I'm always looking for new books to add to my ever growing reading list. Best book I've ever read is To Kill a Mockingbird. Some authors I really enjoy reading are Cormac McCarthy, John Irving, and Dennis Lehane.What do you all recommend?
I'm always looking for new books to add to my ever growing reading list. Best book I've ever read is To Kill a Mockingbird. Some authors I really enjoy reading are Cormac McCarthy, John Irving, and Dennis Lehane.What do you all recommend?
Huckleberry Finn is probably my all time favorite. I've recently enjoyed the Game of Thrones and its successors, fantasy novels that the HBO series is based on. When I was a teenager I enjoyed the Shannara books by Terry Brooks - fantasy novels. I read the Elfstone, Sword, and Wishsong of Shannara, but I understand that there are multiple others now.Originally Posted by Going Yard
I love Steinbeck and anything by Hemingway.
Another book I recently read was The Book Thief - a story of a young German girl during the holocaust. It is a youth fiction, supposedly, but I enjoyed it a lot.
In The Garden of Beasts, the new book by Erik Larsen is excellent. It is the tale of the US ambassador to Germany and his family (including a dangerously flirtatious and casual flirt daughter) as Hitler's Nazi Party is securing power. It culminates in the Night of the Long Knives.
I recently read The Book Thief, as well. Excellent book. Another great story set during the Holocaust was The Boy In Striped Pajamas.
Last edited by Going Yard; 02-24-2013 at 11:24 AM.
Ha, just noticed there is a separate category for books, movies, music, etc. Oh well, what do you expect from a Junior Member.
Run Silent, Run Deep by Edward L. Beach.
Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
"Don't apologize; it's not your fault. It's my fault for overestimating your competence."
As a kid, the first group of books I remember tearing through were the Black Stallion books. I also really enjoyed the Jack London novels, The Call of the Wild, White Fang, Sea Wolf.
I've always liked military fiction. The early Clancy novels were great reads. The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising were the best, IMO.
Desse jeito, não tem jeito.
I'm glad you brought up Clancy, I was starting to feel like my tastes were a little too uncultured for this crowd. My favorite of his is Without Remorse. I haven't been able to get into his newer stuff yet, mostly because I haven't been able to make the time to read. I also enjoy Steinbeck, with East of Eden being my favorite.
“To me there is no dishonor in being wrong and learning. There is dishonor in willful ignorance and there is dishonor in disrespect.” James Hatch, former Navy Seal and current Yale student.
It's hard to name just one, but David Copperfield was great. So was Bleak House. ( I am a huge Dickens fan.) As a teenage kid To Kill A Mockingbird had a huge impact on my life. It made me want to become Atticus Finch, or at least to be a lawyer like him.
Last edited by LA Ute; 02-24-2013 at 01:55 PM.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Totally agree on Atticus. Glad you mentioned Bleak House. Just picked up the audio book for my daily commute. Looking forward to it.
I read all of the Jack Ryan novels. Red October and Cardinal of the Kremlin were my favorites. Without Remorse was also good. Big fan of Jack London, too. I read him a lot as a youngster and nseow I'm sharing those books with my boys.
If you like Bleak House there is a very good Masterpiece Classic adaptation (well, I loved it, anyway).
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/bleakhouse/
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Red October is probably his best. Cardinal is also one of my favorite, along with Debt of Honor, Executive Orders and Red Rabbit.
Reading Dickens save for Tale of Two Cities (and as an undergrad English lit major, I read a lot of him) leaves me sighing heavily and rolling my eyes and squirming as I fight to plough through verbose scenes and extraneous characters. The writing is excellent but it becomes unbearable to me. I ask this sincerely. What about Dickens does it for you? Many very literate and smart people love Dicken's books, so I must be missing something.
"Well-behaved women seldom make history." - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Shape up of ship out dude.
This is such a promising thread that we want people to be able to find it. So we moved it to The Entertainment Center. We'll waive the fine for posting in the wrong thread. Any further violations, however, will be referred to OrangeUte for possible disciplinary action.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Grapes of Wraith, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Old Man and the Sea, The Hobbit.....to name a few.
-What would you do if you saw spaceships over Glasgow?
Would you fear them?
Every aircraft, every camera, is a wish that wasn't granted.
What was that for?
Try to be bad.
A very fair question. We could discuss it at length, but I'll just say this. Dickens is not for everyone. With each passing year his style gets more archaic, IMO. Still, the consensus view among literature types is that he is the greatest novelist in the English language. No one even comes close in the number of works adapted for stage and film, for example. The word "Dickensian" has had a special meaning for over 150 years now. Many historians think (and I agree) that A Christmas Carol alone changed the way the entire English-speaking world celebrated Christmas. I could go on and on.
I'll grant you that his works often are a tough read in the beginning and sometimes require much more investment of energy than I feel like making. That's why I am pacing myself in reaching my goal of reading everything he ever wrote. One novel a year, so far, has been the way to go for me.
In short, I just like his stories and his crazy eccentric characters. I also like the epoch in which he was writing and his influence in it (he was a reformer, and England needed reforming, and I like that).
Here's a piece of his writing that exemplifies how opaque (to modern eyes) his writing can be, and how brilliant it can be at the same time. From Nicholas Nickleby, not one of his better novels, an interesting insight. Here, Dickens is talking about people in England who were very devoted to relieving poverty in far-away colonies, but were blind to the needs of the poor who were right in front of them:
I had to read that several times before it finally sank in, but I liked it when I finally got it. Hope this helps! Maybe you should try reading Bleak House. As a lawyer, you'd see a lot of connections.There are many lives of much pain, hardship, and suffering, which, having no stirring interest for any but those who lead them, are disregarded by persons who do not want thought or feeling, but who pamper their compassion and need high stimulants to rouse it.
There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs; and hence it is that diseased sympathy and compassion are every day expended on out-of-the-way objects, when only too many demands upon the legitimate exercise of the same virtues in a healthy state, are constantly within the sight and hearing of the most unobservant person alive. In short, charity must have its romance, as the novelist or playwright must have his. A thief in fustian is a vulgar character, scarcely to be thought of by persons of refinement; but dress him in green velvet, with a high-crowned hat, and change the scene of his operations, from a thickly-peopled city, to a mountain road, and you shall find in him the very soul of poetry and adventure. So it is with the one great cardinal virtue, which, properly nourished and exercised, leads to, if it does not necessarily include, all the others. It must have its romance; and the less of real, hard, struggling work-a-day life there is in that romance, the better.
Last edited by LA Ute; 02-24-2013 at 05:47 PM.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. And you raise fair points. Dickens' impact on the English language and literature is undeniable. Yet I can acknowledge that he can turn a phrase like none other and paints vivid characters that I still don't find pleasurable to read. I've slogged through my share of thousand pagers to the point that if I don't like reading something, I don't anymore. Time was when I read books because they were famous or important regardless if I actually enjoyed reading them. I'm sorta done with that.
I read Bleak House as an undergrad and didn't care for it but I was also working in Dickensian circumstances at 3 AM and overstretched with my course load. Many books I read in earlier years have improved with a reread and different circumstances.
"Well-behaved women seldom make history." - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
I understand. My own daughter refuses to read Dickens because she thinks his characters are weird and scary. (We once watched a very gritty version of an Oliver Twist adaptation when she was too young, and Fagin scared her to death. She's never gotten over it.) shrug.gifThanks for sharing your thoughts. And you raise fair points. Dickens' impact on the English language and literature is undeniable. Yet I can acknowledge that he can turn a phrase like none other and paints vivid characters that I still don't find pleasurable to read. I've slogged through my share of thousand pagers to the point that if I don't like reading something, I don't anymore. Time was when I read books because they were famous or important regardless if I actually enjoyed reading them. I'm sorta done with that.
I read Bleak House as an undergrad and didn't care for it but I was also working in Dickensian circumstances at 3 AM and overstretched with my course load. Many books I read in earlier years have improved with a reread and different circumstances.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Life of Pi is my favourite book. I was pleased with how well it was adapted to film.
The Book of Mormon.
I always took you as an old Testament kind of guy. The real wrath of God kind of stuff.
I'll assume this is asking about novels so I will throw out 3. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (no it's not the one about a literal invisible man), 1984 by Orwell and Catcher in the Rye by Salinger.
Here's a couple less serious books that are fun. Lightning by Dean Koontz and A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
If we're including non-fiction it's The Bible hands down.
Nah. I am more into the sheep that are not of this fold. Kinda like a BSU fan in the land of Cougars and Utes!
Thanks for the reminder of Jack London. I just convinced my oldest son to read The Call of the Wild. That and White Fang were two of my favorites growing up.
Or a Syracuse fan...
I promise to be on my best behavior from here on out. The threat of punishment from OrangeUte is more than enough to keep me in line.
All the pretty Horses. (Most C.Mac works), Pillars of Men, A Time to Kill, Life of Pi, Devil in White City (Larson's new one, previously mentioned, was also good), River of Doubt, Lincoln Lawyer and Gang Leader for a Day.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2
Last edited by stretchiute; 02-24-2013 at 08:03 PM.
C. Mac's stuff is great........
-What would you do if you saw spaceships over Glasgow?
Would you fear them?
Every aircraft, every camera, is a wish that wasn't granted.
What was that for?
Try to be bad.
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