# Books, books, books.



## Gavrill (Oct 12, 2010)

Hello writing community of FAF, I assumed you guys would be interested in discussing books, so I made a thread.

This can be a discussion of books you've read, are reading, or are attempting to avoid like the plague. Before we get this underway, let's get some basic "guidelines" so this thread doesn't get derailed.

1. There are a million discussions on how much Twilight sucks. Please don't bring them here.
2. Newly released books are up for discussion, but please use spoiler tags (or if they don't work, white text your discussion).
3. A website for getting alerts of new releases from your favorite authors!
4. Banned books are awesome. Talk about them, even if they suck. 
4a. The _Anarchist Cookbook_ is best discussed over PM. Some of the things listed in that book are not good for public forums.
4b. Talking about said cookbook makes you a rebellious teenager. Don't deny it.
5.Here is a list of books you should probably read. 
6. James Joyce was a troll.
7. Books are subjective, keep this in mind when trying to push or defame one.

Alrighty then.

I'm currently reading...nothing. My house literally has no books. It's depressing. I'm mostly looking up poetry in my spare time to keep me sane until I get a library card.

Last read book: I went back and reread _Christine_ by Stephen King. Altogether a nice book, but King sure does have a flair for the dramatic that even a thespian would envy.


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## GingerM (Oct 12, 2010)

Currently working my way through David Weber's "Honor Harrington" series again, since I just got "Mission of Honor" and I want to finish an epic read-a-thon with the new book. (Oh, alright... new-ish. It was published in June)


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## Ariosto (Oct 12, 2010)

Did anybody ever read Julio Cortazar's *Rayuela*? (Which terrible english title I refuse to write... okay, it's *Hopscotch*).

How about one of our most recent nobel's books? Yes, Mario Vargas Llosa, whose triumph we're celebrating here.


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## Altamont (Oct 12, 2010)

I've been pouring through the short stories of Joyce and Vonnegut lately, and I'm going to make my way to some other of their longer works soon


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## medjai (Oct 12, 2010)

Best series: Dune (pre slaughter by Brian Herbert)
Best classic: Clockwork Orange (European version)

That is all.


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## Folgrimeo (Oct 12, 2010)

I'm narrow in my book choices, it's gotta have animals in it or I won't care. My favorite book as a child was Trumpet of the Swan, which I liked more than the Charlotte's Web movie thank you very much (Templeton may be awesome, but I love "Trumpet"'s Louis more). It wasn't until a month ago that I finally saw the much-hated movie version of it and discovered that it actually isn't that bad. Anyway, I eventually read Watership Down, which was an eye-opener and is perhaps the best-written book that I've read. Its "sequel" Tales of Watership Down is even more fun to read (but just the El-ah tales, not the actual continuation of Hazel's adventures). But none of this compares to having read the whole Redwall series. That is the only series to have made me cry on multiple occasions, the only series to briefly totally immerse me (making me feel I was in a character's shoes), and a series with far too many memorable characters to ignore. It filled a niche and became the animal series I was waiting my whole life to read. ...now, true, I think half of the Redwall books are trash (subpar for the series' quality, I mean), but I maintain that each one has at least one great thing in it.

Conversely, there are a few books that I don't like. The Lord of the Rings. The movies are awesome, but in the books the description of a tree can go on for a whole page, and I was completely unable to keep reading it without falling asleep. Eragon, which I became bored with a third of the way through. I bought Eragon and the first book of Redwall, decided to read Redwall first and was so enamored with it that it was a foregone conclusion I'd hate Eragon anyway, but man I did not expect completely losing the will to keep going only a third of the way through. Harry Potter books 5 and 6, which I thought were dryly written and it didn't feel like much stuff happened. I didn't like book 4 either but at least it was better than 5 and 6. And finally, The Plague Dogs. I had to stop reading after I was a third of the way through. It's not just that the chapters are so dry and the goal of the two dogs unclear and perpetually out of sight, but it was also the graphic detail and their ever-present depressing situation. I don't like reading about what body parts of a sheep the dogs are eating. Watership Down at least had some hope, this book feels like there was none. And I know what effect a hopeless world can have on my enjoyment of a work (the movie "Unbreakable" where nobody smiled, and the play "Marisol" which I thought had the purest depiction of a hellish world I've ever read about). I liked Snitter and the Tod, but they weren't enough to keep me going. I found the movie watchable though, somehow. Tod's absolutely wonderful there.


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## Gavrill (Oct 13, 2010)

Martino Venustiano Rosendo Zorrilla said:


> Did anybody ever read Julio Cortazar's *Rayuela*? (Which terrible english title I refuse to write... okay, it's *Hopscotch*).
> 
> How about one of our most recent nobel's books? Yes, Mario Vargas Llosa, whose triumph we're celebrating here.


 I don't read foreign books quite often, can you give me a kind of summary/idea of it? I'll check it out if it sounds interesting.


Folgrimeo said:


> I'm narrow in my book choices, it's gotta have animals in it or I won't care. My favorite book as a child was Trumpet of the Swan, which I liked more than the Charlotte's Web movie thank you very much (Templeton may be awesome, but I love "Trumpet"'s Louis more). It wasn't until a month ago that I finally saw the much-hated movie version of it and discovered that it actually isn't that bad. Anyway, I eventually read Watership Down, which was an eye-opener and is perhaps the best-written book that I've read. Its "sequel" Tales of Watership Down is even more fun to read (but just the El-ah tales, not the actual continuation of Hazel's adventures). But none of this compares to having read the whole Redwall series. That is the only series to have made me cry on multiple occasions, the only series to briefly totally immerse me (making me feel I was in a character's shoes), and a series with far too many memorable characters to ignore. It filled a niche and became the animal series I was waiting my whole life to read. ...now, true, I think half of the Redwall books are trash (subpar for the series' quality, I mean), but I maintain that each one has at least one great thing in it.
> 
> Conversely, there are a few books that I don't like. The Lord of the Rings. The movies are awesome, but in the books the description of a tree can go on for a whole page, and I was completely unable to keep reading it without falling asleep. Eragon, which I became bored with a third of the way through. I bought Eragon and the first book of Redwall, decided to read Redwall first and was so enamored with it that it was a foregone conclusion I'd hate Eragon anyway, but man I did not expect completely losing the will to keep going only a third of the way through. Harry Potter books 5 and 6, which I thought were dryly written and it didn't feel like much stuff happened. I didn't like book 4 either but at least it was better than 5 and 6. And finally, The Plague Dogs. I had to stop reading after I was a third of the way through. It's not just that the chapters are so dry and the goal of the two dogs unclear and perpetually out of sight, but it was also the graphic detail and their ever-present depressing situation. I don't like reading about what body parts of a sheep the dogs are eating. Watership Down at least had some hope, this book feels like there was none. And I know what effect a hopeless world can have on my enjoyment of a work (the movie "Unbreakable" where nobody smiled, and the play "Marisol" which I thought had the purest depiction of a hellish world I've ever read about). I liked Snitter and the Tod, but they weren't enough to keep me going. I found the movie watchable though, somehow. Tod's absolutely wonderful there.


 Oh jeez, Redwall. I have no idea how many furries obsessed over that when they were younger. (But...I still do!) I also read Jaques' _Castaways of the Flying Dutchmen_ and you might like it because it fits his style, is wonderfully written, and has a dog as the secondary character. 
What was your favorite Redwall book? I liked _Outcast of Redwall_ and _Taggerung_.

I also disliked _Lord of the Rings_ as a book. Too much description, and you have to skip a bunch of pages to get to the good (action) parts. The movies were alright, but I still fell asleep during the second and third one.

Ah, Plague Dogs. I loved that movie, the book was okay. My favorite character was probably Snitter. Tod and Rowlf were alright, just not as "dimensional" as Snitter was as a character. 

Thanks for the in-depth post, I love discussing stuff like this. :>


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 13, 2010)

Currently reading _Foucault's Pendulum_, by Umberto Eco.  It's one of the silliest, most high-minded books I've ever read (the author is a famous Italian semiologist, if you want to know where he's coming from), which makes it incredibly entertaining.  Though I have to say, reading it makes me realize that I really need to brush up on my obscure ancient Greek, Roman, and Christian literature.

So far as _The Lord of the Rings_ is concerned, I loved those books.  The writing was good enough that all the tons of exposition and description ended up just making it incredibly immersive.  See, Tolkien can pull that off because he knew what he was doing (that was his life's work, was language).  The problem comes when people who don't have Tolkien's background or education try to write like Tolkien.  Then you end up with shit like _Eragon_, which just drags on and on and on and makes you want to go lie in the bathtub and slit your wrists.
It's like with Dickens, or Hugo, or any of those older authors: yeah, they talk forever about things that aren't necessarily important to the plot, but they have such a control over the language that it makes it entertaining anyway, because their personalities really shine through.  Dickens comes across as a curmudgeonly old man who thinks British society sucks, Hugo comes off as a pretentious asshole who knows everything about everything, Tolkien comes across as a scholar with a vivid imagination, etc.  And that's okay.  Doesn't fit today's curt and to-the-point writing style, but I can still get into it and enjoy it.
It's like with progression of art; used to be, paintings were incredibly detailed and vivid, with lots of colors, every shadow and every hair and every brick precisely painted in, tons of characters, huge canvas sizes.  Then modern art comes along and we just get a square on white, and the audience is expected to fill in the gaps.  Both are legitimate forms of art (kind of... I personally think modern art is lazy), so it just comes down to personal preference.

And just so I don't come across as a literature junkie, my favorite author is actually Stephen King.  
Never got into Redwall.  My first exposure to Jacques was _Lord Brocktree_, which was just awful, so I haven't read anything else by him.


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## ShÃ nwÃ ng (Oct 13, 2010)

I just recently finished reading Of Mice and Men for the first time and am currently reading The Moon is Down. And although they're long stories, they come in book form so I'm calling them that, so there. In any case, John Steinbeck's writing is surprisingly engaging, so I'm just going to assume I'm a very boring person.


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## Gavrill (Oct 13, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Currently reading _Foucault's Pendulum_, by Umberto Eco.  It's one of the silliest, most high-minded books I've ever read (the author is a famous Italian semiologist, if you want to know where he's coming from), which makes it incredibly entertaining.  Though I have to say, reading it makes me realize that I really need to brush up on my obscure ancient Greek, Roman, and Christian literature.


I'll have to check that out. Sounds entertaining. 



M. Le Renard said:


> So far as _The Lord of the Rings_ is concerned, I loved those books.  The writing was good enough that all the tons of exposition and description ended up just making it incredibly immersive.


I don't know, I tend to like snappish descriptions so I can get on with the plot. It felt like he was just throwing more words in after I get the idea of what he's talking about. I prefer moderate or fast-paced stories, because otherwise I get some serious ADD. 


> so it just comes down to personal preference.


Indeed.



M. Le Renard said:


> And just so I don't come across as a literature junkie, my favorite author is actually Stephen King.
> Never got into Redwall.  My first exposure to Jacques was _Lord Brocktree_, which was just awful, so I haven't read anything else by him.


 I almost feel bad for saying that my favorite author is also Stephen King. I wouldn't say he's overrated or anything, I just think people assume you haven't read anything else besides King novels when you say he's your favorite. He's just so consistent in his style, yet always with unexpected twists and new types of ways to scare the crap out of you. Plus his book _On Writing_ inspired me to start writing in the first place. He tells it like it is, which is always refreshing coming from authors.
And may I ask what you disliked about Redwall/Jaques? I admit _Lord Brocktree_ was not his best, or even second best. Actually it's pretty far down the line for me, but I know a lot of people who simply cannot stand the dialects he uses in every one of his books. Plot? Style? Just plain out boring to you? I'm just curious, because I know every author has their flaws/quirks that can be unappealing.


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 13, 2010)

Liar said:
			
		

> And may I ask what you disliked about Redwall/Jaques?


Well, like I said, I've never read Redwall.  The major thing about _Lord Brocktree_ that turned me off was the fact that it was so bloody standard.  Like, everything about it was re-hashed, boring, clichÃ©, old-hat, tripe, uncreative nonsense.  Right down to the carnivores being the bad guys and the herbivores being the good guys (a trope I've always hated).  The characters were all cardboard cutouts (especially the villain... oh GOD was he lame), the plot was just a boring adventure story, the world was unimaginative....  I made it about a quarter of the way through the thing and just lost all desire to keep going, because Jacques was bringing absolutely (and I mean absolutely) NOTHING new to the table.  It was insulting, like he was deliberately wasting my time.
At some point I do mean to try reading the original Redwall books, because I know a lot of people like them a lot.  _Lord Brocktree_ has just delayed that immensely, because it's colored my whole opinion of the writer.  And that is significant: out of all the books I've ever tried to read, I've only been unable to finish two of them.  _Lord Brocktree_ is one.  You can imagine, then, why I've hesitated to go read more stuff by the same author.  It's like going to a restaurant and getting spit on by the waiter.  You're probably not gonna' go back anytime soon.

If you're curious, the other book I couldn't finish is _Eragon_.


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## Gavrill (Oct 13, 2010)

Renard, keep in mind that the Redwall series was intended for small children (in fact I think he started the series because a little girl asked him to write his stories down). So of course they'll be full of cliches. Kids don't like new ways of thinking, it confuses their tiny brains.


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 13, 2010)

Molly said:


> Renard, keep in mind that the Redwall series was intended for small children (in fact I think he started the series because a little girl asked him to write his stories down). So of course they'll be full of cliches. Kids don't like new ways of thinking, it confuses their tiny brains.


I read it in 5th grade.


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## Gavrill (Oct 13, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> I read it in 5th grade.


 
I can't help the fact that your brain was larger in 5th grade than mine was in 8th. :1


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 13, 2010)

I've just always been a cynic.
;-)


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## Aeturnus (Oct 13, 2010)

I've been meaning to start Cross by James Patterson, but for some sad reason I haven't.

Regarding Brian Jacques, it's been a while since I read his Redwall series, but I did enjoy a couple of his books, mainly the first five.


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## Folgrimeo (Oct 14, 2010)

Good thing I started with the first book then, "Redwall". I wanted to start out with "Taggerung" because of the awesome otter on the cover, but restrained myself and started proper at the beginning. As an aside, "Redwall" feels a lot different from every Redwall book after it. And that if you don't care for "Redwall", give "Mossflower" a try, that's called one of the best of the series. Somehow I didn't care for it, but that's because I screwed myself by reading "Martin the Warrior" beforehand (thus going in a sort of chronological rather than published order). And that I loved "Martin" so I had sky-high expectations. My favorite of the bunch is "Taggerung", Tagg and Nimbalo are such an interesting team. But the one that had the most lasting influence on me was "Martin the Warrior". Naturally because of Martin and Rose.

Seeing as how this is a more general-purpose furry board, I'll refrain from 7-paragraph posts about Redwall, you can send PMs/notes if you want that sort of thing. I did have a page of my reviews for each book, but half of it got corrupted due to a power failure while I was saving it, so I'll have to see what backup I have and see what I can do about that.


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## Riley (Oct 14, 2010)

As far as Redwall's concerned, Martin the Warrior is widely considered the best of any of the books, for good reasons.  If Redwall as a series isn't really doing it for you, at least try to read that one.  

I've personally been reading a bunch of stuff by Allen Steele lately.  Hard SF focusing on the people and society around it.  The Coyote trilogy is my favourite so far, but Clarke County, Space is turning out to be really good, even though I'm only about halfway through it.

Niven will always be a favourite of mine, for the sheer scale and level of detail in his universe.  He's managed to create so much that all fits amazingly well together, and in a way that's really enjoyable to read.  He goes for a softer SF than Steele, a little more fantastical and 'cool,' rather than as realistic as possible.  Anybody that likes Halo should read Ringworld and find out they're a little more than familiar with his ideas than they know.  Niven also co-wrote The Mote in God's Eye with Pournelle, and that is one of the best books I have ever read.  You all should read it too.  Right now.  

Other good SF books, because I don't have enough time to write out why I like all of them:
ME - Thomas T. Thomas
Mockingbird - Walter Tevis
The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester
A Canticle For Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller, Jr.
I Am Legend - Richard Matheson
Ubik - Philip K. Dick


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## Gavrill (Oct 24, 2010)

Letting everyone know I've reread 1984 for the millionth time. It's strange, in a few ways I hate the book, but I keep coming back to it. Maybe it's the writing style? Older books tend to give me headaches when I try to read them, so that may be it. The story however, I find entertaining.


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