Rate The Dude's Fiction Bookshelf (+diablo and others too!)

[gumpzilla]

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and my roommate who read through five or so of them says it only gets worse.

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So, based upon second hand advice, you are advising him against my first hand advice?

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Yes, more or less. I did read the second one and was thoroughly unimpressed and had no desire to go further.

Also, I guess I don't really see why OP should care where the advice is coming from, unless you guys are regular correspondents or something.

[RunDownHouse]

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if you have any desire to try out Stephen King again, the Dark Tower series is pretty great.

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I've read a lot of King, and the fourth DT book, Wizard and Glass, is his best work, hands down. While the bulk of it can kind of be stand-alone, you're best served by reading up to the fourth book. Not like that's a chore, they're all pretty good, but Wizard and Glass is amazing.

[jba]

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if you have any desire to try out Stephen King again, the Dark Tower series is pretty great.

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I've read a lot of King, and the fourth DT book, Wizard and Glass, is his best work, hands down. While the bulk of it can kind of be stand-alone, you're best served by reading up to the fourth book. Not like that's a chore, they're all pretty good, but Wizard and Glass is amazing.

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agree 100% but I'd say at least read The Gunslinger first, it's pretty fast and will at least give you a little grounding.

[Dane S]

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Solid... Borges is the man, was one of my old party screen names ;-) Where is Pale Fire? The Bros Kara is one of my all time favs. GEB melted the left portion of my brain. Also, I see Hesse, but not enough... The Glass Bead Game is a must!

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I would like to read some more Nabakov eventually. As for Hesse, I have Narcissus and Goldmund" elsewhere, but haven't read it yet (it was a gift).

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Narcissus and Goldmund is one of my favorites ever... I liked it better than Siddharta. Simple language and story, but also very deep and moving. I'm pretty sure you'd love it as I can see from your shelf that we have similar literary tastes.

Pale Fire is well written and a great experiment in fiction, but I felt it really petered out towards the end. I got within 40 pages I think but never finished it.

[Dane S]

Dude, have you read any Phillip K. Dick? His The Man in the High Castle is the best sci-fi I've ever read (about a future world post-Axis WW2 victory in which America is divided up between the Nazis and Japan, who end up in a cold war). Reaches literary quality (imo) in its themes without ever getting slow or cumbersome. Friends tell me many of his other novels are just as good, as well as many of his short stories (I've also heard that some fall a little short though, too). I think he's much better than Heinlein and perhaps a good bridge into some of the more cerebral stuff you'd find in Borges stories or, to throw in another recommendation, Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics

[tsearcher]

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Read the Iliad and the Odyssey.

I rate it a 3.

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Which one?

[renodoc]

Recently reread Dune. Have read thru book 3, but that was decades ago.

Try Hyperion (Dan Simmons) this is also a 4 book series.

If you are into Follett, read some Vince Flynn- quick "good guy kicks ass" page turners.

[bernie]

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Anyone here reading the Daniel Silva spy series? Im halfway done and so far its pretty good. Like a Dan Brown book but well written.


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I read the Confessor. It was ok. I thought Browns was written better.

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[lennytheduck]

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here is one of my bookshelves. not strictly fiction. have read most of the books, but not all of them.

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http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/7987/bookshelfud9.th.jpg[/image]

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you have always come off as one of the most intelligent posters across many of the forums here. the contents of your bookshelf makes a lot of sense.

[Sifmole]

Some low-brow but funny fantsy: Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.

How long ago did you read Heinlein and not like it? If it was during your teen years and that was more than 10 years ago, you might want to try again.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I don't actually like most of his other books so well, but Catch-22 is terrific.

If you want some sci-fi try picking up some Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke#Novels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_A...ence_fiction_2

For both of them short story collections are nice for an introduction. For Asimov the "Robot" or "Foundation" series are the most well known.