Book recs?

[backupdump002]

So I was looking over StatCounter, and I get the sneaking suspicion that my brother may have found this LJ. Get out of here, John.
(If you're not actually John, I apologize.)

So how 'bout them LJ layoffs.

I'm not terribly worried or anything, I'm sure everything will be perfectly fine, but I did make an LJ Archive backup, just in case. You guys better keep in touch and tell me where you're moving if anything bad happens. 8|
Also, according to LJ Archive, my top-used word is "game." I'm sure this is a monocle-popping surprise to everyone
Edit: Durr, oh yeah. I made an InsaneJournal, in case LJ does go belly-up. I'll use whatever you guys are using, though, I'm not real committed to IJ or anything.
My AIM s/n is Agent Speedjump and my e-mail/MSN/Skype is bogsworth@gmail.com, if you need to contact me. I love you guys and don't wanna lose contact with any of you, so keep me posted! /Edit

OH YEAH, the real point of this entry: I wanna see if I can do the 50bookchallenge this year (and maybe also watch 50 movies and beat 50 games, though I'm not sure about those goals yet)! I tried last year, but I started too late, haha.
Anyway, I was just wondering if there's any books in particular that you guys love? Anything you'd recommend? It doesn't matter what genre it is or anything, just as long as it's interesting. Also, tell me what books you hate, so I can avoid those. LONG COMMENTS ENCOURAGED but not required :B
(inb4 twilight)

Sorry for posting so much all of a sudden!

Comments

[bitchbun.livejournal.com]

scott pilgrim :Db + persepolis
they are both good comic books

also: i am hi-tailing it to inksome

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

I'll keep them in mind!

Hmm, you're the second person I know who's going to Inksome. I'm a little nervous about them, though :Oa Their site doesn't seem all that stable...

[bitchbun.livejournal.com]

rrrreally? how so?

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Their userbase is tiny, yet it's even more laggy than LJ (at least for me?) :T I'm just not sure how much strain it can take.

And what the heck, I just looked at their front page and it's apparently 18+. WHAT IF I GET KICKED OUT

[bitchbun.livejournal.com]

whoa really? their servers must be poop or something? :C but it's fine for me!
also OH NO :(

[wishwashing.livejournal.com]

the Ender series by Orson Scott Card is pretty decent if you like sci-fi stuff. out of those, i've read Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide.

also, I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

YEAAAHHH ENDER'S GAME that was a good book

Man, I put I AM the Messenger on my Christmas list and didn't get it :I I need to remember to pick that up next time I'm at the book store.

[wishwashing.livejournal.com]

Speaker for the Dead was even better than Ender's Game imo.

READ ITTTTTT

[pyrasaur.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to get people over to Insanejournal since Strikethough, I'll just go ahead and friend you there! :D

[pyrasaur.livejournal.com]

OH, also, I'll recommend the Temeraire series. It's a fantasy AU where the Napoleonic wars were fought with dragon air forces. Which is as awesome as it sounds.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

I'm not really sure where I'll go if LJ dies! Right now everyone is going over to Inksome which makes me lean in that direction a little, even if it has slow servers and is 18+ and I have no invite code AGH WHAT WILL I DO

Will definitely have to look into that!

[insanepurin.livejournal.com]

~Puri Loves~

- Anything by Roald Dahl (Look for his adult & short story stuff! Good fun. :3)
- Tales of Mystery & Imagination - Edgar Allen Poe
- On Writing - Stephen King (I have no idea how interested you are in the writing process, but either way, WHOA. *______*)
- The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ♥♥♥
- A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
- Heart of a Dog - Mikhail Bulgakov
- The Fatal Eggs - Mikhail Bulgakov
- The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
- WE - Yevgeny Zamyatin
- Animal Farm - George Orwell ♥♥♥
- Fahrenheit 450 - Ray Bradbury ♥♥♥
- I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU!) - Stephen Colbert
- The Pigman series. Those books made me cry! ;;

While not a novel, I also recommend the short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Psychologically creepy stuff. :3 In a nutshell, I love dystopian novels, and I highly urge you to read the ones with hearts beside them and/or Bulgakov. And Yellow Wallpaper. Jesus. @.@;;;

Because Puri also loves ranting about bad books:

-Puri Hates-

- Searching For David's Heart. I blocked the author out of my mind. XD
- The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne (I'll admit I liked Dr. Heidegger's Experiment and maybe Young Goodman Brown. But I warn you, this is a GIGANTIC snoozer. And about Puritans. Ick. @.@;;; )
- Summer of the Swans (Horrid with whiny protagonist. Look for Trumpet of the Swans by E.B. White, that's a WAY better deal)
- The Witch of Blackbird Pond
- Forever - Judy Blume (One word: RALPH. Just stay away from Judy Blume unless you want to giggle over the "controversial material" soccer moms banned her for. Otherwise they're as outdated as malt shops. :P)

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Oooo I've heard Roald Dahl is supposed to be good. Gotta check him out.

Haha, it's funny you mentioned Unfortunate Events, since I'm actually halfway through the last book right now! Even though I was kind of already... spoiled. BUT I'M READING IT ANYWAY because I have been trying to finish this series for like six years or something

Oh man, need to read Animal Farm. And I read some of Colbert's book in a bookstore not too long ago and it seemed okaaay, but I was kinda skimming so I guess I didn't get a real good taste :O

HAHA everyone says they hate Scarlet Letter which just makes me want to read it anyway. WHY DO I DO THESE THINGS TO MYSELF

[puddinchan.livejournal.com]

Out of the books I've read, I liked Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah, and I've got Feast of the Drowned by Steven Cole on my to-read list. I dunno, ask Tiger.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Wrote those down! I've heard a bit about Chinese Cinderella and I am v. intrigued, so I will definitely try to hunt that down :B

[puddinchan.livejournal.com]

Although, looking at the book itself, it says it's a BBC book. Will you Americans be able to find/get it? :O

[tigerboat.livejournal.com]

I recommend anything Terry Pratchett, I love that guy. He's got quite a lot of books, too! I also enjoy Neil Gaiman.
I HAVE ABOUT TEN THOUSAND SINGLE BOOKS I COULD RECOMMEND, i'll just look around this room for a bit. Let's see....Cloud Atlas is great, uh...SHERLOCK HOLMES i have his complete collection, it's awesome...uh...In Cold Blood is alright after the awful introduction...Harry Potter?
I hate Charles Dickens, but I've seen people enjoy his stuff, so go ahead and try it out for yourself.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Mannnn I feel bad for never reading anything by Terry Pratchett OR Neil Gaiman. I remember Good Omens was read TO us in gradeschool, and I remember laughing a lot and thinking it was great but I can't remember the slightest thing about it kdjfghkh
But I gotta check those guys out.

You might like The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, if you haven't read it already. I'm not done with it, but it's great so far and I know you like noir and stuff :B SPONTANEOUS RECOMMENDATION WHOAAAA

[tigerboat.livejournal.com]

GOOD OMENS IS MY FAVOURITE read it again, man
and you should definitely check those guys out, do it now

Heeeey, I didn't expect to get one in return! I'll make sure to check that out.

[mirwolf.livejournal.com]

that's a really wonderful challenge and I'd like to get myself quite thoroughly involve :V

Ah books. Off the top of my head, I've recently enjoyed

- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
- Good Omens by Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman
- Roald Dahl's short stories
- Slam by Nick Hornby is something I read last summer but it was so hilarious I'm still giggling when one or two bits pop into my head, and I'm hoping for a movie. Its a British book so an appreciation/understanding of our weird Brithumour probably helps. Whenever I see Americans on English talkshows like Buzzcocks and stuff they always look so lost by the jokes
- The Shining, by Stephen King
- I haven't read it but The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas sounds totally heart-wrenching. A friend read me a /single/ line from it and I was like '...;v; aw my god'
- To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Mice and Men, Frankenstein. These get their agrouped because everybody's read them BUT THEY'RE GREAT AND I WANTED TO MENTION THEM
- David Clement Davies has a couple of good books, depends how much you like anthromorphic fiction and if a bit of cheese doesn't put you off - they are rather cheesy
- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is an incredibly sweet book if you haven't read it.
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime was great though I can't remember the author

OH GOD I COULD GO ON FOR DAYS AND I CAN'T STOP RAMBLING ABOUT EACH ONE. But yeah, you've probably read quite a few of these, but I suggest you give any you haven't a try

[mirwolf.livejournal.com]

BOOKS I CAN'T STAND oh yeah

One for Sorrow Two for Joy
Wuthering fucking Heights. I hate that book so much
The Black Tattoo. Terrible, in that it just sounds like something a thirteen year old boy'd write
Cecelia Ahern's Where Rainbows End. I was forced to read that by a friend and the main character and her frigging hotel fixation drove me up the wall.

delurk mode over, back to floating eerily in the background derp

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

EVERYONE SHOULD GIVE THIS CHALLENGE A WHIRL, I SAY

Haha, oh man, don't even worry about reccing anything popular 8B NO ONE SHOULD EVER UNDERESTIMATE HOW BEHIND THE TIMES I AM, IT'S REALLY QUITE SHOCKING

I haven't read Wuthering Heights, but the more people rage over it the more my morbid curiosity grows. I'll probably wind up reading it anyway just to have read it ekrhjfgkhg

[roaring-softly.livejournal.com]

I have been reading less lately, but I still really like books, so...

Terry Pratchett is funny and easy to read... the Discworld books are great and so is Good Omens. Neil Gaimain is also a pretty good author; American Gods is especially good.

Right now I'm reading the Inkheart series (Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath) and even though it's more for middle-school age kids I still really like it so far; it's a neat story. Hopefully it doesn't have a terrible ending or I'll be pissed, but as of now I would recommend it.

The Abarat books by Clive Barker (there are only two now but there are supposed to be three soon) are really, really cool stories and I would definitely recommend them. One of the neatest things about those books are the illustrations; Clive Barker did a bunch of paintings to illustrate the story while he was writing it and they're scattered throughout the book (really cool paintings too).

If you haven't read any Douglas Adams, I would recommend him because the Hitchhiker's Guide is a brilliant story.

Talking books for middle-schoolers again, I still secretly love Tamora Pierce even though I first read those books when I was about thirteen. She writes really creative, easy to read fantasy stories, so I would recommend those if you like that kind of stuff.

Time Enough For Love by Robert A. Heinlein is a really neat old sci-fi story that I'd never heard of until my dad gave me a copy of it. The plot is almost impossible to explain but it's really interesting and surprisingly easy to read for its size (although toward the end the story takes a weird turn and gets a lot less interesting).

If you haven't read Wicked you should give that a try because it's actually a pretty good story.

The Abhorsen series by Garth Nix (Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen) is a very good series of books; it's a fanstasy-type story about necromancers and the whole thing is very creative and well-told.

Most people I know don't really like historical fiction but if you're willing to give it a try, I, Claudius is one of my favorite books ever and an excellent story. It talks about the history of Rome's emperors from Augustus up until when Claudius is crowned, and it sounds boring but it's really not. The sequel, Claudius the God, isn't nearly as interesting because it talks about Britain way too much, but it's an okay book.

The Long Ships is also a great historical fiction book... it's all about vikings and again, it's actually a really cool story, even though it's really long.

Seconding Animal Farm and also adding 1984, just because I think everyone should read 1984, although I liked Animal Farm better.

Seconding Fahrenheit 451; great book.

Going back to books for middle schoolers, Diana Wynne Jones is a really good author in general. I read most of her books in middle school and loved them all... my favorites, though, are the Chronicles of Chrestomanci (series of four books), Dark Lord of Derkholm, and Year of the Griffin (Year of the Griffin is the sequel to Dark Lord, but you really don't need to have read Dark Lord to read Year of the Griffin). Year of the Griffin is a really, really good book, so I would recommend that if nothing else. These are fantasy again.

While I know that Anne McCaffrey is generally regarded as fruity fantasy bullshit, there are a few of her books that I really like... the Harper Hall trilogy (Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums) is really good; nice short books that don't have too many unnecessary love scenes.

That's about all I can think of for now. Jesus, that was long. I apologize.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Lots of Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman recs! I WILL CHECK THEM OUT FO SHO

I read theeeeeee first Hitchhiker's Guide and I either finished the second or got really far, but then I did my thing where I randomly stop and don't touch it for years dkfjgh so I forgot everything. Gotta reread that, because I adored it. Same with Wicked and 1984.

Aside from those, these are new to me! THANK YOUUU and don't worry, I love long comments even if I don't always know how to reply, haha 8D