TOP TEN TOPIC: BOOKS! (FICTION)

Hooray for reading! It makes the world a better place.

Books are listed in no particular order.

LONESOME DOVE, by Cormac McCarthy...
When life becomes a dusty purgatory for aging ex-Texas rangers Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call, they decide to take a final cattle drive to the wild lands of Montana, before the "lawyers and bankers" snap it up. Coming along for the ride are Newt, a young cattle rancher with a murky past; Lorena, a sad prostitute who wants to go to San Francisco; Jake Spoon, an unreliable gambler; and a host of other strange characters on what seems to be the Wild West's Last Adventure, in a world growing progressively more inhospitable to cattle-ranchers and outlaws by the day. They must contend with locust swarms, sand storms, grizzlies, and a throughly nasty half-indian named Blue Duck, who escaped McCrae and the rangers long ago. Won the Pulitzer Prize a while ago. Wholeheartedly reccomended, even if you don't like Westerns. The banter between Augustus and Call is price, and the characters are nearly all uniformly wonderful. Too bad so many are killed off by the end of the book. Was made into a great mini-series.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS, by J.R.R. Tolkien...
Say what you will about Tolkien, but almost single-handedly creating a mythological continent (Middle-Earth), its own languages (several of them) and enough background to fill a history textbook (The Silmarillion, completed after his death) must have taken an enormous leap of imagination. The benchmark that hundreds of fantasy writers today attempt to aspire to, and which most fail to match. Coincidentally, Tolkien was a close peer of C.S. Lewis of Chronicles of Narnia fame. The basis for the Lord of the Rings series of movies, which won so many academy awards it may grow to be as famous as the books. You've probably already read them, but why not read them again?

LES MISERABLES, by Victor Hugo...
The first part of this book is about the life and times of the Bishop of Digne...who remains for only one, crucially important chapter and then vanishes from the rest of the book. Welcome to the world of Jean Valjean, where great set pieces and some of the most memorable characters in literature go hand in hand with rants on French fashions at the time (most of which aren't even accurate), several chapters on a nunnery of all things, and of course, an entire part dedicated to the history of the battle of Waterloo. It's surprisingly modern writing, though, and when the book gets good, it gets good. Inspired a great musical. "Can you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men, it is the music of a people..."

THE BOOK OF JOBY, by Mark A. Ferrari...
Lucifer, who wears business coats and vaporises servants on a whim, challenges God, who wears tennis shoes and enjoys fishing, to "that same old stupid bet", as our Lord calls it. The Creator will choose a champion among his people, and Lucifer will put all of hell on his shoulders and attempt to subvert the champion to his cause. In this case, the champion is Joby Peterson, a nine-year-old boy with a love for Arthurian myth and an idyllic life in California. So begins an epic that spans his entire youth, and incorporates Arthurian myth, magical energies, the Holy Grail, love, rage, humor, tradgedy, and practically every aspect of the human psyche. The quality of its writing may slip sometimes, but it pulls its punches all the way up until the end, and--relax!--has no religious agenda aside from telling a good story. For that matter, it's a really good story. Best written this year, I'd say.

A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE SERIES, by George R.R. Martin...
Not for the squeamish. Everyone else, however, is free to enjoy a fantasy that actually seems to transcend fantasy and nearly become history, in its vast web of political intrigue, well-developed characters, lived-in world and remarkably short lifespans, because in this series, characters can and will die. No-one is safe! If Tolkien's land inhabits the lands of mythology, then Ice and Fire has made itself truly at home in the blood-and-dust Middle Ages.

JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORREL, by Susanna Clarke...
Hyped as the next Harry Potter, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell nethertheless comes off as something completely different; a look at two wildly different magicians, who live in a strange London where magic once existed, and is making an unexpected return. The plot remains hidden in the shadows for most of the story, leaving the characters--the bookish Mr. Norrell, the dashing but arrogant Jonathan Strange, the incredibly awesome Childermass, the street-oracle Vinculus, the hapless servant Stephen Black, and a rather disquieting gentleman with thistle-down hair--to wander through history, fighting against Napoleon's forces on the side of the British. At the end, however, all hell breaks loose, and the story hurtles to a literally spellbinding conclusion. Famous not only for its plot, but also for the myriad footnotes, explaining the world Strange and Norrell inhabit, that add multitudes of depth to the text.

THE BARTIMAEUS TRILOGY, by Jonathan Stroud...
Read this in Middle School, and it still holds up pretty well. In a strange alternate London, magicians rule the parliament, through the summoning and enslavement of shapeshifting demons. When a young apprentice named Nathaniel has his life ruined by a powerful magician named Lovelace, he delves into texts far above his level and calls upon a djinn named Bartimaeus, whose irreverent tendencies and fiendish sense of humor are only outdone by his ability to survive everything thrown his way. Nat sends Bartimaeus off to steal a valuable artifact called the Amulet of Samarkand, but it isn't long until the boy realizes that he is far over his head. What follows can best be summarized as a cross between Harry Potter and Mission Impossible, taking cues from Faust and the Arabian Nights to form three wild adventures that span three books. Although written after Harry, the Bartimaeus Trilogy easily holds its own, thanks to it's title star--the demon Bartimaeus, who provides an extremely entertaining ongoing commentary of events, complete with footnotes (Icarus never would have fallen, you see, if the demons forcefully grafted into his wings didn't think he was such an insufferable arse...) Although the plot is far more predictable, the series's cataclysmic ending outdoes the ending of Harry Potter in almost every respect.

ANYTHING WRITTEN BY ROALD DAHL...
What can I say? For people not willing to reread Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he's written some pretty excellent short stories. Read those.

...AND HARRY POTTER. OBVOIUSLY.

Possible contenders I'm reading right now are The Quincunx, by Charles Palliser (Dickens on steroids), and Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville (Gormenghast with vampire moths). Shogun, the Chronicles of Narnia and Pillars of the Earth are reccomended as well. Also read Tai-Pan, by the same author as Shogun and with significantly fewer pages.

1) The Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Pirsig)
2) Franny and Zooey (Salinger)
3) Big Sur (Kerouac)
4) The Plague (Camus)
5) And then there were none (Christie)

I did enjoy the Pillars of the Earth though, I couldn't put it on a top 5 list. It was a good story, but I didn't really get anything out of it. I read another book of Follet's (A Place Called Freedom), and it seemed very very similar to Pillars of the Earth.

edit: I forgot all about Hesse! I'll put Rosshalde at number 3, so the rest move down one, and we now have a nice top 6.

Oh man, Canuck, Franny and Zooey, The Zen, Hesse... Want to be friends? Good list. I haven't read them all, but it seems like you like a lot of the same shit. I haven't read that Hesse book, I've just read Siddhartha and some short story fables. But both are among my favorite books. I'm impressed that someone else has read something other than Catcher by Salinger.

I have yet to read all of Zen, I've been working my way through it for a while, it's not something you can read really fast. Damn interesting though.

though i could never claim to know very much about books, as their sheer number ASTOUNDS - I do enjoy a few in my day, although i htink it's safe to say it's a woefully inadequate list. Also, Kentona - running out of stuff, eh? BOOKS!?

Ilium and it's sequel Olympos

The Coldfire trilogy (pretty much my fav books as soon as i read them - provocative dark fantasy that's not needlessly dark where it doesn't need to be.)
black sun rising
when true night falls
crown of shadows
by C.S.Friedman.

Harry potter series (just 'cause they are truly masterpieces)

the Merry Gentry novels by Laurell K. Hamilton (because, lets face it, Anita books are good, but the last few... too much sex, too little plot)

Oo! i just remembered this one, by K.J.Parker. this guys lost his memory, and everyone thinks he a murdering bastard or some kind of apocalyptic god. you spend the whole series wondering about him, as he does himself, and i just had to lol at the ending.
Shadow
Patern
Memory

and, as an honourbale mention: "Heroics for beginners" by John Moore, a hilarious look at fantasy in general. truly laugh out loud.

Thank you, Kentona, for a Top Ten on Books! Took you long enough!

No, really. I've actually been looking forwards to this--I read a lot.

Do graphic novels qualify for this list? One could argue that books like WATCHMEN are serious fiction, although it's executed in a way that could only be done in a comic-book format. Heck, there's a favorable entry for Watchmen in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

author=brandonabley link=topic=558.msg7364#msg7364 date=1200078190
That is absolutely awful.

I completely agree.
But thanks to my newfound ADHD, I start falling asleep every time I start reading.
Which causes some problems in school, but.....

author=Chartley link=topic=558.msg7344#msg7344 date=1200022835
Oh man, Canuck, Franny and Zooey, The Zen, Hesse... Want to be friends? Good list. I haven't read them all, but it seems like you like a lot of the same shit. I haven't read that Hesse book, I've just read Siddhartha and some short story fables. But both are among my favorite books. I'm impressed that someone else has read something other than Catcher by Salinger.

I have yet to read all of Zen, I've been working my way through it for a while, it's not something you can read really fast. Damn interesting though.

When you finish with Zen, make sure to read Lila right after, it applies everything to morality. Truly amazing, and affects how I view the world greatly.

Salinger is great. Franny is probably my favourite story. Some of the 9 stories are also really good, like For Esme, and I really liked the one in Montreal last time I read it.

Hesse is possibly my favourite author. Siddartha is really good. Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game I haven't read yet because they're still just too much for me. I never thought a book would be too intense for me, but they are. I hope to tackle them soon. Rosshalde is of his early work (before he went to India, or just as he got back), and I really just like it because it portrays a child's mindset very well (that's not the focus of the story though).

The Plague is a really really amazing book. The Outsider is more popular, and is a great book, but it isn't as all encompassing as the Plague is, and is mainly a more confined story. The Plague has great messages about humanity.

for the top ten.....i think everyone should just go and read the first 10 books in the Wheel of Time series ;D



R.I.P Robert Jordan :(

author=kentona link=topic=558.msg7400#msg7400 date=1200109017
On a side note, has anyone read Shirley Jackson's The Lottery? This is the best short story, like, ever.

Yeah, pretty much. You can't go wrong with anything by Ray Bradbury, either. Or, once again, by Roald Dahl. The Great Automatic Grammatizer=awesome

There's Paradise Regained? Nice.