Tell us about your favorite reads! Or rant about the ones you loathe.


Rules of the clan:

1.) Please warn about spoilers. i.e. You can say briefly what the book is ABOUT but if you're going to reveal the ending then please say "SPOILER" in big letters before telling us about the ending or anything else that reveals too much about the story.

2.) Please don't just state the title of the book with a brief statement such as "it was a good book" after it - state some of your thoughts about it, how it made you feel, etc. Would you recommend it & why?

3.) The book must contain some semblance of a plot, or something of literary value. e.g. fiction, biographies. This isn't the clan for encyclopedias or cookbooks.


Update 8/9/2005: Anything goes now. If I restrict this clan to fiction books only then I'm probably never gonna post in here at this rate.






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I've just finished Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, a book taking place during the Dust Bowl and the okies moving to California to find fortune through Route 66 of the Depression era. One of the theme that Steinbeck tries to mention is: Unity.

Cool! Did you have to read it for a class or did you just read it because it appealed to you?


My most recent read was Phantom by Susan Kay. Here's the summary from Amazon:



Basically it's a published fanfic of Leroux's Phantom of the Opera.

I LOVED IT. It is so intense. I couldn't put it down for two days (even read it during a class at one point lol) and now that I'm done reading it I'm sad and actually miss the characters. It's quite well-written, in terms of language and plot. I didn't think the ending was very plausible but the beginning and middle were fantastic, with a lot of creative touches. If you're a Phantom of the Opera/Erik fan then you'd love this book - if you're a Raoul fan then it might piss you off because it portrays Erik in such a good light and makes Raoul out to be a loser lol.


I ordered Susan Kay's other book, Legacy, from half.com. It's won a bunch of awards so I'm expecting it to be good.

umm...

books i like: (keep in mind that i only read when asked)
Life of Pi- Yann Martel
^basically this indian boy gets caught out at sea by a big storm and he tries to find land on a life raft with a zebra, a tiger, a hyena and an oragutan. it's REALLY weird but it's a good story. like REALLY weird. IMO... but it's really cool and i like it.


book i'm reading:
Duddy Kravitz- mordecai richler
^it's about a jew living in montréal. haha... still trying to figure out what it's about.

plays i read that i enjoyed:
Merchant of Venice
^about merchant in venice... a rich girl and a jew who gets picked on too much lol. basically a friend of the merchant needs more money so he can marry the rich girl ad ifnally pay off the huge debt he has. the merchant doesn't have any money, so he tells his friend to go to the jew to borrow some. the jew lends the money but he says if he doesn't get the money back in 3 months he gets to take a pound of flesh off of the merchant. lol. it's REALLY predictable until u reach the end, but it'd entertaining nonetheless. people say it's an anti-semitic play but i don't really think so. you'd only think it's anti-semitic if you didn't read the play the whole way through.

Taming of the Shrew
^just a bunch of suitors... and this really biitchy girl haha. your basic shakespeare comedy. it's still a good play. no as cool as the merchant of venice.

Oedipus the King
^holy crap is play is so weird... hahahaha... iunno, i read it and the day after i wrote this REALLY twisted poem for english class.. so it definitely affected me. basically the legend is that Oedipus' parents were told by apollo that if they had a child it would kill them both, so when they had a child, they gave it to a shepherd to kill it. the shepherd felt sorry and gave it to another guy who named the child Oedipus. no one ended up killing it, and oedipus grew up. one day he was attacked by this group of ppl and in hte group was the king of (thebes? i can't remember) anyways, so yea, he managed to survive and he ended up killing the king (aka his father). the first part of the prophecy had been fulfilled. as he kept venturing around greece, he reached (thebes?) and there was this monster killing all of these ppl and Oedipus saved them from the monster. they appointed him king, and guess who was the queen? his mom. =X NASTY... anyways, yea, this legend leads to the beginning of the play. btw, to gross u out even more, they have kids.

Wow, seems like you're required to read about some pretty bizarre things!

^LMAO... yea... it's weird that we only had to read 2 books this year and both were about jews my english teach is cool though. when we have nohting to do she lets us play cards b/c she wants to play euchre all the time.

oedipus the king, my bro said it was really creepy and i shouldn't read it, so i took it from his room and read it. hahaha..


books for the kiddies:
oh.. and all those books that end in 'wing' like silverwing, firewing and sunwing... (by kenneth oppel) yea, they're all good. they're for little kids though (12-14 yrs maybe hahah). after reading one of the books, i was really sad for a few days b/c a main character SPOILERSdies omg iunno why i did spoilers like that when no one will read this book.. haha...

artemis fowl was really good but the next 2 in the series were pretty shiitty IMO... oh well, i'm still a fan nonetheless. they were so dry i already forgot the plots.

Yea...for class.



Haha..the modern movie version is kind of hilarious. "10 things I hate about you"



I've also read this last year, wasn't his mother's name know as Jocasta? I know its pretty awkward, having kids with your mom. It like having a grandma/mom in the same person. Greek tradgedies are always blinded.

Who's excited about the new Harry Potter book? I hope it'll be as exciting as the 4th one...I wasn't too crazy about the 5th one - too many new characters and not enough character development IMO.

haha yea, i liked that movie too... haha. we had to watch it right after we read the play.. that's what they all do, and thent hey made us compare hte movie wih the play.. i had to do that reflection question maybe 5 times already...

haha yea. so freaky... he fact that he didn't know, but he wanted to know his roots so badly... you kinda feel sorry for him. kinda like: "NOO! you don't know what you're asking for, you dumbass!"


i ave allt he books up to the order of the phoenix, but i've only read the first 3... so far so good, except we all know that the 2nd one was crap.

I loved the second one! It had more humor than the first one and also more of a "whodunnit" element.

I'm reading the Ramayana and love it. I'm on the Book Of Ayutthaya (Ayodhya), 119 Chapters! (I'm on chapter 10 ) Sri Rama doesn't know hes about to be sent into the forest because Manthara, the evil hunch-back servant has tricked Kaikeyi into think that Sri Rama is bad news so right now they are trying to get him kicked into the forest...Darasatha is a fool he has been overcame by his lust of beautiful things

hahaha okay im way into it...anyways im going to bed...night

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Wow that sounds like quite a story. How many pages is it? I'd like to read it but since I like to read on the run I tend to avoid huge tomes.




Have you ever read anything by Piers Anthony?

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hehe... if you want something geeky then I'd recommend A Spell For Chameleon. It's the first in a series about a land called Xanth, which is ruled by magic. There's a lot of cheesy/cute wordplay in it.

I always need a dictionary nearby whenever I read anything by Piers Anthony because he uses a whole lot of fancy words.




I just came back from the public library and borrowed this book called Don't Open This Book. 2 It's a collection of stories about the lure of the forbidden.

Anybody would like to discuss about the summaries of Huckleberry Finn? Please feel free to do so.

Hm.....I never read the book but I saw the movie a long time ago, the one with Elijah Wood.


Has anyone read the Lord of the Rings books? If you did I'm before you.

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i'm reading photoshop CS bible, can i join?

Sorry, a photoshop CS bible doesn't have much literary value. This clan isn't about books that solely instruct you on how to do something. You can join if you want to talk about a novel, biography, etc.

probably true when you say it's not for everyone... i read all three volumes including the 4th one, The Hobbits (There and Back Again) - Bilbo's story... but i did find it GREAT... the idea is to read it knowing it is a fantasy-escapist reality thing...

Anybody read R.A.Heinlein? i just finished rereading THe Number of the Beast... yup for the nth time maybe... it's another speculative science fiction dealing with time travel and alternate multiverse with great, funny characters!

count me in in this clan please!!!

I'm a bookish person. Can i join?

I ran the book club for freshmans at my school

I'm really into the classics. Especially edgar allan poe.
Does anyone like James patterson?

I'm reading The Count of Monte Cristo right now. I read alot of sci-fi books though when I was in High School and of course the typical English curricilum. I'm no longer in school so I'm attempting to read some classics ala the Alexander Dumas book. I'm currently just pass the part where Albert gets kidnapped and later released by the bandit Luigi Vampa. I think my next read will be The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I have yet to read it and everybody keeps making god damn references to it that I don't get.

Hey you made a book clan right after I told everyone to stop wasting their time online doing nothing and go read! I made my book post for no reason when I first joined

Haha..I'm a big Harry Potter fan! I have all five books up on my shelf, and I agree about the 5th one, and I'll probably go head out to buy the new one when it comes out in the summer.




Hmm....I'm currently reading this too for the second time around right now since it's been collecting dust on my book shelf for quite some time. I'm still at the beginning where the Abbe Faria is helping Dantes figure out why he's been wrongfully accused and who was involved in the whole scheme. I've also read the Three Musketeers and THe Man in the Iron Mask.

As for me, I've never really had a knack for reading but for the past year or so I've been reading quite profusely.

I've always been partial to Hesse: Demian, Beneath the Wheel, etc.

Balzac

Proust

Nabokov (you’ve probably already read Lolita)


A Separate Peace: John Knowles

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Smith

Kafka

African American literature: The Color Purple: Walker
Their Eyes Were Watching God: Hurston

The Divine Comedy: Dante

HUgo

And um..I like John Grisham novels. That's it for now as I can't call any titles or authors to me at the current moment, and I don't want to write a whole review on each one so go check 'em out yourselves.

am not a member of the book club

I couldn't get through those long descriptions in the beginning. I've a short attention span when it comes to descriptions in books....I was like "where's all the action??" And then my 14 year old cousin told me she read all three of them and made me feel really dumb.


Welcome! We're getting some really great members in here.


Welcome!

You know, I never found Poe's writing as horrifying as people made it out to be. Maybe I'm too shallow to understand or something? hahaha.. I find him depressing as hell but never found him scary.


That book has a fantastic plot. It made a great movie too... I went to see it with my family and my parents usually sleep through movies but they were wide awake through this one.


hehehe... coincidence...? I actually started this clan because I took a long hiatus from fiction for a while (couldn't get myself to concentrate on reading for something other than school) but I recently read this book - Phantom by Susan Kay - which re-introduced me to reading for pleasure.



Awww 2 Well you can join when you have a book to talk about...which tells some kind of a story.... come on lance you must have read at least one lol

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i read a goosebump book, about 8years ago, it was called, night of the living dummy 3

the dummys came alive and killed ppl

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hehe, not that i remember any of it but i agree with you goosebump books rocked back in the days though

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I've got that book. It does end abruptly but it's volume one in a trilogy of five according to the back of it. The next one's called The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, which explains why the book ended with the guy saying lets go to the restaurant. I looked for them in book stores but haven't found any yet.

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Oh yeah, a trilogy is a series of 3! I forgot

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Yeah I believe it is a series of five. There's - Mostly Harmless, So long, and uh ".....something something", Life Universe & Everything, and the ones you mentioned.

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I dunno why but I didn't like the book that much. It was funny but the narrative was sometimes a bit irritating.

Um...I can't comment on them myself because I haven' read them. Isn't it supposed to be satirical sci-fi stuff???

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I don't read carefully enough to get that. Maybe that's why I don't like it as much.

This is an addictable book. We even had an author coming to our school talking about his life, which he also compared with his novels...so its basically non-fiction. Here's some parts for his his book:



http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart/catalog/...1X&view=excerpt

I'm currently reading The Canterbury Tales (selected stories only though not the complete one) and getting the hang of Chaucer's english...

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Which story is it with the guy that wants to kiss a girl, but he's really kissing some dude's @$$ and later finds out about it. He then gets one of those hot branding irons and sticks it on the guy's @$$ next time and he screams for water and the dude upstairs thinks its a flood and drops a tub through the floors...or something like that. I only vaguely remember it and it was funny. I'm talking about Canterbury Tales by the way.

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By any chance, did anyone here read the baby's sitters' club?! or sweet valley high?? good stuff..brain fluff

Sweet valley, sweet valley, hiiiiiiigggghhhh...sorry I remmeber the theme song for the tv show. I was all about Box Car Children and Goosebumps when I was in 2nd - 3rd grade.

Speaking of which, my dad recently told me when I was in the first grade, he thought maybe I was semi-retarded! I was just going back remembering first grade in Ft. Dix, talking to my dad about this composition book we had. We had like daily sentence construction and it would take me hours and hours. Well I moved to Ft.Campbell for 2nd grade and they placed me in a 3rd grade class for English. I literally had to leave the class with this one other girl and go to a 3rd grade class. I just thought that was funny. I wonder if anybody elses parents thought they were stupid at one time.

Wow, glad that you turned out unretarded, lol.

Actually that reminded me of my kindy teacher. I was put into ESL because i apparently didnt understand english and then she went on the tell my parents to have me checked up because I wasnt responding like a normal child. So anyways, I was DUX in english in my senior class, see me now Mrs. Jenson! Biatch.... argh the good 'ole days.

It's interesting how that happens. You would have never guess I'd be going for an English major when I was in the 1st grade. Hell you wouldn't have guessed that when I was in the 9th grade. I didn't start writing well 'til after that. I had such a retarded hard teacher. I don't think I got anything above a C on an essay and everybody hated her guts. But I guess she did something right like educate me. The rest of my English teachers after that were a piece of cake.