Good books?

[no-one]

Hey, I have recently discovered books. I never really used to be into books but I now seem to love them! I have read 'Rock Chicks' and I'm half way through 'Poor Little Bitch Girl' by Jackie Collins. I like stuff like that I think. Anyone read anything decent lately they can recommend?

[Boney M]

Hiya. Not sure if these will be to your liking, but here's some i can recommend. I've recently finished 'Grotesque' by Natsuo Kirino which i really enjoyed, although it's very bleak. Quite difficult to get into, but it was worth it. Also finished the Millenium trilogy by Stieg Larsson (the girl who....dragon tattoo, played with fire, hornets nest) which were fantastic. I'm a huge Chuck Palahniuk fan (fight club) and can strongly recommend 'Choke', 'Survivor' and 'Lullaby'. Douglas Coupland is also a great writer imo and i was really impressed with 'Hey Nostradamus!'. For a straight up thriller, try 'Killer Instinct' by Joseph Finder. Amazon will have loads more info and reader reviews if you're not sure about any of these. Enjoy! :)

[thinaire]

melodyeye-- Omg the Resident Evil series! I thought I was the only one who ever read that. It's pretty old, I guess that's why they must be hard to find now. I read them when I was in junior high, about 8 years ago. To no-one, those are books based on a survival horror video game, not sure if that's your thing, but they're a fun read.

no-one-- I don't keep up with much popular/current literature or the chick-lit genre, but I've heard that Gossip Girl and the Uglies series of books are pretty good. I've been reading mostly sci-fi lately, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels are some of my favorites.

[lovelyephemeral]

love love love chuck palahniuk, especially survivor, choke and rant. though you have to have a certain (read: fucked up) sense of humor to really appreciate them. and im currently devouring this book that is also a bit demented. it's a choose your own ending book. remember those goosebumps choose your own ending books? like that, but for adults! hehe. it assumes the reader is female and you get to travel and have lots of lovers (if you choose to do so) or you could get blown up by a terrorist or hit by a taxi, etc. its Pretty Little Mistakes by Heather McElhatton. she apparently also has another choose your own ending book out, called Million Little Mistakes.

[konstantine]

my personal favourites are "speak" and "wintergirls" by laurie halse anderson. also i love books by stephen king.
i like book by Judith Fathallah, but i don't know the title in english.

[Lichen]

If anyone shows interest on the future technology I would like to recommend “Popular Science” and “Popular Electronics” are good magazines to read about technology.
Discovery Magazine is also good.

You should look into Seed magazine, though it's technically out of print and online-only now.

[me-plainandsimple]

a couple of my favourites are:
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
All my friends are superheros - Andrew Kaufman
Looking for Alaska - John Green

and Harry Potter (i've loved it since i was 7 - my longest favourite)

[Not_Lance_Bass]

If you're in to the 'chick-lit' style. Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman is awesome. It's written as a self help for parents but it's still a really solid and interesting read.

xo

[Lilithium]

Hiya. Not sure if these will be to your liking, but here's some i can recommend. I've recently finished 'Grotesque' by Natsuo Kirino which i really enjoyed, although it's very bleak. Quite difficult to get into, but it was worth it.

This book was amazing, I actually read it in Japanese which was difficult but completely worth it.

I recently got and finished Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi. It was a good read, and very realistic.

[Boney M]

The best book i read this year was 'Naive. Super' by Erlend Loe (1996). I've never read a book in one day before. I just couldn't put it down. I wanted to hug the narrator.

[kallista93]

To the OP, if you like fun trashy reads like Jackie Collins, you should check out Valley of the Dolls by Jaqueline Susann (it was written in the 60s, and shocking for the time, but oh so fun) and the Two Mrs. Grenville's by Dominick Dunne. You may also like some Sydney Sheldon stuff, but I haven't read any myself so I don't know which to recommend. And Peyton Place by Grace Metalious.
For ED books, I like Wasted by Marya Hornbacher (classic), Fasting Girls by Joan Jacobs Blumburg and Thin by Lauren Greenfield (the companion book to the movie). Also Echo by Francesca Lia Block, and Born Round by Frank Bruni.
For normal reading (not ED related) I love anything by David Sedaris. I also like some fantasy, mostly just stuff by Tanith Lee, Storm Constantine, and Jacqueline Carey.
I'm an escapist.

[Illyria]

My two current favorites are "Gargoyle" by Andrew Davidson, and "Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett. I also love anything by John Saul :D

[needleinthehay]

The best book I've ever read is "White Oleander" by Janet Fitch.

I just picked up Portia De Rossi's biography yesterday. I've heard great things about it, and so far it seems really raw and real.

[Thinandbones]

Ummm this is more of a teen book or whatever, and it's a popularish series. And it's nothing like twilight.
The Hunger Games trilogy by suzanne collins is really good. The first book is the hunger games, the second is catching fire, and the third is mockingjay.
It's about a 16 year old thrown into a modern area to fight people to the death. The last one standing wins fame and glory.

[thinmiint]

My favorite books are:

Ficciones - Jorge Louis Borges
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Forever - Pete Hamill
Vanishing Acts - Jodi Picoult
A Passage to India - E.M. Forster
A Mango Shaped Space - Wendy Mass
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
Night - Elie Weisel

Don't know if any of those are what you're looking for because I've never read the books you mentioned, but here are some quick summaries:

Ficciones - Jorge Louis Borges
+ this one's actually a collection of short stories. They all follow a theme, but they don't go together. Basically a book full of philosophy masquerading as fiction. Some of the main themes are creation and the different paths we take/how it affects us. One of the stories is about a universe made up entirely of a library with hexagonal rooms. The library is filled with every possible book because it contains every possible ordering of the alphabet. So there are a load of books filled with stuff like aekgj uwhnc sfs, etew, but there is also the complete works of shakespeare and the story of your life. And there is every possible variation of the story of your life...you'd really have to read it to understand it because this is making no sense :)

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
+This one is about a well to do boy in Afghanistan (set during the fall of the monarchy) whose best friend is the servant boy. The servant boy lives to serve the rich boy who sometimes takes advantage of his loyalty. Even though the servant boy saved rich boy's ass many times growing up, the rich boy is too afraid to stand up for the servant boy the one time he really needs it. He's a good kid at heart though, so he is consumed by the guilt. A bunch of stuff happens after (he moves to America, grows up) but I don't want to spoil it. Basically though, he's tortured by what he didn't prevent and spends the next 15 years wallowing before doing something to "be good again"

Forever - Pete Hamill
+A boy/young man is living in Ireland in the 18th century. War breaks out, his only family is murdered, and he leaves the country for New York. A near death accident and a happening upon a shaman gives him immortality with one condition - he must never step foot outside of Manhattan or else he will die. He sits (or contributes) through every part of history, from the War of Independence to the cholera breakout to 9/11. A blend of American history with Celtic magic and folklore interspersed.

Vanishing Acts - Jodi Picoult
+A woman has her life all set up and is living happily when her father is arrested for the kidnapping of some little girl she has never heard of. She has been having flashbacks that she can't place and seem like they don't belong to her as well. Anything else and I'll spoil this one!

A Passage to India - E.M. Forster
+Set duiring the Indian Independence movement of the 20s. Too much going on for me to want to write out, but there is a long summary here: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

A Mango Shaped Space - Wendy Mass
+Kinda a kids'/teen book (I think I was 12 when I read it), but I still love it. It's about a girl who has synesthesia (words and sounds have 'colors' because the 'wires' for her senses are mixed in her brain) and her struggle and then acceptance of the issue.

Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
+This is just a weird book. Not even going to try to explain it. But read it - it's awesome.

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
+This is a huge ass book with teeny tiny font. And it's hard to read. I like it more for the philosophy and ideas behind it than the actual writing because it's hard to get through. It explores a dystopian world. The government is attempting to control everything industrial. Artists and the biggest and most productive citizens just disappear, following a mysterious John Galt (throughout the entire book, the phrase "Who is John Galt?" is used making it extremely annoying (but page turning) for the reader because I want to know who he is before page 2000!) Huge example of objectivism

The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
+This one's a memoir. Her parents are basically insane and her family is extremely dysfunctional. Their parents were intelligent but her dad was a drunk and her mom was egocentric and mood swingy (i.e., would eat all the food in the house (which was only like two candy bars and a stick of butter, but still) and leave nothing for her kids to eat). The parents viewed being homeless as an adventure and expected the kids to fend for themselves

Night - Elie Weisel
+Another memoir. About a boy's time in Nazi concentration camps

[TheOutsider]

Before I Die - Jenny Downham is honestly one of the most chilling and most beautiful books I have ever read

[machiavelliandandelion]

oh dear, books...i could go on for hours.
one i really recommend is House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. it's one of those books with an underground cult following, and it's brilliant and so unbelievably, terrifyingly engrossing. i look at life in a completely different way after reading it, which doesn't seem a likely outcome when you hear the summary of the book. it's well-known for having strange page layouts and structures that often coincide with the events going on in the story.
an example of the pages, just in case i haven't piqued your interest enough already (and don't worry, they aren't all like this):
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

i would also recommend:
Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman
anything by Neil Gaiman
Miles From Nowhere by Nami Mun
and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (the movie based on it is also one of my all-time favorites)

[chunkyjunky]

The best book I've ever read is "White Oleander" by Janet Fitch.

I LOVE this book. I saw the film first and thought it was great - then purchased the book and realized it was 5x better LOL.

Some of my faves:

The Catcher In the Rye
Les Miserables
Lolita
Franny and Zooey
The Sun Also Rises
Angela's Ashes
The Bell Jar
Great Expectations
The Bluest Eye

[Souris Sourire]

I just finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick. I'd recommend it...and the author in general really. I love reading but have distanced myself from it recently. This has been the first book in months that has interested me enough to finish it in a few hours.

[madestevens]

oh dear, books...i could go on for hours.
one i really recommend is House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. it's one of those books with an underground cult following, and it's brilliant and so unbelievably, terrifyingly engrossing. i look at life in a completely different way after reading it, which doesn't seem a likely outcome when you hear the summary of the book. it's well-known for having strange page layouts and structures that often coincide with the events going on in the story.
an example of the pages, just in case i haven't piqued your interest enough already (and don't worry, they aren't all like this):
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.


I love this book.

I would also like to recommend Think Big and Kick Ass by Donald Trump & Bill Zanker

[cln1812]

The best book I've ever read is "White Oleander" by Janet Fitch.

Oh, yes, I love this book too :)

A lot of people like books by Augusten Burroughs "Running with Scissors", etc., but I never cared for it.

A good nonfictional memoir though (I think it may be a series of books) is "A Child Called It" by Dave Pelzer, an autobiographical memoir, about a boy physically & emotionally abused by his mother & neglected by his father, I believe the case was considered one of the worst child abuse cases in the state of California at the time but it is a powerful series to read nonetheless.