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Hehehehehe, you so funny. They're all lying to themselves.
"I miss the comfort in feeling sad . . . " But people who use a depressed, suicidal persona to stand out in the crowd, gain attention and self-importance are painful to watch too. I was probably one of those for a while, so I'll shut right up.
'Of Human Bondage' by Maugham is a great read . 'Atlas Shrugged' and 'The Return of the Native' are also great reads
Love you new avatar fool.
I would recommend 'Brightly Burning' by Mercedes Lackey. Please don't be put off by its fantasy genre - its a wonderful book, it aroused such a range of emotions within me. I laughed and I raged and I cried, and when I got to the end I turned straight back to the beginning to read it again!
Also, for my sixth form book club, I've just finished reading 'The Lovely Bones', which is absolutely bizarre. It's by Alice Sebold, and it is written form a young girl (Susie)'s perspective after she has been murdered.
whoa, sounds cra-a-a-a-a-zy. Tell me more about this 'sixth form book club'.
erm... well... it's a book club... for the sixth form... at my sixth form college...
thank you Raven. That makes things MUCH more clear.
Catch-22 is now one of my fav books ever.
This book is so darn crazy...:D :D. Does anyone know what other books who got the same theme, genre as this. I really like to dig them out. Thanks
Heller's other books, Catch as Cat Can, Something Happened, Good as Gold, Closing Time, God Knows
Hey RAven what did you think of the Lovely Bones? It didn't fit my tastes at all.
My mother read the Lovely Bones. She really liked it. Which probably means I wouldn't. She read me a couple of exerpts and it sounded sort of... I don't know, Jr.-High-School-girl style of writing. Using the same adjectives and verbs over and over, but not for any deliberate effect. That kind of thing. That's all I remember.
Perhaps you would like Kurt Vonnegut as well? Slaughterhouse five is one of my favorites. I´m not really sure if it´s the same genre, but they have the same way of showing how absurd life (and people) can be.Quote:
Originally posted by subterranean
Catch-22 is now one of my fav books ever.
This book is so darn crazy...:D :D. Does anyone know what other books who got the same theme, genre as this. I really like to dig them out. Thanks
Exactly what I though emily: jr. highish. Maybe like someone trying to be innovative and fialing miserably.
very disturbing. The rape at the beginning? The author was raped - its based on real experience ((as is her novel 'Lucky')). I don't think I liked it, but I didn't dislike it either. It was very strange, and we had a lot to discuss. Don't forget that it was written from the perspective of a high school student, so that would be why it was high schooly - I'm not sure of her reasoning for that...
Who was your fave char? mine was Ruth
I didn't really have a favorite character, but Ruth was the one that stood out to me the most in memory.
'The Lovely Bones' is flakey but teenage girls like it and 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven' by a fellow called Albom. 'The L-Shaped Room' and 'The Writing on The Wall' by Banks 'The Millstone' by Margaret Drabble. Either of Donna Tart's two novels. Louis Sachar's 'Holes' is a clever piece of work. I guess Austen if you haven't read her already. Georgette Heyer wrote a lot of clever Romantic novels.
Oh and there's 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' by Spark, 'The Gowk Storm' by Nancy Brysson Morrison (A Canongate text). Margaret Foster, 'Lady's Maid' and 'Georgy Girl'. Andrei Makine 'A Hero's Daughter'.
There's Miles Franklin's 'My Brilliant Career' - written when she was sixteen. There's Cliff Hanley's novel 'The Taste of Too Much'. Frayn's 'Spies' - clever and funny. Patchett's 'Bel Canto'. Pym's 'Excellent Women' - a smashing decent writer. Tan's 'The Joy Luck Club'. Widdicombe's 'An Act of Treachery' - excellent. I think most of what I have listed there are relatively short focussed works of fiction. There's lots of good non-fiction that an intelligent young woman would like, particularly autobiography but I think I should leave that to yourself.
Subterranean a book a bit like 'Catch 22' is 'Castle Keep' by William Eastlake. You might also like Wharton's 'A Midnight Clear' or James Jones', 'The Thin Red Line'
Life Expectancy and Odd Thomas are great books by Dean Koontz; they are simultaneously hilarious and philosophical. I've read both of them several times, and now that I think about it, I'm due for another re-read soon! :)
Why people like to dig out ol' threads? :D :D... Cheers to ennison who brought the thread back to live.
My list of good books has expanded so long that I don't know where to start. O yes, Siddharta by Hermann Hesse.
To be honest I never noticed that it was two years old. Guess she'll have outgrown some of my suggestions then. But the novels I suggested to you I think you might still like.
Read Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu (i.e. In Search of Lost Time). Read it in the original French because it’s no easier to understand in English, even if you don’t know any French. Read it cover to cover, all seven volumes, don’t skip any words. Re-read any passages you don’t understand. If after finishing the whole thing you still don’t understand it start over from the beginning and re-read it.
That would take me a life time. :lol: I don't think I can spend my entire life on just one novel. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Hippolite
Read it! And then read it again! Man that is cruel! That probably breaks several laws somewhere.
well I really enjoyed Pale Fire by Nabokov because it was hilarious and well written, and I'm reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami and absolutely love it. Murakami is a genius when it comes to literature!
I'd recommend Tom jones by henry Feilding for a bit of 18th century wit.
As for a modern book, if you can get your hands on it, Hellfire by Mia gallagher. its a really big book but very good. It's terrible, i've become completely obsessed with mentioning this book everywhere! and have yet to discover anyone else who has read it! i dont even know if you can get it outside of ireland! :blush:
I've read it and it is an excellent novel. You should be able to get Tom Jones everywhere. It is a classic novel from the 18th century, perhaps the best english novel of that century.Quote:
Originally Posted by niamhking
So you enjoyed reading Dante. So did I. I actually felt like reading The Inferno was one of the most important reading experiences of my life. One day riding on a subway I looked around and asked myself "Hmmm...I wonder what sin that fellow over there has committed and which circle of Hell he will spend eternity?" It was crazy.
Anyway, what to read next depends on what you liked about Dante. Certainly Paradise Lost covers similar terrain and is also an Epic Poem as well. If you want Epic but rather bleak (the Inferno, afterall, is not exactly a Romance) then there is Crime and Punishment which also leaves the reader pondering over morality,justice vs injustice, guilt vs innocence, and that great (just let em hang) topic punishment.
Now you might know this, in which case just ignore my ramblings, but one of the things that made Dantes Epic significant was that it was written in Italian vernacular and that had enormous literary,political,and religoius meaning. He used the "common" tongue and showed how astonishingly beautiful such language can be, when crafted by the right soul.
So if you love all things poetic...well you could read some Pablo Neruda. Reading Neruda(one of the greatest modern love poets) after Dante would be a strange experience, something akin to the decompression astronauts go through.
Oh, hell...you could try reading some nasty Crime Noir. I've been reading some mysteries written by Jim Thompson where the closest thing to love or morality is only kicking the addict one time not twenty. It is not poetic at all but you sure do feel like you are in a very dark hellish world.
Hey...do say what book/s you actually decide to pick up so that all of us "authorities" lol...can see how well we have done.
Me? I played Sudoku for about 6 months after Dante. I guess I needed it. hehe...but true.
Whole heartedly agree. And BBC's 1997 adaptation was great as well!Quote:
Originally Posted by Niamh
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123351/I play Sudoku daily as part of my daily 'diet' without reading any Dante! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghideon
The tv series was what made me read the book. i use to have it on video but like many things gave a loan of it to someone in college and never got it back.:(Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
Just finished Tim Binding's novel 'A Perfect Execution' Amazingly good. What a clever writer!!. Read it.
Thomas Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49". I read it last year and what a discovery that was. One of my favorite novels, Pynchon's writing style is superb. Very good sense of humour too.
I'd recommend Golding's Lord of the Flies. Superbly well-written and deeply disturbing. Also, Voltaire's Candid is nice, if you can find a decent, un-edited copy.
Pynchon is very good. Sometimes I feel that the modernists are exploring the wrong areas but Pynchon does have an exuberant vitality that has to be recognised.