Levis Posted December 18, 2008 Report Share Posted December 18, 2008 I love him too! I'm going through my family's Science Fiction collection in the basement... the books there 'taste' better than the ones upstairs Right now I'm reading Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. I'm reading it veeeery slowly because I am not quite as smart as Hofstadter (who, oddly enough, made an appearance in my psychology books in college) and my IQ goes up by a point for every page I read. Problem is, there are about 800. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Seeker Posted December 18, 2008 Report Share Posted December 18, 2008 Hey, my family's got a Science Fiction collection too... I thought we were just weird Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farin Posted December 22, 2008 Report Share Posted December 22, 2008 Another 10 Great Christmas Stories Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lea Posted December 24, 2008 Report Share Posted December 24, 2008 The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels again What the Critics Say "The first major and eminently readable book on gnosticism benefiting from the discovery in 1945 of a collection of Gnostic Christian texts at Nag Hammadi in Egypt." (The New York Times Book Review) I consider myself as more of a Gnostic Christian then anything else. It just makes more sense to me. Being it is the holidays I figured it would be a good time to listen to it again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Seeker Posted January 12, 2009 Report Share Posted January 12, 2009 A Thousand Splendid Suns -- Khaled Hosseini 10/10 Having seen The Kite Runner (I haven't read the book though, it's by the same author), I read this book on my flight yesterday. It's one of the most moving books I've ever read... I don't even know how to adequately sing its praises. It deals with two Afghan women who suffer through loss, a marriage to the same man, war and the Taliban together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lea Posted January 18, 2009 Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 An article on Nigeria. It was quite interesting of course. Reading about foreign countries has always been something I enjoy doing. A lot of the information it contained I already knew. The way the educational system is set up did surprise me. It's sad they don't have the money to run it properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farin Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Top 10 Most Overrated Novels Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edna Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 I absolutely disagree about two best-sellers: "100 Years of Solitude". incredibly complex... it is amazingly unreadable False. You cannot stop reading this book. this book is kept alive mostly by being taught in colleges False. It´s kept alive by itself and by people who loved it, talling other people to read it. "A Confederacy Of Dunces" a “funny†story Just that? Only "a funny story"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 (edited) I have read a bit of Jane Austen, and I'd have to agree that Emma is not the best of her works. I never knew that it was that highly regarded, though. I also liked "100 years of Solitude". You have to suspend reality a bit to enjoy it, but it is possible to enjoy it. I would take that out and put "Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo in its place. I liked the story very much, but there is a lot of unnecessary narrative around it. Edited February 10, 2009 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farin Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 I have to agree with the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien really had a good imagination, but wasn't very talented at writing them down... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 I never read the LOTR books. I saw the films, and even then had trouble following all the storylines and characters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farin Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 the movies are actually pretty easy to follow... just imagine that everyone of this characters not only has 5 names in different languages (without having a common face to help to keep them together) and also have all of their ancestors' lifes described in deep detail Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 I don't think I'll ever read those books then. Sounds too much like work keeping up with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawna Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 If you like mystery novels and have never heard of Harlan Coben, hie thee hastily to a bookstore. I've only read two of his books so far, but they were so good I lost a fair amount of sleep in the past few weeks because I just had to finish that chapter, and then the next, and so on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lea Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo Lord of the Rings by Tolkien I really liked both of those. If you really liked LOTH you should try out The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Awesome series of books. Unfortunately he passed away last year? before he could finish the last book. I heard he left a lot of notes for it tho and his wife and another well known author are going to try to finish it. And Shawna I have listened to books by Coben and he is one I would definitely listen to again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levis Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 So of course I'm the only one who found 100 years of Solitude to be agony to get through (if it's fiction, give them different names!) and was not very happy with the ending (that I got to six months after beginning) because the red ants speaking sanskrit made little sense to me Maybe I was too young to be reading it (16?) but I ain't giving it another shot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skybluesky Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 I wasn't too enthused with 100 Years... It was a good book, but I don't think it's quite the literary masterpiece it's hailed to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Seeker Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 I dunno what to make of all these award-winning, ground-breaking books anyway. I read around fifteen Booker/Pulitzer prize winning/widely regarded to be masterpieces-type of books last year (not trying to be a show-off, most of them were part of my course), and I only truly enjoyed one or two of them. Most of them were agony to read. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just too stupid for this kind of stuff or if most literature critics are just strange. I think it's the latter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawna Posted February 11, 2009 Report Share Posted February 11, 2009 I have to agree, Seek. Same with movie critics - they always go for the way-out stuff that I never understand, and then they write awful reviews on the trash I think is wonderful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindCrime Posted February 11, 2009 Report Share Posted February 11, 2009 I the last I read was... I have to agree, Seek. Same with movie critics - they always go for the way-out stuff that I never understand, and then they write awful reviews on the trash I think is wonderful. I give it a 4.5/5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skybluesky Posted February 11, 2009 Report Share Posted February 11, 2009 I have read a bit of Jane Austen, and I'd have to agree that Emma is not the best of her works. I never knew that it was that highly regarded, though. I agree Jenny. I would have said Pride & Prejudice over Emma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edna Posted February 11, 2009 Report Share Posted February 11, 2009 I dunno what to make of all these award-winning, ground-breaking books anyway. I read around fifteen Booker/Pulitzer prize winning/widely regarded to be masterpieces-type of books last year (not trying to be a show-off, most of them were part of my course), and I only truly enjoyed one or two of them. Most of them were agony to read. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just too stupid for this kind of stuff or if most literature critics are just strange. I think it's the latter. It´s like the record industry: some hits are just crap for us. I also used to read many best-sellers and one or two, like you say, were very good. The rest was just hard not to leave it on page 25 or so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny Posted February 11, 2009 Report Share Posted February 11, 2009 I also slogged through a lot of "classics" for school. "The Scarlet Letter" was the most painful for me, but I made it. If you have to do so much work and thinking just to understand a book, is it that pleasurable? Having said that, I have read a lot of Shakespeare on my own (not for school) and enjoyed it very much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lea Posted February 11, 2009 Report Share Posted February 11, 2009 I have also read of a lot of classics but the one that I found the most painful to wade through was Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. I did not enjoy that book and to this day I still wince everytime I think about it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Joe Posted February 11, 2009 Report Share Posted February 11, 2009 One of my favorite Classics was A Tale Of Two Cities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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