Quote from Deva

For my gender studies course I have to read :

• Simone de Beauvoir: The Second Sex

I've read de Beauvoir for my semiotic course, 'The second sex' is really good. One of better books about women and what it means to be a woman.

Quote from Deva

• Eve Ensler: The Vagina Monologues

The Vagina Monologues are a must read, definitely 😃

Lately i'm enthralled by Paulo Coelho's "Eleven Minutes". One of his best books. I love how he combined the moral and immoral qualities in his main character.

Current avatar features Badou from Dogs.

Oh, for anyone who liked Battle Royale, the Crimson Labyrinth by Yuusuke Kishi is a REALLY good choice.

It's like Battle Royale, but it has a lot more thought put into some parts of the book. Like strategy. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I found it pretty amazing.

Quote from Layhe

I've read de Beauvoir for my semiotic course, 'The second sex' is really good. One of better books about women and what it means to be a woman.

Yeah I like Beauvoir I read All Men are Mortal and The Mandarins a few years ago, so I expected this to be at least medicore.

Quote from Layhe

The Vagina Monologues are a must read, definitely 😃

Na I don't know so far it seems kinda "outdated" to me, although it is only 15 years old. Well can't give a proper review until I'm finished.

Quote from Layhe

Lately i'm enthralled by Paulo Coelho's "Eleven Minutes". One of his best books. I love how he combined the moral and immoral qualities in his main character.

Coelho is not my cup of tea, read The Alchemist and the one about the biblical prophet (really can't remember the name at the moment). I don't like this "live your dream, find yourself, the journey is the reward..."-stuff. And for my personal taste he uses way too much metaphysical,religious,mystical, symbolistic... elements in his books.

And I have to say to all who read this topic: read the classics! like Hemingway, Steinbeck (oh I worship him ), Miller, Salinger, Melville, Faulkner,Nabokov, Kafka and another two dozen authors (I think not very much on this forum will care about the german ones so I didn't mention them 😀 ) but there are just some books which are must reads no matter what.

Quote from Deva

And I have to say to all who read this topic: read the classics! like Hemingway, Steinbeck (oh I worship him ), Miller, Salinger, Melville, Faulkner,Nabokov, Kafka and another two dozen authors (I think not very much on this forum will care about the german ones so I didn't mention them 😀 ) but there are just some books which are must reads no matter what.

IMO only some of the "classics" are really worth reading, while many others are a waste of ink & paper. I'm not too fond of Melville or Steinbeck, and Faulkner's run on sentences leave me cold (come on...FIVE PAGES in a single rambling and incoherent sentence??). Maybe I'm just to practical/pragmatic/whatever to appreciate them.

I love Shakespeare (some works more than others, naturally), Jane Eyre was great, and I thoroughly enjoyed Tom Jones. Jane Austen's works are also great if I'm in the right mood, and Mark Twain's as well - but if I ever have to read The Scarlet Letter again I'll probably be driven to flinging the darn thing out the window. 🤣

"[English] not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992

Quote from TofuQueen

Quote from Deva

And I have to say to all who read this topic: read the classics! like Hemingway, Steinbeck (oh I worship him ), Miller, Salinger, Melville, Faulkner,Nabokov, Kafka and another two dozen authors (I think not very much on this forum will care about the german ones so I didn't mention them 😀 ) but there are just some books which are must reads no matter what.

IMO only some of the "classics" are really worth reading, while many others are a waste of ink & paper. I'm not too fond of Melville or Steinbeck, and Faulkner's run on sentences leave me cold (come on...FIVE PAGES in a single rambling and incoherent sentence??). Maybe I'm just to practical/pragmatic/whatever to appreciate them.

I love Shakespeare (some works more than others, naturally), Jane Eyre was great, and I thoroughly enjoyed Tom Jones. Jane Austen's works are also great if I'm in the right mood, and Mark Twain's as well - but if I ever have to read The Scarlet Letter again I'll probably be driven to flinging the darn thing out the window. 🤣

For a classic to love: Read anything by Nabokov. Deva knows what he (she?) is talking about. As for Faulkner, surprisingly, his sentences weren't run on sentences; they were (almost always) grammatically perfect--no matter how long they happened to be. Just goes to show how flexible the English language is.

I am the God of Freedom. I am not revered, I have no shrines; and you have never before heard of me nor will you ever hear of me again.

I spend more time reading books than just about any other activity. Mainly Fantasy and recently more and more Science Fiction. I read classics every now and then and the occasional fiction or even rarer mystery also Non-fiction books of my interests. Even poetry and plays when the mood strikes. The only thing I don't read are romances and westerns.

There are a few American comics that I follow but not obsessively like books. I voluntarily banned myself from the local bookshops because I can't walk out of one without buying a book even if I can't really afford it at the time.

Currently I just finished "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley, am currently dabbling in the Gormenghast trilogy and about to start reading "Mistborn" by Brandon Sanderson. (I need to read something by him because he'll be finishing Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series).

"Tu es responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as approvoise." Le Renard en "The Little Prince" Antoine de St. Exupery.

Quote from TofuQueen

I'm not too fond of Melville or Steinbeck, and Faulkner's run on sentences leave me cold (come on...FIVE PAGES in a single rambling and incoherent sentence??). Maybe I'm just to practical/pragmatic/whatever to appreciate them.

Then try to avoid James Joyce - in his 'The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man' he wrote 30 pages about a sermon given out by a priest. Thirty pages of what happens when you go to hell. And then there's Joyce's 'Ulysses' - 600 pages about a single day. And here I thought no one could beat Orzeszkowa, who described flowers from a field for 5 pages...

@Deva - yes, his books are full of symbolism, even 'Eleven Minutes' have some of Saint Mary stuff and all that. But still, it seems to be his most immoral book - while he writes about morality. An interesting paradox, if you wish.

I'm developing a love for classics. Austen, the Brontes, Cooper, Grope, Poe, Wilde are on my fave list now.

Current avatar features Badou from Dogs.

Quote from Layhe

Then try to avoid James Joyce - in his 'The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man' he wrote 30 pages about a sermon given out by a priest. Thirty pages of what happens when you go to hell. And then there's Joyce's 'Ulysses' - 600 pages about a single day. And here I thought no one could beat Orzeszkowa, who described flowers from a field for 5 pages...

Actually I'm pretty sure I read "Portrait of the Artist" but it's been a while... I don't really mind long descriptions and even digressions as long as I can tell what the #($@% is going on. "Tristram Shandy" is written as an autobiography and yet it takes several chapters to get up to the point where the protagonist is born, but it's coherent and interesting. Faulkner's "Intruder in the Dust" - home of that unbearably long sentence - was so rambling and incoherent that I could read the same paragraph several times & still not quite get it. Of course that was back in high school; I might get more out of it now but the memory is so horrid that I have no interest in trying.

"[English] not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992

I'm reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for my class right now, and man am I hating it...

A just ruler amongst tyrants

Quote from lambchopsil

I'm reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for my class right now, and man am I hating it...

High five, then. Hm, I didn't know that Joyce was being read as a lecture in the States. Interesting.

Current avatar features Badou from Dogs.

Quote from Layhe

Quote from lambchopsil

I'm reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for my class right now, and man am I hating it...

High five, then. Hm, I didn't know that Joyce was being read as a lecture in the States. Interesting.

Just checked amazon, and yep, I read it in college, probably for a British Lit class. I don't remember hating it, but then I don't remember loving it either... 😐

"[English] not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992

Right now I am reading a lot of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. And Wordsworth (The Prelude to the Lyrical Ballads). Good stuff.

Listen here
Livin just to keep from dyin
[img]http://imagegen.last.fm/TheDarkTen/recenttracks/imgooley.gif[/img]

Right now I'm readig Genome by Matt Ridley.

To see everything from the perspective of eternity

Mao's Last Revolution! Yay for the Cultural Revolution! It's long, thick, and boring, but necessary for this gay ass research paper =/

Fantasy <3 Can't live without it~ 😃

A tiny bit of Science Fiction, maybe...

And a little Romance... but only if it's included in a Fantasy book.

Mystery is okay, Horror is awesome.

Non-fiction? No, thank you. Except for a select few. [Like Night by Elie Wiesel (sp?) or My Forbidden Face by Latifah]

Shakespeare has got to go. 🤢

Love is so bad.