ThunderPeel2001

Books, books, books...

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I need to read more of Wodehouse, I have a feeling that his Wooster series isn't representative of his best work. Maybe I should check out some Evelyn Waugh. As for other authors, I've heard that Mark Twain is surprisingly hilarious, too (ie. it has aged really well).

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Recentlly I read:

-Name of the Rose......:tup::tup:

-Boy in striped Pyamas.............:tmeh:

-Chronicles(Dylan)..........:tup::tup:

-Poezije(France Prešeren)............:tup:

-Prince of Persia 2008(manuel)...........:tdown::tdown::tdown::tdown::tdown::tdown::tdown::tdown::tdown::tdown:

Currently I'm reading Farewell to arms, then going to On road by Kerouac and than to Boundolino by Eco.

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I need to read more of Wodehouse, I have a feeling that his Wooster series isn't representative of his best work. Maybe I should check out some Evelyn Waugh. As for other authors, I've heard that Mark Twain is surprisingly hilarious, too (ie. it has aged really well).

I don't think I'd call Twain "hilarious" -- there are lots of funny things in his books but he's not going for a laugh a page or anything. He's absolutely great though and has aged very well.

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I don't think I'd call Twain "hilarious" -- there are lots of funny things in his books but he's not going for a laugh a page or anything. He's absolutely great though and has aged very well.

Any recommendations of his?

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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I need to read more of Wodehouse, I have a feeling that his Wooster series isn't representative of his best work. Maybe I should check out some Evelyn Waugh. As for other authors, I've heard that Mark Twain is surprisingly hilarious, too (ie. it has aged really well).

Piccadilly Jim was the first Wodehouse I read and I can heartily recommend it. Also Laughing Gas is fun. To be fair, any Wodehouse will do ;)

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I'm currently reading After Dark by Haruki Marakami. It's pretty good. I'm about 100 pages in. Lots of philosophy. Pretty neat story about night life in Japan.

I was going to read either 1 of the following Jane Austin bastardizations next. Mr. Darcy Vampyre or the instant classic Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.[/b] I read the first few pages for a kick when I got it. Not gonna lie... first line made me laugh pretty hard.

Also have a really interesting one I was thinking about reading next called The Meaning of Night. Victorian era serial murder story. From the murderer's perspective. Sounds neat.

then going to On road by Kerouac
That's my bands singer and myself's favorite book. Enjoy that. It's a fun read. :)

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Piccadilly Jim was the first Wodehouse I read and I can heartily recommend it. Also Laughing Gas is fun. To be fair, any Wodehouse will do ;)

Well I ploughed my way through a Jeeves omnibus and it was definitely hit and miss. Which is to say that some stories were funnier that others.

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Well I ploughed my way through a Jeeves omnibus and it was definitely hit and miss. Which is to say that some stories were funnier that others.

Yeah, I would definitely avoid ploughing; he can get a bit repetitive. Maybe limit yourself to a couple a year for maximum enjoyment.

Edited by Jamsl
silly word order

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I really like how there are free audiobook versions of many of the public domain books nowadays. The reader, of course, has a lot to do with the enjoyability of the whole experience, and it seems that some of the books are ruined by 9 different readers, most of which are really bad. I've listened to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and A Study in Scarlet so far and the reader in those (audiobooksforfree.com one, I think) was excellent, in my opinion. He seems to have read The Return of Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of Baskervilles as well, so I'm looking forward to those.

I also downloaded The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. It seems that both of those have decent enough reader as well.

A little offtopic: When I was looking for good cover images to go with the mp3 files I had just downloaded, I began to feel like I was doing something illegal while I actually was not. So that was a little weird. I guess I'm too used to everything not being free or something.

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For a while now I've been trying to read the latest book in the A Song of Ice and Fire Series, A Feast of Crows. I don't know why, but I'm finding it fairly dull compared to the first three books, which I loved all of the way through.

Has anyone here read these books? Does it get better?

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I have first 2 waiting on my pile, but am scared to start reading them before summer. But it's not weird if qualaty degrades through time(maybe you are just tired of them).

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I remember A Feast For Crows being not as exciting initially as the first few, but it picks up.

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I just read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and it was dreadful. Incredibly boring, with a predictable and yet utterly silly solution to the mystery.

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Just listened to the audiobook of Mars by Ben Bova. Excellent book, you would barely know that it was written in the nineties even though it's steeped in technology references. The fact that Bova was writing about satellite controlled aircraft similar to the US's Predator planes is damned cool.

If you're interested in the audiobook, by the way, the reader is brilliant. Does foreign accents fairly well, although it does feel slightly hokey at times. About sixteen hours though, which is pretty damn chunky.

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I read Bova's Jupiter in high school but nothing else. I should look into that. Thanks for reminding me of him.

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If you like crime novels, read Charles's Willeford's Miami Blues. It is one of the best novels I've ever read. This isn't said with any of the self-doubt, delusion, or bashfulness that came with my declaring Lester Bangs the best writer of last century (decidedly, he isn't).

I'd be reading the sequel already, if I could.

Here's an excerpt, if you're so inclined to buy the book (which you should be):

Frederick J. Frenger, Jr., a blithe psychopath from California, asked the flight attendant in first class for another glass of champagne and some writing materials. She brought him a cold half-bottle, uncorked it and left it with him, and returned a few moments later with some Pan Am writing paper and a white ball point pen. For the next hour, as he sipped champagne, Freddy practiced writing the signatures of Claude L. Bytell, Ramon Mendez, and Herman T. Gotlieb.

Edited by Kroms

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anyone here read Hugh Laurie's book, "The Gun Seller"?

It's from 1996 and it's somewhat of a...parody of a conspiracy thriller...actually quite an interesting read...with lots of sarcastic and cinic humorous bits...

here's an excerpt from the first chapter of the book...

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Finished 'The Name of the Wind' by Patrick Rothfuss a few moments ago. Overall it was an enjoyable read; fun fantasy stuff. I already pre-ordered 'The Wise Man's Fear', its sequel. No idea when that is supposed to come out, but it'll be a nice surprise when I find a fresh new book in my mailbox.

A few months ago I made an attempt to start Jared Diamond's 'Guns, Germs and Steel', but I got sidetracked and kind of forgot about it. Found it and started reading it again. It's very interesting so far, although for now I can tell that it'll be a slow burn for me. The guy repeats a lot, which makes it tiresome to get through, but I guess he wanted to make his points with as little room for interpretation as possible.

I also made a start in Joseph Campbell's 'Hero With a Thousand Faces'. Haven't gotten that far in yet, but I like it so far.

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anyone here read Hugh Laurie's book, "The Gun Seller"?

It's from 1996 and it's somewhat of a...parody of a conspiracy thriller...actually quite an interesting read...with lots of sarcastic and cinic humorous bits...

here's an excerpt from the first chapter of the book...

One more book that's waiting to get my attention, but the people I talked to about it all really liked it.

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I just finished that new biography on John Adams. Really interesting how he received so much pressure from Both the federalists and republicans, but always stayed true to his own beliefs while president, and while guys like Jefferson were supporting institutionalized slavery, Adams consistently rejected it as deplorable, and was able to see it would cause a conflict after his lifetime.

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For a while now I've been trying to read the latest book in the A Song of Ice and Fire Series, A Feast of Crows. I don't know why, but I'm finding it fairly dull compared to the first three books, which I loved all of the way through.

Has anyone here read these books? Does it get better?

The other books had more POVs to jump between. So it'd go from an action-packed chapter with Jon Snow beyond the Wall to a political intrigue chapter with Tyrion in King's Landing to an expositiony chapter with Bran in the northern wilderness and so on. The diversity of the characters, tone, and settings kept things from getting stale. Since Feast focuses on only a handful of this cast, it makes the story seem slower to me.

The benefit, however, is you spend more time with each of the characters and they all seem to have pretty great arcs from the start of the book to the end. The latter half has a couple of my favorite moments from the entire series - namely, the ends of the last Arya and Cersei chapters.

I've got some low-key Sci Fi lined up, namely Cloud Atlas and Ghostwritten by David Mitchells. Which one should I start with?

Hey, did you ever read/finish Cloud Atlas? I quite liked that one. It's essentially 6 different novellas wedged inside each other, Russian doll-style. All written in different styles.

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I just read Foop! by Chris Genoa. It's a bizarro science fiction novel about a time travel agency. The book starts with the main character having to shoot Abraham Lincoln while his boss throws the unconscious John Wilkes Booth off the balcony and yells, "Sic Semper Tyrannis!" It's a strange book. I would say that it's so strange that it's good though.

Here's one of the pictures scattered around the book.

83da224128a08241930f3010.L.jpg

Edited by JTTalker

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Did you guys know there's a novel based on the first Metal Gear Solid game?

I read part of it in a bookstore. It's hilarious, written by the guy who wrote the Splinter Cell novel - which was also hilarious (in a really bad way).

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I read part of it in a bookstore. It's hilarious, written by the guy who wrote the Splinter Cell novel - which was also hilarious (in a really bad way).

I want him to write a Just Cause novel.

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