,

 (Best philosphy of the 20th century. Will be held up as a masterpiece long after the gang of french existentialists are revealed as the lightweights they are.) 

don't dismiss French Existencialism as easily as that and don't say "best philosophy" without thinking of Popper, Heidegger and others.

E. Matos- Thanks for the complement. I have not heard of any of the books on your list except for Lorca, who I like, so I'll keep an eye out for the others next time I'm at the book store.

As for Wittgenstein, your probably right about being careful with using 'best.' I'll go ahead and change to 'favorite'. As for the others, the only French philosophy I have found at all interesting is Merleau-Ponty. Heidegger didn't do anything for me. I had two classes that focused on his writing, a truly weird philosophy of religion class and a generic contempory continental philosophy class.

The school I went to had a couple guys really into the continental stuff, and before I came had two Kierkegaardian philosophers in a row who killed themselves, which I always thought was a great comment on why to avoid getting too heavy into Kierkegaard. I was never convinced, especially by the phenomenological leanings of continental philosophy (but I won't get into that because I have already mentioned it too much in the philosophy thread.)

I only know a little about Popper, most of which I got through the decidedly un-academic 'Wittgenstein's Poker, so I won't rag on him other than to say that the dignity of philosophy went downhill when he Wittgenstein decided to fight each other with red hot pokers!

Although these books are a bit along the young side, I'd recomend
1.The entire Ender's Game series. All 9 books.
2.Catcher in the Rye
3.The Romance of the 3 kingdoms. Both books.
4.Anything by edgar allen poe.

quote:

Originally posted by keylimetrev:
The Public Burning- Robert Coover
(Along with my next suggestion probably my favorite fiction ever. Nails Nixon to the wall like nothing else ever, and it does it without going anywhere near Watergate. Pure genious, and one of the few truly shocking pieces of writing I have ever read. I didn't know you could write about Presidential Sodomy without being jailed.

The Glass Bead Game- Hermann Hesse
(A brilliant philosophical novel. The pinnacle of Hesse's stuggle with the question of rationality vs passion. Seems to follow Hegel's thesis, antithesis, synthesis idea over the course of one life. philosopherEric or others, any thoughts on this connection?)

Where the hell was I when these were suggested?!? Two impeccable choices, klt.

Coover is an all around bad-ass. I'm a huge fan of metafiction, and he's one of the best. The Origin of the Brunists and Pinocchio in Venice are two other favorites.

Hermann Hesse is one of my all-time favorite writers and Magister Ludi (or The Glass Bead Game) is one of my favorites, and probably one of his most difficult works to get through. A few more accessible titles include Siddhartha, Demian, and the excellent Steppenwolf.