What's The Last Book You Read?

[BloodBoal 7,540]

[Koray Savas 2,254]

I remember enjoying The Hobbit as a standalone novel over any of The Lord Of The Rings "books."

[Brónach 1,304]

Me too. I was a kid then. I was really amused by it.

By the way...

and throw in a 200 pages of self-important appendices that nobody wants to read.

... speak for yourself!

[JWfangirl1992 18]

Curious to what the reaction is going to be to this....currently reading Atlas Shrugged

Never heard of it.

You're kidding, right? Oh, what a woild, what woild. . . .

Atlas is one of the great novels of the 20th century. The Fountainhead was good too, but that one was more a theoretical treatise on Rand's subject. Atlas Shrugged is like the concept fully realized. One of the most profound reading experiences of my life, no question.

- Uni

Agreed. Although I'm not done with the book its absolutely phenomenal.

[Trent Hoyt 13]

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham.

[Trent Hoyt 13]

I read 94/291 pages of The X-Files: Ruins by Kevin J. Anderson and I'm not going to read anymore of it. This is the second X-Files book of his that I have attempted. I remembered liking his Star Wars novels but these X-Files books are simply boring.

[Datameister 2,178]

Just finished Dearly Devoted Dexter. Not bad at all! As with the first book, Jeff Lindsay's writing style is as perfectly suited to the character as Michael C. Hall's acting is. A lot of grimly witty fun. The parallels and huge differences between this second book and the second season of the show are pretty interesting. I'm kinda glad that the show doesn't just follow the plot of the books, since it gives me more reason to enjoy both instead of just one or the other.

[Kevin 22]

In Harm's Way - The Sinking of the U.S.S Indianapolis and the Extraordinary story of its survivors.

Heart-breaking story, only really known from the fictional monologue in Jaws.

[Jay 38,291]

Just finished Dearly Devoted Dexter. Not bad at all! As with the first book, Jeff Lindsay's writing style is as perfectly suited to the character as Michael C. Hall's acting is. A lot of grimly witty fun. The parallels and huge differences between this second book and the second season of the show are pretty interesting. I'm kinda glad that the show doesn't just follow the plot of the books, since it gives me more reason to enjoy both instead of just one or the other.

Well all the books after the first two were written after the series was already on the air anyway, and the opening credits of the show say its based on the first book only, not not the series (unlike True Blood, where it says its based on the series)

[Trent Hoyt 13]

Up In The Air by Walter Kirn

[Trent Hoyt 13]

Housekeeping Vs. The Dirt by Nick Hornby

[Trent Hoyt 13]

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King

[Kevin 22]

Lawyers Gone Bad - a non fiction book about all the biggest scandals involving lawyers in Canada in the past 25 years.

[Trent Hoyt 13]

For Better, For Worse by Carole Matthews

[Trent Hoyt 13]

Wonderful Tonight by Pattie Boyd

[Trent Hoyt 13]

The Music of Star Trek: Profiles in Style by Jeff Bond

[Koray Savas 2,254]

I started reading The Road. I'm not a huge fan of the writing style.

[Charlie Brigden 7]

King's 'Cycle of the Werewolf'. Love this book to death, have read it hundreds of times.

[Marian Schedenig 8,580]

Since I read several of her books (the Howl novels and the Chrestomanci series) during the last two years, I think it's worth mentioning here that Diana Wynne Jones has died.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/27/diana-wynne-jones-obituary

[gkgyver 1,647]

Mick Foley's Have A Nice Day - A Tale Of Blood, Tears and Sweatsocks

For the second time.

A genuinely great read. But I used to love pro wrestling anyway. Until WCW died.

[Red 75]

I started reading The Road. I'm not a huge fan of the writing style.

You should be.

[Trent Hoyt 13]

Mick Foley's Have A Nice Day - A Tale Of Blood, Tears and Sweatsocks

For the second time.

A genuinely great read. But I used to love pro wrestling anyway. Until WCW died.

Ya, thats a good book. I read it last month and then I watched his dvd set. He did a great job putting those matches in perspective.

[Koray Savas 2,254]

I started reading The Road. I'm not a huge fan of the writing style.

You should be.

I'm almost half way through and it has gotten less choppy, but I'm not fond of the awkward-to-read run on sentences that he uses a lot. With that being said, I bought No Country For Old Men and will be reading that next.

[Trent Hoyt 13]

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy

[Wojo 2,455]

I started reading The Road. I'm not a huge fan of the writing style.

You should be.

I'm almost half way through and it has gotten less choppy, but I'm not fond of the awkward-to-read run on sentences that he uses a lot. With that being said, I bought No Country For Old Men and will be reading that next.

I won't read any book that refuses to distinguish between character dialogue and a third-person narrator with some simple quotation marks and "he said"/"she said" verbage. You appreciate that, that's great. Not my cup of tea.

[Koray Savas 2,254]

Yeah that gets confusing a lot of the time. I'll lose track of who is saying what.

[Uni 306]

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy

Classic, classic book. But don't stop there. Clear and Present Danger was one of Clancy's best books (and the continuation of the Jack Ryan cycle).

I've just finished Heir to the Empire again, first in the greatest set of Star Wars books ever written. Why in the hell couldn't anyone convince Lucas to get this guy to write the prequel trilogy. . . ?

- Uni

[Trent Hoyt 13]

I plan on reading all of the Clancy books in order. He hasnt written many, so it wont be hard to do.

The Zahn books are way overrated! I have read most of the Star Wars novels and there are few of them I would recommend. Zahn had the advantage of ushering in the era of Star Wars novels, but his are not the best.

[Trent Hoyt 13]

Lisey's Story by Stephen King

[crocodile 8,290]

Umberto Eco's Baudolino. Probably not his most erudite entry, but certainly the fastest page-turner. And probably the most filmic of his novels.

Karol

[indy4 155]

Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War. Very interesting book. Lots of details to wade through.

[Koray Savas 2,254]

No Country For Old Men

I found this to be much much better than The Road. More engaging characters and lots of room for development while still retaining his style. The Road felt very hollow to me, but perhaps that was the point. I'm glad it wasn't exactly like the film, the Coens really did a fantastic job in terms of editing out particular scenes, and adding their classic humor into the story.

I bought Fight Club and Shutter Island, but will probably read The Girl Who Played With Fire next.

[Red 75]

Read Blood Meridian. I dare you.

[Jay 38,291]

Fight Club is a very good book - Chuck Palaniuk's first six all are, I can't recommend them higher. Starting with Haunting he's been going downhill, though Rant was awesome again (though in a totally different way than the first six)

And incidentally, Fight Club is the only book I've read where I felt the movie was better. But thats not a knock o the book at all which is great like I said

[Koray Savas 2,254]

"The book was better" is probably the most common statement when it comes to film adaptation. In both cases of The Road and No Country For Old Men, I enjoyed the films more. I think it just comes down to whichever one you were exposed to first.

Read Blood Meridian. I dare you.

The short synopsis on Amazon sounds good. I'll make a note of it.

[Trent Hoyt 13]

The book is always better.

[Koray Savas 2,254]

Do you find that to be the case when reading after seeing the film? Like I said, I believe it purely has to do with whatever you were exposed to first. It's why we hold all the crap we saw as kids so dear.

[Trent Hoyt 13]

Yes I think so. I used to watch IT all the time and did not read the book until years later. IT was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and still is, but the book is immensely better. High Fidelity is the only movie, that comes to mind, that is on the same level as the book.

[Jay 38,291]

The book is always better.

I agree with you in regards to every single book I ever read... until I read Fight Club.

[Charlie Brigden 7]

The book is always better.

Read Jaws and come back and say that.

[Marian Schedenig 8,580]

Fight Club is a very good book - Chuck Palaniuk's first six all are, I can't recommend them higher. Starting with Haunting he's been going downhill, though Rant was awesome again (though in a totally different way than the first six)

Fight Club is great, and yet I was slightly disappointed after reading it: I already knew (nearly) everything. Aside from the ending, where you can debate which is better, and I believe two dropped bits (one of which was scripted but scrapped), book and film are identical. That's a great achievement for the film, of course, but it made me feel like I'd already read the book before.

Palahniuks I liked: All I've read, to some extent. Didn't fully get into Choke and Lullaby, but Diary was cool, in an ultimately slightly Omen/Rosemary's Baby way. Snuff was insanely excellent, and I'm intrigued about how they're going to film it. Rant was just brilliant. It has the twists and genre shifts of a J.J.Abrams show and stays surprising until the very end. Probably my favourite by him.

[Wojo 2,455]

The book is always better.

Read Jaws and come back and say that.

That's probably the best example.

I'm also glad that they took the liberties with Forrest Gump that they did. Don't get me wrong, the book is great, in that Winstom Groom was able to write the slow drawl into the characters' speech, so if you read it aloud, you would sound just like Forrest Gump.

It also doesn't tug at your heartstrings the way the movie does. In the movie, the women in his life die. In the book, they all end up working at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. After he goes into space, lands on the cannibal island, and hangs out Raquel Welch.

[Jay 38,291]

This is how I'd rank Palaniuk's books

Invisible Monsters

Lullaby

Survivor

Fight Club

Choke

Diary

Rant

Haunted

Haven't read yet:

Snuff

Pygmy

Tell-All

Damned

Haunted is frustrating because some of the short stories inside it are among the most interesting stuff he's written, but the overall framework story was incredibly meh

Of all, I've only read Fight Club more than once. I'm curious how I'd still rank them the same if I read them all again now

[Luke Skywalker 1,882]

The book is always better.

Read Jaws and come back and say that.

seconded

[Marian Schedenig 8,580]

Of all, I've only read Fight Club more than once. I'm curious how I'd still rank them the same if I read them all again now

I'll have to read the ones I don't know yet. I definitely recommend Snuff. It's not just really good, but the most amazing thing is that a concept as insane as that can actually work.

[Jay 38,291]

I read the first chapter of Snuff, then haven't found time to go back to it since.... that was over a year ago, so I'd have to just start over. Now I really want to! Thanks for motivating me!

[Marian Schedenig 8,580]

It wasn't the easiest read, as the beginning tends to drag a bit, but I found it worth getting through that. It gets easier as the story build and becomes clearer.

[JoeinAR 1,953]

The Passage by Justin Cronin, about the Vampire apocolypse

[Corellian2019 398]

Dune, by Frank Herbert

[Koray Savas 2,254]

Just finished Fight Club.

I don't know if I prefer the novel or the film. The film is pretty much a more cohesive telling of the same events.