MrCat

Hello and welcome to the forums. If you want dystopian lit. check out Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Not really depraved but an excellent novel from the genre. As for your other mentions, I have not read all of them but they are all high praised so might be worth checking into: Beloved by Toni Morrison The Road by Cormac McArthy Blood Meridian by Cormac McArthy Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk Oh and I am so happy to see someone else enjoyed A Clockwork Orange.

Currently reading A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway's writing is excellent and I do hope I will like the story. The Sun Also Rises was great

God damn it it's so freaking hot outside. 28 degrees in the shade! Give me autumn already.

Seconding Clavell's books. I read Shogun and Tai Pan when I was in highschool and liked them very much. Does India count as far east? I recently re-read Burmese Days by George Orwell and the action takes place in Burma during the English colonization. I'd also mention Bengal Nights by Mircea Eliade. It's a fictional love story where you can read about cultural differences between the author and his lover On a different note, have you tried reading some authors from those parts? Haruki Murakami is quite popular worldwide and he wrote some very good novels, though not in the same historical/fictional theme.

I think it is. I've been sneezing like crazy these past days and my general condition is still crappy but I am slowly recovering. I went out yesterday for some coffee and most people in the coffee shop were sneezing and coughing. Vitamin C and tea suddenly became my new best friends,

I saw Heat again after 12 years or so. It's still so damn good and it still has one of the best shoot-out scenes in any movie. I wish De Niro and Pacino would team up again and make a similar movie.

I die a little on the inside whenever I read that people didn't like Jane Eyre or mention Austen around here. For me, the singing and descriptions were what made LOTR great. I re-read the trilogy this year and it was sooooo good. I can't even imagine Tom without his singing or the epic locations without detailed descriptions. Not to mention that there is a point to the singing and descriptions, unlike erm... GRRM where I could barely hold back a yawn every time he described a room.

Kindles are banned from the kingdom of Hay. That made me giggle though whoever made that is butthurt, There is one book fair in my city, in Oct, every year where publishing houses bring their stuff at discount prices and I'm always in awe that so many publishers sell so much. I live in a small city and in a country where we are at the bottom of the list in EU as far as anything related to books is concerned yet for a few days I still have hope that reading is still a thing among people of any age. I have not met any of my fav. authors since most of them are dead and Haruki Murakami won't be coming near this part of the world any time soon, but some authors from my country do come every year and it's always a joy to talk to them even if I am not a fan of their particular works. We also have something called "Night of the Libraries" every year on Oct 1st and while it's not exactly a fair, it's as close as one gets to books and literary activities in this small town. I always wait like a baby for October to come for these two events.

First time posting here since when I joined there were 999999999 degrees outside and I felt like I was melting even at night but the weather in Ireland seems much much better. A few clouds and rains here and there but overall much better than what I usually experience back home.

I have been desperately trying to read something, anything for the past two weeks but I barely had any time. I bought a book with some poems by Yeats since I am in Dublin and all that but I just read half of it,

Hello and welcome. Good to see another kitty on the forum.

To whoever read The Stand, have you read the complete and uncut edition? The description on GR sounds good but you might as well read McCarthy's The Road for a post apoc setting.

I only found out a few years ago that the movie with Mr Ripley was made after a book. I heard Patricia Highsmith's name mentioned in the movie Stuck in Love and even though I wrote it down in a notebook I never got around to her works. The movie was ok so the question is: Is she worth reading? I am mostly interested in writing and characters. Her first book is quite short according to GR (270+ pages) so maybe I will give her a chance at some point. I am not a big fan of the genre but I always give any book a chance.

I was really against ebooks before owning a Kindle a few years ago. I am a book sniffer and I love to hold the book and touch the pages but for the sake of bad eyesight, the poor trees, mobility and space, I found the ebook a better option. I always buy my favourite books *throws a quick glance at Paradise Lost and Complete Works of Jane Austen* but I am really glad there is an alternative to the regular book.

All Quiet on the Western Front is the one I most often see mentioned when it comes to WW1 books. I have not read so I won't comment on it but it can't be bad. I am reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom if you are interested in other settings except the Western Front. And of course one of my absolute all time favourite book: The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek. It's funny and well written, with tons of satire and a strong anti-war theme. Hemingway's A Farwell to Arms is set in WW1 but I have not read it.

Oh boy I wish I could read Dracula again for the first time. I have finished reading 1913: The Summer of the Century by Florian Illies. The book is basically a random collection of facts from the year 1913 regarding the most important people at the time in France and Austria-Hungary. Sadly I am not exactly sure how many of these short stories actually happened. There are a plethora of characters in the book and I often had to write their names down and check them up later on the internet. I did find some interesting things this way but I feel that unless one is interested in that period of time or characters like Kafka, Freud, Jung, Picasso, Gertrude Stein and such, he or she will not have the patience to read about most of these people. I have started reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E.Lawrence. I'm not far into it but the writing is good and it's worth reading if it's at least as half as good as the movie was.

Brave New World fits your description 100%. edit: I forgot to mention that it was written by Aldous Huxley. edit nr 2: I am not sure why the book was in the YA section, I don't read YA at all, but your description matches the book. I'd say you should definitely read it, it's awesome.

Isn't LT also owned by Amazon? Why would someone pay for the same service to the same company, when they can get it for free on another website?

If by some miracle I ever get back to reading something by SK, it will be Salem's Lot. I still didn't like it as much as some of Ann Rice's stuff but still better than the average SK novel. Also Noll, I can't see your GR profile unless I have an account *sadface*

Are you sure it's free now? On their website I can still read Enter 200 items for free, as many as you like for $10 (year) or $25 (life). edit: Am I allowed to name another GR/LT alternative here?

I saw the new Ben Hur movie last night. The movie was terrible compared with the 1959 movie but it was still good compared to the godawful book. Some things were changed here and there while some were simply left out. I wish the runtime would have been longer so we'd probably get more story and character development but I doubt we'll see 3h+ epics anymore. edit: At least I got to see Morgan Freeman.

Animal Farm, 1984 by George Orwell Lord of the Flies by William Golding The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess The Stranger. The Plague by Albert Camus The Bicentennial Man by Isaac Asimov It would help if you could decide each month on a certain genre or author and then narrow it down. That way you can even mix it up a bit with some genres that you might not read otherwise.

Amazon purchased Goodreads in 2013 and the community was in an uproar. Most people did not like the announcement. http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/413-exciting-news-about-goodreads-we-re-joining-the-amazon-family?page=1 A lot of librarians and reviewers moved to alternate websites. There was also some trouble with deleted reviews without notifying the reviewer. . Goodreads changed the FAQ but deleted certain reviews before doing it and without any notice. http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1499741-important-note-regarding-reviews

I don't really know any action books but I guess Tom Clancy should be a safe read? If you want to improve your English, I am not sure how much classics will help in the long run. Many are quite hard to read, with a very different vocabulary and writing. You said you like Game of Thrones, have you read the books?

Don't read Russian authors in English. Trust me, they are quite bad, even the famous Peaver and Volonski translations. Try to read them in your native translation, chances are they are much better.