A Good Read

[Finding IT]

Like most bibliophiles, I am always on the lookout for a good read. In my mind, a good read and a great book are often two different things. William Faulkner, James Joyce and Umberto Eco have written great books. However, for my money their books are generally not good reads.

 

For me, a good read is something I stay up too late so I can squeeze in one more chapter. It's a book I take with me to places where I may normally not read. It's something that leads me to move ahead despite a blinding headache. It's also something I will reread many time, eithter in full or page to specific points in the story.

 

I'd like to create a thread where we share our good reads. I am especially interested less popular books and authors that we may not otherwise come across. Perhaps tell us what genre it is, give us a taste of the theme and plot and why you think it is so compelling.

 

I will start with a couple of my own.

 

Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. This is a haunted, coming-of-age book about a small group of boys who face the manifestation of an evil centered in the town's school. Simmons leads you to care about each of the pre-teens and emphasizes their collective strengths as the book progresses.

 

Boy's Life by Robert McCammon. Boy's Life is set in rural Alabama during the rise of racial tensions in 1964. McCammon deftly weaves several concurrent stories of the flawed characters and their interactions with each other fthroughout the book. The book is awash with themes of mysteries, the supernatural, cultural and racial tensions, and reconciliation. I like most of McCammon's books, but this is my favorite.

 

Love to hear from others!

 

 

[GhostGirl]

I love Dean Koontz books, most Stephen King books, and anything by the Irish author Maeve Binchy - all of these authors produce books that I can hardly put down. There are others that I can't think of at the moment.

 

I started reading Boy's Life by McCammon but haven't gotten very far. Interesting note - he lives about 30 miles away from me here in central Alabama.

[Mara]

Most of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and David Baldacci. I'm also fond of the Mitch Rapp series by Vince Flynn (which, btw, I started reading in 2004, long before the current mania), but I haven't gotten the latest one as the reviews haven't been promising.

 

Lately I'm re-reading the classics - you know, those books you were supposed to read in high school. Usually you got 2/3 of the way through before buying the Monarch Notes. Anyway, I am loving them now! Maybe it's age or, as I suspect, the fact that no one is MAKING me read them.

[Finding IT]

QUOTE (GhostGirl @ Feb 22 2012, 03:01 PM)

I love Dean Koontz books, most Stephen King books, and anything by the Irish author Maeve Binchy - all of these authors produce books that I can hardly put down. There are others that I can't think of at the moment. I started reading Boy's Life by McCammon but haven't gotten very far. Interesting note - he lives about 30 miles away from me here in central Alabama.

Like many folks, I find that Stephen King has produced a lot of good reads and some real dogs (and I am not talking about Cujo). I like some of Koontz's books. The Odd Thomas series is interesting.

 

Have never heard of Maeve Binchy but I will definitely look her up.

 

Thanks!

 

 

[HowItIs]

I'm also a big Stephen King reader. Not so much Koontz, though. I love Carl Hiaasen's stuff: reading his latest right now. He's really funny and so good at concocting strange plots and odd characters. Almost Elmore Leonard-ish.

 

I'm a big non-fiction reader as well. I like books about culture, politics, religion and true crime. I have several waiting in my TBR stack right now, including Hutchins' God Is Not Great. I hear it's pretty interesting.

[CMWriter]

I love pretty much anything by Stephen King, and of course I adore Harry Potter, but the latter is more out of nostalgia than anything.

 

I really, really have started to enjoy and appreciate F. Scott Fitzgerald and even Hemingway recently. I was less than impressed with Old Man and the Sea but even since I started The Sun Also Rises and recently read Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants", I've begun to see him in a new light.

 

Don't be afraid to seek out short story anthologies too. John Edgar Wideman's "Fever" is a fantastically gruesome piece about the Yellow Fever epidemic. It's so haunting but so amazing at the same time. I also really enjoyed "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings", by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which is strange but quite intriguing.

 

There's so much good literature out there. I want to start reading more of Alexandre Dumas' works, and maybe pick up an unfamiliar author or two. Avast!

[Cyclonus X-1]

QUOTE (CMWriter @ Feb 23 2012, 04:11 PM)

I want to start reading more of Alexandre Dumas' works

Very cool. The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite books.

[An Enemy Without]

QUOTE (CMWriter @ Feb 23 2012, 04:11 PM)

I love pretty much anything by Stephen King, and of course I adore Harry Potter, but the latter is more out of nostalgia than anything. I really, really have started to enjoy and appreciate F. Scott Fitzgerald and even Hemingway recently. I was less than impressed with Old Man and the Sea but even since I started The Sun Also Rises and recently read Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants", I've begun to see him in a new light. Don't be afraid to seek out short story anthologies too. John Edgar Wideman's "Fever" is a fantastically gruesome piece about the Yellow Fever epidemic. It's so haunting but so amazing at the same time. I also really enjoyed "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings", by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which is strange but quite intriguing. There's so much good literature out there. I want to start reading more of Alexandre Dumas' works, and maybe pick up an unfamiliar author or two. Avast!

Do you have the 40 short stories book by any chance? Purple and white cover?

[CMWriter]

QUOTE (Cyclonus X-1 @ Feb 24 2012, 12:06 AM)

Very cool. The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite books.

I WANT TO MARRY EDMOND DANTES.

in my mind that is

I love love love Monte Cristo. That book is the reason I want to read more of Dumas' works.

Edmond Dantes is so so so freaking brilliant and such an amazing character and omigosh aahh~

(Goodness look what you've done.)

 

QUOTE

Do you have the 40 short stories book by any chance? Purple and white cover?

Actually, I don't. The stories I mentioned I got from my English 252 textbook, Method and Madness, by Alice LaPlante. Brilliant thing. Oh, and there's a lot of good material in the other book I have for that class, The Vintage Book of Contemporary Irish Fiction, edited by Dermot Bolger.

[Cyclonus X-1]

QUOTE (CMWriter @ Feb 24 2012, 12:23 AM)

I WANT TO MARRY EDMOND DANTES. in my mind that is I love love love Monte Cristo. That book is the reason I want to read more of Dumas' works. Edmond Dantes is so so so freaking brilliant and such an amazing character and omigosh aahh~ (Goodness look what you've done.)

Dantes is one of my favorite protagonists as well.

 

The Three Musketeers is also good stuff.

[GrandDesigner]

The Christopher Moore books I've read have been fantastic. Very humorous (and I'm not someone who laughs easily) and intelligent, whilst being juvenile and crude. So far I've read Lamb and Fool and managed to get through both in a matter of days. I just couldn't stop reading.

[Finding IT]

At the risk of losing my man card, the funniest books I have read recently were by Janet Evanovich. Her characters are wildly amusing and she is not afraid to go for the cheap laugh.

[Imaginos]

Some of the most compelling, moving & enjoyable books that I have ever read were actually aimed at children... I'm posting about the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Philip Pullman. What an astounding imagination that man has.

 

I also highly recommend "The Prestige" by Christopher Priest. The film adaptation was good but the original novel was breathtaking. It's packed full of devious twists and turns in the plot as well as really well defined characters.

[ReRushed]

A Confederacy of Dunces is a book I revisit every few years with complete enjoyment and hilarity.

[Rick N. Backer]

QUOTE (HowItIs @ Feb 23 2012, 04:04 AM)

I'm a big non-fiction reader as well. I like books about culture, politics, religion and true crime. I have several waiting in my TBR stack right now, including Hutchins' God Is Not Great. I hear it's pretty interesting.

God is Not Great is a great book. Hitchens was (RIP) a fantastic writer. You may not agree with his viewpoint, but he does an exceptional job explaining how he came to it.

 

I just finished reading a very short book called Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer. It describes how US politicians of all stripes are lining their pockets by (mis)using their offices. If you like that sort of thing, and I do, it's really interesting.

[TheAccountant]

Try The Better Angeles of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined by Steven Pinker.

 

The book is most likely the best book I have read in my 46 years of life.

 

Its a detailed argument that we actually do NOT live in violent times, at least when compared to the past.

 

To make that argument the author has to look at current violence and compare it to historical violence. To do this he discusses sooo many things including (and I will just give a small sample of what gets tossed around in the book):

 

Rates of violent death in current tribal societies

Historical murder rates in Europe and the US

How the US was settled and why Blue States tend to have lower crime rates then Red states (even though Red states utilize the death penalty more often).

Historical rates of violent death in tribal societies that are no longer with us

The Bible & The Qur'an

Witch burnings

The use of torture

John Locke, Kant, Montesque (sorry about the bad spelling), Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Adam Smith, Lincoln

Historical treatment of religious minorities / outcasts

The Mongol invasions of Russia and the Middle East

Dueling

Foot binding as practiced in China

The practice of burning widows in India

Violence against animals and humans as part of lab experiments

Historical violence against women (and current)

Child labor laws

The invention of the printing press

What passed for entertainment in the past (e.g. feeding Christians to the lions, gladiators, the execution of criminals)

Crime rates

The number of major wars fought during given periods, the # of people killed in wars and the number of wars between major powers during given periods & the % of people who lived within states that went to war who were killed during wars fought during a given period.

Martin Luther King

Quakers

The Reformation, The Counter Reformation & The Enlightenment

Hitler, Stalin, Mao

Raceisim, Sexism

The 30 Years War

 

And this only hits on a little bit of what is in the book!!!!

 

Read it!! It will convince you that, compared to the past, we do not live in violent times and that things could keep getting better. It will also help to explain why some part of the world are more violent and other less.

 

Best book I have ever read. The description does not do it justice.

[GrandDesigner]

QUOTE (TheAccountant @ Apr 29 2012, 06:38 PM)

Try The Better Angeles of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined by Steven Pinker. The book is most likely the best book I have read in my 46 years of life. Its a detailed argument that we actually do NOT live in violent times, at least when compared to the past. To make that argument the author has to look at current violence and compare it to historical violence. To do this he discusses sooo many things including (and I will just give a small sample of what gets tossed around in the book): Rates of violent death in current tribal societies Historical murder rates in Europe and the US How the US was settled and why Blue States tend to have lower crime rates then Red states (even though Red states utilize the death penalty more often). Historical rates of violent death in tribal societies that are no longer with us The Bible & The Qur'an Witch burnings The use of torture John Locke, Kant, Montesque (sorry about the bad spelling), Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Adam Smith, Lincoln Historical treatment of religious minorities / outcasts The Mongol invasions of Russia and the Middle East Dueling Foot binding as practiced in China The practice of burning widows in India Violence against animals and humans as part of lab experiments Historical violence against women (and current) Child labor laws The invention of the printing press What passed for entertainment in the past (e.g. feeding Christians to the lions, gladiators, the execution of criminals) Crime rates The number of major wars fought during given periods, the # of people killed in wars and the number of wars between major powers during given periods & the % of people who lived within states that went to war who were killed during wars fought during a given period. Martin Luther King Quakers The Reformation, The Counter Reformation & The Enlightenment Hitler, Stalin, Mao Raceisim, Sexism The 30 Years War And this only hits on a little bit of what is in the book!!!! Read it!! It will convince you that, compared to the past, we do not live in violent times and that things could keep getting better. It will also help to explain why some part of the world are more violent and other less. Best book I have ever read. The description does not do it justice.

On my list. Thanks for the recommendation

[TheAccountant]

QUOTE (GrandDesigner @ May 2 2012, 06:11 PM)

QUOTE (TheAccountant @ Apr 29 2012, 06:38 PM) Try The Better Angeles of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined by Steven Pinker. The book is most likely the best book I have read in my 46 years of life. Its a detailed argument that we actually do NOT live in violent times, at least when compared to the past.  To make that argument the author has to look at current violence and compare it to historical violence.  To do this he discusses sooo many things including (and I will just give a small sample of what gets tossed around in the book): Rates of violent death in current tribal societies Historical murder rates in Europe and the US How the US was settled and why Blue States tend to have lower crime rates then Red states (even though Red states utilize the death penalty more often). Historical rates of violent death in tribal societies that are no longer with us The Bible & The Qur'an Witch burnings The use of torture John Locke, Kant, Montesque (sorry about the bad spelling), Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Adam Smith, Lincoln Historical treatment of religious minorities / outcasts The Mongol invasions of Russia and the Middle East Dueling Foot binding as practiced in China The practice of burning widows in India Violence against animals and humans as part of lab experiments Historical violence against women (and current) Child labor laws The invention of the printing press What passed for entertainment in the past (e.g. feeding Christians to the lions, gladiators, the execution of criminals) Crime rates The number of major wars fought during given periods, the # of people killed in wars and the number of wars between major powers during given periods & the % of people who lived within states that went to war who were killed during wars fought during a given period. Martin Luther King Quakers The Reformation, The Counter Reformation & The Enlightenment Hitler, Stalin, Mao Raceisim, Sexism The 30 Years War And this only hits on a little bit of what is in the book!!!! Read it!!  It will convince you that, compared to the past, we do not live in violent times and that things could keep getting better.  It will also help to explain why some part of the world are more violent and other less. Best book I have ever read.  The description does not do it justice. On my list. Thanks for the recommendation Cool. Enjoy - its long but I thought it was worth it.   Be curious to know what you think of it when you get around to it.