BS: What do you read ?

Subject: What do you read ?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 09:37 PM

Some of my favourite authors are
Bill Bryson
Shaun Hutson
Steven King
Dean Koontz
Richard Layman
Gerald Seymour

What are yours?

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: toadfrog
Date: 09 Jun 01 - 09:55 PM

Some favorites: Arundhati Roy
Stephen Jay Gould
Tim O'Brien
Thomas Wolfe
Patrick O' Brien
William Henry Dana

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 12:24 AM

Richard Halliburton
Ed Cray
Robert H. Rimmer
Spider Robinson
Robertson Davies
A.S. Byatt
Lois McMaster Bujold
Louise Dickenson Rich
John Gould
Naguib Mahfouz
Rumer Goden

the list goes on...

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: GUEST,khandu
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 01:16 AM

The Bible

Mudcat threads

Dean Koontz

Gibrhan

Asimov

Harper Lee (1000 Xs)

Stephen King

palms

eyes

minds

backs of shampoo bottles and anything else I can get my hands on!

khandu

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: flattop
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 01:46 AM

I bought Natalie Goldberg's 'Wild Mind, Living the Writer's Life' in The Eternal Moment Bookstore on Wednesday night so I would have something to read while eating in a restaurant before going to Fat Alberts. I shouldn't be caught dead in a place like The Eternal Moment Bookstore but Natalie, most famous for 'Writing Down the Bones,' is top drawer.

Here is a quote from the second page of the introduction: '... but reading a book about writing is different from actually getting down and doing writing. I was naive. I should have remembered that after I read the Tibetan Book of the Dead, I was still afraid to die.'

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From:
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 02:48 AM

Some of these books are so beautifully written the writing distracted me from the story! ENJOY!

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Kristen Lavaransdatter by Sigurd Undsted The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard Time and Again - Can't remember The Raj Quartet - Can't remember Passage by Charles Jordan Song of Solomon - can't remember Woman Warrior - can't remember Ahab's Wife - can't remember Pigs in Heaven/The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende Prince of Tides - can't remember The Living by Annie Dillard

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Amergin
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 03:21 AM

i don't know i read a bunch of stuff.....though I am currently reading Ingathering (the complete stories of The People) by Zenna Henderson.....my mom used to have The People and the People: No Different Flesh and we both kinda wore those books out.....

Some of my favouritse (which do include her books) are the tolkien books....the narnia books...and the band played on....and so on and so forth....

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 04:41 AM

Almost anything. Mostly crime, Sci fi, legends, history (not historical.....), children's books - Narnia, Anne of Green Gables, Moomins, Dark is Rising sequence - horror, plays, fantasy, biography (particularly like Gerald Durrell, Maureen Lipman and Spike Milligan), travel (Bill Bryson mostly) and classics and old school set books like Moby Dick, Lord of the Flies, To kill a Mockingbird and so on.

I don't read Austen, Bronte's or Catherine Cookson. Euugh, ptooey....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: JudeL
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 05:31 AM

Anne McCaffrey, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Elizabeth Moon, Mercedes Lackey, David Weber, Steve White, Tom Holt, Maggie Furey, Piers Anthony, S.M. Sterling, Katherine Kurtz, Patricia Kennealy, Julian May, Terry Brooks, Robert Heinlein, Stephen Donaldson, Frank Herbert and incongruous as it may appear Jane Austin.
Jude

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: lady penelope
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 05:45 AM

Just about all of the above and I will read Catherine Cookson if there's nothing else, as I have to have something to stop the voices in my head from taking over.......

TTFN M'Lady P.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 07:23 AM

Good threads you've started lately and I don't mean to always link something else, but we've talked of these things before and it's always worth a look to see what's been said around here. Here are some previous thoughts on the subject:

Best Books

Worst Book

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: MarkS
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 09:17 AM

Amergin - THANKS for your post. I had no idea the "People" series had been anthologized. Now off to Amazon to see if I can find it. Thanks again.

Jude - you have to add Larry Niven and William Forstchen to your otherwise super list of authors.
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 09:43 AM

What ever looks good. History, as long as the author makes it entertaining. Dave Barry, Bill Bryson, P.G. Wodehouse, H.G. Wells, H. Ryder Haggard, Jules Verne, Victorian adventure novels. preferably with original illustrations, true organized crime (I think the Godfather and the Sopranos pale compared to the real thing), Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, cook books, comic strip collections, and once every two or three years I re-read A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, probably the best book ever written in any language.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Dorrie
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 11:03 AM

well at the moment media studies-new media technologys as i have an exam in it 2moro and i'm scared

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: GUEST,Matt_R (cookieless!)
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 11:09 AM

J.R.R. Tolkien
Anne McCaffrey

Technically, I haven't read anything in almost 2 years. But now that the new Pern book by Anne McCaffrey is out, I'm looking to get back into it!

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 11:21 AM

Mudcat mainly. Rarely find time to read books these days but do like
Umberto Ecco
Flaubert
Stephen Donaldson
Trashy novels that don't make me think

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 11:47 AM

Tied for the top spot in my personal favs list are
Guy Gavriel Kay
Neil Gaiman

Tack on another vote for Donaldson (some of it any way)
Raymond Feist
William Gibson
;-)

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Spud Murphy
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 12:41 PM

All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy-- Hands down and by all odds!!!

When I was about ten, and my favorite author was probably Will James, my mother's favorite uncle gave me 'The Last Of The Mohicans' by James Fenimore Cooper. I spent the next thirty years trying to read that book, and never made it past the first chapter. I'd still be trying, but my mother passed on in 1956 and I no longer felt the desperate compulsion to read it out of respect to my elders.

Spud

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 12:50 PM

Nobody reads J.F. Cooper, it's impossible. Publishers know this, and all copies are printed with Chapter one followed by 500 blank pages. Really.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: JudeL
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 01:39 PM

Mark - Larry Niven I know & enjoy - but I don't recognise William Fortschen. Could you name me something he's written.
Re-reading back through the list I noticed a few more I missed out, Barbara Hambly, P.G. Woodhouse, Patric Tilley, Gerald Durrel , JRR Tolkien and Tom Sharp
Jude

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: lady penelope
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 03:59 PM

No, J.F. Cooper is mearly annoying, impossible is D.H. Lawrence, a man who never seemed to know if he was coming or going ( check out the harvest passage from "the Rainbow" ).

TTFN M'Lady P.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: marty D
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 04:24 PM

WEll JF Cooper AND Lawrence are certainly up there for me, but that doesn't mean I UNDERSTOOD them. Read a lot of Kenneth Roberts when I was young. HE'S easy to read. Carl Jung on a rainy day, and Bret Harte anytime.

marty

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Sorcha
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 04:35 PM

Most of the above; also Sheri S. Tepper and her "alternate personas", Rita Mae & SqueakyPie Brown, Alice Walker, the backs of cereal boxes and encyclopedias when I'm desperate,lol!

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 05:37 PM

William Cumpiano" Guitarmaking:Tradition and Technology". (A flawed book, but still worth reading). Tool catalogs from Garrett-Wade, Highland Hardware, Woodworkers Supply and Harbor Freight. Lithiery catalogs from Luthiers Mercantile and Stewart-MacDonald. "Acoustic Guitar" magazine.

Nothing too intellectually demanding, been there, did that in my schooldays.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 07:15 PM

I read once. It was truly terrible.

I've never made it past the first 2 chapters of any Dickens novel, but did read Keroac's 'On the Road' whilst laid out flat over Easter and couldn't work out why it was such an alleged epoch making book. Just me I guess.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: kendall
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 08:23 PM

Try Charles Kuralts' On The Road.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Peg
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 09:54 PM

Charles Kuralt! What a great man. I have mentioned before, talking to him on the phone just a couple weeks before he died was a high point in my life.

Great book he wrote, and I loved Sunday Morning when he hosted it...

Charles Osgood is a bit of a buffoon...

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Matt_R
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 10:42 PM

Charles Kuralt was from downhome Onslow County, NC, where I live on the weekends, and have spent 9 years of my life.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: MMario
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 10:45 PM

whoa! Ingathering yes! gotta find it! gotta (re)read! Loved that series - hated the movie. (Shatner RUINED it!)

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: MarkS
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 11:34 PM

Hey, Jude (hmmm, wonder if that would work as a song title?) William Forstchen did the Lost Regiment series. Start with number 1, Rally Cry. But be careful, starting with this is like starting David Weber with "On Basilisk Station." Once you read one you will not be happy unless you read them all.
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 10 Jun 01 - 11:52 PM

Thanks for all your replies so far,some of the authors ive never heard of.If your favourite authors are a bit obscure can you tell us what sort of writing it is,ie crime,horror etc?I think my favourite author at the moment is Dean Koontz,ive read most of his stuff.I buy most of my books from charity shops,you can ofen find newish paperbacks for around 50p,its a good saving when new books are around 6-7 pounds.john

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: hesperis
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 02:25 AM

Anything, (including cereal boxes,) when I'm really desperate for something to read.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: JulieF
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 07:15 AM

Yes , anything and quite often anything twice, just to see if it is just a bad as the first time.

Seriously though

History Science

Primo Levi

Terry Pratchett

James Joyce

Ian Rankin ( Crime Set in Edinburgh)

And many others

In the handbag at the moment :- English Passengers by Matthew Kneale

On the desk at work An Absolute Idiot's Guide to Windows NT and today's Independent

By the bed - Tacticus ( I think that's right - some roman historian anyway)

Jammed down the side of the sofa Eleanor of Acquitaine

Perched on top of the toilet .....

You get the general idea

All the best

Julie

We

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 07:53 AM

Again, my list above is waaaaaay too short to include all my favorites. And I have a bathtub book, a bedroom book, a book in the car, one at work for lunch breaks (when I was working for someone else), and a couple extras going (poetry and something too heavy for reading straight through) at any given time. Not to mention trade pubs and other magazines.

I've never actually managed to finish reading my favorite book of all time -- Lawrence Stern's Tristram Shandy. I get so wrapped up in the writing and the way words are strung together that I never seem to get past the first hundred pages. (The "hobby horse" monologue!) Then I have to start over the next time I pick it up and the same thing happens.

I've been trying to read it for over thirty years (and it's been next to my bed the whole while!).

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Midchuck
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 08:42 AM

Jude: Based on your list, I would make the following strong suggestions, if you haven't found them already:

1) Liad.

2) Belisarius. Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: JudeL
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 09:07 AM

Thanks for the suggestions - I hadn't heard of the liam series and I needed to find someone new to read before I give in to temptation (again) and go buy the hardback editions of my fave authors instead of waiting for the paperback edn to be published.
Jude

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 10:08 AM

Clinton Hammond - Another Neil Gaiman fan!!!!! Have you read the online chapter one of his new novel American Gods yet?

Other faves are - Stephen Donaldson, Iain Banks, Douglas Adams, Irvine Welsh and lots of others who don't come to mind at the moment

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Peg
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 10:17 AM

I got to interview Neil Gaiman a couple years ago; very cool guy. I also got my picture taken with him.

I am too scattered these days to read much but I did just finish Charles de Lint's "Yarrow" and liked it a lot. He is one my favorite fantasy authors.

I also like A.S. Byatt, Alice Hoffman, John Updike, F. Scott Fitzgerald, W.B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, and lately getting into Dylan Thomas...

non-fiction: recently, Philip Heselton's Wiccan Roots, and Ron Hutton's Trumph of the Moon...

Magazines I read or peruse regularly: Harper's, Victoria, Mountain Astrologer, Alternative Healing, The Herb Quarterly

I also love old magazines and have quite a collection of Playboy from the '60s and '70s, bought for a quarter apiece from the main Harvard library...

Peg

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Lyndi-loo
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 10:28 AM

Philip Pullman's trilogy Northern Lights, The subtle Knife , the Amber Spyglass. Fantasy novels, supposedly for children, but great for adults too.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 10:57 AM

Peg - now I'm jealous!! I'm a bit of a Gaiman fanatic. I own almost everything he has written, including the whole Sandman comic series.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Peg
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 11:04 AM

Bagpuss;

apparently Gaiman is known for being very friendly and a regular guy. He came to Boston to do a reading benefit for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. I got to hang with him beforehand because I was doing an article, and he signed my copy of "Neverwhere" and posed for a pic with me. Later he was at a reception at a local pub where he signed peoples' books and talked with them; he even drew a great picture on one guy's leather jacket!

He is a great reader and very nice; I hope I can hear him read again some day.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: GUEST,Charmion
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 11:11 AM

Lately, the entire Rebus canon by Ian Rankin; by chance, I started at the beginning and just cannot stop. I love detective novels; they always have the same plot, which gives a good author time and space to do complex variations on the whole Problem of Evil thing.

Looking at the posts in this thread, I am surprised that anyone can claim (as people keep doing) that, as a form of entertainment, The Book is dying or dead. Of course, the paperback novel is the only amusement that is totally portable, to bed, bath and loo; workstation, bus station and police station; hospital bed, barrack bed and flower bed (while weeding).

Mudcatters have listed authors I read thirty years ago and have hardly thought of since (Kenneth Roberts), and described the same kind of continuing campaigns to conquer impossible authors (J.F. Cooper, Laurence Sterne) that I have been engaged in all my adult life. Some day, I *will* finish Anna Karenina! I swear! Really!

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: JulieF
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 11:27 AM

Charmion - its great to find another Rebus fan. I have found that there comes a point in these books that you have to finish regardless of what needs washed or who needs fed. There again I am biased as I love the way he turns a corner and describes aplace a know very well.

All the best

Julie

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: mousethief
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 12:40 PM

Words, words, words.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Jande
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 01:40 PM

Hmmm... the last few books I've read in the last month or so...

SF/F: The Unicorns of Balinor series ( Mary Stanton --8 books so far)[currently re-reading with James & Lissa]

Dolphins of Pern

Jane Yolan's Pit Dragon series (3 novels)

I, Robot (Asimov, of course)

The Naked Sun (also Asimov)[currently reading with James]

The Silmarillion (JRRT)[currently reading]

Everything I can get my hands on by Pratchett [Currently rereading Fifth Elephant]

The Star Wars trilogy (all in one paperback)

Anything by Hesperis!

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Angency (Douglas Adams)

HHGTTG (Douglas Adams)

Three Howard the Duck superhero comic books. ;`)

Non SF/F:

Trustee In The Toolroom (Nevil Shute)

No Highway (Nevil Shute)

Beyond the Black Stump (Nevil Shute)

The whole Brother Cadfael series (Ellis Peters --about 20 books?)

Poetry:

Ain't I a Woman? (Anthology by women from around the world)

Voices/Noises (Raphael Baretto-Rivera)

non-novels:

D&D Players Handbook ~ Third Edition

Teach Yourself Visual C++ In 24 Hours

Modern Recording Techniques ~ Fourth Edition

The Elegant Universe ~Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory.(Brian Greene)[Current Bathroom Book]

We have three bathrooms. Every one of them is piled with Pratchetts. What a commentary on his work! [chuckle] I guess that's it for lately.. All I can remember anyway.

Another of my favourite series is "The Three Musketeers" about 6 books IIRC, including "Twenty Years After", "The Man In The Iron Mask". Brilliant, exciting books by Alexandre Dumas, as well as his Count Of Monte Christo but get that in it full unabridged version.

LOL! I just found an online copy of CoMC right here. 118 Chapters of it. (They also have the whole of Dickens' Bleak House, as well as others. Cool!)

I also love to reread "Les Miserables" (Victor Marie Hugo ~two books) from time to time.

Amergin, I'm grateful for the information about the "The People" anthology! Those books saved my life back when I was a tortured child. I only ever got "The People, No Different Flesh" and "The Anything Box".

It's great to see so many people here that read the same kinds of books that I do... Good thread, john in hull!

~ Jande

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Grab
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 02:58 PM

Pterry Pratchett, Stephen Donaldson, William Horwood, Nevil Shute, Stephen King.

Tom Maddox's "Halo" is pretty good - I got the dead tree version, but it's available online on this link.

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance is available online on this link. Weird, but interesting.

Lots of Asimov but not recently - the concepts are nice but I realised a while back that the execution was rather bad.

Alastair Maclean is mostly trash, but "The Last Frontier" and "The Guns of Navarone" are great. Why he wrote such good stuff and then threw it all away to write rubbish, I'll never know.

Star prize has to be Neal Stephenson (aka Stephen Bury) though - Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon are great.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Bagpuss
Date: 11 Jun 01 - 03:19 PM

Peg, Gaiman is about to start a reading/signing tour for his new novel (US, Canada and UK). The dates can be found here.

Bagpuss

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 07:30 AM

The Rosy Crucifixion.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 08:30 AM

The Delaware Valley here between PA and NJ is full of extreme religious nuts who are up in arms over the Harry Potter books, claiming they promote satanism. I bought the first of the series to see what the commotion was all about. It was great. Just finished the second one. These books are highly recommended. And, no, I still believe in God.

Subject: RE: BS: What do you read ?
From: Caitrin
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 09:00 AM

Oo...a lot of people read some of the same stuff I do! Terry Pratchett (Yay Discworld!), Patricia Kennealy (Yay Keltiad!), Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's guide and Dirk Gently), and Robert Heinlein (Mostly the Future History novels and some of the short stories as well) are big favorites of mine, as are Mercedes Lackey (The Valdemar chronicles) and Isaac Asimov (The Foundation books).
A few more of my favorites: Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas pere, Langston Hughes, Shakespeare, Mary Jo Putney, Alice Walker, Zora Neal Hurston, and Tom Stoppard.