thebreakfast.info
General Discussions => Spunk => Topic started by: sallyalli on January 04, 2008, 02:09:33 pm
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there is this pretty cool website (well i am a nerd) http://www.shelfari.com and you can make your own bookshelf and get recommendations from other people...give it a whirl...
what a dork
i gave my disclaimer....hope that you have a super fun time tomorrow and dont forget your sunglasses!
thanks...
nerd
(https://thebreakfast.info/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.horrordvds.com%2Freviews%2Fmisc%2Fpictures%2Fnerds.jpg&hash=757be29f9b00d01420d251bc3fcca0266d84aaed)
y\'know, the good cry.
that just made me "good cry".
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the Geese of Beaver Bog by Bernd Heinrich is amazing. i pretty much cried yesterday at around page 55ish. y\'know, the good cry.
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there is this pretty cool website (well i am a nerd) http://www.shelfari.com and you can make your own bookshelf and get recommendations from other people...give it a whirl...
wow, how many little social networking sites are there?
i swear i joined the wrong profession.
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there is this pretty cool website (well i am a nerd) http://www.shelfari.com and you can make your own bookshelf and get recommendations from other people...give it a whirl...
what a dork
i gave my disclaimer....hope that you have a super fun time tomorrow and dont forget your sunglasses!
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Good novel touching on relationship to nature/the wilderness/vs farming, great writer, Barbara Kingsolver- "Prodigal Summer."
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there is this pretty cool website (well i am a nerd) http://www.shelfari.com and you can make your own bookshelf and get recommendations from other people...give it a whirl...
what a dork
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there is this pretty cool website (well i am a nerd) http://www.shelfari.com and you can make your own bookshelf and get recommendations from other people...give it a whirl...
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sorry this **** has me fired up.
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good lord reading that post made me feel like i have read the whole **** series
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"Energy and American Society - Thirteen Myths" is blowing my mind right now. Its not exactly light reading but if you have any interest whatsoever in economics, energy, sociology, psychology the environment, systems engineering, systems ecology, sustainability, etc. Its an absolute must read. Incredibly insightful and informative. Id even go so far as to say groundbreaking, visionary, revolutionary, etc.
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Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins. You won\'t be disappointed!
^^^ I was definitely disappointed by that one.
I definately didn\'t like it as much as Jitterbug Perfume or Still life with Woodpecker but I still thought it was a good read. I wouldn\'t say it was dissapointing just not the best Tom Robbins. I\'m reading Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates right now and am really enjoying it so far.
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^^^ I was definitely disappointed by that one.
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Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins. You won\'t be disappointed!
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:lol: I thought I\'d have seen this somewhere in this thread already...
(https://thebreakfast.info/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F21FhMvz1CnL._AA160_.jpg&hash=23d7532b57b8813d4dc913ae6f9589bd454cb2d7)
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(https://thebreakfast.info/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.barnesandnoble.com%2Fimages%2F8800000%2F8808899.jpg&hash=bef0c57de4354c33ff997eb0508b12b17ec9fc8b)
One of my all time favorites! :)
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I am reading Duma Key right now and enjoying it. But then again I think there are a lot of King haters around here so...
My dad picked up Duma Key for me, I haven\'t started it yet. I don\'t think there are King haters, just not too many King lovers, personally I\'m a King fan.
ah, that makes sense... Duma Key is very good so far. Best King I have read in a while.
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I am reading Duma Key right now and enjoying it. But then again I think there are a lot of King haters around here so...
My dad picked up Duma Key for me, I haven\'t started it yet. I don\'t think there are King haters, just not too many King lovers, personally I\'m a King fan.
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I\'m in the middle of tainspotting now.
Taintspotting? I thought you were well professed in the sport! ;)
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I am reading Duma Key right now and enjoying it. But then again I think there are a lot of King haters around here so...
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I read kite runner, because we had it lying around the house. It was pretty good. a fast read. I dont really like reading about children getting **** though.
Ive got this thing were I dont enjoy watching movies or reading books about child abuse. Good thing there was only one instance of it in this book. or else I would have put it down.
I\'m in the middle of tainspotting now. I have never seen the movie, the book is interesting. more when I\'m done.
hows the infinite jest going zuke?
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I\'m rereading On A Pale Horse by Piers Anthony.
Excellent book and start to an awesome series.
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Childhood\'s End by Arthur C. Clarke
I remember reading this years ago and being blown away.
wow, that sounds really good!
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Shock Value
by John Waters
Turn It On Again: Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins & Genesis
By Dave Thompson
and knowing that Dave isn\'t reading this thread, even though he should
Scar Tissue: The Story of the Dick That Refused to Fall Off By Anthony Kiedas
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Childhood\'s End by Arthur C. Clarke
I remember reading this years ago and being blown away.
On a related note:
Arthur C. Clarke\'s weird science fiction novel Childhood\'s End could soon be a movie directed by Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don\'t Cry, and the upcoming Stop-Loss). Peirce says she\'s attracted to the challenging themes of Clarke\'s 1953 novel, but she\'ll have a hard time turning it into a big-budget movie. The novel inspired songs with the same title by Iron Maiden and Pink Floyd, but it\'s probably too dated for 21st. century audiences. More details after the jump.
Here\'s a good synopsis of Childhood\'s End:
Aliens come to our planet in gigantic spaceships that blot out the Sun over all the major cities. If you\'ve seen V or Independence Day you\'ve seen this ripped off. The Overlords, as the visitors are called, take over the world without a shot being fired and set about reforming Earth society into a utopia. They keep themselves hidden for the first fifty years of their rule because of they just happen to have horns, bat wings, and barbed tails; but that\'s no problem because humans have "progressed" so far under the Overlords\' rule that they quickly get used to their masters\' devilish appearance. What man doesn\'t realize is that the Overlords are not there to help Earth become a perfect world, but to act as midwives as the children of Earth spontaneously mutate into superbeings who will ultimately merge with an entity called the Overmind and destroy the planet in the pro
It sounds super trippy, and Clarke already mined it for the plot of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Peirce says the movie\'s draft script deals with big ideas, like whether humans can accept alien saviors who look like the devil. But it also has cool-looking space travel and a visit to the aliens\' homeworld, so she\'ll need at least $70 million to make this thing. That, in turn, means she needs backing from Universal and a big star. I\'d love to see Peirce make a science fiction movie, but maybe she could adapt something newer?
http://io9.com/342599/boys-dont-cry-director-tackles-trippy-scifi-classic (http://io9.com/342599/boys-dont-cry-director-tackles-trippy-scifi-classic)
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tyzack, that\'s basically the point I was trying to make :thumbsup:
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Paul, why would you suggest a book you don\'t understand, or suggest books simply because they are the hardest ones you have tried to read.
Some of my favorite books are also some of the hardest reads I\'ve had.
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Just trying to find people who have read them. I get the general premise, but I\'m always up for someone who can do a better job of explaining them.
Plus, just because I didn\'t understand them didn\'t mean I didn\'t enjoy reading them, and she was asking for any good books. I think they are some of the best I\'ve ever read. I wouldn\'t keep trying with them if I didn\'t. Hence, they apply to this topic.
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Because he\'s Paul **** Ryan....
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Paul, why would you suggest a book you don\'t understand, or suggest books simply because they are the hardest ones you have tried to read.
I don\'t understand.
EXACTLY what I was thinking.
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Trust. It is.
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well this thread has inspired me to get back on the reading horse...also it\'s a bit of a resolution of mine
anyway, i \'m 66 pages into high fidelity and i\'m loving it already
2 chapters into infinite jest...only 950 pages to go...better be **** good
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I try not to read. I\'d much rather write.
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I just began reading Germinal by Emile Zola, here is a link to the wiki plot summary of it. It is his masterpiece and I have been getting into French history more lately, it is one area I never delved into.
Germinal- Emile Zola (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germinal_%28novel%29)
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Paul, why would you suggest a book you don\'t understand, or suggest books simply because they are the hardest ones you have tried to read.
I don\'t understand.
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Clockwork Orange
Catch-22
Brave New World
Even though it is somewhat old in it\'s english:
Rights of Man by Thomas Paine is a good bed-rock for politcal discourse.
"The Game is Up" - translated, I don\'t speak french
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Well that was not a very nice or humble thing to say Paul.
Come on Joc, I said most people on this board. ;)
Anyway, I only said that because it\'s true. Those are the list of the hardest books I\'ve tried to get through, Finnegans Wake, Godel Escher and Bach and Gravity\'s Rainbow also being on my list of "tried multiple times to read and I can\'t ever finish because they are so damn confusing". The only other book on that list is of course, malleus maleficarum. But what do you expect out of a middle ages papel bull on witch craft?
<-still looking for someone who can explain finnegans wake to me. :sigh:
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Alli... If you aren\'t intimidated by a long read, try Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I am perpetually suggesting it to people and no one ever reads it because it is long and has several storylines going at once that don\'t connect until you are a couple hundred pages in. It seems confusing, but it all comes together incredibly. It is hilarious, bizarre, and brilliant.
From Wikipedia:
Infinite Jest (1996) is a novel written by David Foster Wallace. This lengthy and complex work takes place in a semi-parodic future version of North America. The novel touches on the topics of tennis; substance addiction and recovery programs; depression; child abuse; family relationships; advertising and popular entertainment; film theory; and Quebec separatism...
...The book\'s plot centers on a lost film cartridge, titled Infinite Jest by its creator James Incandenza, and referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment" or "the samizdat". The film is so "entertaining" to its unwitting viewers that they become lifeless, losing all interest in anything other than endless viewings of the film. In the novel\'s future world, North America is one unified state composed of the United States, Canada, and Mexico, known as the Organization of North American Nations (O.N.A.N.). Corporations purchase naming rights to each calendar year, eliminating traditional numerical designations; e.g., "The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment", "The Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland". Much of what used to be the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada has become a massive hazardous waste dumping site known as "The Great Concavity"/"The Great Convexity".
i started this book about...let\'s see.... six or so years ago -- and i\'m still working on it! lol. i do agree that it\'s quite original. thanks for putting it out there. makes me want to pick it up again.
anyone looking for a quick but very interesting and hilarious read should check out "Funny in Farsi: A memoir of growing up Iranian in America" by Firoozeh Dumas.
"Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" = most overrated book.
of course, the LORD OF THE RINGS series is unbeatable. tolkien is a genius.
another great read was "The Kite Runner" (now out in theaters...)
agree w/ the "love, eat, pray" recommendation.
great thread idea... i\'ll definitely have to check some of these out...
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Say Cheese and Die by RL Stine.... always a classic...
rotfl rotfl rotfl rotfl
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Bret Easton Ellis\' books in order....
Less Than Zero
Rules of Attraction
The Informers
American Psycho
Glamorama
Lunar Park
High Fidelty by Nick Hornby
Mainilines Blood Feasts, And Bad Taste by Lester Bangs
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
Say Cheese and Die by RL Stine.... always a classic...
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i forgot Paul Ryan has superhuman reading powers that can\'t be matched by us mere mortals.
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sex, drugs and cocco puffs (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex%2C_Drugs%2C_and_Cocoa_Puffs:_A_Low_Culture_Manifesto). Anything by Chuck klosterman (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Klosterman). Or Kafka (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka). They are a natural progression. Then Gravity\'s Rainbow (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity%27s_Rainbow) by Thomas Pynchon. For some light reading afterwards, you can\'t go wrong with Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godel%2C_Escher%2C_Bach:_An_Eternal_Golden_Braid), Ulysses (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel)) or Finnegans Wake (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_wake)
Ok, most people wont be able to handle anything on that list except the first one. Just stick with Klosterman
Well that was not a very nice or humble thing to say Paul.
Alli... If you aren\'t intimidated by a long read, try Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I am perpetually suggesting it to people and no one ever reads it because it is long and has several storylines going at once that don\'t connect until you are a couple hundred pages in. It seems confusing, but it all comes together incredibly. It is hilarious, bizarre, and brilliant.
From Wikipedia:
Infinite Jest (1996) is a novel written by David Foster Wallace. This lengthy and complex work takes place in a semi-parodic future version of North America. The novel touches on the topics of tennis; substance addiction and recovery programs; depression; child abuse; family relationships; advertising and popular entertainment; film theory; and Quebec separatism...
...The book\'s plot centers on a lost film cartridge, titled Infinite Jest by its creator James Incandenza, and referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment" or "the samizdat". The film is so "entertaining" to its unwitting viewers that they become lifeless, losing all interest in anything other than endless viewings of the film. In the novel\'s future world, North America is one unified state composed of the United States, Canada, and Mexico, known as the Organization of North American Nations (O.N.A.N.). Corporations purchase naming rights to each calendar year, eliminating traditional numerical designations; e.g., "The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment", "The Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland". Much of what used to be the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada has become a massive hazardous waste dumping site known as "The Great Concavity"/"The Great Convexity".
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I don\'t have much time to read, but I\'ve been getting lots of audiobooks for my iPod - I just finished a biography on the Beatles called "Ticket to Ride" :thumbsup::thumbsup:
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another classic that anyone would enjoy:
tarzan of the apes - edgar rice burroughs
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Novels:
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Eat Pray Love (forgot author\'s name, new-ish book)
not novels:
Wherever you go there you are by Jon Kabat-Zinn (about mindfulness and meditation)
Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell (Christianity)
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anything by Chuck Palahniuk-
Invisible Monsters
Diary
are two I think you might like.
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100 Years of Solitude- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Check IT Out. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundred_Years_of_Solitude)
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Wow thanks guys. I have read a lot of thoes alreay, but i can\'t wait to get started on the other ones.
keep \'em coming if you can.
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for everyone who replied with Wally Lamb. Totally agree. Try "She\'s Come Undone".
It depends what you are into really. I just read "Afternoons with Emily"....a fictional account of Emily Dickinson\'s life. I thought it was pretty good.
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Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Huck Finn by Mark Twain
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
(just a few classics that are must reads if you haven\'t already)
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sex, drugs and cocco puffs (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex%2C_Drugs%2C_and_Cocoa_Puffs:_A_Low_Culture_Manifesto). Anything by Chuck klosterman (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Klosterman). Or Kafka (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka). They are a natural progression. Then Gravity\'s Rainbow (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity%27s_Rainbow) by Thomas Pynchon. For some light reading afterwards, you can\'t go wrong with Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godel%2C_Escher%2C_Bach:_An_Eternal_Golden_Braid), Ulysses (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel)) or Finnegans Wake (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_wake)
Ok, most people wont be able to handle anything on that list except the first one. Just stick with Klosterman
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Mitch Albom - Five People You Meet In Heaven, Tuesdays With Morrie
:thumbsup:
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Wow, quite a task.
I\'ll just write down some of my favorites books/authors and the genre it falls into
These books are in no particular order.
Darkness At Noon - Auther Koestler*, historical fiction. It\'s about a fictionary relovultionary in russia during the stalinist purges of the 1930s. It\'s based roughly off the experince of the author and his friends and particularly trotsky.
Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vaunagut* - All of his stuff is good, but this good contains references to Naragansett Beer, and has one of the best lines in world in it.
The Stranger - Robert Calus* - Classic nihilism/existensialism book, plus the main character has traits in similar with the main character in Darkness at Noon
The Kool-Aid Acid Test* - Tom Wolfe - Great book about the Merry Pranksters and the start/peak of the "san fransico sceen"
The Leather Stalking Tales: (Deerslayer, Pathfinder, Praire, Last of the Mohicans, Pioneer) :: Tales of the first great westard expansion of america by james finmore cooper. Yes, sometimes the language is wordy and the characters very acrane, but read it for no other reasons than for the amazing description of western new york and the apliations.**
Enders Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Ender\'s Children - Orason Scott Card. A great sci-fi series as long as you ingore the most recent books writen about the same time frame. Read these four first, then move on to the rest. I don\'t like any of the newer books because of how they degrade from the characters of the first 4.
*Spelling of title/author may not be exact
**This word should be: the appliachains, like the mountains, which I can\'t spell either.
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James Patterson
Kiss the Girls
Along Came A Spider
Black Friday
Most of his books are pretty good and he writes in a style that makes them move quickly.
The movies they made based on his books were not that good but the books are pretty crazy.
Kiss the Girls and Along Came A Spider are Alex Cross books. Alex Cross is a detective and is the main character of many of Patterson\'s Novels.
Black Friday is an earlier book of his. It is more of a spy / espionage / but it is really good. Takes a little longer than his other books to get going but definitely picks up and has some really good twists
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try tom robbins for fiction...plus his books tend to be female-centric, which probably helps if you\'re a female
"jitterbug perfume" is my favorite of his...starts slow but is epic
"Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" and "Still Life With Woodpecker" were amazing. life altering books for me, right up there with the best of Vonneguts stuff. But I could never get into Jitterbug. It\'s still on my shelf... never got past the first couple hundred. Maybe I should give it another shot, it\'s been awhile.
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Mitch Albom - Five People You Meet In Heaven, For One More Day, Tuesdays With Morrie
Anything by Lorenzo Carcaterra
Anything by Mario Puzo (especially The Fortunate Pilgrim and Dark Arena)
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try tom robbins for fiction...plus his books tend to be female-centric, which probably helps if you\'re a female
"jitterbug perfume" is my favorite of his...starts slow but is epic
ummm i don\'t know..."the kid stays in the picture" for a good autobiography...robert evans\' life is unbelievable
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I don\'t know what kind of stuff you are into, but there\'s an author who does mystery kind of books (not whodunit\'s, but she holds out telling you the complete story and then you\'re like, holy **** that is nuts). She\'s from New Hampshire and a lot of her stuff takes place in New Hampshire-Jodi Picoult.
Wally Lamb is fantastic too.
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If you like History
An Army At Dawn - Rick Atkinson
The Day of Battle-The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 - Rick Atkinson
He is kind of the go to guy for WWII non-fiction. The Day of Battle is his latest it came out in Oct. I just gave it to my grandfather for x-mas.
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I just started reading a book by Charles Fort... it\'s really out there... check him out
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Give Wally Lamb\'s stuff a try. He\'s a great writer and he teaches up at UConn.
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The Talisman-King/Straub
The Adventurers-Harold Robbins (back when he was good)
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The Worst Case Scenario Handbook - best book ever!
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I\'m reading Cormac McCarthy\'s "The Road" right now. Considering what it\'s about (post-apocolyptic road story w/ a father & son) I didn\'t think I\'d get through the first 50 pages before giving up. But I\'m really enjoying it and it\'s a pretty quick read.
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I\'m in need of some new reading material.
I hate starting a book and then putting it down because it sucks.
Thanks!