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Anything Else (non-game topics) => General Discussion => Topic started by: New Dawn on February 13, 2012, 07:50:07 AM
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I started to think that my knowledge in general literature was lower than I could bear with so I have recently started to read some 'classics' in (mostly) the English/American literature. So far I've read 'To kill a mocking bird', 'Great expectation', 'Pride and prejudice' and 'The catcher in the rye'. Right now I'm reading 'Heart of darkness'. Have you got any ideas of classics I ought to read?
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The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck. I read it in high school. One of the best reads ever.
Russian literature is great too. Anna Karenina is profoundly well written understanding of human motivations and actions.
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Thank you . I'll look into it. The Grapes of Wrath and Lord of the Flies are also on my list. Are they worth the read?
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I've not read angry grapes but I recall Lord of the Flies as a good read. I read it when I was around 13 years old so there was naturally more age-oriented identification with the characters for my part however I believe it was fairly well written.
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Grapes of Wrath is a must-read, but for Steinbeck, I prefer East of Eden. Both great though.
I like Hemingway too, The Sun Also Rises or Farewell to Arms would be the places to start there.
I've not read Anna Karenina, but have had it on my bookshelf for years, maybe I'll get to it this summer. I've read The Brothers Karamazov, and my wife wants me to read Crime and Punishment... but I'm thinking one big Russian novel per year is plenty.
Of the ones you've mentioned that you've already read New Dawn, which are your faves? I love Heart of Darkness (you'll have to geek out on Apocalypse Now after finishing it, then check out Hearts of Darkness, about the making of Apocalypse Now), and To Kill A Mockingbird is one of my faves as well...
A couple other recommendations: Ken Kesey: Sometimes a Great Notion... One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is more famous, but SAGN is probably my favorite novel ever.
And, of course, The Great Gatsby is brilliant as well. I think I read that once every couple years or so...
Fun stuff.
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Thanks to you too. I'll add East of Eden to my list. The only book I've read of Hemingway is 'The Old and The Sea' a very long time ago. Maybe I'll reread that. I'll add The Sun Also Rises and Farewell to Arms to my list too.
The term 'reading' is a little missleading as I'm mostly listening to books nowadays. It's not the same thing as reading with your eyes. Sometimes it can be better and sometimes it's 'worse' depending on the quality of the recording.
I really enjoyed 'To kill a Mockingbird'. Not so much the other I mentioned. Not so much the others I've mentioned.
Thanks again for your advice.
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I started to read the Narnia stories, seven apparently, not that they are great literature. My little boy (nearing 6yrs) is interest so it's a good excuse to read something that I hadn't before.
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One part in 'To Kill a Mockingbird' that really moved me was the part when the girl managed to stop the mob from lynching the man in the jail. I thought that was a very strong part of the book. And also the chapter about the trial.
I have read 'The great Gatsby' and heard that it should be good book but I can't see the greatness of it. Maybe you can explain it to me?
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One of my high school teachers used to like to brag that he was in the Great Gatbsy, going on further to clarify that we was an extra (or less) in the film adaptation that was shot on location in Newport Rhode Island. Apparently his elbow is visible in one seen with Robert Redford. That was his ice breaker for new students - your teacher is movie star.
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Explaining the greatness of The Great Gatsby... Hmmm. Don't think I can do it. I dunno, I think it does a good job of painting a portrait of an era in American history and does a great job of talking about classes in America. And there are just a lot of great images in that book for me. The huge parties, the billboard for the optometrist looking down on all that's going on, Gatsby's house situated across the bay from Daisy's house... And then the love story pretty realistic.
And, what do you mean you can't repeat the past? Of course you can...
I dunno, I suppose I have a difficult time explaining why I like something. I can tell you more easily why I don't like something...
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I just read (aka listened to) The Heart of Darksness and must say I'm very confused. The whole book is about this Kurtz but it's mostly rumours about him. The place he actually takes in the book is minimal. But parts of my confusion can be due to the fact that I listened to the book and not read it. When you read it you decide the speed with which you process the words, when listening the narrator decides the speed and I know that I was unconcentrated at several times when listening to it. Maybe I'll reread (relisten) it.
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Heart of Darkness took me a long time to read, for not a very long book. Lots of long sentences that take a long time to process. Yeah, that would probably be a book best read rather than listened to, so you could reread a sentence in order to get the meaning more easily.
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The butler did it.
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The $10.000 question, Peacemaker, is: in what story?
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Now I've read 'Sense and Sensibility' by Jane Austen. Even if I understand its greatness with regards to its depiction of the characters I personally think it is a little to 'wordy' for my taste.
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I wonder what I should read now?
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You need something masculine to counteract that Austen...
Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises is my suggestion.
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Ah, you are so right. Before you answered I started with 'To Have and Have Not'. It's definitely a different style and action from Austen...
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The novels already mentioned are great. I would add:
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
1984 by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Lord of the Rings (trilogy) by JRR Tolkein
Dune by Frank Herbert
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Pincher Martin by William Golding
There are so many great novels....... hard to create a "short list". Keep in mind that I'm a socialist and I also like speculative fiction, so my preferences are skewed in those directions.
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Thank you, cugel. I've already read the two Orwell books you mentioned and Tolkien (the trilogy as well as The Hobbit and Silmarillion). I'll put the rest on my 'I-will-see-if-if-I-will-read-list'. I doubt I will read 'Dune' due to it's size -is it 1000 pages? - but I might change regarding that. Is Pincher Martin better that Goldings more well known books (Lord of the Flies and Rites of Passage)?
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Btw, Peace, I've read 'The Good Earth' as per your recommendation and i must say it was a pure joy to read it. A very interesting story and also an interesting writing style. I really liked it.
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I'm glad you liked it.
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Hi New Dawn - I would rank Lord of the Flies as Golding's best novel. IMHO it is one of the great novels in all of english literature. I would rank Pincher Martin as his second best novel. It is a profoundly intense stream-of-conscience character study of a human facing adversity. I emerged from reading this novel possibly more surprised and shaken than any I've ever read. I strongly suggest that you read Dune.... it is in-dact about 400 pages so it is a reasonable read. Many science fiction fans rank it as the finest science fiction novel ever written and I would certainly rank it in my top-five.
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Thanks again Cugel. I will seriously consider reading Dune then. :) Lord of the Flies is already on my list but I will add Pincher Martin to that list too.
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Animal Farm and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea are good ones.
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Ah, you are right there. I have allways liked Jules Verne. And Animal farm - as well as 1984 - is a good read.
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'Ive tried, i can never get past all the boring crap at the beginning of a novel, I recommend something by Darren Shan
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I have now read 'Of Mice and Men' and 'East of Eden' so I can now check John Steinbeck on my list. I really liked the first one.
I am currently reading the third and last book in the Millennium series by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson.
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Have any one of you read any of the Millennium books (or seen the film)?
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Which Millennium film?
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Sorry for being unclear. The name of the movie is 'The girl with the Dragon Tattoo'.
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Isn't that a series of movies or a TV show, preceding the recent big budget film release earlier this year?
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'The girl with the Dragon Tattoo' is a big budget movie released in December 2011 which covers the first book with the same title in a trilogy by this Stieg Larsson. (Daniel Craig is playing the main (male) character in the movie)
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In a response to cugel - who I doubt is reading this but anyway - I like to announce that I have now read Dune. I think it is a good book well worth a read.
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New Dawn - Glad to hear that you read Dune. If I were you, I wouldn't bother with the endless sequels - as is often the case, the sequels are not as good as the original. Here are some other great science fiction novels.... all are masterpieces of thought-provoking speculative fiction and are well worth reading (* beside my personal favourites in this list which together with Dune are my "top-5" of SF):
- The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation)
- Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
- Ringworld by Larry Niven
- The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Leguin
* - A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
- To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer
* - The City and the Stars by Arthur C Clarke
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
* - A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Leguin
* - The Dying Earth by Jack Vance
- The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
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Ah, thank you Cugel for those book titles. I've read several of them already. I did read quite a lot of science fiction when I was young. For example the Foundation-serie as well as the Robot-serie by Asimov. I loved 'To Your Scattered Bodies Go' and I also read the other 4? books in the Riverworld series (but it was long ago). I have also read several books about the EarthSea by LeGuin. I will list the other books in my list. Thanks again.
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In the meantime I take the opportunity to say that I have read Hemingway's 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'. I must say I have never read a book with more 'doom' written over it. Already from the first few chapters I got the feeling this will not end well.
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Since my last post here I have read:
Lord of the flies: Interesting book but not a favorite. I'm glad I've read it at last as it's mentined now and then and it's good to know what it really is. I didn't find the story very realistic though.
The Long Ships by Frans G Bengtsson. A really amazing story about the time of the vikings. Not very realistic this book either but a very fun read in my opinion.
The Grapes of Wrath. I liked this too. It is well written and gives a picture of how life could be during the great depression.
Anna Karenina: Sometimes this book is said to be the best novel ever written. I don't subscribe to that point of view. I found it more or less boring but I can understand that at the time of writing it was an important work with it's view of women's liberation and worker's liberation in a time of traditional family values and slavery. But I would recommend an abridged version if possible.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Not unexpectedly it is a 'little' bit different from the Disney version.
Now I'm reading 'Memoir's of a geisha' by Arthur Golden'. I find it very interesting and it gives a fascinating (albeit criticized) view of life in early 20th century Japan.
Stay tuned for next episode of 'literary stories' by yours truly New Dawn
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Anna Karenina, eh? I've never gotten around to that one. Maybe this summer.
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Well, if the summer is long enough you may be able to finish it :-)
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I'm watching a new "docudrama" series on TV called "The Vikings" about Ragnar Lothbrok's first voyages to England. Has anyone else seen it? I find it very well done and to my admitedly inexpert opinion, quite realistic. It's a Canadian-Irish co-production (go figure!) and showing on The History Channel.
http://www.history.com/shows/vikings (http://www.history.com/shows/vikings)
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I think it's time to update this thread again..
Cugel, I have not seen the drama you mentioned so I cannot comment on that..
I myself have been kind of busy reading for a while and moved over to Science Fiction for now. I read quite a lot of books in this genre when I was younger but now it had been a while since I read SF books.
I've read
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
A very interesting book about how a young, genius kid was brought up and teached how to be a commander over a space ship armada. Interesting story and well written. It is not very plausible but which SF book is that? It is going to become a movie that will be released later this year. It will probably be rubbish but I believe I will see it anyway.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein
About how a human born and raised on Mars by Marsians comes back to earth and has to learn how humans work. Being raised by Marsians gave him special abilities andin the end it is he that teaches humans.
I am now reading:
Childhood's Game by Arthur C Clarke.
This book tells the story about when superbeings came to earth and took over the world - not by killing like in so many SF movies but just by demonstrating their power.
With the reservation that I have not finished the last book yet I'd like to say that I think all three books are good SF books and well worth a read.
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Hi New Dawn,
When I was 12 (almost 50 years ago!) my parents moved us to a new city. Up until that point I was not really a science fiction fan or even a particularly voracious reader. But, in a new city without having made new friends, I was feeling lonely and "dispossessed" and I took to frequenting the local public library. It was there that I acquired a lifelong and passionate interest in science fiction. In those early years, Arthur C Clarke was absolutely my favourite author. I loved the epic scope, the imagination, the essentially optimistic, and humane nature of his stories. The book you're reading (Childhood's End) was one of my favourites but my absolute favourite, which I read many times and influenced me in many ways for my entire life was "The City and The Stars" which is an epic vision of the future of humanity on earth a billion years in the future.
If you like Clarke, I strongly urge you to read his short story collections, especially the old ones which were originally written in the 50's.... there are many stories of astonishingly epic sweep and profound concepts of the "nature of mankind" and our relationship to the universe. collections I recommend include:
Expedition to Earth (1953)
Reach for Tomorrow (1956)
Tales from the White Hart (1957)
The Other Side of the Sky (1958)
Tales of Ten Worlds (1962)
The Nine Billion Names of God (1967)
So many brilliant short stories to read, including these "Must reads" : The sentinel (Which was the basis for the brilliant film 2001 a space odyssey), Rescue party (this one almost a religious experience for me), The star.
I read ENDer's game when it was first published and consider it brilliant. As with Dune and many other good SF novels, the many sequels of Enders Game are not as good as the original
Heinlein I read more sparingly, but I certainly enjoyed Stranger in a strange land. also good is Starship troopers (much better than the film).
In the 50's and 60s'; Clarke, Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov were known as the "Big three" SF writers of their generation/era. Clarke was my favourite. Heinlein tended to write military oriented stories and his right-wing almost fascist views seeped into his stories. Asimov seemed more interested in the hard science of science fiction and was in fact also an accomplished popular science writer. Clarke was the philosopher and idealist of the trio. Kind of like me :)
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Stranger in a Strange Land is, aside from being one of the best classic SciFi books, a foundational 1960s counterculture book... Of course, by the time Manson came around, this thing hit a little too close to home.
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Thank you, Cugel for your recommendation. I will see if I can find them.
And I can see what you mean, Sir Osis
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Since my last post I've also read Neuromancer by William Gibson. It pictures a dark, futuristic world where the protagonist, Case - a computer hacker and drug addict - is persuaded to help an AI to merge with another AI to become a greater 'consiousness'. The book is featuring cybernetic implants, memories and consiousnesses from people caught in ROMs or RAMs and speaking AIs.
I know that I have a long time ago read the 'sequels' to this book - Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive - but I don't remember them at all. This was the first time i read the first book in the series. The book caught lot of attention when it came and made cyberpunk a more accepted branch of science fiction but I cannot say I liked it myself.
Now I'm jumping (at least temporarily) to something completely differently namely 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel.
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Neuromancer was a good one...
My recent reads:
Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
American Pastoral - Philip Roth - highly, highly recommended
Into the Wild - John Krakauer - perhaps even more highly recommended...
Now a quick stopover with Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries, then onto either Anna Karenina, or if I haven't worked up the courage for that, a Timothy Leary biography.
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I haven't read any of those books (or anything by those authors at all). The first one is actually a play, isn't it. How different is it reading a play from a book?
About Anna Karenina - the summer is long :-)
Speaking about summer - have you had any of this heat wave affecting California?
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Yeah, it's been hot here, but no moreso than normal... We usually have a mild June and then the very end of June into July the temps jump big time... Last Sunday it was 113 out at my dad's house out towards the desert... that was fun...
The Krakauer one is a nonfiction book that was turned into a movie of the same name...
And yes, Death of a Salesman is a play... I'd rather see the play than read it, but reading a play is fun, especially with all the stage direction included by the playwright, so you get to envision the action in your mind...
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Imagine 113 degrees.. That's 45C. The hottest temperature ever recorded in Sweden is 38C.(100F) Three summers ago we had almost 34 and that was intense hot...
I've been away, though, on trips to the Mediterranean and experienced temperatures between 40 and 45 in Turkey and Greece and that was hard to endure. But I knew that it was only for a short time and I didn't need to work - just relax.
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Death Valley ain't that far from my house.... three hours, maybe four...
Highest recorded temperature ever: 57C, 134F... During the heat wave that produced that record, there were five consecutive days over 129F...
In 2001, it reached at least 100F there for 154 consecutive days.
On July 12, 2012, the lowest recorded temperature of the day was 107F or 42C!
The average high in July in Death Valley is 116 (47F) with the average low of 88 (31C).
Now that's hot.
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And, fwiw, on the completely uninteresting topic of weather, today is one of the great type of southern California days of summer weather... it was hot today, but not exactly blistering... got up into the mid 90s maybe, but then it just never really cooled down... driving home from work at 730pm it was still 91F and even now, 1130 pm, is still in the mid80s, with just a little gust of warm wind every now and then... sitting on the back patio, getting some work done, slipping into the pool every hour or so to cool off for a bit... yeah, this is the kind of day that only happens a few times every year...
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I am aware of the heat in Death Valley - it has recently taken over the official record as the hottest place on earth as the record from the previous holder (in Libya, Africa) were discarded last year. I am also aware that there is a race that goes by foot, is 135 miles long and starts in Badwater in Death Valley, Californa and ends on Mt Whitney. It will start for the 36th time this coming Monday (July 15), And no, I am not participating. But I am unsure whether I should awe or ridicule the participants.
Back to weather: I can understand that for people used to have good weather (almost) every day it is not interesting to talk about weather. If the weather isn't good one day it will be the next day instead.
For us up in the north it is a bit different though. If you want to have a party of some kind you want it to be on a day with nice weather. Some summers here can have maybe 5 days of good weather. You don't want to sit inside if there are just a few of them. On the other hand , some sommers can have maybe 30 days of good weather. It's hard to know in advance. That's why I and many people around me talk about weather and follow the forecasts (short and long) to know when there is the best chance for good weather.
But we got light! Nowadays it is light from very early in the morning and to 10pm and it doesn't get really dark in the night at all.
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Yeah, that Badwater ultramarathon or whatever... In-freaking-sane.
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Back to topic again. :-)
I have made a short jump-away from science-fiction and I have now read Emily Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights'. A dark, tragic story about love and hate. For some reason it became famous. I can't say I liked it very much but it was interesting to read a book I have heard about so many times and finally realizing what it was about.
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Hated it.
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Time for an update regarding my quest. Since my last post I have read: (Haven't I been busy, say? :-)
H G Wells War of the Worlds A real Science Fiction classic that should be a must for all those that likes SF.
Robert A Heinlein Starship Troopers
Orson Scott Card The Speaker for the Dead The sequel of Ender's Game. I loved it.
Ursula K Le Guin The Left Hand of Darkness
Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse 5
Charles Dickens A Tale Of Two Cities Is said to be one of the worlds most read books but I had heard very little about it before I read it.
PD James Death comes to Pemberly A crime story as if written by Jane Austen. Not worth reading according to me.
Selma lagerlöf Gösta Berlings saga My first book by her even if she is Swedish (Nobel prize winner)
Edgar Allen Poe The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum and a few more
I am currently reading:
Neal Stephenson Cryptonomicon (This is some heavy stuff for cryptonerds)
(Sorry for the bad layout of the post)
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I've always wanted to read Cryptonomicon, but that takes dedication and I've got a stack of books lined up that I've got to get to first...
Of that last bunch, I've read War of the Worlds, Slaughterhouse Five, A Tale of Two Cities and most of that Poe stuff. Vonnegut is one of my favorites...
On the summer reading list I've got a couple basketball books lined up first, then:
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 - Hunter S. Thompson
The Plot Against America - Philip Roth
The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
The Death of Sweet Mister - Daniel Woodrell
San Miguel - T.C. Boyle
American Psycho - Brett Easton Ellis
He is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Masterson
and I'd like to work a classic of some kind in there... Maybe Last of the Mohicans? I've never read that one...
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have we lost New Dawn?...
My recent recommendations:
The Death of Sweet Mister was phenomenal... Not just a great story, but the use of language here alone is worth a nod. Dude can write.
For that matter, I read Cloud Atlas after that and that book is a work of genius... Something like four or five separate and distinct stories woven together perfectly with different narrators in different styles and different eras. The sheer tightrope-walking of the author is insane.
The Book of Fame deserves mention as well.. Quick easy read detailing the New Zealand All-Black Rugby team's first European and North American tour. Written more as a prose poem than anything else. Highly, highly recommended.
And, just started Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. Literally just started it this morning and I'm more than halfway through. And it is just jaw-dropping. I've read a lot of great stuff this summer, but this thing is above and beyond. Story of a soldier in the Iraq war back stateside for a hero's tour, before being shipped back overseas for another tour. Pretty expertly derides American war culture without ever getting preachy. Just a look inside a soldier's life, with all of the earnestness and cynicism inherent therein mixed up and spit back out. Probably required reading.
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No, you haven't lost me :-) Sorry for not getting back earlier. But this will be quite a large post instead.
Your post was interesting and I will add those books you mention to my ever increasing pile of books to read.
I have not been idle since my last post. Here are what I've read (with or without comments)
I was reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon when I made my last post. It is a 'heavy' book to read but I enjoyed it very much. It's a good example of a book where different parallel stories are woven together in the end. And of course a lot of crypto talk.
In the genre Science Fiction:
I've read some more Edgar Allen Poe (Ligeia, The Raven)
Two books by Isaac Asimov 'Caves of steel', 'The stars, Like Dust'
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
I've seen a movie made from this book a long time ago but I noticed I didn't remember much of it.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
6 different stories all in some way centering around the more or less impossible planet called Hyperion. I liked it very much. Especially the story about a girl whose life started to go backwards.
Jurassic Park
John Wyndham The Day of the Triffids
I've only seen it as a movie on TV before. It was interesting to read the original.
Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
And also some 'Classics'
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Nevil Shute A Town like Alice
Ken Kesey One flew over the cuckoo's nest
Emma by Jane Austen
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
And to that some Swedish/Nordic Novels/crime stories in between
I would like to mention and recommend this book:
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.
In spite of its weird title its a very funny tall-tale about a (Swedish) man who gets involved in many of the important happenings all over the world during the 20th century. Highly recommended.
Phew...
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Btw, I'm reading David Copperfield right now. I'm close to the end of one of the thicker/longer books I've read/listened to (close to 40 hours listening time)
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Steppenwolf and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest are favorites of mine... Fahrenheit 451 is pretty great too.
And, Michael Crichton may have lost his way later on, but Andromeda Strain was a damn good thriller.
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I did really enjoy One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I could see Jack Nicholson in front of me when I heard Randle McMurphy speak in the book. And this in spite of me never having seen the movie...
Steppenwolf didn't touch me in anyway but I think Fahrenheit 451 - as well as 1948 by Orwell - should be a mandatory read for all people for to prevent totalitarian states in the future.
In contrast to you I actually preferred Jurassic Park before Andromeda Strain - both the book as well as the movie.
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New Dawn; I see from an earlier post that you read Enders Game..... did you see the movie? What did you think about it? I enjoyed it but didn't think it was as good as the book. Suffered from the problem common to many film adaptations..... too much had to be removed from the story in order to fit into a 2-hour film. But on the positive side; I did like the performance of the young actor portraying Ender.... he was much as I visualized Ender Wiggin when I read the book.
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I haven't seen the movie (yet). I have been interested in seeing it but I didn't have the opportunity to see it when it was running at the cinemas. I have heard Orson Scott Card's own comment about how he had been struggling with different movie companies over the years about an adaptation. He had to fight so they didn't made the protagonist older and turned the story into a 'love story in space'. But he was looking forward (then) to the coming adaptation. And I aim to see it myself someday.