the literacy thread

[slavetrader]

this goes out to those of you who are literate, those of you who aren't can't read this, so beat it!

what are you reading right now? who's your favorite writer? favorite book?

meself..

currently reading Karl Marx's ''Das Kapital''
and
Fyodor Dostoevsky's ''Crime and Punishment''

i really liked ''The Idiot'' by Dostoevsky, but my favorite writer has be the finnish Mika Waltari, his historival novels are simply fantastic: ''The Etruscan'', ''the Secred of the kingdom'', ''the Roman'',''the Adventurer'', ''the Wanderer'' and ofcourse ''The Egyptian''.

my alltime favorite book is Waltari's ''the Dark Angel'' which takes place in ancient Byzantine.

 

[okiN]

I'm reading Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina for school at the moment, along with the Tobias Smollett translation of Don Quixote (It's from the 1600's or something, not exactly an easy read) and Passion is a Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash by Pat Gilbert for pleasure. I'm having trouble keeping up with all three of them, but I can't very well stop reading any of 'em so I'm basically screwed until I manage to finish the Clash one. As for favourites, it's impossible for me to answer a question like that.

 

[Pharaoh Llandy]

I'm currently reading the Orcs omnibus edition, by Stan Nichols.

My favourite novel by far has to be Watership Down. I never tire of reading it, and must have read it at least 15 times. Other favourites include the Farseer/Liveship/Tawny Man trilogies by Robin Hobb, The Memoires of Cleopatra by Margaret George, and the Merlin Codex by Robert Holdstock.

And, of course, all Pratchett and Bill Bryson books.

 

[pzler]

I'm currently reading the Orcs omnibus edition, by Stan Nichols.

My favourite novel by far has to be Watership Down. I never tire of reading it, and must have read it at least 15 times. Other favourites include the Farseer/Liveship/Tawny Man trilogies by Robin Hobb, The Memoires of Cleopatra by Margaret George, and the Merlin Codex by Robert Holdstock.

And, of course, all Pratchett and Bill Bryson books.

watership down rulez!

i'm currently reading deus ex machina.

stephen king books are good, tolkien is tha man, Harry Mulisch, Robert M. Pirsig, pratchett, Vladimir Nabokov's sigh... i'm a book worm i could go on for ages listing books and writers

 

[Nairagorn]

Heh, a couple right now actually, I tend to multitask my books. At work I'm reading Starship Troopers by Heinlein (book rocks, movie sucks). At home, for a beddy bye book I'm reading Polybius' account of the rise of the Roman empire (Penquin Classics translation), and in the bathroom for those... introspective moments I have the Maus graphic novel and some old paintball magazines..

Is that weird?

 

[Hardclyff]

Right now it is W. Churchill's The Second World War and D. Adams' The Hitchhakers Guide to Galaxy (again).

 

[Laurence of Arabia]

I don't read all that often, usually history books if i do. My favourite books were the Triumph of the sun (wilbur smith) and 1984.

 

[Juno]

i just finished reading a book called Mortal Engines of the Hungry City Chronocles by a dude called Philip Reeve. Its really good, period its set in is very unrealistic but the ways its used id very good

 

[Ingolifs]

Usually i read quite a lot (at least 30 minutes a day) but recently I haven't the time. The book i am currently reading a page at a time of is a book about logic.

 

[soup_alex]

Currently on the go are Daniel Defoe's ...Robinson Crusoe, Albert Camus' The Outsider, and everything ever written by Jean-Paul Sartre, with the exception of Nausea and The Age of Reason, which I have already completed.

I'm a slow reader, and I have a bad habit of blaming it on being forced to read To Kill A Mockingbird in an English class. All the other books were taken, and this was the reward of courtesy.
It's probably a good enough book, but I wasn't ready to read it at the time, so much that it deterred me from reading for pleasure for a long time.


Of all the dead, French philosophical writers of the past century or so, Jean-Paul Sartre is most definitely my favourite.

Just to show that I'm not 100% pretentious twat, I can have fun with a crappy paperback if I need to. Before reading Nausea, my favourite book was Gilead's Blood by Dan Abnett. Yes, I am also a Nerdhammerer.


Sick of the italics, yet?

 

[Garth]

I'm taking a class on Existentialism right now, Sartre is so far my favorite (and not nearly as depressing as Nietzsche). So right on.

Reading- Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert (amazing), A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin (amazing), Play Therapy by Virginia M. Axline (amazing), and Beloved by Toni Morrison (amazing).

It works for me because I'm rarely in the mood for one kind of book at once

 

[soup_alex]

I've always wanted to read Dune, but the copy I have has been divided into two or more seperate pieces, and I am left with only one (the latter half or so of the book)

 

[Garth]

It's the best science fiction I've ever read.

If you have a used bookstore in the area, it's definitely worth the money.

 

[Worbah]

The comic book version of Macbeth by Petri Hiltunen. You haven't read it.

I just watched Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. Douglams Adams's corpse hasn't been raped so bad before. it's as though the makers of the film tossed the book out of the window after 50 pages or so.

 

[okiN]

The comic book version of Macbeth by Petri Hiltunen. You haven't read it.

I have, so nyah.

 

[Maelstorm]

I have started Ilyada (Homer's.. uhm. not sure about the correct english spelling).
Nowadays I've been reading about Ancient Anatolia/Greek. And some books from TUBITAK Publishing (Turkey Science Research Facility), Ive read "the 5 formulas that changed the world" and "blind watchmaker".
I dont have the books with me now so the original names may be different i made a one-on-one translation from Turkish names.

 

[yehrom]

@Soup_alex, "the Cycle of Dune" is on 6 books.
I can only push you to read them all... ^^
{I wanted presented them at my BAC ...loll (french end's high-school diploma)}
Herbert is far away, the autor that I procure me the most,
and more finess emotions.
I advise you too look at his novel... same Pleasure.
René Barjavel, "Ravage" is beautifull too.

I love Saint-Exupery too.
Very fine, in human feeling and depth behaviour's reason,
the whole in a delicious writing... arf.

In the same way,
J.P. Sartre & Albert Camus... especially them theater's piece.
("Caligula", for Camus in particular)
I like too Kundera's sensitivity and "crudeness" a lot.
(not sure about my translation here )

...and, Chretien-de-Troie, that's it.
^^

But... Dune, mmmm.... stay floating always in my memory.

 

[Nairagorn]

Camus is cool, I like his stuff so much I went out and shot an arab*

But Sartre? Ugh. I'd rather read Brittney Spears' biography for the rest of my life.

The Dune books were good, but I just couldn't get past God-Emporer. Got too weird. The first few were excellent tho.

*a reference to one of his books, I do not condone shooting arabs.

 

[DaanTheOne]

I'm a bookseller. I will not recommend any books, as the list would be endless

Okay I'll recommend one: "Vernon God Little," DBC Pierre.

Right now I'm planning to read Murakami's latest, "Kafka on the Shore"

 

[Sir Prince]

"Weasel's lcuk"
A dragon lance novel.
The main char does some really odd things...