vinay87

I remember reading a lot of his works as a teenager. I should start buying his books someday, they were all I read from the school library at a time. I remember enjoying The Case of The Amorous Aunt and the Case of The Perjured Parrot. Hmn what was the name of the detective Perry Mason hired? I remember loving him the most in the books.

I'll admit that I make a point to buy a brick of a book whenever I buy in bulk. Atleast one in five has to be big for me or sometimes, it just doesn't last. Sadly enough the better the small novel, the sadder I sometimes feel. In cold thought though, sometimes shorter novels seem like a one night stand. Especially if they have little rereadability like most suspense novels. And then again, many of the great classics were/are brick sized. *cough*War And Peace*cough*Don Quixote*cough*Les Miserables*cough*Count of Monte Cristo*cough* Yet, some novels do knock our socks off even if they're small. Agatha Christie did that often, and so most novels by Alistair Maclean and Erle Stanley Gardner. Heh The Time Machine is what, 120 pages long? Good times. And yes, binding quality has diminished. And yes I wish books in a series were always made in one type as a set. Whatever happened to those old doorstopping tomes that seemed to look monotonously alike?

I've been meaning to read his books, especially his Alexander series... But I'm waiting to find second hand copies at the used books store.

Born reader. Though neither of my parents read at all. I remember the first time I stepped inside a library. And would you know it? I didn't pick up a book of jokes or a comic as I had until then but a book on folklore. I guess I'm a sucker for old and rare books. I had almost forgotten what my true reading nature was till I joined this forum though. I'm definitely glad I did. I got mine from both my Grandfathers. Heck I ransacked my Grandma's house a few years ago to get all my grandpa's books before my cousins could declare them a waste of space and sell them. I grew up on comics till I was 9~ though. And then not many novels till I was 14.

1. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien In this day and age where Fantasy fiction is abound left and right, what better to read than the work of the man who started it all? The definitive work of fantasy fiction that it is, it deserves the battle some say they must fight to get through the style of Tolkien's writing. 2. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo My favourite book. And most arguably the best book ever written. Whether you are talking about spiritual change that a man can undergo by the sheer kindness of another or whether you want to see how far that man can go for what he believes is just, no matter what the consequence. It adds, as a joyfully orgasmic bonus, the unbelievably detailed accounts through Hugo's eyes of the Napoleanic war. And in particular, the battle of Waterloo. 3. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky Dostoevsky considered it his best work. And as it is his last, many believe that it really is. He claimed that though the story was in his head for his entire life, he wasn't emotionally ready to write it till the end. The story is deeper than can be imagined of a story of Patricide. And throughout we see the characters of the three brothers struggle with the sheer philosophical questions that inevitably daunt us all in our life. Should not an evil man be put to his end without wasting time? In this book, Dostoevsky demands the attention of his readers like never before, wasting little time as he jumps into his ideals head on. 4. The Story Of My Experiments With The Truth - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi As an Indian, I'll admit that there are two classes of people in India. Those who quiver at the very mention of the name of the Mahatma. And those who spit, after learning that he sinned. I, thankfully, belong to the former group. The man's account of his life is shockingly honest and forthcoming. Although many begin to doubt his greatness in this day, we must wonder how one frail old man had the capability to throw back the force of the British Empire from the country. 5. Histories - Herodotus I still have this on my TBR pile but I keep sneaking peeks at chapters and scenes every now and then. If you would bother to read up on him, you'll find that Herodotus is called the Father of History as well as the Father of Lies. Thucydides, the author of the account of the Peloponnesian war, claims Herodotus is a liar, accounting stories largely from mythology rather than history as Thucydides himself defines it. But one must remember that Thucydides expects Herodotus to have heeded a definition of history that did not exist for as long as Herodotus had been alive. The book is a must read most importantly in this age where Hollywood seems to want to hurl movie after movie at us that is either based on or derived on various fictious tangential lines from, Greek stories and histories from Herodotus's accounts. And if not the least of the reasons to read it, it accounts minute details about the way of life in that day and age.

I learned that Ada Lovelace is the daughter of Lord Byron!

Ah yes, I watched The Colour of Magic... I have it on DVD somewhere. Brilliant. I'm glad it wasn't made into a full-fledged movie. This is way better. Rincewind was hilarious...

It will come as a mild surprise to most people that Samuel Langhorne Clemens wrote a book on the Maid of Orleans. It will come as a greater surprise to learn, through reading the book, that he adores Joan and practically worships her. Indeed, that appears to be most critics' problem with the work. They claim it is biased and definitely not, as Twain himself considered, his greatest work. When I saw the book, I picked it up solely because I had not heard of a book by Mark Twain on Joan. And I began reading it, secretly ashamed that the little "knowledge" I had about the Maid of Orleans was what I obtained from playing Age of Empires. The book is almost musical to the end that it seems to be the rendering of an ode to Joan rather than just an account. There is an element of rhyme in it, not literally I assure you but something makes me feel that Mark Twain might have wanted to write a ballad. Though I sometimes felt that it would have been better with a little more dialogue than narration, scenes better with a little more detail, I can't say the magic fails to work. After all, if Twain had done all that, it would have become a work of fiction, for as he himself says in the historical essay at the end of the work, I enjoyed the book, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had finished it in a sitting rather than in three. I hope to read it again another day, slowly then and with a better understanding of the historical setting of France in that day and age. And yes that reminds me, the edition I have, Ignatius; 1989 0-89870-268-2, doesn't give much of an actual introducation. Seeing as I'm neither French nor do I possess a historical understanding of the times then, I would have had a greater pleasure reading the work if I had spent the time researching the background of Franch in the 1400s. I recommend the same to people wishing to read the book with the same historical handicap. Yet, Twain's book does prove why he believed it his best work, spending years writing it. I find it amusingly curious that an author should fall in love with a character who he has not come up with on a whim. A character who preceded him by nearly half a millenium. And yet, as he himself claims, a character who is "the most extraordinary human being that has ever lived." As a side note, for the sheer dramatic feel of it if I may, consider this. Rating : 9/10 (Took one off for the lack of a lucid introduction; at no fault of Twain's.) Wikipedia's Entry on the book

I finally finished Mark Twain's Joan of Arc. I think I'll review it now. Starting HG Wells's The War in The Air next.

The one I want to read is Mort Isn't it about a substitute for Death?

lol I picked up Wyrd Sisters as a result of my teenage kleptomania. Does DEATH come in that? God knows I want to read Pratchett only for DEATH.

Reading's going a bit slow... Almost done with Joan of Arc but mom yelled at me for reading "useless novels" instead of studying. sigh... when will that battle end?

One of my fav Christie books. Someone daring Hercule Poirot to solve a case is someone who wants to be caught.

The fool doesn't have any other "ideas" except those from the Sworth of Truth series. I just found him ten times as despicable when I read that his "next" series was to be about Richard's descendant :| ****.

My thoughts exactly when I saw the name of this thread. Would be extremely fun to see what I/everyone would want to say to their 16 old self. Besides that I would have liked to see such a book with letters by writers written to their 16 year old selves.

Stop right there and imagine he hasn't written any more books. PS: Hello. Yeah... Terry Goodkind seems to think he's writing a new religious text. What with Richard getting tortured every book or so... He could start a new religion. Maybe Rahlism. I am never going to finish reading his series... That plagiarist is not worth it. Anyone here from the Dragonmount Forums? I remember that those guys go red when Goofkind is mentioned.

I read this once two or three years ago, barely remember much in it and I hope to read it again by the end of this year.

My list changes once in two months :| #1 Metallica Breaking Benjamin Shinedown Theory of a Deadman Poets Of The Fall

Read about 190 pages of Mark Twain's Joan of Arc. I'm loving every moment of it...

I've been meaning to read a Charles Dickens novel for so long but all my attempts at it fail... Well, I've mostly attempted with The Pickwick Papers. I don't know, maybe 2009 was just a bad reading year. At any rate I wanted an opnion from the fans. I have Barneby Rudge and Nicolas Nickleby on my TBR list. Which do you think I should read first?

The first Stephen King book that I managed to finish/reread a dozen times is On Writing. For those not in the know, the book is mostly autobiographical, a short account of King's life that almost entirely focusses on his writing and how various things in his life helped him write as he does. It journals how he struggled and certainly holds fans and newcomers (me!) alike in rapture as it accounts the way he nailed rejection notes onto a wall with a fat nail. The latter half of the book is semi-advisory for all of us who wish to write. Whether or not you wish to write, this part is a must for any reader of fiction or a reader of anything that should be in print. Solid, stern advice from the King himself to show that writing can seem to be both simple and utterly chaotic at once. He quotes his idols, and those he deems utterly worthless. He's even given us an excerpt from 1408 and shows us how he edits books by hand. Whether you have ever wondered how "those writers write their stories" or whether you, as a writer, are down and would like anecdotes such as "James Joyce wrote just 7 words once day, which was good for him, but he didn't know in which order they went", this book is a must for you. I had never been able to get past 10 pages of any other King book for some reason until I found, and finished, On Writing. Most certainly deserves 10/10.

Wow I feel so juvenile I read in fits and starts... a page today, two hundred tomorrow. I never really reflect on what I've read. Maybe I should start... I seem to miss out on a lot of stuff while reading. somewhere between enjoying novels and learning to read fast I missed out on reading efficiently. Hurts me most when reading classics.

I'll try getting that next month then. For now, I'm reading Mark Twain's Joan of Arc I have to admit it's tempting to skip reading Nicolas Nickleby... I've always found Dickens hard to understand/imagine for some reason... Must be from reading too many new age fantasy books.

okies... to think I passed up looking at several copies of Christine... nexxt month I guess... yeah I loved On Writing.

Just finished cujo.... I'm still undecided on King... I didn't like a lot about Cujo but then again I liked how the ending was sort of tragic. I wonder if it was the wrong book to start off with for a newbie at horror fiction... I'll buy a few more of his books someday.