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NathanStinson	Official Literature/Reading Topic	Lead	[-]
Posts: 1449 (01/14/09 12:01 PM) eats your heart out Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Tags : None Hello all, As some of you know, I am an avid reader. I'm a fan of many genres and authors, and just generally enjoy a good read. I have talked to a few of you who have expressed that you do as well, and was wondering how many others of you do? If so, what genres do you like to read? Have any favorite authors? Have any favorite books/series? This year, for the first time, I decided to set some reading goals, as well as document what I read and when. It'll be more difficult as the year goes along, since I should be graduating this year, and work increasing, but I will try my hardest to meet my goals. I decided to shoot for 50+ books and 20,000+ pages, Current status as of 01-12-09: 4 books and 1,761 page, and I am halfway through another... however, school has started back now, so I will probably have less time to continue my pace. Also, does anyone have any recommendations for the boards? I'm always looking to broaden my horizons:) Do you have any books on queue for the next month/year? I will post some of my favorite books/authors in different genre's later. Feel free to add your own. btw, here are my current reads of the year: 1: "Adam" - Ted Dekker - 01-01-09 (started app 12-30-08) 388 pages / hardback / first read / app 2 days / Suspense(Thriller) Fiction / 6 out of 10 stars 2: "Royal Assassin" - Robin Hobb - 01-06-08 (started app 01-01-08) 675 pages / softback small / first read / app 5 days / Fantasy Fiction / 8 out of 10 stars 3: "World War Z" - Max Brooks - 01-10-08 (started app 01-06-08) 342 pages / hardback / first read / app 4 days / Horror Survival Fiction / 8 out of 10 stars 4: "Face of God" - Bill Meyers - 01-12-08 (started app 01-10-08) 356 pages / softback big / first read / app 2 1/2 days / Christian Fiction / 5 out of 10 stars 5: "Inside Straight" - edited by George R. R. Martin / in progress We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long. Baddest Mor on the Planet: NathanStinson 01/14/09 12:34 PM. Edited 2 times.
Lovins		#1	[-]
Posts: 410 (01/14/09 12:16 PM) Actually an Actuary Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	The only book I've read for fun since high school/college is Catcher in the Rye, actually I read it a few times, so that's always been my favorite. My GE Times My GE Movies My GE Turbo Times "Adam - hey im adam Girl - reaches out and shakes hand A - starts small talk G - giggles and ask about the-elite shirt A - O the elite, its this site i go to G - grabs wiener A - What the hell im not done explaining!" - Adam Matis
NathanStinson		#2	[-]
Posts: 1450 (01/14/09 12:25 PM) eats your heart out Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Starting off! Classical Lit or, at least, what I consider to be classical:) I have not read much of this (I was homeschooled in highschool, and, thus, did not have to read many of these books for lit classes). Some of the ones that I've read that I enjoyed include: Moby Dick, Oliver Twist, Johnny Tremaine, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, and (most recently) 1984 (although I sort of lost interest near the end) Some I'd like to Read: I've always heard that Watership Down was a great novel. I'd like to read the Grapes of Wrath, Cather in the Rye, Catch-22, Arabian Nights, The Illyad, The Odyssey, and Lord of the Flies as well at some point. I used to really enjoy the Tolstoy stories I read in literature books, so I think that, at some point, I'd like to read War and Peace Christian Fiction I would wager that many here have not read much Christian fiction. A good portion of it isn't as well written as is more mainstream writings, but I still have enjoyed some of it that I've read. My favorite christian fiction authors are, most likely, Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker. Both write suspense/thriller novels, and neither are too preachy with their writing. I'd recommend both. I'd also recommend C.S. Lewis (of The Chronicles of Narnia Fame). He had several good writings outside of that series I also read the Left Behind Series... it was kinda of meh, but I liked it when I was a kid:-p I recall reading some books by Larry Burkett called "Solar Flare", "The Illuminati", and "The Thor Conspiracy", but I remember very little of those. I also recently read "The Face of God" by Bill Meyers, which was a decent read. In addition, I read many non-novelization Christian books as well. Some I'd like to Read: There is a Peretti novel I haven't read yet, and a lot of Dekker's writings that I haven't. So, if I ever get a chance during the year to pick one up, I may. Military/Spy/Espionage/etc. Fiction My brother is a huge Tom Clancy fan, so that sort of got me into reading some of those when I was younger (although I have not read many lately). I have read about 4-5 of his Jack Ryan novels, plus a few outside of that series ("Politika" and "Red Storm Rising" are the ones I remember off the top of my head). One Christmas, my mom got me a lot off of ebay of Robert Ludlum novels. I really enhoyed the 4 books of the Bourne Series, plus the one written by Eric von Lustbader (sp?) which comes after the original 4. There were also a few outside of that that I liked ("The Jansesn Directive" being one that sticks out in my head) Some I'd like to Read: I'd like to eventually finish the Jack Ryan series, so that I'd be able to discuss them with my brother. Also, maybe I'll get to a point when I can finally finish all of the Ludlum books I have sitting around :-P Those are a few genres for now, I will post some more later! We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.
afanoftherings		#3	[-]
Posts: 1712 (01/14/09 12:37 PM) ...it's all in the reflexes Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Ted Dekker FTW! His books are like massive page-burners! From Him I would STRONGLY reccomend the Circle trilogy (especially if you like stories structured like The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix!): Black, Red and White (a fourth book is due in the coming months!!!) I would also recommend House (co-written with Frank Peretti), Skin, Three (also turned into a decent movie!), and Showdown! My all-time favorite from Frank Peretti is by far The Oath! I was given this book before I was saved and it radically changed the way I understand sin! It's also one HECK of a scary/suspensful read! The Lord of the Rings are (obviously) my all time favs to read as I'm actually going through The Return of the King for my fourth time through the series! Tolkien is in a league of his own! I've also read the Hobbit a couple of times, I love that story! i certainly would'nt call myself an avid reader, but I certainly enjoy a good story... so GO READ THE CIRCLE TRILOGY AND BE PREPARED TO BE BLOWN AWAY! The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails-given by one Shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
NathanStinson		#4	[-]
Posts: 1451 (01/14/09 01:12 PM) eats your heart out Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	The Oath, Piercing the Darkness, and This Present Darkness, are probably my favorite Peretti novels. I also want to read the Circle Trilogy sometime this year. I've only read the LotR... maybe 2 times? I've read the first portion (Fellowship) about 3-4 times on re-read starts. I've read The Hobbit twice, its a great, easy read. We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.
wishiwasfamous		#5	[-]
Posts: 4337 (01/14/09 01:19 PM) wiffle ball Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Working on Cardinal of the Kremlin by Clancy right now. Since High School I haven't read many pleasure-reading books. Harry Potter 5, Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising, Cardinal, and Catcher in the Rye (one of my favorite books) have really been it for 5 years. But there are tons of school required lit books that I've plowed through/skimmed, but I don't count those. Would like to finish the Potter series someday, then gain enough courage to read all 1000 pages of Atlas Shrugged. toodles! You don't know how far you can go until you've gone too far It's klobbering time! ~It's fun to smoke marijuana - Neeuq~ Undecided Voters for Candidate My Active Rivalry
NathanStinson		#6	[-]
Posts: 1452 (01/14/09 01:22 PM) eats your heart out Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	to give you a better idea of some of my reading habits... here are a few books I have up on my reading queue on shelfari (http://www.shelfari.com/nstinson) "The Warded Man" - Peter V. Brett "The Mothman Prophecies" - John A. Keel "Starship Troopers" - Robert Heinlen "Altered Carbon" and "Broken Angels" - Richard K. Morgan "The Running Man" - Stephen King "Blade Runner" - Phillip K. D!ck "James and the Giant Peach" - Dahl "The Iron Giant" "The Postman" "Matter" and "The Player of Games" - Iain M. Banks "Mirrored Heavens" - David J. Williams "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party" - M.T. Anderson "Return of the Crimson Guard" - Ian Cameron Esselmont More of the Foundation and Robot series' - Asimov "The Wavering Knife: Stories" - Brian Evenson "Battle ROyale" - Koushun Takami "Little Brother" - Cory Doctorow "The Black Company" - Cook The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever series - Donaldson "Tales of the Dying Earth" - Jack Vance "The Last Wish" - Andrzej Sapkowsk the rest of The Book of the New Sun series and "Soldier of the Mist" - Wolfe The Caine series - Matthew Stover The Camulod Chronicles series - Jack Whyte "Black Ships" - Jo Graham "Lavinia" - Ursula K. LeGuinn "The Ten Thousand" - Paul Kearney the Fionavar Tapestry series, The Sarantine Mosaic series, and "The Lions of al-Rassan" - Guy Gavriel Kay "Kushiel's Dart " - Jacqueline Carey "The Inferior" - Peadar O'Guilin "The Mists of Avalon" - Bradley "Dangerous Visions" - Ellison The Malazan Book of the Fallen series - Erickson "The Tooth Fairy" - Joyce "Ragamuffin" - Tobias Buckell "The Briar King" - Greg Keyes The Mistborn Trilogy - Sanderson The Warlord Chronicles - Cornwell "The Sword Edges Blonde" - Alex Bledsoe "The Anubis Gates" - Tim Powers "Lord Tophet" and "Shadowbridge" - Frost a lot of star wars novels - various authors "The Wounded Spirit" and "House" and "Nightmare Academy" - Peretti Wild Cards novels - George R. R. Martin and others "Neuropath" and "The Judging Eye" - R. Scott Bakker "Best Served Cold" - Joe Abercrombie and, hopefully... if they come out.. "Republic of Thieves" - Scott Lynch "Dance with Dragons" - George R.R. Martin We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long. Baddest Mor on the Planet: NathanStinson 01/14/09 01:30 PM. Edited 1 times.
rshepherd1000		#7	[-]
Posts: 1217 (01/14/09 02:05 PM) UFC Paperweight Champion Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	paging bully ************************************ aaronjensen: TERRIBLE hand MarkR_: I'm sorry MarkR_: I can't hear you MarkR_: I've stuffed your money in my ears ltk'd
Red Bull		#8	[-]
Posts: 2284 (01/14/09 02:28 PM) Wind it up Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Do absolutely not touch The Illyad and The Odyssey, unless you like summary of names, sometimes there's even 20+ pages or so devoted to naming of some ships for what I remember. Lord of the flies is pretty good, maybe not the story itself so much, but the underlying morality and ethics are. How can you even dislike 1984 (even if it's just the ending?). The ending pretty much sums up what Orwell is trying to convey in the morals with the story. Animal farm is pretty good too, although it's just 'another' attack on communism. I agree with that the Chronicles of Narnia is good, got the whole bundle of those books here, pretty interesting. However, I don't know that much from English literature, mostly because I really have to concentrate to follow stories (especially when reading Joyce, Dickens, Elliot etc.) Cannot really bother reading translated books, because a lot of power in the wording is lost when translated, for example in Alice in Wonderland with all those poems, wordings and terms. With non-classical authors (eg Dan Brown) it's doable, as it is mostly about the story. My favourite author is probably Harry Mulisch, a Dutch author, read most of his novels, about 12 or so. In general I think Dutch literature is better, just because it's my native language and the stories themselves are worthwile, though probably not known to anyone outside of the Netherlands Anyway, you seem to be pretty obsessed when you're setting goals for how many pages you want to read in a year? Should remain fun imo. - Max PD Times \| GE Times "I think I've been able to fool a lot of people because I know I'm a dork. I'm a geek." - Gwen Stefani
wishiwasfamous		#9	[-]
Posts: 4338 (01/14/09 02:52 PM) wiffle ball Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Who's Philip K. Dick? toodles! You don't know how far you can go until you've gone too far It's klobbering time! ~It's fun to smoke marijuana - Neeuq~ Undecided Voters for Candidate My Active Rivalry
RWhiteGoose		#10	[-]
Posts: 4563 (01/14/09 03:03 PM) Beautiful, Dirty, Rich (1 for 3 so far) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Books are inefficient. Watch movies for stories and when reading, read actual facts (reference materials) which are far more interesting and teach you much more. The only novel worth reading is Catcher in the Rye, and only if you're a depressed young guy. Otherwise everything you need to know is in the Bible. xoxox ~expert's bitch .
NathanStinson		#11	[-]
Posts: 1453 (01/14/09 04:00 PM) eats your heart out Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	"Anyway, you seem to be pretty obsessed when you're setting goals for how many pages you want to read in a year? Should remain fun imo." not obsessed so much. I just enjoy reading:) I generally shoot for 50-100 pages a day. And I can generally do that at night before I fall asleep. Makes it easier to finish books We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.
NathanStinson		#12	[-]
Posts: 1454 (01/14/09 04:05 PM) eats your heart out Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	btw, for wiff, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.
DimSim3		#13	[-]
Posts: 568 (01/14/09 05:00 PM) My Mum Thinks I'm Cool Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	I don't like reading fiction, I only like to read non-fictional. A few of the amazing books that I've read are.... Psycho-Cybernetics (Maxwell Maltz) - Possibly the best book you could ever read? How to argue and win everytime (Gerry Spence) The Game (Neil Strouss) - This one is definitely for Ryan Feel the Fear and do it anyway (Susan Jeffers)
Matt Cook1		#14	[-]
Posts: 1667 (01/14/09 06:31 PM) gobble gobble Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	A couple of weeks after reading most of "the game" I made a chick cry.. whoops. Well she was REALLY short... Yeah Karl is right... you really should read this, Ryan. Get it off isohunt.com
RWhiteGoose		#15	[-]
Posts: 4567 (01/14/09 06:46 PM) Beautiful, Dirty, Rich (1 for 3 so far) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Thanks guys for being the 47th and 48th people to tell me to read "The Game" by Neil Strouss in the past 2 years. edit - Downloading now. edit2 - Done downloading. edit3 - What the Hell guys. Step 1 is "Select a Target." Goddamnit that's the main thing I have problems with because there are so few targets I want whom aren't too good for me. deletes kidding I'll read it probably tonight between 3-5am. xoxox ~expert's bitch . Baddest Mor on the Planet: RWhiteGoose 01/14/09 06:56 PM. Edited 2 times.
AckeZ1989		#16	[-]
Posts: 1439 (01/14/09 10:28 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	I've read all the Bond books written by Fleming. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is by far the best Ian Fleming wrote (and the film is very, very like the book). I'm also a huge fan of Agatha Christie; read 20 of her novels or so. I've also read "The Grapes of Wrath"; read that one last year in school, pretty good novel but the film was even better! Other novels I've read includes "A Clockwork Orange", "2001" and some Stephen King and Ray Bradbury novels. Of course I've read more than that, but this is what I can come up with now. I like reading books, it's just that watching movies takes up so much time so I haven't really got time left to read much My GE Times \| LTK + DLTK \| Turbo \| My Youtube
NathanStinson		#17	[-]
Posts: 1457 (01/14/09 11:29 PM) eats your heart out Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	What King did you like? I have read quite a few of his works We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.
NathanStinson		#18	[-]
Posts: 1458 (01/14/09 11:51 PM) eats your heart out Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	For you Wheel of Time fans: http://www.brandonsanders...pear-in-A-Memory-of-Light We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.
the Blueline Goddess		#19	[-]
Posts: 645 (01/15/09 12:23 AM) Valedictorian at Awesome School Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Nooooo not Wheel of Time! D: During school, I don't read too much aside from the required texts. During winter/summer breaks though I tend to go a little overboard. I do love reading! Lately I'm on a true crime kick (which I guess isn't all that surprising, if you know me), and I managed to snag a fair number of true crime books from my grandma, as macular degeneration pretty much took away her ability to read. I read "In Cold Blood" last summer, and I've been wanting to start on Helter Skelter for a while but have managed to continue to get sidetracked. Most of the others are about random crimes that no one who doesn't follow the crime websites would even know about. For example, last year I won a contest for a crime writer and received a reader's advance copy of his book about 6 months before it was to be released. I do like Vonnegut as well, though I haven't read all of his stuff. Need to work on that as well. My mom started the lofty goal several years ago of reading all the award-winning books. As she's bought most of the books on the various lists, I plan to start with that at some point as well. "I calculated the odds of me succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid... and went ahead and did it anyway." ~ Crow T. Robot
AckeZ1989		#20	[-]
Posts: 1441 (01/15/09 06:42 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	NathanStinson wrote: What King did you like? I have read quite a few of his works We were forced to read "Stand by Me" in school. I've also read "Misery" & "The Shining"; both were pretty good imo. My GE Times \| LTK + DLTK \| Turbo \| My Youtube

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