<p>Im new, dont know where to post but here it goes.</p>
<p>Hi im new, im looking for a good book to read and am open to any kind/type of book</p>
<p>parents usually know good classics =]</p>
<p>current transfer student?</p>
<p>My son is enjoying War and Peace right now, but it’s written at a different pace than most contemporary fiction. </p>
<p>Why not give us some hints as to what you’ve liked in the past.</p>
<p>Yup, definitely gonna need some guidance here. My current recommendation is the collection The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft, which is pretty darned far from War and Peace.</p>
<p>Anyway, welcome!</p>
<p>Anything by Pat Conroy, especially Prince of Tides.</p>
<p>Loved Prince of Tides. The movie, not so much.</p>
<p>I know students who loved the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.</p>
<p>Slaughterhouse-Five</p>
<p>The term “non-fiction” usually brings yawns to students, but if written well, it can be fantastic reading. A few that I like:</p>
<p>“Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer, about the 1996 tragedy on Mt. Everest. I couldn’t put it down.</p>
<p>“Demon Under the Microscope” by Thomas Hager, about the discovery of the first miracle drug (no, not penicillin – before that). You don’t have to be science-y to enjoy it. Along the same lines, and relevant to today’s H1N1 headlines, is “The Great Influenza” by John M. Barry.</p>
<p>“Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded” by Simon Winchester. History, geology, physics – made fascinating. Did you know that the eruption of Krakatoa was heard as far at 3000 miles away? :eek:</p>
<p>As far as classic-classics:
(if you’re a girl) All Jane Austen. Start with “Emma.”
“Tess” by Thomas Hardy
Charles Dickens. “A Tale of Two Cities” and “Great Expectations” are 2 of my favorites. “The Pickwick Papers” is actually funny.</p>
<p>Crime and Punishment</p>
<p>If you are looking for classics, try this: [Browse</a> - Penguin Classics - Penguin Group (USA)](<a href=“http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/classics/browse.html]Browse”>http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/classics/browse.html)</p>
<p>Some of my favorite “classics” (that might appeal to a male sensibility) are: </p>
<p>W. Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge</p>
<p>Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter</p>
<p>William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury</p>
<p>Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow</p>
<p>Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment</p>
<p>Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin</p>
<p>Sinclair Lewis’s Babbit</p>
<p>and anything by Charles Dickens (my favorite Brit)-- try Bleak House or my all-time favorite Great Expectations</p>
<p>I’m enjoying the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories right now.</p>
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<p>True. I don’t read much non-fiction, but The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich kept me riveted, all twelve hundred pages of it. And anything by Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman, or Carl Sagan.</p>
<p>heh i like some of the picks, </p>
<p>Tolstoys by far is one of my favorite authors The Kreutzer Sonata </p>
<p>Books along the lines of
The Count of Monte Christo
Lord of the flies
Animal farm
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Life of Pi By mattel
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
a heartbreaking work of staggering genius by Dave Egger is also good</p>
<p>book’s that give you new insight every time you read them
are my type of book’s. Just some books that i enjoy. Thanks for the list
going to go visit my library tomorrow</p>
<p>I hated Tess D’Uberville when I read it as a teenager. It probably turned me into a committed feminist. Angel Clare is the most sanctimonious prig I’ve encountered in literature after Uriah Heep, but Heep is clearly a villain while Angel Clare --get the name?–is a model of Victorian rectitude. Retch!</p>
<p>If I can recommend French literature in translation, Stendhal, The Red and the Black, and works by Balzac (I don’t know their English titles). If you like Tolstoy, you may like works by Dostoievsky and Turgenev. Since you liked The Count of Monte-Cristo, you might like Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame as well as Les Miserables.</p>
<p>There is a whole genre of academic fiction, including Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim, and various books by David Lodge (Trading Places, Nice Work, etc…) Jane Smiley’s Moo. They are quite fun to read.
David Eggers’ new book Zeitoun has been called the definitive account of New Orleans after Katrina.</p>
<p>“Remains of the Day” and “Never Let me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro. Not classics yet, but beautiful and provocative.</p>
<p>You might also try Milan Kundera–either Immortality or The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Not traditionally thought of as “classics” (not old enough) but beautifully written and thought-provoking.</p>
<p>Its not a classic, but I enjoyed People of the Book by G. Brooks. It was a shorter read, but really good.</p>
<p>I loved Remains of the Day. Along these lines, I would suggest Iain McEwan, Atonement and LP Hartley’s The Go-Between; Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited, Robert Graves, Good Bye to All That and Pat Barker, Regeneration.
Also, Jhumpa Lahiri, The Interpreters of Maladies and the Namesake. Louis de Berniere, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. I loved Iain Pears An Instance of the Fingerposts but I know people who could not finish it.</p>
<p>Yes, marite–good one!! Another enthusiastic vote for Iain Pears’ An Instance of the Fingerpost-an historical novel/murder mystery told from 3 different perspectives–extraordinary, enthralling and unique. I also loved Matthew Pearl’s The Dante Club.</p>
<p>My list is going to be more escape-oriented than a lot of the lists posted on this thread so far!</p>
<p>Dean Koontz is an especially prolific writer who has a thoroughly amazing way with words. Some of his books have villains so creepy I can’t recommend them (too disturbing), but others are accessible and all are so well written imho. Check out his Odd Thomas series. Highly entertaining.</p>
<p>I’ve enjoyed historical fiction by Morgan Llywellyn; it’s easy to lose yourself for a few hours in one of her books. Lion of Ireland, Bard, Druids… I don’t think there’s a bad book in the bunch. Her series on significant events in 20th century Ireland (beginning with the Easter Rebellion, 1941) is a good read too. All this assumes you have some interest in Irish and/or Celtic history. Her books can be hard to find in bookstores, but Amazon should have a lot of them.</p>
<p>For lighter (fantasy) reading, the Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K LeGuin is a good (short) series. Also Mary Stewart’s Merlin series – The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment, Wicked Day – although these ones might appeal more to a female reader.</p>
<p>Nobody’s mentioned Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. That’s an interesting read, a book to return to again and again.</p>
<p>If you like political intrigue and “war on terror” action plots, Vince Flynn will keep you turning pages until you hit the back cover. His first book, Term Limits, probably has special appeal to some folks right now. :D</p>
<p>Nothing on this list that will impress people if you carry it around campus, but all entertaining if you’re just looking for a good read.</p>
<p>and just so you know Jed, this thread will eventually be moved to the Parent Cafe which is a sub forum under this one. If you look above the top of the topics list, there is a link to the Parent Cafe. They try to keep the Parent Forum topics related to college and put the rest in the cafe.</p>
<p>Welcome!</p>