Tell us your favorite books!

Then we can discuss them or something.

Mine are - all books on Drizzt by R.a. Salvatore, (I don't want to list em all, and you don't want to read all the titles) The Sword of Truth series by terry Goodkind, LotR (of course), A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, Demonwars by R.A. salvatore, All of Robert Jordan's books that I have read.

Legend and First Chronicles of Druss the Legend by David Gemmell are my two favourite books to date
EDIT: Oh and Magician by Raymond E. Feist

Any Terry Pratchett- particularly the Night Watch and Witches books.

Raymond Feist

Robert Crais- (1st person L.A. private eye novels)

Raymond Chandler

George R.R. Martin (already mentioned)

David Gemmell

I can do nothing but agree here, especially Feist, I just reread some of his books and they're still amazingly well written. hard to find books written better then those I think.

Terry goodkind also deserves a place here I think. his sword of truth series is nearing it's climax and I cannot wait as it's also great.

David eddings then, with the belgariad and the mallorean created a beautifull world. and his characters are equally beautiful.

I've finished all 6 books about Thomas Covenant (Stephen Donaldson) and all I can say is that took out some 35% of my heart. The damn saga is just one great suffering after another :paperbag2: but it was still nicely written.

*Tolkien's stuff, really great masterpieces.
*Pratchett, to a certain limit. Too much Pratchett makes everyone crazy.
*Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series.
*Robert Jordan's books. Especially "The Eye of the World".
*C.S. Lewis, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" Looking forward to the movie...

Also, I just finished reading Christopher Paolini's "Eragon". Not bad at all. When the second part of the Heritage trilogy comes out, I might add it to my favourites...

Sabriel, By Garth Nix
The Seventh Tower By Garth Nix

Uhhh . .

Oh yes, another

Great Expectations

[quote=Dantrag]
Mine are - all books on Drizzt by R.a. Salvatore, (I don't want to list em all, and you don't want to read all the titles) [/quote]

Ooh, I've heard about that guy. I would really like to read about him, but I'm not sure where to start. I've seen the Trilogy of the Dark Elf, IceWind Dale books, and some other Trilogy involving Drizzt. Which of the books should I start with? How are the books? Are they action-packed? He sounds interesting from what I've heard of him.

Hmm... I really have no favorite books that are... up-to-date. I haven't read a good book in forever. (In fact, I still have BabySitter's Club/Goners/Sabrina the Teenage Witch books in my bookshelf!)

My dad keeps buying fantasy books, but they were really boring. The strange thing is, I used to love fantasy books. Now, I hate most of them because of their predictable-ness, angsty-ness, and/or mushiness.

Has this happened to anyone? That you used to love a certain series/genre and then, later on, you start to hate the books in that genre.

My favorite books in the past, and I still love and treasure: "The Hobbit" (but not any of the LoTR books, don't like them at all), most of the books by Brian Jacques, books by C.S. Lewis ("The Lion, Witch, and The Wardrobe", etc), "Ella Enchanted", Sabrina the Teenage Witch series and the DeathGate series.

Nowaday, I read manga, game/anime magazines, and random books.

[quote=Dantrag]Tell us your favorite books!

Then we can discuss them or something.

Mine are - all books on Drizzt by R.a. Salvatore, (I don't want to list em all, and you don't want to read all the titles) The Sword of Truth series by terry Goodkind, LotR (of course), A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, Demonwars by R.A. salvatore, All of Robert Jordan's books that I have read.[/quote]
Agree.. Agree... AGREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! At least when it comes to R. A. Salvatore's books, its just great. I'm a huge fan of at least his Drizzt Series, and soon going over to other FR Novels, not all by him but they are very good I've heard.. :goodjob:

[quote=MerGirl][quote=Dantrag]
Mine are - all books on Drizzt by R.a. Salvatore, (I don't want to list em all, and you don't want to read all the titles) [/quote]

Ooh, I've heard about that guy. I would really like to read about him, but I'm not sure where to start. I've seen the Trilogy of the Dark Elf, IceWind Dale books, and some other Trilogy involving Drizzt. Which of the books should I start with? How are the books? Are they action-packed? He sounds interesting from what I've heard of him.[/quote]

lots of questions. In order -

dark elf trilogy, Icewind Dale, Legacy of the Drow, Paths of darkness, Hunter's Blades.

Very good.

Yes, but also have good character development and emotions...and all the good stuff.

There you go.

my favorites are the books by:

Bernard Cornwell (the Grail Quest in perticular)

Mercedes Lackey (The Valdemar Series)

Harry Harrison (The Stainless Steel Rat series)

Brian Jacques (The RedWall books)

The Grimm Brothers (self explanatory)

Douglas Adams (The Ultimate Hitchhickers Guide to the Galaxy)

Margaret Wels & Tracy Hickman (Dragon Lance Cronicles)

Lotr are pretty good, Harry Potter is ok, and thats about it.

(whew that was more then I thought I read )

I liked 1984, by George Orwell, I've never been as frightened by an idea before. (The idea of absolute totalitarianism).

I don't read much Harry Potter, don't like the way the series is headed. The first three books were okay, maybe the fourth.

Now, it appears that the author is just throwing stuff in to fill some extra pages. Make the book a little thicker.

lol looks that way with the book sizes. you got a point there too.

[quote=gamer10]
...Now, it appears that the author is just throwing stuff in to fill some extra pages. Make the book a little thicker.[/quote]

I like H.P., the way I look at it is that her fanbase is growing up as the books get released. The same people who bought the Philosepher's Stone would probably not enjoy the latest book if it was as easy to read as the Philosopher's Stone, whereas when they first read it when they were younger, they probably felt overloaded by it.

Yeah, I hate it when some authors realize that they have an eternal money flow at the tips of their fingers, and start to write crap, knowing that fans will buy it, if only to see how the story ends.

Robert Jordan is a fine example. Though I love his books, he has gone crazy.

How dare you beat me to 1984! I love all his books from his humble start of down and out in Paris to the idea of "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING". I think my favourite though is Animal Farm. "And all of the pigs and humans stood upright yelliing and bickering, until you couldn't tell them apart". I like how after he found out about Stalin's strange victories and terrible decisions, he rewrote it.

Another great writer is Steven King. I never want to see an animal cemetary again. But ever since he stopped doing drugs and stopped drinking, his creative genious has been lost.

Other greats are The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Brothers Grimm, various childrens writters and many others that my joy of my new and beautiful computer makes me forget.

EDIT: Forgot the Illiad, Odyssy and everything bye Edgar Allen Poe. Never more.

Iliad
Collective writings by edgar allan poe
Dante's Inferno

Well I enjoy plays and poetry more then just books so I'll include them anyway.

King Lear, Macbeth, and Hamlet by Mr. Shakespear, Oedepus trilogy by sophecles, and my favorite poems are How Hath Time by John Milton and a dream within a dream by Mr. Poe. I also must include the Raven by poe.

I'm also a fan of RA. Salvatore's work, piers anthony, and david eddings.

[quote=Dantrag][quote=MerGirl][quote=Dantrag]
Mine are - all books on Drizzt by R.a. Salvatore, (I don't want to list em all, and you don't want to read all the titles) [/quote]

Ooh, I've heard about that guy. I would really like to read about him, but I'm not sure where to start. I've seen the Trilogy of the Dark Elf, IceWind Dale books, and some other Trilogy involving Drizzt. Which of the books should I start with? How are the books? Are they action-packed? He sounds interesting from what I've heard of him.[/quote]

lots of questions. In order -

dark elf trilogy, Icewind Dale, Legacy of the Drow, Paths of darkness, Hunter's Blades.

Very good.

Yes, but also have good character development and emotions...and all the good stuff.

There you go.[/quote]
Hunter's Blade is clearly my favorite... Really cool to follow Drizzt's life outside the Underdark against Many-Arrows etc. :goodjob:

I liked the dark elf trilogy a lot more...

And hunter's blades was good because now Salvatore won't have to write any more looooong scenes in which Drizzt ponders his love for Cattie-Brie and how it could never work....bah dee friging blah. Now they are together and NO MORE BORING, REPITITOUS SCENES!!!! (I swear, that's happened at least 32 times in the 17 book series.)


FREEEDOM!

Sewer, Gas & Electric by Matt Ruff
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The Five Sous of Mr. Lavarede by Paul d'Ivoi
Practically everything by Kinky Friendman and David M. Pierce
Most everything by Kafka

[quote=Red]I think my favourite though is Animal Farm.[/quote]

lol that book was wierd IMO I had to read it in English class.

Why has no-one listed Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" Trilogy yet?! They're probably my favourite books. "Dune" by Frank Herbet is another one of my favourites.

On the subject of George Orwell, I really like his books too, and I agree that 1984 had one of the scariest ideas I'd ever seen in a novel. I've read Down and out in Paris and London too, and I'm sure there's a copy of Animal Farm somewhere around here...

Currently I'm reading an anthology of short stories by Arthur C. Clarke, which are actually very good (I am usually sceptical of science fiction) as are some of Ray Bradbury's science-fiction short stories. The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is another science-fiction/humour title I'd recommend, and other Douglas Adams stuff - particularly Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - is worth reading.

Rattling off a couple more recommendations: Catch 22 (hilarious), Molesworth (hilarious, but probably only to british tastes). I'm not going to put the Lord of the Rings here, because to be quite honest I find the books to be quite tedious, and with such a stunning movie version I don't see the need to read books which are, in my opinion, fairly drab in terms of actual writing style just because of the merits of the epic overarching idea. The Hobbit on the other hand, I would recommend, but I'm certainly biased because I have fond memories of my dad reading it to me and my brother when I was young.

My brothers as well . . I never took the time to read them. Did you know a movie is being made of them.

I knew the movie rights had been bought by New Line Cinema pretty quickly, but I didn't know there was a movie actually in production. I can imagine it failling quite dismally. It's just not the kind of thing that would transfer well to film, and I can't stand the vast majority of child actors. Either the leads would have to be older than they are in the book, which would ruin it, or they would have to be shoddy actors, which would ruin it. Ah well...

Or they have to be child-looking midgets. . . .strange.
<--- Go get them.

Hmm... favourite books Let's see, authors in no particular order:

Douglas Adams - utter geniosity

Franz Kafka - as someone's already mentioned.

Antoine de Saint Exupery - (most famous for the Little Prince) French war-time existentialism.

Samuel Beckett - the theatre of the absurd and most people around him (read: Harold Pinter) are absolute, sheer class. Essentially the genesis of Monty Python and, subsequently, the Hitchhiker's Guide.

Edgar Allan Poe - as someone's already mentioned, again, very good, very eerie.

MA Bulgakov - early Soviet-regime satirism

Oh and of course - Ray Bradbury

That's about all the good ones I can remember

Poe is fine as well, althogh I prefer King.
On another note, I discovered The Chronicles of Narnia a few days ago. Lewis is surprisingly fun to read

Oops, forgot Time Inc. by Ray Bradbury and America, a guide to to democracy by John Stewart and the rest of the cast of the Daily Show.

I've also read some books by Clive Cussler.. they are good, he's a good writer

Ok, here goes:

Robert Jordan. Yes, I am resisting the criticism and putting him here. Where d'you think my sig comes from? In truth, by the time I finish reading the last book, I've forgotten nearly everything that happens before that (the books are pretty big), and so I start again, to recap before the next book comes out. The whole thing repeats itself in a everlasting cycle.

LotR. And not just the trilogy but the related books too (i.e. Silmarillion - I learnt how to spell it properly!). Tolkien has always been my favourite, or one of my favourite authors. At some point, I attempted to learn elvish, but I gave up after....ummm......five minutes probably ...

Occassionally, I read some Star Wars books too - not the trilogies, but the books set after them. There's a heck of a lot, and some are surprisingly good. My favourite is the Jedi Academy trilogy (I think it's a trilogy at least).

Most recently, I've been reading Tom Clancy. I'm reading one right now! That's about as different to these other books as you can get. A real mixture of genres!

People keep listing Poe, but I've hated his stuff ever since we did it at school. And it's not the fact that we did it at school that made me hate it, since we've done other books at school that I've enjoyed - Of Mice and Men was enjoyable, and even Macbeth was fine.

Poe is ok but I didn't think his stuff was anything to hoot about






Belgium....

Looks like only me and treydog read David Gemmell's work. He's pretty much responsible for my style of battle scene writing

Nonsense!

Orson Scott Card- Ender series. every book is so philosophical and deep.
Clive Cussler
George Orwell
a bunch of others I can't think of

Just like the Wheel of Time itself, eh?

lol I'm the only one who criticized Robert Jordan, and I'm a fan. I was just being blatantly honest.

He says he's finishing the series in 2 more books...that seem impossible unless they're 388888888888243986234965 page books.

Dang, forgot to put Orson S.C. I loved near the end when Ender was drugged and could remember select things like the needle and the bugger.

My over all fave would have to be The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. I read that book at least 10 times. Anyone heard of it?

Hm, a good fantasy thief book you say? I might have a look at that one.

Good, I highly suggest it. The begining may be a bit slow the first time you read it but dont give up! (I almost did and see where it got me! Nowhere!)

Have to add a couple for all the vampire/lycanthrope fans-

One Foot in the Grave and Dead on My Feet both by William Mark Simmons. Not your typical Gothic/Anne Rice style vamp books at all. Humorous, but also have a fair amount of feeling. Lots of interesting lore, as well.

Well, nice to see both Kinky Friedman and Robert Crais mentioned. Been a Kinky fan for years, but only discovered Crais last year. Bit of a rarity still, the funny whodunnits, but in that vein, Lauren Henderson wrote some good ones before she went into the female dating genre. Otherwise, Henning Mankell, Jonathan Kellerman, Annie Proux, Richard Russo, Richard Layman, Robert Wilson won't lead you far wrong. Oh, and if you fancy a good writer in the historical thrillers section, Steven Saylor is probably the best I've come across.

have you heard of Bernard Cornwell?

White Fang by Jack London, the style is a bit alien to me but i enjoyed it immensouly. His style felt like....4th Person persspective (which doesn't exist, but it seemed that detacted) but was very good. Esspecially the parts with White Fang as a fighting dog.

Some Star Wars books, esspecially the 'Tales' books (Tales of Mos Eisley Cantina, Tales of Jabba's palace, Tales of the Bounty Hunters, etc.).

LOTR.

Ray Bradbury's 'Martian Chronicles', despite having no consistant characters, it has a constistant story, told through multiple short stories. Very interesting book.



Sadly i've never read any Werewolf/Vampire novells. I've ben trying to Find Blood and Chocolate (Werewolf novel) but to no availl. *grumble*

Susposed to be pretty good. With the non-killer Werewolf types.

Wheel of Time = Awesome. So sayeth BobV.

Has anyone mentioned David Eddings yet? What I've read from him so far = also awesome.

I'm currently reading Dune by Frank Herbert, which, wouldn't you know it... =awesome.

Thank you for taking your time to listen to my nonintellectual rambling.

mine are the bartimes trilogy by jonathan stroud and the inheritance trilogy by Christopher Paolini

Yesterday I had a hard time sleeping, and suddently I found my old Dark Elf book for Warhammer, and there are many stories inside there. And it was still really good one called 'A Slaves Tale' very well written I most say, I'm going to try out to find who have written that little story

Normally I like to read fantasy books. I've read a few of R.A. Salvatore's books involving Drizzt. Ive read almost all of the Sword of Truth books by Terry Goodkind (I think I'm only missing one).

From time to time I do read some Steven King. Currently I'm looking for the old one that had the messed up clown in it. I can't remember the name but it might have been 'It'.

ye It is with the evil clown that comes out every 23 (?) years to eat people.