What non-science book have you read recently?

lol at twilight.
I think the last one I finished was 1984 (it was ok, but not great). I am in the middle of 2 right now (The Jungle and Harry Potter 7). The last one I finished and liked was The Picture of Dorian Grey.

I skipped HS, so I am trying to read all the "classics" I haven't liked most of them, but I feel like if everyone ir required to read them, I should at least check it out.

The Road, On The Road, and Bluebeard within the past month.


My favorite three authors of all time:

Oscar Wilde. Kurt Vonnegut. Jack Kerouac.


I recommend everything they have written, but start with these:

The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde)
Slaughterhouse-Five (Vonnegut)
On The Road (Jack Kerouac).

Enjoy!

I'm still working on a biography of Leni Riefenstahl that came out a couple of years ago. She was so insane, her personality goes past bad and back to good again, and by good I mean a totally self-serving, evil kind of good.

What I'm trying to say is that it's very interesting.

The Alchemist
House of God
1984
The Road
Watchmen
Catch 22

the maltese falcon, the bluest eye, dracula, frankenstein, a couple of others

i wish i had more time to read books, i have 5 months off, so that's okay

Fiction:
The Road
Blood Meridian
Watchmen

Non-Fiction
The Dark Side by Jane Seyer
The Metaphysical Club by Menand

The Daily Coyote

A Feast for Crows - Epic fantasy [part of the song of ice and fire series]

If I do fiction, I prefer the old classic stuff. It is usually some of the most inexpensive quality books you can find.

For some reason I am particularly fond of Russian lit: Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov) and Tolstoy (Death of Ivan Ilych)...especially if ya want some philosophical stuff

The other genre I love is war history: Flags of Our Fathers, Flyboys, Tiger Force, anything Stephen E. Ambrose, War Hospital, The Fall of Berlin, etc etc

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

About halfway through it, and I can't put it down!

I also just re-read Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger...always a good one

Currently reading "Mr. Norrell and Jonathon Strange", which is about bringing back the "profession" of magic in early 1800 England. Good stuff so far! I recently read The Pillars of the Earth, which I thought was awesome. The Time Travelers Wife is really neat and they are making a movie, too. The Cider House Rules. Crime and Punishment. 1984. Brave New World. Les Mis. Lord of the Rings. Read the Twilight series last fall and loved it, too. Harry Potter is always a good choice--good stories and characters, easy to read. I could seriously go on and on and on.

Someone above me said the Alchemist, which I also really liked.

Can anyone tell I like to read?

I'm currently working on Native Speaker, by Chang-Rae Lee, and on the side I'm re-reading Pride & Prejudice. I recently read Persuasion (Jane Austen), The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath), The Shade of Blossoms (Ooka Shohei), Dubliners (James Joyce), and 2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke).

Just finished reading Better, and currently reading Complications by Dr. Gawande. Both are a must read for anybody interested in medicine.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Medstudent85 said:

Just finished reading Better, and currently reading Complications by Dr. Gawande. Both are a must read for anybody interested in medicine.

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Read em. Not as good as a lot of people think. Complications is good for like the first third then it becomes crap.

Ricegrad05 said:

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

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Dear Reason!

Angels and Demons.

LastPolarBear said:

Angels and Demons.

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I was just going to mention that I'm in the processes of re-reading that before the movie comes out.

But seriously, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is quite the strange one.

Isisfusion said:

I was just going to mention that I'm in the processes of re-reading that before the movie comes out.

But seriously, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is quite the strange one.

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Nice, I read it over winter break for the first time. I remember hearing a lot of people saying how good it was, so I finally picked a copy up after all these years. Pretty good twists.

This might or might not count as science related, but I was wondering if anyone here has read Mountains Beyond Mountains before? I thought it was decent, but I read it as a pre freshman, so if there was any significant value or lesson in that book, I would have missed it. Didn't really take any of that "fight tb" stuff seriously then. It was given to us as our freshman common book.

dr zaius said:

I also just re-read Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger...always a good one

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I love this book so so much... I came home this summer to find my copy missing. sad day.

On a completely unrelated note, does anyone else love Ondaatje? Anil's Ghost is my favorite. I was nervous about Divisadero, but finally read it this fall and loved it.

Has anyone read The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy? Or A.S. Byatt's short stories, like Elementals or The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye?

Oh SDNers, I miss talking about books...

House of God.



Just kidding. I finished The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller earlier today.

100 Years of Solitude
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Nobel Prize in Literature 1982)

"The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield (author of Bagger Vance and others)

It's kinda a self-help book, but you can tie it into interviews SO easily. It's about doing your true calling, etc etc, but it's different then all the other crap out there. It's also very short. Look at an overview and you will see what I'm talking about.

I just finished The Motel Life by Willy Vlautin (I might have spelled that wrong)

If you don't mind reading an "young adult novel" a friend of mine finally convinced me to read her copy of The Hunger Games. I was skeptical at first, but it actually turned out to be a good read.

I'm currently reading The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand). So far (~90 pages in) it's really great, gets you into the characters and their story really quick. Not sure how it fairs against Atlas Shrugged, but I won't know that until I finish.

I like 1984! And I'll join in and recommend The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well. I've been meaning to reread that for a while. I also like The Count of Monte Cristo and Jane Austen's 6 novels. And Harry Potter, duh, but I don't think I would mention that in an interview. I always feel like I should be reading more "classics". I just finished Lolita, but it's somewhat disturbing (this is an understatement). Non-classics wise, I think The Lovely Bones was very enjoyable

Ricegrad05 said:

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

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Awesome! I hadn't read this before I commented haha. How do you like it so far?

Katatonic said:

I'm currently reading The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand). So far (~90 pages in) it's really great, gets you into the characters and their story really quick. Not sure how it fairs against Atlas Shrugged, but I won't know that until I finish.

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Just. Stop.

chemnerd89 said:

Just. Stop.

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I know, all of the "Oh my god, I HATE Ayn Rand" voices come out once I mention her, but the books are great to me, so I'm not sure what arguing about it will do.

funkymunkytoes said:

The Road, On The Road, and Bluebeard within the past month.


My favorite three authors of all time:

Oscar Wilde. Kurt Vonnegut. Jack Kerouac.


I recommend everything they have written, but start with these:

The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde)
Slaughterhouse-Five (Vonnegut)
On The Road (Jack Kerouac).

Enjoy!

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Slaughter House, The Road and OTR are so great. All of them, hard to put down.

To you I recommend The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolano. It's like an epic road novel meets Vonnegut's style of writing, with so many interesting characters. I think you'd love it. It's my favorite book, and by your list I'd say our tastes seem to overlap.

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Recently read novels that I would recommend to those who love interesting characters and a great story: The Savage Detectives, Divisadero, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Then We Came to the End.

Going to read 2666 over spring break, looking forward to it =)

do books for classes count? my last one was fooled by randomness by nassim taleb. easy read (written for the general public, middle school lvl language though, but pretty damn interesting stories)

my last non school ones were native son by richard wright, HarrythePothead 7 (harry potter), and their eyes were watching God thumbup by zora neal thurston.

im going to read twilight, the watchmen, and maybe some dickens or wilde soooooon



[about Slaughterhouse-Five and catch-22...for some reason i could never get past the first few bloody pages]

chemnerd89 said:

The Alchemist
House of God
1984
The Road
Watchmen
Catch 22

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How's Catch 22? It's been on my shelf, but I've been reluctant to start it for some reason. I loved House of God, and those reviews say that Catch 22 is similar in it's humor.

Rebs28 said:

I love this book so so much... I came home this summer to find my copy missing. sad day.

On a completely unrelated note, does anyone else love Ondaatje? Anil's Ghost is my favorite. I was nervous about Divisadero, but finally read it this fall and loved it.

Has anyone read The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy? Or A.S. Byatt's short stories, like Elementals or The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye?

Oh SDNers, I miss talking about books...

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Sorry for the triple post, just saw some familiar titles. I loved Divisadero. It is the first and, so far, only Ondaatje book I've read. I have Coming Through Slaughter on my shelf, but I haven't read it yet. Have you read that?

radxbandit said:

How's Catch 22? It's been on my shelf, but I've been reluctant to start it for some reason. I loved House of God, and those reviews say that Catch 22 is similar in it's humor.

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[catch-22] well i can tell you the first few pages are boring! lol

Sangria said:

I like 1984! And I'll join in and recommend The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well. I've been meaning to reread that for a while. I also like The Count of Monte Cristo and Jane Austen's 6 novels. And Harry Potter, duh, but I don't think I would mention that in an interview. I always feel like I should be reading more "classics". I just finished Lolita, but it's somewhat disturbing (this is an understatement). Non-classics wise, I think The Lovely Bones was very enjoyable

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I vote Harry Potter as a science novel.

The Alphabet of Manliness, for sure!

On a less vulgar note, Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love is a wonderful book.

Revolutionary Road (Yates, and so good!!)
The Bonfire of the Vanities (Wolfe)
Unaccustomed Earth- best book I have read in years!

redlight said:

[catch-22] well i can tell you the first few pages are boring! lol

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Oh man, Catch-22 is hilarious, one of my favorite books, the others being 1984, Slaughterhouse V, Ender's Game, House of Leaves... this list will actually get too long if I keep going ... Don't let the beginning get you down, once you get to Heller's style and tone you'll love it.

Right now I'm reading Measuring the World (Die Vermessung der Welt) by Daniel Kehlmann... great novel. Other recent books that I've recently read and enjoyed have been The Baroque Cycle (long, but every page is wonderful), and The Road.