What are you reading? / Book recommendation thread

Drake · Jigglypuff Number of posts: 510 Age: 17 Registration date: 2008-11-27

TheOriginalFanatic wrote:

Let's see Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It's essentially about a utopic society where the utopia is the dystopia.

There is no such thing as utopia, remember. All utopias are essentially dystopias.

Reading A Handmaid's Tale for English.

lolpageget

POOPOO MCBUMFACE

I started Handmaid's Tale, since I enjoyed Oryx and Crake, but it was a bit... forced for me. Does it get better after the first few chapters?

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TheOriginalFanatic

Drake wrote:

TheOriginalFanatic wrote:

Let's see Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It's essentially about a utopic society where the utopia is the dystopia.

There is no such thing as utopia, remember. All utopias are essentially dystopias.

Yeah I was just like paraphrasing.
Oh...Speaking of dystopias 1984 by George Orwell.

Drake · Jigglypuff Number of posts: 510 Age: 17 Registration date: 2008-11-27

A Hundred Million Dongs wrote:

I started Handmaid's Tale, since I enjoyed Oryx and Crake, but it was a bit... forced for me. Does it get better after the first few chapters?

A bit. Not much. The style is nice and it makes you think a bit, but the voice is really dull the entire way through.

Even when she's having sex.

joshy · Number of posts: 43 Age: 18 Registration date: 2008-12-04

Currently reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, both for English. I really like both of them.

DoubleL

The Catcher in the Rye is good, but the Scarlet Letter made me want to eat tacks. Probably the only book I've had to read for an English class that I wasn't able to finish and it's quite short too.

That's just one man's opinion though and I may even be able to stand it now, I just couldn't in the tenth grade.

POOPOO MCBUMFACE

Drake wrote:

A Hundred Million Dongs wrote:

I started Handmaid's Tale, since I enjoyed Oryx and Crake, but it was a bit... forced for me. Does it get better after the first few chapters?

A bit. Not much. The style is nice and it makes you think a bit, but the voice is really dull the entire way through.

Even when she's having sex.

I didn't mind that too much, since I figured it was intentional - she's dulled to the horrors of society and represses her emotions and so on - but the agenda was a bit too obvious for me. I think I got to the part where, out of nowhere, she passes by a bunch of hanging bodies and thinks about how these are the men who used to perform ABORTIONS and they have KILLED THE MEN WHO USED TO PERFORM ABORTIONS because they HATE WOMEN'S RIGHTS before I gave up and put the book down.

Aelph

DoubleL wrote:

Currently reading IT by Stephen King and I really like it, and I'm finally beginning to make progress in it too. It probably doesn't fall under what you're looking for though.

BEEP-BEEP, RICHIE.

I've read It maybe... 10 times now? Every word. I first read it when I was 12, and it's been one of my favourites ever since. Smile

I've read everything by Stephen King (except his last two, because they didn't sound too interesting -- just picked up his newest short story collection, but haven't gotten to it yet), but It and The Green Mile are my favourites.

Lovecraft's good, but I have to be in the right mood.

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[by Atlas]

POOPOO MCBUMFACE

I quite like Stephen King when I feel like a certain kind of book. The Stand is pretty great, and it's remarkable that a story can be 1400 pages and make you feel it needs a little more filler to flesh things out. Dark Tower series was... amusingly haphazard, great at best and hideous author insertion (literally) at worst.

As for Lovecraft... I have respect for him. He had great ideas. He had a great imagination. He had a great vision of cosmic horror and all that good stuff.
I just... wish he'd gotten someone else to write it for him.

Aelph

A Hundred Million Dongs wrote:

I quite like Stephen King when I feel like a certain kind of book. The Stand is pretty great, and it's remarkable that a story can be 1400 pages and make you feel it needs a little more filler to flesh things out. Dark Tower series was... amusingly haphazard, great at best and hideous author insertion (literally) at worst.

King doesn't have much in the way of middle ground, which is why I think The Dark Tower was a mistake for him -- he's just not consistent enough in his talent to do a series justice. Even with The Regulators and Desperation, I thought The Regulators was absolutely amazing, but Desperation bored me terribly; it took me about three tries to even get through it. (I know most people feel the opposite about those two, but it still shows inconsistency!) When he's good, he's amazing; when he doesn't quite get it, he becomes incredibly tedious, particularly considering how long his books tend to be.

"Haphazard" is definitely it.

Quote:

As for Lovecraft... I have respect for him. He had great ideas. He had a great imagination. He had a great vision of cosmic horror and all that good stuff.
I just... wish he'd gotten someone else to write it for him.

Agreed.

Same way I feel about Tolkien, actually. 100% *prepares for the onslaught*

(Amazing ideas, amazing visions, but the man cannot write well.)

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[by Atlas]

KittyKatStar

Reading the Color of Magic - the first book in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Awesome series, glad I finally got around to it.

I actually tried to read Twilight but four pages in I couldn't take it. Already the heroine was heartless, droned on about how she lied a lot, went on about how she tried to push terrible little memories from her mind which was fishing with her dad and his friend (ooooh how terrible), etc etc. It was just depressing and headachy already. x_X So I gave up and started on the Discworld series.

Sludgey · Q(''Q) Number of posts: 404 Age: 17 Registration date: 2008-11-30

I just finished Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son. Good book, it's a biography of the founder of GLSTN. Honestly quite sad, until near the end when it mellows down a bit and focuses on how he founded the organization.

I haven't read a good fiction novel in a while, not that I'm searching.

Drake · Jigglypuff Number of posts: 510 Age: 17 Registration date: 2008-11-27

A Hundred Million Dongs wrote:

Drake wrote:

A Hundred Million Dongs wrote:

I started Handmaid's Tale, since I enjoyed Oryx and Crake, but it was a bit... forced for me. Does it get better after the first few chapters?

A bit. Not much. The style is nice and it makes you think a bit, but the voice is really dull the entire way through.

Even when she's having sex.

I didn't mind that too much, since I figured it was intentional - she's dulled to the horrors of society and represses her emotions and so on - but the agenda was a bit too obvious for me. I think I got to the part where, out of nowhere, she passes by a bunch of hanging bodies and thinks about how these are the men who used to perform ABORTIONS and they have KILLED THE MEN WHO USED TO PERFORM ABORTIONS because they HATE WOMEN'S RIGHTS before I gave up and put the book down.

Oh yeah she makes the whole feminism thing really really obvious. By the way.

Yeah I hated that.

DoubleL

A Hundred Million Dongs wrote:

As for Lovecraft... I have respect for him. He had great ideas. He had a great imagination. He had a great vision of cosmic horror and all that good stuff.
I just... wish he'd gotten someone else to write it for him.

As much as I like Lovecraft, I can definitely see how you could feel that way. Some of his stuff just gets...meh. But when he does it right, it's fantastic.

joshy · Number of posts: 43 Age: 18 Registration date: 2008-12-04

DoubleL wrote:

The Catcher in the Rye is good, but the Scarlet Letter made me want to eat tacks. Probably the only book I've had to read for an English class that I wasn't able to finish and it's quite short too.

That's just one man's opinion though and I may even be able to stand it now, I just couldn't in the tenth grade.

Really? I like Scarlet Letter more than Catcher. It was a little hard to get into the language at first though.