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Books


Obsessionist

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Recommend me some. Anything--modern, 'classic,' ancient, whatever genre.

 

I tend gravitate towards fantasy/sci-fi, but I'm eager to expand that as well. but I've added a threadbare books sidebar that mostly just reflects my plans to reread some of my favorite fantasy/sci-fi series this summer, but I also want some new things.

 

Real talk, though. I feel guilty about how little I read nowadays. Up until a couple years ago I read in every spare moment. How much I read was a problem sometimes. Books are a brilliant and astonishingly immersive and thought-provoking and I love them. And then:

  • It stopped being convenient to peruse a library every day
  • I started talking with people during times I would usually read during
  • I got a portable gaming device
  • I discovered Zelda and the the world of really good, impactful video games
  • Dungeons & Dragons
  • Academics got time-intensive
  • I got a smartphone and can now waste time very easily

Most of these are good things, except that not hanging out in the library is a pity, and much of the time I spend on my phone I really do think is wasted and would be better spent reading (or, you know, doing homework).

 

Yet, I don't think books are inherently more meritorious than other types of media. I don't regret any of the time I've spent playing or re-playing games, or planning/playing D&D. Videogames and tabletop RPGs have certain unique merits and unique ways of making me think and experience. The problem is, after discovering those things, I miss the reading experience and its unique merits. I am, in fact, nostalgic for the days when I read exclusively, without any real devotion to videogames or D&D.

 

Also games tend to not expand my vocabulary and impact my syntax as much books, which makes me feel like a less intelligent individual. Which is silly.

 

Also there's the balance of experiencing new books/games and participating in communities. I love being part of communities, but when every minute spent on a forum is a minute I'm not broadening my reading/playing experience, I feel conflicted.

 

Also there's this thing where entertainment stops becoming entertainment and starts being an obligation. Which is weird.

 

Also.

 

Also also.

 

Ultimately, the biggest factor is not my distribution of free time between different activities, but rather a decrease in available free time. Which is unavoidable.

 

tl;dr I don't read as much as I used to, I don't have the backlog of books I want to read that I usually do, recommend some books.

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I myself am a fan of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.

 

Though, one book I recommend is A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. It's got a good story and some really cool illustrations.

 

You could always reread Harry Potter.

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Might be fun to focus on a specific area-- for example, make sure you've read all the major works of classic American literature. James Fenimore Cooper's The Leatherstocking Tales, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, of course. You could even expand it to include short stories, like Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle, or poetry, like the works of Egdar Allen Poe and Robert Frost.

 

- :burnmad:

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Well, I see you're already reading Brick by Brick, which is my #1 nonfiction recommendation for fellow LEGO fans. Good on you!

 

Neil Gaiman is one author whose work I really love. I really enjoyed one of his latest novels, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. He also wrote the comic series The Sandman which makes for some great reading. American Gods is one of his most famous prose novels, and I consider it a good read. But both The Sandman and American Gods include some pretty mature scenes, so be prepared for that if you do decide to read either of them. If you want something that's a little more PG, Coraline is one of his best kids' books, IMO, and the film adaptation was very high quality. Also, if you like superhero stories, there's a good chance you'd enjoy his graphic novel Marvel 1602, which is basically what it sounds like: an alternate-universe Marvel superhero story set in the year 1602.

 

While we're on the subject of British fantasy authors, Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its first two sequels are all engaging and hilarious science fiction stories. They're originally adapted from a radio show he wrote, but the books are often considered the quintessential way to enjoy the series. Books four and five of the Hitchhiker's Trilogy are a bit less consistent in quality. The film adaptation of the first book is good but not as good as the book. If you like old-school video games, there's a text adventure game based on the first book that was well-written, but mostly remembered for how infuriatingly tricky some parts of it could be without a guide. The Wikipedia page has links to some places it can be played online if you'd like to give it a shot.

 

Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series is pretty great young adult fiction IMO. It's an action series with a healthy dose of moral ambiguity (especially in the first book), but without the level of bleakness you often find in young adult series like The Hunger Games. Eoin Colfer also wrote a sixth installment to the Hitchhiker's Trilogy called And Another Thing which I enjoyed better than the fourth and fifth installments, although it doesn't rise to the same greatness as the first few.

 

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznik is like a fusion between a novel and a picture book, with about 50% of its length told in full-page illustrations. The overall story is a tribute to classic black-and-white cinema. It's a fantastic book that I highly recommend. The film adaptation Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese, is itself a work of art.

 

And while we're on the subject of books that have insanely good movie adaptations, Holes by Louis Sachar is one story where both the book and movie adaptations are favorites of mine. The movie is praised not only for its quality but also for its incredible accuracy to the source material, something few movie adaptations of books achieve to nearly the same degree. You might've read this book in school, as it has been a popular item for school reading lists. If not, read the book, then watch the movie.

 

I guess that's enough recommendations for right now. Happy reading!

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<good suggestions>

 

I owned one book of folk and fairy tales secondhand a couple years ago, I'm not sure what collection it was, but it including stories from a variety of cultures and was a very fun read. Maybe I should look into those types of books.

 

A Monster Calls looks interesting.  Harry Potter is always worth rereading, though I'd put it behind the other series I have queued.

 

<good recommendations>

 

- :burnmad:

 

Man, it's been too long since I read Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Definitely going to reread those at some point. A lot of these are book I've always meant to read but never did, though I'd never considered Uncle Tom's Cabin. Thanks.

 

<good recommendations>

 

I knew I could count on Aanchir for some well-considered recommendations. Thanks!

 

Brick by Brick is fantastic! I used it as one of my main sources for writing a research paper last semester that I'll be presenting at a conference in month or so.  I owe a lot to that book.  Though it did mistake a Pakari Nuva for the Mask of Light.

 

I'll tuck Neil Gaiman away, I've never really investigated his work.  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is probably one of my favorite series of all time, so hilarious!  I was rereading them during last semester, but lost the compilation volume I had purchased...  I need to get another one.  Never heard of the game, looks fun!

 

Oh man, Artimis Fowl. I loved those books in middle school.  Such a brilliant fantasy underground world.

 

The Invention of Hugo Cabret looks really interesting.

 

Holes I burned out on a long time ago. I'm sure it's a great book, I read it a long time ago, but it was that movie in some of elementary and middle school that they would always play to kill time.

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A great series that I'm currently reading through is The Dresden Files. It basically combines urban fantasy with the detective genre, and especially as the series goes on the writing and action become pretty great. Highly recommended.

 

There's also about 15 books out right now, so plenty of reading material.

 

~B~

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Huh. Your situation sounds pretty much exactly like my situation. I used to read a lot, but then I got a 3DS and a smartphone and wow these things are time sinks, among other things. I get that. Don't have a lot of recommendations, as a result. But,

 

To Be or Not To Be: That is the Adventure by Ryan North is pretty fun. Basically, it's choose-your-own-Adventure Hamlet. It gets a bit preachy in a few parts, but in general it's a very funny and entertaining Thing. It gets pretty crazy. ...probably not the kind of thing you had in mind when it came to book recommendations, but hey, CYOA Hamlet. I'm putting it out there.

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I wrote out a sizable post here, but a brief series of misfortunes made me click on something to another page and thus lose what I wrote. I will attempt to write out what I said before, but I must apologize if I sound annoyed in any way.

 

I too used to read books. Like drawing, reading was my was to escape school and homework, but ever since I graduated high school I have had too many distractions (i.e. video games) that serve to have a more immediate means of entertainment than what books can provide, thus giving me little will to read despite my yearning to.

 

I still buy books, however. My mother says that it is a waste of money as I either read only some of them or just not at all; but I enjoy having a library. I have a little comfy chair, paintings (one historical, two scenic), maps and globes aplenty, a 'fancy' lamp, a few ornamental German beer thingies, an atom model, and Lego architect models that my brother forcibly put on the bookshelf. My bedroom is my den and I use it to get away if need be. Just pop in a Bach CD, sit on the chair, drink juice from my Navajo mug while reading The Prince (still need to get an English-translation of Anti-Machiavelli by Frederick II Hohenstaufen).

 

Good reads, eh? Here are a few, personally (in no particular order):

 

  • - God's Undertaker (non-fiction, covers science and religious discussion and reboots future discussions)
  • - The Alexiad (non-fiction, a contemporary biography of the Roman Emperor Alexios Komnenos and the rise of the Komnenos Dynasty; schnit gets pretty epic here)
  • - The Giver (fiction, a heart-felt dysotopian tale; I currently do not have this)
  • - A Princess of Mars (fiction, ex-CSA soldier gets sent to Mars, or rather Barsoom, and embarks on an epic journey that influences later 20th/21st Century fantasy).
  • - Beowulf (epic legend, follows the hero Beowulf in his (graphic) monster slayings and rise to power in early-medieval Scandinavia; the first known piece of English literature and contains a mixture of Christian and pagan influences).
  • - The Silmarillion (fiction, is J.R.R.Tolkien's grand origin story for the Middle-Earth mythopoeia)
  • - And of course, the Holy Bible (though it is admittedly hard to drink juice to such a large collection of books, forgive me Lord :lol:).

 

Reading Wikipedia history pages are good too.

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A great series that I'm currently reading through is The Dresden Files. It basically combines urban fantasy with the detective genre, and especially as the series goes on the writing and action become pretty great. Highly recommended.

 

There's also about 15 books out right now, so plenty of reading material.

 

~B~

I can second this; Dresden Files is pretty much the only book series I'm reading right now, and it's very good.

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