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re: Looking for book suggestions..
by Obeliska/Tavie on 10/03/2014 2:57 am
I was searching the forums trying to find a post about good books to read, but I fail at searching it seems (or maybe it was not in AoR forums as I thought) Anyway, I just finished the Eragon series and am looking for suggestions for good books.
I am thinking of trying the Hyperion series, and Somo suggested the GoT series (Song of Ice and Fire series), but figured I would toss out this question in hopes of adding some new suggestions to my reading list.
What are some of your favorite books? something you would highly recommend to others? (not genre specific)
Hope this finds you all well and full of book suggestions
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GM FrightOfficer
Joined: 01 May 2008 Posts: 2698
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re: Looking for book suggestions..
by GM Fright on 10/03/2014 10:52 am
I read the first three and a half books of the Game of Thrones series, and then I just got tired of it. It was really, really good and interesting for a while, but then all of the things that made it good and interesting started to just get tiresome. Of course there are a lot of people that don't feel that way, but definitely buy one book at a time if you're going to give those a shot.
My favorite fantasy series (mostly because it was the first one I read) is the Shannara series, starting with the Sword of Shannara. There's a ton of books in it at this point, but the original is a great stand-alone book. There's two other stand-alone books after the first that maybe aren't quite as good but read pretty quick, then there's a four book series, The Heritage of Shannara, that's really the dude's masterwork. I've read those four books probably a half dozen times, but you do need to read the first three beforehand. He wrote a prequel that's good, and several other trilogy sets, the first of which is good, but they go downhill from there in my opinion.
My favorite book (by a pretty wide margin) is the one widely considered to be the first fantasy book, but it's not high/epic fantasy at all. It's called Phantastes, by George Macdonald, and he wrote it in the mid-1800s. It's a difficult book to describe. It's very surreal and almost hypnotizing at points. The whole thing can be read as any number of allegories. It's not a book like any other book you've ever read, and the fewer expectations you have when you start reading it, the better you will enjoy it. If you're a fan of fantasy (sounds like you are), then you should definitely read this book. Not because it's a fantasy book, but because this book is where the Epic Journey of the Unchangeable Hero from classical epic poetry first crossed over into the very changeable fairy-tale world of European coming-of-age folk stories, and the genesis of the modern fantasy genre occurred. Also because it's just a really, really good book.
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GM FrightOfficer
Joined: 01 May 2008 Posts: 2698
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re: Looking for book suggestions..
by GM Fright on 10/03/2014 3:38 pm
Also, Neuromancer by William Gibson is a fantastic book. He coined the terms "cyberspace" and "the matrix" in it in 1984, and it's a very cool cyber-action/mystery story. It's a pretty quick read too, not very long.
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re: Looking for book suggestions..
by Obeliska/Tavie on 10/11/2014 1:48 pm
Thanks, for the suggestions. I started Hyperion and will probably do fire and Ice once I am done with it. Then I will check out the Hollows series.
I will check out the rest of Fright's suggestions after all that.
If any others come along, please feel free to add your suggestions. Maybe even list your top 10 favorites, regardless of genre. I know quite a few of you are or were avid readers (eyes Sterne and Klik).
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GM FrightOfficer
Joined: 01 May 2008 Posts: 2698
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re: Looking for book suggestions..
by GM Fright on 10/12/2014 4:31 pm
If you want to step outside the modern fantasy box, you should read some of the books I've read lately: Dante's Divine Comedy, Faust, Ovid's Metamorphoses, The Maltese Falcon, and I'm currently reading The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde. Here's my list of upcoming books (eventually), in no particular order: Heart of Darkness - Conrad Lilith - George MacDonald Of Mice and Men This Town - Leibovich Religion in Human Experience - William James Structure of Scientific Revolution - Kuhn On the Nature of Things - Lucretius Zealot - Reza Aslan (and his other books) Boomerang - Michael Lewis Reign of Error - Diance Ravitch Varieties of Religious Experience - William James It's Kind of a Funny Story - Ned Vizzini They're worth looking into, maybe something you'll find interesting too. There's also quite a few of those Shannara books that I would like to read, still. They're good, I'm telling you, you should give them a shot!
Last edited by GM Fright on 03/26/2015 6:03 pm; edited 1 time in total
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SomositoRaider
Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 583
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re: Looking for book suggestions..
by Somosito on 10/12/2014 6:25 pm
The Picture of Dorian Grey is actually one of my favorite. Kudos to you, hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
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re: Looking for book suggestions..
by Amminidab v2.0 on 10/12/2014 7:35 pm
Somosito wrote: | The Picture of Dorian Grey is actually one of my favorite. Kudos to you, hope you enjoy it as much as I did! |
I love that book. I unfortunately watched the movie first so I kind of had my thoughts skewed during my read.
Some of my favorites are:
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
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KimlinRaider
Joined: 02 Aug 2008 Posts: 179
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re: Looking for book suggestions..
by Kimlin on 10/14/2014 6:35 pm
The Hot Zone. Richard Preston.
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