Book Recommendations

[Moe]

I've got to pick out a classic book for school today and I'm still not sure what to read. Any recommendations?

[Austruck]

Gosh, a lot depends on age, school grade, etc. I don't know any of this about you, so this is shooting from the hip. Sorry if I'm way off on where you are in these areas, but here goes....

A few off the top of my head that are fascinating to read anyway, even if they ARE classics (ha ha) are:

Uncle Tom's Cabin (although controversial)
Robinson Crusoe
Frankenstein (by Mary Shelley) (not considered a classic by EVERYONE, and it's not much like any Frankenstein flick)
Pilgrim's Progress
Paradise Lost (okay, this is poetry, but read like a book to me)
Anna Karenina (if you have a lot of spare time)

newer classics:
Lord of the Flies
Catcher in the Rye
Of Mice and Men
Gone With the Wind

Suddenly I can't think of any more off the top of my head, but these cover quite a diverse range of interests.

I'll be curious to read what others come up with.

[Austruck]

Oh duh...

Also, two more newer classics:

1984
Animal Farm

[Moe]

Thanks for your suggestions, Austruck. They really helped me out. I ended up getting Lord of the Flies.

[Austruck]

Good choice. One thing I forgot to add was that some of the newer classics are also conveniently ... SHORT. :)

Lord of the Flies isn't a huge time commitment, but it is very thought-provoking. Enjoy it! (Now you make me wanna go read it again.)

[Swimmers]

Lord of the FLies!?! Ahh...bad memories of that book. ALthough it is a classic, it is quite disturbing yet slow moving.

If you need further books try:

Catcher in the Rye- I read that...a little twisted too...

Les Miserable- My FAVORITE book! They have the movie on this Sunday too on TNT?

Frankenstien- definitely a classic in my book!! Read it in 8th grade.

Tale of Two Cities- good book. Reading it now in English!

Anna Katerina
Pride and Prejudice
Phantom of the Opera

Austruck we have the same tastes! I have read soo many books...some are good others are different! We should start a book discussion! {einstein}

[Austruck]

Les Miserables? Good grief, I'm reading that one NOW, but I've had to put it down because it's just so danged LONG. I have six kids at any given moment, so it's tough to maintain reading heavier material for very long before I give up and intertwine it with Stephen King (don't tell anyone), MAD magazine, or doing laundry.

I'm about a third through an unabridged translation. (I figgered if I was gonna attempt the thing at all, I might as well go full-tilt.)

Yes, we do have similar tastes. I am enjoying the book (when it's on the front burner), and I gotta admit that Liam Neeson in the recent version of the book is very good.

[Swimmers]

Yes...the book was VERY VERY VERY long..I thought that I would never get to the end! Liam Nesson did a GREAT job in the reent movie...except I didn't care for the actaul ending of the movie which left out the rest of the book.

FamilyChannel has a "newer" version of the book on tonight at 7 or 8 I can't remember...it's going to be in a 4part miniseries. It looks like it will be promising..if you have some free time!

Don't worry..you'll get to the end!

[Austruck]

I honestly don't know the ending and post-ending of the actual book, so don't ruin it for me. :)

Yes, the Neeson version was good (as far into the book as I am to compare those parts), but because of length, they obviously had to leave out huge chunks of background material on all the characters, etc.

It's precisely that background material that I'm finding fascinating in my reading. I assumed that the ending would be that way too -- more to it than in the screen version.

I'll look for the version on the Family Channel; thanks for the heads-up.

[TWTCommish]

If you want to read a classic without all the work, Animal Farm is the only way to go. It's short, incredibly simple, and very interesting. If you're at least 13 years old, you can't possibly have much trouble understanding it, as long as you're not a product of the public school system. :D

I've read it many times - I've (*literally*!) lost count...at least 6 times, I think.

And no, the USA version is not accurate - which would be fine, except for the fact that they had no exscuse. IE: the book would have translated onto film without editing just fine...it was already cinematic enough.

[Karenluvs6]

a great Classic book is 'The Old Man and The Sea'...by Ernest Hemingway.
I love this book!
I had to read it once for 12th grade...twice for college and now, I have already made my son (13) and my daughter (12) read the book.

[Swimmers]

Austruck- the movie version is less than the actual ending. I loved the details of the book too. Really, without the elaborate details, you lack a real well based story! The miniseries is 4 hours...so many they'll get the ending right!

Animal Farm- I really didn't like that book at all! No offense to you are anything. In out English class we could choose between reading that or working on Writing. So of course, since I LOVE TO WRITE, I chose the writing assignment. Plus I had previously read the book and didn't care for it!

Karen- I've read part of that book. I put it down to concentrate on the novel I was reading in a class and have forgotten to pick it back up. I did that with Charles Dickens' "Great Expectation" as well. Good book though from what I've read of it!

[TTP]

I like the Hobbit. {toothy}
{dude}

[Moe]

Has anyone here read any of H. G. Wells books?

[OG-]

The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas is a great book for literature style etc. But if you just want a very cool book go with War of the Rats by David L. Robins.

[PsalmReader]

Originally posted by Karenluvs6
a great Classic book is 'The Old Man and The Sea'...by Ernest Hemingway.
I love this book!

Me too! I read it in middle school. I picked it because it was such a small book! ;) Boy did I have a pleasant suprise when I read it. :)

I didn't like reading much in school. I'm a slow reader and it was hard to get me to sit still that long! I was a little bull-headed too. :( My 7th grade teacher assigned "Little Women" to me. I didn't read it because I was a big tomboy and I thought she was trying to tell me something (just from the title). LOL How dumb was that?!

I read "Lord of the Flies" in 7th grade and "Animal Farm" in 10th grade. They were okay. I wasn't wild about either one of them.

In high school I read "Brave New World". Now there's a thought provolking book! The tv movie a while back was alright too.

[Swimmers]

OG..I heard that was a good book...and different English class at my school was reading that. They all seemed to like it!

[OG-]

Yea I had to read it for school, but turned out to actually like it alot. It's one of the greatest books I've ever read.

[Swimmers]

I'll have to read it! So far my favorite has shaped up to be Les Miserable and A Tale of Two Cities!

[OG-]

A Tale of Two Cities was pretty good too.

[Swimmers]

I just finished book the second...it is getting pretty interesting...we are reading it in class...and right now I have the urge to read it to see what happens!

[OG-]

Yea occasionally my school will surprise me and pick a good book for us to read. But then they pick horribly boring stuff like Our Town, or Oedipus Tyranus. Also, even though its a famous "great" book, I hated Great Expectations. I thought it was one of the stupidest, most boring books I have ever read.

[Swimmers]

I agree with you there..I started to read it...I stopped...and then started...and could never get into it. When our school picked "lord of the Flies" I was dreading reading that one too. I didn't like it at all!! I mean it is "famous" but that doesn't mean I will think it's the BEST book in the world...no sir..I didn't like that one at all!

[OG-]

I had to read that one too. Wasn't the best book ever. And at times it was just so ridiculous and stupid.

I liked the Simpsons version of it better.

[Swimmers]

LOL! The Simpson's version...never seen it!

[OG-]

The school is going on a field trip, and of course something idiotic happens and the bus falls into the ocean. All the children float to shore and the bus sinks. They are left to fend for themselves. Its great. Instead of using glasses to magnify the sun to start a fire, Nelson grabs them off of Milhouses face and just smashes them against a rock until it catches on fire. It shares similarities with the book, but its really funny.

[Swimmers]

It sounds like it's funny!! I love it when they take a book etc and make it into a pardoy! They are quite funny all in all!

[Zephyrus]

This is my list of some of the books that haven't been already mentioned:

Great Expectations - one of my favourites of all time (sorry OG :))
Lassie Come Home
Call of the Wild
White Fang
For Whom The Bell Tolls
The Three Musketeers

If you like Russian books, definitely do not go past these:

Dead Souls - by Nikolai Gogol, comic masterpiece, a great insight into the Russian soul
Maestro and Margharita - Mikhail Bulgakov

[TWTCommish]

Well, take it from me: if you're looking for technical books (online programming mostly), you'd be a fool to choose anything other than Wrox Press! http://www.Wrox.com - that's their home page.

I'm the proud owner of three of their books (all big and red) - Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0, Professional PHP Programming, and Beginning JavaScript. I've read through big chunks of the first two and love them (especially the first one) - about to begin the JavaScript one.

Beginning Active Server Pages 3.0 is the best programming book I've ever read thus far. Move over, O'Reilly! :)

[Tim]

I really like 1984, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, and Tale of Two Cities. The Old Man and the Sea was alright...I did get kind of bored when he was just sitting out in the ocean.

One book that I can't stand is The Scarlet Letter. There is so much detail little plot. I could probabaly take 100 pages out of that book and still keep the entire plot intact.

I am currently reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and I like it a lot. Nice plot and something new pops up every so often. :)

[Swimmers]

I just finished a Tale of Two Cities the other day! I loved it!!! It was soo good...and Poor Mr. Carton. God bless his soul.

Huckleberry Finn is read by Juniors so I'll be reading that next year...along with the scarlet Letter! {rolleyes}

[DarkInHere]

For the geeks among us, "Microserfs" by Douglas Coupland is amazing. I've read it twice, and listened to the audio version countless times :)
Actually, there's nothing by Douglas Coupland I don't like!

[KayDee]

I'm so happy I saw this thread..I've been wanting to get some other viewpoints on good books. I'm a historical fiction addict. A couple years ago I felt like I was concentrating on too much "fluff" and decided to start reading the classics.

I started with Dickens and read all the books our local library has, loved Great Expectations, sobbed my way through Oliver Twist. It's been many years since I read A Tale Of Two Cities, so I should probably read it again. I haven't read Pickwick Papers.

I've also read Bronte, Alcott, George Eliot.

I've read The Far Pavilions, by M.M.Kaye at least once a year since it was published. Don't know if it qualifies as a classic, but its a favorite of mine. My first copy (paperback) was destroyed in a housefire. It had been borrowed by friends. I loved that book so much I bought another copy, this time hard cover.

I found Anna Karenina at the libary, and had never read Tolstoi before. Did Tolstoi write other books? I'm currently reading Anna Karenina.

[Zephyrus]

Yep, Tolstoi sure wrote other books, his most famous work of all time being War and Peace! Ana Karenina is good (gets a bit boring sometimes though).

[KayDee]

Boring is right!! Politics always bores me so I skim through the parts about politics and government. But the chapters on rural and family life are good. Is War and Peace political in nature?

[Austruck]

KayDee,

I liked Anna Karenina too (though I read it in high school and don't remember as much as I should).

I also liked reading Gone With the Wind (go figger), if you like historical fiction.

HEY---HERE'S one author for ya! Diana Gabaldon. Her stuff often gets categorized as "historical romance," but that's not a good way to think of her stuff. Most of her stuff is set in Scotland, circa 1600s and 1700s. It is HYSTERICAL (main character is a woman with a great sense of humor), and SO well written.

Okay, I'm biased because I knew her back in the late '80s before she published this stuff. I actually got to READ rough drafts of her first novel. They've all turned into smashing successes, and everyone who's read them agrees with me that she has a style you just can't put down. (Nice, big, long books, too--the kind you wish would NEVER end.)

She wrote a trilogy first: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager. Then she realized the story wasn't finished, so she wrote Drums of Autumn. It's still not over, and all her fans are anxiously awaiting Book #5.

If I sound overly eager about this stuff, I am. She's a royal hoot as a person AND a writer, and it just tickles me that she's found such success.

Go find the first book (it's available in paperback too--and I've even managed to find some of the hardbacks in second-hand stores). Read it, and tell me if I'm right. (I know I am.)

Enjoy! (And now you make me wanna go find Anna Karenina again--but first I still have to finish Les Miserables!)

So many books, so little time!

Linda

[KayDee]

Austruck,

I've read all of Diana Gabaldon's books and really enjoyed them!! It's wonderful to hear there's a sequel in the works.I'll watch for it at our library. Thanks for the tip!!

I'm almost finished with Anna Karenina. As I was searching for more info on the man and his works in the Encarta files, I found out before I'd read far enough in the book that Anna committed suicide...arrrrgggg!!! That's like someone telling you how a movie ends before you've seen it!!

I read Gone With The Wind years ago, after seeing the film. I should borrow it from our library again, its been awhile since I've watched it. Another movie I love is Doctor Zhivago. I have it and watch it a couple times a year.

I completely agree!! So many books, so little time!!

[Karenluvs6]

My exhusband used to read books written by a certain writer....they had this 'horse racing' theme.....usually on the cover was a picture of something pertaining to horseback riding.
I can't for the life of me remember his first name but I am thinking that his last name might be Frances.....but I'm not sure.
If anyone has a clue, please let me know. I'd like to do some research of these books.
thanky!

[KayDee]

You're on the right track(no pun intended). The author's name is Dick Francis. I've read all of his books that I can find. He crafts a great story. Though I'm a historic fiction nut, for a change I enjoy novels that involve mystery and meyhem!!

[ladyserenity]

Originally posted by Moe
Has anyone here read any of H. G. Wells books?

I love H G Wells. The Time Machine is my favorite of his. If you enjoy 'heavy' reading, try Hermann Hesse...Damien, Sidhartha..I love his books.

Anything by Mark Twain is great. One of my favorites of his is Puddinhead Wilson.

A book I read recently is The Truth Machine by James Halperin. A very thought provoking book.

If I'm not working, sleeping, or on the computer you will always find me reading.

[spidergoolash]

Originally posted by Moe
Has anyone here read any of H. G. Wells books?

not yet, but i'd like to soon :)

i recently finished "dune" by frank herbert. it was one of the best books i've ever read.

[jamesglewisf]

Read any good books lately?

[lindsey923]

This thread hasn't been responded to since 2003. So, sorry if there is a newer one. I am just wondering if anyone has a list of newer books they have read and enjoyed lately. (I read all the classics in high school and my first couple years of college--ok not ALL the classics, but a lot of them.)

I am currently reading "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" and so far it is really good.

I always have to have a book on my list to check out. I go crazy if I don't have something to read for pleasure!

[Grimey]

I'm reading Battle Born by Dale Brown. It is good.

[jamesglewisf]

If you like Dale Brown, you might like Matthew Reilly. I'm reading his Seven Deadly Wonders, and it is pretty good.

I've also been reading a lot of Dean Koontz, and his stuff is good. The dialogue is hilarious.