What BOOKS do you read or recommend?

[syntax]

Hey, what do you all read and can you recommend your favorites? Novels, gay themed, history books, whatever.

I like real history books and historic novels like those of French writer Amin Maalouf. All of his books are available in Dutch (for me) and English (for you).

I really enjoyed Maalouf's historical novels - Samarkand, Leo Africanus, Crusades through Arab Eyes.

You might enjoy the historical novels of Gore Vidal, especially with your interest in American politics. He has written a series of novels that chronicles the History of the United States.

 

[G-Lexington]

I've been reading a lot of biographies as of late. Read one on Thomas Jefferson, then Andrew Jackson. I started one on Albert Einstein, but I'm having trouble staying interested.

Lex

 

[kiltlover]

I'm an English Literature student so my list would be stupidly long. Top Recommended would be...

-The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
-The Secret History by Donna Tartt
-The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
- The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens


I've had to stop myself because I could go on forever. Maybe my obsession with books is why I'm single...

 

[dauuger]

I've been reading Delillo's "White Noise". Seems to blabber on contentedly but there's a lot of insightful stuff in there about modern family life.

 

[Angelfan]

This thread is obviously for the high-brow reader so I won't tell you what I read.

 

[enderwiggen]

When I am reading, I typically go for books that are geared for entertainment. Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoy the classics and biographies too, but as of late I haven't had too much time fore reading.

So, when I do read, I usually devour Fantasy/ Sci-Fi. Ender's Game/ Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card [hence my screen name] is absolutely a wonderful story. Ender's game is more fluffy, but Ender's Shadow is a very deep book, and definately brings to light several interesting tidbits of the human psychology.

In the Fantasy world, Harry Potter, LOTR, Witches of Eilleanen, The banned and the Banished, and the Twilight series are my favorites.

Among Sci-Fi, the Ender series by OSC, and the Uglies Trilogy/Cycle.

Plays: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, Tartuffe by Jean Baptiste Moliere, Equus by Peter Shaffer, and the Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds by someone I can't remember. Mony Python skits are pretty hilarious too.

Classics: Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, the Time Machine, and a few others that skip my mind at the moment.

 

[LatinoSTAR]

Henry Millers Tropic Of Cancer.

I highly Reccomend it.

 

[syntax]

From Gore Vidal, I only know "Live from Golgotha!" (the gospel according to a time travelling apostle's rentboy).

"Live from Golgotha" was a funny satire of Christianity and part of Gore Vidal's "experimental" novels. He's very prolific. Check out his American novels, "Burr", "Lincoln" "1876." They represent a very informed, alternative history of the American Empire. From this United Statian's perspective, he is a national treasure.

 

[NomineDetracto]

my favorite book is Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. it's brilliant.

also:
Player Piano - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
What Is The What - Dave Eggers

i just finished a book called Icelander buy Dustin Long which was one of the best books i've read in a while. it's kind of a murder mystery... very fun.

 

[Zingerific]

I have to agree about Gore Vidal. My favorite is probably "Burr," about Jefferson's VP Aaron Burr. He also wrote a novel back in 1948 about a romance between two men (The City and the Pillar). He was told it would end his career -- didn't quite happen that way

I enjoy the big Russian novels. I also like Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, and David Foster Wallace.

Other than that, I have an interest in WWI history (and related topics). I really liked Paris, 1919, The Guns of August, and Rites of Spring.

I like philosophy too. I'm into Hannah Arendt and Slavoj Zizek these days, and aesthetically I like Theodor Adorno and Peter Kivy.