Avid Readers?

[Jadecavy]

Stephen King is great (good stories), George Orwell is dandy (no bullshit writing style that I can appreciate), and Alexandre Dumas is also awesome (absolutely amazing storyteller. The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite book.).

Currently reading Starship Troopers, which is quite decent.

Stephen King... >.>

Starship Troopers is excellent, if you like that you'll probably like Old Man's war, and possibly Ender's Game. Perhaps not though, if you didn't like Dune, it's the same kind of philosophy meets sci-fi as that.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Dune was mildly allegorical as well as philosophical... Later on it veers into trans-humanism... Then it became pop-sci-fi once Jr. and Anderson got ahold of it. There are over-arching themes, but the tone does move around a lot as you go through all of the books in the series. It still maintains the

Spoiler :

"powerful people use selective breeding and fabricate religions to control humanity in secret"

plot point through out most of the series though.

It tends to happen that way if your initial intent is to create a work of fiction using the subgenre of sci-fi (or fantasy or w/e) as just a setting and geeks get into it pretty much exclusively for those aspects. It then becomes about those and less about your initial design. That's why you often only see the first book in a long series on an educational reading list.

[Warlike Swans]

I'm also reading Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky...I don't think I've read anything so slowly before. I don't even remember when I started it. Like a year ago?

Russian lit always takes me longer to read pager for page... and every time Dostoyevsky goes on a 30 page Christian tangent I pretty much just skip ahead.

Tried reading some sci-fi. Neuromancer, Snow Crash, Stranger in a Strange Land, Dune. Just didn't click. Perhaps you guys can recommend me some page turners.

George Orwell is dandy (no bullshit writing style that I can appreciate), and Alexandre Dumas is also awesome (absolutely amazing storyteller. The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite book.).

I Orwell & Dumas too... need to go back to La Reine Margot.

If you want to read a fantasy re-envisioning of The Count of Monte Cristo you could try The White Tribunal by Paula Volsky.

For science fiction you could try David Brin or Julie E Czerneda (though Czerneda's Stratification series is categorically closer to fantasy). Ender's Game is also a good suggestion, though Scott Card can be an inconsistent author when it comes to quality.

[LopezAMV]

Stumbled on to this thread by accident. I have to say, I've never been so lost in my life . I'm more of a "I don't know what the f**k I'm reading but I really like it" kind of guy. With that said, I havn't heard of anything mentioned in this thread aside from The Brothers Karamazov and the obvious Harry Potter series. From the looks of it I'm not familiar with the fantasy genre at all...but I'm definitely going to look into some of these suggestions. I'm currently reading Atlas Shrugged, The Things They Carried, One Hundred Years of Solitude, an anthology of works by Edgar Allan Poe, New Atlantis by Francis Bacon, and Paradise Lost by John Milton. I also seem to have a strange fascination with historical books and essays - along the lines of philosophical works such as An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke) and A Treatise of Human Nature (Hume).
Guess you're not the only bookworm around here .

[Emong]

A Treatise of Human Nature (Hume).

I want to read this. I'm sure that won't be any time soon but I will at the some point. It's a natural thing to do before turning to Kant

[Kairih]

George Orwell is dandy (no bullshit writing style that I can appreciate)

I Orwell

1984 is one of my favorite book.
George Orwell's seriously a genius.

[Emong]

George Orwell is dandy (no bullshit writing style that I can appreciate)

I Orwell

1984 is one of my favorite book.
George Orwell's seriously a genius.

It is a book of its time but frankly I think for the 21st century we need another kind of dystopian novels. Looking at the situation today, how governments are more or less on the mercy of chaotic markets, you simply can't play this game of anarchy vs. totalitarian state repression anymore in the way that Orwell used to.

Spoiler :

Besides I found some of O'Brien's metaphysical arguments difficult to tackle

[LopezAMV]

A Treatise of Human Nature (Hume).

I want to read this. I'm sure that won't be any time soon but I will at the some point. It's a natural thing to do before turning to Kant

I recommend it . Reading philosophical works is often incredibly tedious and I always find myself having to re-read everything at least a couple of times before I can fully understand it. Not sure why but I'm not particularly interested in Kant's work - while it has its merits, I found it considerably less interesting than the works of Locke, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, and Plato.

[Kairih]

It is a book of its time but frankly I think for the 21st century we need another kind of dystopian novels. Looking at the situation today, how governments are more or less on the mercy of chaotic markets, you simply can't play this game of anarchy vs. totalitarian state repression anymore in the way that Orwell used to.

Spoiler :

Besides I found some of O'Brien's metaphysical arguments difficult to tackle

You're totally right. There's need of another kind of dystopian's novel, Orwell is not so actual. But still, 1984 is a nice read for me, and I see there's something truthful in his words (for its time!).

Spoiler :

I had to re-read some of O'Brien's arguments more than 2 times to completely understand them!. And still I'm not sure of what I've read.

What do you think of Fahrenheit 451, guys? Since we're talking of 1984. xD I'd like to read it, but I'm not still completely sure...

Actually, I'm more accustomed to easier books. I guess the next one I might read will be from an italian writer: Alessandro d'Avenia.

[Warlike Swans]

I prefer Orwell for his non-fiction. "The Shooting of an Elephant" is probably the best essay I've every read.

As for dystopian novels, they're one of my least favorite branches of science fiction.... I guess it's something else that I find comes off more effectively in non-fiction.

What do you think of Fahrenheit 451, guys? Since we're talking of 1984. xD I'd like to read it, but I'm not still completely sure...

I haven't read it in years, and can't say it's something I feel terribly inclined to re-read. I think the main reason it made so may reading lists is that it is about books, and the whole point of those reading lists is to try to get kids to value books more. (Not that I recall it as bad, it just didn't leave a strong impression with me.)