Ncrowe 0 #1 March 30, 2004 I'm a somewhat avid reader, and typicaly read titles from the top 10 best sellers list. Lately they're all seeming typical and predictable. Does anyone have any suggestions for great books that are a little "different"? thanks in advance "Don't Mess Around With the Guy in Shades- Oh No!!! " Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jumpinjackflash 0 #2 March 30, 2004 The Black Rose by Thomas Costain.... I've been walking around my house for the last twenty minutes since it came to me, looking for it... Truly a unique read. Incredible story. Epic proportions... Good Luck, JackIt's a gas, gas, gas... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nightjumps 1 #3 March 30, 2004 Ya know, I read about four books a month and am sharing your pain. I just finished DaVinci Code and embarked on Angels & Demons cause I thought it would be as good, if not better. Read "Flyboys" by James Bradley, author of "Flags of our Fathers" and am reading Grisham's new novel, "The Last Juror." I think I'm about to tiptoe back through some classics. I haven't read Steinbeck's "The Winter of our Discontent" in about 25 years. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wmw999 2,545 #4 March 30, 2004 One I've liked is The Fly on the Wall by Tony Hillerman. It's not one of his Jim Chee Indian mysteries; it's a political/newspaper thriller, and quite good. Wendy W.There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ncrowe 0 #5 March 30, 2004 Cool i'll defintly check these out, nightjumps that sounds like a good idea what are some other"classics" that are must reads? "Don't Mess Around With the Guy in Shades- Oh No!!! " Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tbrown 26 #6 March 30, 2004 Can't link you up, but there was recently a thread where Skybytch asked the same question. I always recommend Gabriel Garcia Marquez to one & all. His Nobel Prize winning novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is incredible, it's a total flight of fantasy. Also "Love In the Time of Cholera" and his new autobiography "Living to Tell the Tale". If you know Spanish (I don't), try to get the original editions. Otherwise, the English translations will blow you away just the same. Garcia Marquez is Columbian and the greatest living New World Spanish language writer. What's so different about Latin fiction, or so it seems to me, is that it completely dispense with the rules of "reality" as we know it in the English tradition. Things happen that in an English/American novel we'd stop and say, "that would never happen, it's impossible". But apparently in the Latin tradition, the impossible just makes for a better story. Check him out!! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity ! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RoadRash 0 #7 March 30, 2004 I love this book...one of my alltime favorites... THE POWER OF ONE by Bryce Courtenay...I recommend this one to anyone and everyone... ~R+R...Cheers and enjoy!~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Fly the friendly skies...^_^...})ii({...^_~... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CornishChris 5 #8 March 30, 2004 If you can find it then read "The House of Leaves" by Mark Danielowski. Very scary, very wierd but abslutely brilliant. You will never read anything quite like it - I swear. CJP Gods don't kill people. People with Gods kill people Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AggieDave 6 #9 March 30, 2004 If you haven't read Tom Clancy's stuff (his fiction, not his ghost writer BS), then you're definately missing out. If you want some good non-fiction, Force Recon Diaries 1969 is one hell of a read! Oh, and if you haven't read Harry Potter, I suggest you do, they're great books.--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CornishChris 5 #10 March 30, 2004 My suggestion got me thinking about the book again and I need to dig my copy out. here is a Synopsis: I still get nightmares. In fact I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I'm not. No one ever really gets used to nightmares. Mark Z. Danielewski's first novel House of Leaves is a multi-layered fiction--part horror-story, part philosophical meditation, and mostly very good storytelling. The Navidson family move into a house in Ash Tree Lane. Will Navidson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, decides to document his family's domestic acclimatisation in a film, The Navidson Record, but it soon becomes apparent that something is very wrong with the house, and the film becomes a document of the growing disorientation and terror of the occupants. Later, a blind old man, Zampano, writes about this film: at his death, his papers are in disarray, and the strange narrative and commentary are reconstructed by Johnny Truant, a young LA slacker working part-time in a tattoo parlour. Try as he might, though, Truant can find no record that the film ever existed, but the unaccountable fear begins to haunt him too. Ever see yourself doing something in the past and no matter how many times you remember it you still want to scream stop, somehow redirect the present, reorder the action? Danielewski builds, around the armature of the central horror fiction, a complex and involving portrait of three very different characters: Truant's hedonistic trawls through LA are counterpointed by Zampano's intellectual obsessiveness and by the disintegration of Navidson's "cosy little outpost." What is common to all three is a concern for the elusive nature of truth and experience, and the fragility of the deepest human needs for security and family. A first, casual glance through the book might initially be intimidating, for Danielewski uses an arsenal of post-modern and avant-garde techniques, from multiple typefaces, footnotes and collage to the insertion of photographs, sketches, a page of Braille, and even an index--these are introduced gradually, however, and used almost cinematically to slow down or speed up the reading experience. The use of devices like these is not new of course, but, akin to writers such as David Foster Wallace and Jeff Noon, Danielewski freely unites avant-garde and popular art forms, finding new ways to explore what is, at heart, a deep interest in the addictive properties of narrative. Elsewhere, House of Leaves has already been compared to the film The Blair Witch Project for its mix of pseudo-documentary and genre horror: such comparisons draw attention to the way in which many young writers and film-makers are reinventing tired and formulaic genre traditions. The book begins "This is not for you": a warning most readers would do well to ignore, for House of Leaves, despite its occasional stylistic overload, is a book that is near impossible to stop reading CJP Gods don't kill people. People with Gods kill people Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nightjumps 1 #11 March 30, 2004 I enjoy mid-19th to mid-20th century. Testimony of Two Men - Taylor Caldwell Naked Came I - Weiss Madame Bouvary - Flaubert The Pickwick Papers - Dickens Forever Amber - Winsor The Naked and the Dead - Mailer And one of my favorites, that I've read several times, but am in need of reading once again is; Kon-Tiki - Thor Heyerdahl Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pa2themd 0 #12 March 30, 2004 QuoteI love this book...one of my alltime favorites... THE POWER OF ONE by Bryce Courtenay...I recommend this one to anyone and everyone... ~R+R...Cheers and enjoy! I have to completely agree with you, that book is amazing and being South African really hit home!! It was a bit of an eye opener for me!! You should read the follow up called Tandia, also brilliant, very sad but so real! Two other all time favourites is "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelo (I think I have read it 20 times and then the "Magician" written by Feist or Eddings (Can't remember always get them confused "Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it's addressed to someone else!" Ivern Ball Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vt1977 0 #13 March 30, 2004 Have you read any Sebastian Faulks? Both Birdsong and Charlotte Gray are excellent. Vicki Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
meltdown 0 #14 March 30, 2004 Practically anything by Kurt Vonnegut, but especially: Cat's Cradle Slaughterhouse 5 Breakfast of Champions Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Shotgun 1 #15 March 30, 2004 For something "different", I'll recommend Blue Movie by Terry Southern. It's a very funny and entertaining story about the making of an "upscale" porn movie. For a "must-read classic", have you read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand? That's one of my favortie books. I still haven't read her Atlas Shrugged, but I hear that's really good too. Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein is another favorite of mine and a classic. (I wish the world and people were really the way they are in this book!) I just can't seem to find time to read books anymore! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
piisfish 140 #16 March 30, 2004 QuoteTwo other all time favourites is "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelo I abandoned at page 3 ... not a reader...scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Hoot 0 #17 March 30, 2004 Check out Musashi it is a great book. click There are 2 types of people in this world: those who like Neil Diamond and those who don't. --Bill Murray Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
crwper 7 #18 March 30, 2004 For "classics"... I recently enjoyed "Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens. Slightly less classic, "The Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie. I think it's unfortunate this book was drowned in so much media attention surrounding the author, when it should have received more attention as just a very good book. Anything by Jose Saramgo is great, but if I had to pick one, I'd probably pick "Baltasar and Blimunda". Michael Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DrunkMonkey 0 #19 March 30, 2004 Anything by Irvine Welsh. In chronological order of their storylines: -Trainspotting -Filth -Ecstacy -Glue -Porno Note--not for the faint of heart/stomach. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
