Conquer Club

btownmeggy wrote:

Simonov wrote:here are many good books out there to read i just don't have the time lately. stupid faculty, i read only biochemistry and physiology books now...

For real. I had about 40 pages left of Crime and Punishment when classes started last week. I haven't read a word of it since, and I don't know when I will. And it's not like I can take time away from CC to do something like... READ.

I read that about 8 years ago. If I remember rightly, you won't have reached the epilogue yet. That's OK, because it's as dull as ditchwater, but you should definitely read through to the end of the main story. Very memorable close to the story, mainly because of the relief of bringing everything, the guilt, the psychosis etc, to an end.

Hmm, I mean that in a good way, if that's not how it comes across.

As for the subject of the thread, the vast majority of the books I have read are non-fiction, and I've never really followed one author. The only exception, almost by default, would be Dickens, so I'll say him, even if it is a boring choice. David Copperfield is my favourite of his, even if everything is wrapped up at the end in a pretty awful way. (Packing half the characters off to Australia?!)

big post

I love books (seriously). If it's sci-fi, political or historical I have probably read it, and so far my favorite author would be Andre Norton followed by Artur Clarke and Isak Asimov.

0ojakeo0 wrote:big post

Compensating for something?

if one is out for a fairly good laugh....Douglas Adams books have always been fairly entertaining.

I'd have to go with Salinger as favourite, and usually Thoreau second (although he is more of an essayist than an "author"), though recently Kafka and Gabriel García Márquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude) have made plays for my heart.

qeee1 wrote:I'd have to go with Salinger as favourite, and usually Thoreau second (although he is more of an essayist than an "author"), though recently Kafka and Gabriel García Márquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude) have made plays for my heart.

I'd never read Kafka before, so last month I read The Trial.

BOR-ING. But at least now I know what people mean when they say Kafka-esque(, even if they don't).

btownmeggy wrote:

qeee1 wrote:I'd have to go with Salinger as favourite, and usually Thoreau second (although he is more of an essayist than an "author"), though recently Kafka and Gabriel García Márquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude) have made plays for my heart.

I'd never read Kafka before, so last month I read The Trial.

BOR-ING. But at least now I know what people mean when they say Kafka-esque(, even if they don't).

Really? I really liked the trial. I was kinda indifferent towards it at first, but by the church scene I liked it quite a bit, and the more I think back on it the more I find myself liking it. Its whole charm is that it's so ostensibly boring.

qeee1 wrote:

btownmeggy wrote:

qeee1 wrote:I'd have to go with Salinger as favourite, and usually Thoreau second (although he is more of an essayist than an "author"), though recently Kafka and Gabriel García Márquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude) have made plays for my heart.

I'd never read Kafka before, so last month I read The Trial.

BOR-ING. But at least now I know what people mean when they say Kafka-esque(, even if they don't).

Really? I really liked the trial. I was kinda indifferent towards it at first, but by the church scene I liked it quite a bit, and the more I think back on it the more I find myself liking it. Its whole charm is that it's so ostensibly boring.

And ACTUALLY boring. Maybe I would have been shocked and amazed reading the first edition 80 years ago. I can't force myself to be ahistorically amused, though.

Sackett58 wrote:Dean Koontz

Also myself. Or does it have to be a published author? Screw it, I vote for me anyway.

btownmeggy wrote:And ACTUALLY boring. Maybe I would have been shocked and amazed reading the first edition 80 years ago. I can't force myself to be ahistorically amused, though.

but given the way society has progressed it makes even more sense now than back when it was written imo. Oh well, seems you and I differ on books a lot (though I do like borges and camus), so I guess I'm not gonna persuade you.

hmm...this is not easy...

Pat Conroy (My Losing Season, The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline), Dan Brown (Angels and Demons, Da Vinci Code, Deception Point, Digital Fortress), Mitch Albom (Tuesdays With Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven) Nicholas Sparks (The Wedding, The Notebook) and Brian Jacques(The Redwall Series...I've read them all minus one or two, so I won't list the ones I've read)...

^that's just recent publications...

Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass) and Shel Silverstein (The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic) are my favorite poets...

As far as "classics" go...

Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights) and Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

Terry Goodkind, "The Sword of Truth" series, now thats addicting, they are on average around 600 pages and he has about 8 out. im waitin for the last book, the finale to come out. Its an amazing series, with an amazing story in each one.

Another author, Katherine Kurtz, is also a favorite author of mine, writing books like Crusade of Fire, most of her books I have read are about the Knights Templar (even though they are fiction), which are great stories.

Tom Clancy

Your all a bunch of heathens!!!!!

I can`t believe T.Pratchett or HP Lovecraft haven`t been mentioned.

isaac asimov. pure genius

DiM wrote:isaac asimov. pure genius

Yes I second that

qeee1 wrote:Oh well, seems you and I differ on books a lot (though I do like borges and camus), so I guess I'm not gonna persuade you.

And even though I hate Catcher in the Rye, I love Salinger.

With so much common ground, you could probably convince me of all sorts of things.

wow at some of the authors mentioned here.....

i'm loving huxley, vonnegut, orwell, eco, (can't believe H.P. Lovecraft was mentioned, how crazy is that?), and doug adams. oh and meggy's favs sound sexy, tho i haven't heard of them....

i'd have to say saint paul is tops of my list, so profound and difficult to decipher....and i should also include the author of "revelation" while i'm at it, fascinating book.....

other than that, wendell berry, stephen king's dark tower series (at least first 4) and the stand, faulkner, thomas wolfe, tom robbins, hal crowther, hunter s.....ok i'll stop, sorry.....

good thread

to up my post count, i will mention my favorite authors, and my post will be buried under the other people talking about their isaac asmimovs and Leo Tolstoys and whatnot.
i like S.E. Hinton (read all her books, but i liked the outsiders, tex, taming the star runner, and hawkes harbor.
and
Margaret Mitchell (havent read all of Gone With the wind yet, but it's awesome.)
and random authors no one ever heard of.

I don't have one favorite, but the three that inspired me to read more are Stephen King, Alexandre Dumas, and Edgar Allan Poe.

0ojakeo0 wrote: DR.sUEss

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. LOL!

btownmeggy wrote:

qeee1 wrote:Oh well, seems you and I differ on books a lot (though I do like borges and camus), so I guess I'm not gonna persuade you.

And even though I hate Catcher in the Rye, I love Salinger.

With so much common ground, you could probably convince me of all sorts of things.

Maybe, but I just don't see how you could find it boring.

[POSSIBLE SPOILERS]
It's the study of a character under the pressures of extreme bureaucracy, what's not to love? Everything becomes so vague and yet so unyielding, he rails between conflicting extremes as a means of dealing with it, he even tries to ignore it, but all to no avail. His emotions are destroyed, he can't react naturally to it because he must adjust his emotions to win the game, and he can't adjust them properly because the nature of the game is concealed to him. I mean it's not interesting because it shows bureaucracy can be really big and annoying, everyone knows that. It's interesting because it shows what bureaucracy does to humans.
[/ POSSIBLE SPOILERS]

That to me is inherently interesting, especially given the level of bureaucracy present in todays world. But if you don't find that interesting then I can't really convince you. We just find different things interesting.

cahoots wrote:Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)

mmm... probably my favourite poet. Whitman or T.S. Elliot, but I haven't read much Elliot. Ginsberg also makes a showing, but I dunno I feel he takes too much from Whitman to be as admired in his own right.

Also Hitman who are these random authors?

qeee1 wrote:Maybe, but I just don't see how you could find it boring.

[POSSIBLE SPOILERS]
Etc etc et al...
[/ POSSIBLE SPOILERS]

Yes, yes, it's an interesting concept. The writing is boring. Part of it, I was thinking the other day, is that it's a translation from German. German, with its compound words and sooooo-long sentences doesn't translate well (to English, at least). Even originally-German writings that I LOVE, and the topics of which interest me even more than that of The Trial, are very difficult to read (see Walter Benjamin--Ach!).

btownmeggy wrote:Yes, yes, it's an interesting concept. The writing is boring. Part of it, I was thinking the other day, is that it's a translation from German. German, with its compound words and sooooo-long sentences doesn't translate well (to English, at least). Even originally-German writings that I LOVE, and the topics of which interest me even more than that of The Trial, are very difficult to read (see Walter Benjamin--Ach!).

True, while I don't recall thinking the writing was boring I also can't remember ever thinking it was really well done. It was functional I guess. I think concepts interest me more than the actual writing in books I guess. Take Orwell, his books are never fantastically written yet they're really interesting... at least for me.

Also Benjamin is going to be difficult to read no matter what the language I think. I'm not 100% certain but I'm pretty sure at some point around 1900 literary theorists all made a pact to be as difficult to read as possible.