Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

I thought it would be interesting to hear what books people here have enjoyed in the past. After all, sometimes we have to take our eyes off the TV screen or computer screen.

Some of my favorites include Sophie's Choice, Grapes of Wrath, All Quiet on the Western Front and 1984. I also have to admit that the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit and Stephen King's The Stand are guilty pleasures.

Lately I have mostly read History books, both because of school and on my own. One of the most interesting books I have read was written by Albert Speer called "Inside the Third Reich" which is perhaps one the best portraits of Nazi Germany by one of the few people Hitler considered a friend, but yet was not totally out of touch with reality like other Nazis. He was also the only one at the Nuremberg Trials to express remorse for his crimes (the use of slave labor to produce munitions). One of the most intriguing things of this book is the internal power struggles at how Hitler's inner circle started to resemble a lunatic asylum towards the end.

I've also read "1453" recently which is about the fall of Constantinople and was also a very enjoyable read.

My favorite author these days is Chuck Palahniuk. I've read most of his books and am always entertained. If you have no idea who he is, he's the guy who wrote Fight Club. He's released quite a few other books, and he's even released a new book this month, which got poor reviews, but I'm still going to check it out anyway. :p

Honestly, I hardly read any books. It is just something I don't enjoy. (Though the major eye issues I have might play a part in my dislike for it.) Excepting the ones I had to read for school purposes, I could probably count the number I've read on my fingers and toes (maybe just my fingers.)

That being said, 4 of those books I have read would be the 2001 series (2001, 2010, 2061, and 3001.) I must say as good as the movies were, they don't do the books justice. I've also read a few of Arthur C. Clarke's other works. He is definitely one of the few authors I do like to read. Beyond that, um actually Arthur C. Clarke might be it, I don't remember but I can't think of anything else off hand.

I really enjoy The Hobbit. Despite its thickness, it moves quickly. And it's *fun* more than anything else. The Ring trilogy, not so much; the second and third books are thick with war, sieges, and long periods of nothing happening. Or at least, that's the way I remember them - it's been the better part of twenty years since I last read them, and I'm now listening to an unabridged audio recording of the trilogy, so we'll see how that goes.

Another favorite is Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell." I do not generally read historical fiction, but the way she weaves the fictional culture of English magic into established history is absolutely masterful, right down to precise citations of texts that do not exist. But the book is so damn long, it can be a daunting thing to pick up and re-read.

I'm also big on Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, though I'd be hard-pressed to name a "favorite" among the lot. If I had to though, I'd probably lean towards The Truth. I love the ____ing Pulp Fiction goons with the ____ing speech impediment, and the reactions they get from the ____ing people who don't get why these guys are saying "ing" all the time but understand somewhere deep down that it's a bad word, heh.

Despite having a degree in English I haven't read nearly as much classic literature as I'd like. One of these days I'm going to delve into Dickens; I've got three of his books, and I've tried to read two of them. Didn't get very far in A Tale of Two Cities, unfortunately - it was really very thick and hard to progress in - but I really enjoyed what I'd read of Great Expectations. Dunno why I put it down.

The most engrossing "new" book I've read recently is Jasper Fforde's "Shades of Grey." It's been a few months since I finished it, but it reminded me strongly of 1984, with some dry wit thrown in for good measure. Society is strongly hierarchical, and people only see in one color (or, in especially rare cases, two) with the hierarchy based on which color you can see and how much of it. Fforde's certainly got my attention with it, and I'm eagerly awaiting the remainder of the trilogy.

I'm currently reading Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series - about 3/4s of the way through Book 2. Got a long way to go, but it's proved interesting so far. Let's hope it stays such.

Louis L'Amour (anything), James Michener (especially Chesapeake and Centennial), Leon Uris (especially Exodus) , Herman Wouk (especially The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance), W. E. B. Griffin (The Brotherhood of War), A. T. Mahan (The Influence of Seapower on History), Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz (On War), Sun Tzu (The Art of War), Dana Fuller Ross (Wagon West series - 24 volumes), and Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (especially the Left Behind series - 16 volumes).

I've participated in these before but I'll bite again. My favorite authors are Gene Wolfe and William Gibson. I'm a fan of Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series (4 books, condensed into 2 in the past decade or so). I have not read the Long Sun books and I really should. I like Gibson's "Bridge Trilogy" (Virtual Light/Idoru/All Tomorrow's Parties). He started going in a different direction with Pattern Recognition and the more recent Spook Country which I haven't finished (I just noticed he has another book from this year I don't have yet).

I don't read (fiction) a lot either. I think it depends on what my lifestyle is like at the time. Recently I've read a lot of technical books on Drupal/PHP/jQuery and various other programming related. I also read a book on WWII recently called Rise & Fall of the Nazis. I've enjoyed reading Joseph Citro's books on paranormal in VT/New England.

In the past I've enjoyed:
Piers Anthony (Xanth series, Incarnations of Immortality, etc.)
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance series, etc.)
Douglas Adams (Hitchhikers series)
(as a young reader) William Sleator
of course the Harry Potter books (not as a young reader since I was not young at the time)
the Resident Evil series by Stephani Perry (I'm a big fan of RE, otherwise these were pretty throw away)
the Robotech novels (these were surprisingly cool after the first one)
some H.P Lovecraft
some books on prehistory and evolution (the time before history, the ancestor's tale)
Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye was always sort of powerful in it's crazy sexuality (along these lines I have some Marquis de Sade which I still have yet to read)
and speaking of things I haven't read:
I have a really cool unabridged English translation of the Journey West which I still haven't read, and also an unabridged English version of 1000 and 1 Nights (1000 Nights and 1 Night) (Ok, I read a little of both but have been meaning to read more).

They were my favorites when I was a kid! You know what... I'm going to go 'acquire' some of their newer stuff right now! It's been so long since I've read some good fantasy.

You'll have to let me know what you think. I tried reading some Eye of the World but I just couldn't get into it. I haven't gone back to read any Weis/Hickman though. I think the last one I read was probably in high school. I should address some of the things on my bookshelf that are collecting dust. Maybe I'll pick either the Journey West or 1000 nights and start picking away at it...