Your favorite book......

[evank15]

Should be compulsory reading for high school/university students.

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Life changing.

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Is this a level or what? If not, please elaborate [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I am having a hell of a time quitting

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No level.

Before I read this I'd tried the gum, the patches, cold turkey and zyban pills, many times over with no success.

A co-worker was stopping and doing it pretty easy. I asked what her secret was and she told me about this book. I was sceptical at first, but for the price of a couple of packets I gave it a shot.

It doesn't go into the scare tactics you'd expect. It logically deconstructs any reason you think you have for smoking.

It obviously won't work for everyone, but I stopped easily after reading this. Two years and four months without a ciggie now, and I was a pretty heavy smoker [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Allen Carr at wikipedia

[Tigermoth]

I'm just reading The Master and Margarita now. Hadn't read it since university, and I think I like it even more now.

Favorite book is Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. Kay is technically considered a fantasy writer, but before you judge, know that he was recruited to help Christopher Tolkien edit The Silmarillion after JRR died. Pretty amazing writer.

[Bostaevski]

Alright I'm ordering that "quit smoking" book. Thanks

My favorite series of books of all time is probably the Dark Tower series by Stephen King.

I also really like the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R. R. Martin.

I just finished reading a book called "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. I thought it was quite well done.
"It is a post-apocalyptic tale describing a journey taken by a father and his young son over a period of several months across a landscape blasted years before by an unnamed cataclysm which destroyed civilization and most life on earth."

Pay no attention that it's been chosen for Oprah's Book club because it also won a Pulitzer.

[bryan4967]

LOL, Vonnegut was such an underrated illustrator. Don't forget about the beaver.

[Blarg]

I'm a huge fan of Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.

I find my favorite book doesn't last as long these days. My understanding of the scope of ways there are for books to be good makes me aware that I have to compare apples to oranges too much to come up with a permanent favorite.

I can relate to the guy above who says his favorite book is usually the one he read last. I wouldn't go that far, but my moods change and I find myself more interested in takig in new knowledge and experience than coming to a final summation of who I am and where I stand every time I read a new book. I don't think I'm getting fuzzy headed or lowering my standards; it's just that I see how often my esteem is affected by my mood and my station in life. And I'm willing to say that if there's any "fault" in my liking really good books more or less over time, it's probably a lot more about me than the books.

[KilgoreTrout]

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Italo Calvino.


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Calvino is fantastic. His young adult book, Marcovaldo, is absolutely loaded with phenomenology, semiology, and Sartrian themes and is openly metafictional.


About 15 years ago I came across another Italian author, Dacia Maraini. Her book Donna In Guerra, though obviously marxist-feminist, is superbly written.

[KilgoreTrout]

This article gives props to KV's illustrations.

[Blarg]

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Italo Calvino.


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Calvino is fantastic. His young adult book, Marcovaldo, is absolutely loaded with phenomenology, semiology, and Sartrian themes and is openly metafictional.


About 15 years ago I came across another Italian author, Dacia Maraini. Her book Donna In Guerra, though obviously marxist-feminist, is superbly written.

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I read almost all of his stuff and liked almost all of it quite a bit, and almost all the rest of it even more than that.

Also very highly recommend his big collection of Italian fairy tales.

I'd love to eventually read all his stuff, including the non-fiction.

[KilgoreTrout]

Mr. Palomar is my favorite Calvino book. Its structure is cool and he makes the concepts of phenomenology accessible.

If on a winter's night a traveler was a bit too obtuse for my taste, but an interesting concept. Calvino (or the narrator) undermines the reading experience. Very experimental and very postmodern. I like the analogy of the paper knife deflowering the book.

T-zero I barely remember other than the Count of Monte Cristo piece. IIRC calvino works backward from fact into myth/fiction in these stories.

He's a tough read but I do enjoy the way he f's with his readers. Would have been a good bar buddy.