What are you reading currently?

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Originally Posted by JuBru

No particular order:
1. Dune
2. Lonesome Dove
3. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
4. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
5. The Martian

I've never been a huge reader. Only really seriously picked it up the last few years, so have lots to read, still. Those five are ones I enjoy for various reasons and go back to read every so often.

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Thanks, sorry if this insults you, but inudesu’s list was intimidating and your list probably fits me better

my 10 every man should read -- 1st draft for consideration/discussion among the committee (in no particular order):
1) mere christianity (even if you're not a christian)
2) huckleberry finn (or just about any mark twain)
3) lord of the rings (a single novel in 6 books, three volumes)
4) hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy (a trilogy in 5 novels)
5) moby dick
6) crime and punishment (or the brothers karamazov)
7) asimov's foundation novels (or any sufficiently long collection of his short stories)
8) animal farm (or 1984, but you really don't have to torture yourself by finishing it -- all the meat is in the first 1/3)
9) brodkey and hershey's transport phenomena: a unified approach (only mostly kidding)
9 for real) alice in wonderland and through the looking glass (can't read one and not the other)
10) c.s. lewis's fiction -- all of it (i know i'm cheating here, but lewis is just so good)

okay, this is really hard to get down to just 10, but i'll leave it here for now (i'll probably come up with 10 more for consideration...)

the next few:
1) lord of the flies
2) harry potter series (you can probably buy it all in a single volume)
3) sherlock holmes -- entire collection (the one i read was in a single volume electronically)
4) tale of two cities
5) three musketeers
6) ender's game

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Originally Posted by arkansasbob

i didn't have the patience for that book, but i loved that other fishing story he wrote (old man and the sea). i'm not going to try to slog through the whole book to find the fishing interlude -- what chapter is it in?

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Middle of chapter 12. But you should give the whole thing another chance. It's a lot shorter than For Whom the Bell Tolls (which is also good).

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Originally Posted by inudesu

Middle of chapter 12. But you should give the whole thing another chance. It's a lot shorter than For Whom the Bell Tolls (which is also good).

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dude, the beginning of that book was pure torture. like watching breakfast at tiffany's with french voice-overs and a blindfold. i don't hate myself enough to try that again.

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Originally Posted by arkansasbob

my 10 every man should read -- 1st draft for consideration/discussion among the committee (in no particular order):
1) mere christianity (even if you're not a christian)
2) huckleberry finn (or just about any mark twain)
3) lord of the rings (a single novel in 6 books, three volumes)
4) hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy (a trilogy in 5 novels)
5) moby dick
6) crime and punishment (or the brothers karamazov)
7) asimov's foundation novels (or any sufficiently long collection of his short stories)
8) animal farm (or 1984, but you really don't have to torture yourself by finishing it -- all the meat is in the first 1/3)
9) brodkey and hershey's transport phenomena: a unified approach (only mostly kidding)
9 for real) alice in wonderland and through the looking glass (can't read one and not the other)
10) c.s. lewis's fiction -- all of it (i know i'm cheating here, but lewis is just so good)

okay, this is really hard to get down to just 10, but i'll leave it here for now (i'll probably come up with 10 more for consideration...)

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i want to replace #7 with i, robot. if you are only going to read one thing by asimov, that needs to be it.

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Originally Posted by JuBru

No particular order:
1. Dune
2. Lonesome Dove
3. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
4. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
5. The Martian

I've never been a huge reader. Only really seriously picked it up the last few years, so have lots to read, still. Those five are ones I enjoy for various reasons and go back to read every so often.

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Originally Posted by PawDawg

Thanks, sorry if this insults you, but inudesu’s list was intimidating and your list probably fits me better

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I thought I was being very accessible! All of my list are easier reads than Dune I bet. And shorter than Lonesome Dove.

I haven't read Dune or the Stig Larrson, but the rest of JuBru's list all gets a hearty approval from me.

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Originally Posted by inudesu

Middle of chapter 12. But you should give the whole thing another chance. It's a lot shorter than For Whom the Bell Tolls (which is also good).

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Originally Posted by arkansasbob

dude, the beginning of that book was pure torture. like watching breakfast at tiffany's with french voice-overs and a blindfold. i don't hate myself enough to try that again.

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I mean, I think there is supposed to be some subtext going on even in that section, but I just think parts of it are amazingly descriptive writing.

Hemmingway may be an acquired taste. I have a lot more patience for him than most other modernist writers. I need some punctuation sometimes. And even he can get on my nerves with that stuff.

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Originally Posted by inudesu

Hemmingway may be an acquired taste. I have a lot more patience for him than most other modernist writers. I need some punctuation sometimes. And even he can get on my nerves with that stuff.

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Why did the chicken cross the road?

Hemmingway: To die. Alone. In the rain.

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Originally Posted by arkansasbob

my 10 every man should read -- 1st draft for consideration/discussion among the committee (in no particular order):
1) mere christianity (even if you're not a christian)
2) huckleberry finn (or just about any mark twain)
3) lord of the rings (a single novel in 6 books, three volumes)
4) hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy (a trilogy in 5 novels)
5) moby dick
6) crime and punishment (or the brothers karamazov)
7) asimov's foundation novels (or any sufficiently long collection of his short stories)
8) animal farm (or 1984, but you really don't have to torture yourself by finishing it -- all the meat is in the first 1/3)
9) brodkey and hershey's transport phenomena: a unified approach (only mostly kidding)
9 for real) alice in wonderland and through the looking glass (can't read one and not the other)
10) c.s. lewis's fiction -- all of it (i know i'm cheating here, but lewis is just so good)

okay, this is really hard to get down to just 10, but i'll leave it here for now (i'll probably come up with 10 more for consideration...)

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That's an awesome list. I might replace a couple with stuff like "Tess of the D'ubervilles" by Thomas Hardy and "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Heinlein, but I have read and enjoyed most on your list except Brodkey... and your Dostoevsky stuff (I did try The Idiot and grew bored). I might put Billy Budd in the place of Moby Dick as well.

Joining the list making. Most of these are more fun reads than deep (at least after the first two)

1) Dune -- my top as well. Just great story-telling
2) Lord of the Rings
3) Steven Lawhead's Arthur trilogy (very interesting retelling of the legend, he gets lost in the sequels after these three, but these are good)
4) Don Quixote, USA -- hilarious book about a peace corps worker who accidentally becomes a guerilla leader
5) The Buck Passes Flynn -- Gregory MacDonald at his best. Not the strongest ending but a great read (the Flynn books and most of the Fletch books are really good)
6) Heinlein's Moon Is a Harsh Mistress -- much better than his more famous stuff
7) Fred-n-Erma by Calvin Miller -- this is written as a play. It's a hilarious take on church life. You'll think he was watching your family get ready for church
8) The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass, Aged 37 3/4. -- possibly even better send up of evangelical church life
9) Need to pick something by Alistair MacLean but have a hard time deciding which -- maybe Puppet on a Chain, Golden Rendezvous, Bear Island or Where Eagles Dare
10) Steven R Donaldson's first Thomas Covenant trilogy

Dang, feel like I could keep going. Better stop

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Originally Posted by DawgyNWindow

That's an awesome list. I might replace a couple with stuff like "Tess of the D'ubervilles" by Thomas Hardy and "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Heinlein, but I have read and enjoyed most on your list except Brodkey... and your Dostoevsky stuff (I did try The Idiot and grew bored). I might put Billy Budd in the place of Moby Dick as well.

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i must confess i have never read hardy or heinlein (except maybe a couple of hardy's short stories). i'll have to add them both to my list.

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Originally Posted by DawgyNWindow

I might replace a couple with stuff like "Tess of the D'ubervilles" by Thomas Hardy

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Our 10th grade English lit teacher had us read Hardy's "Return of the Native". The lead female character, Eustacia, was the firs time I found a girl in a novel (without any corresponding comic or movie) indescribably hot.

A few years later Catherine Zeta played her in a hallmark special -- which I found totally fitting.

I may be picked on for this, but I am reading The Godfather for the first time. Have never seen the movies, but I want to after reading.

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Originally Posted by techman05

I may be picked on for this, but I am reading The Godfather for the first time. Have never seen the movies, but I want to after reading.

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You're in for quite a treat in both cases.

The novel is great pulpy fun. The movies are Art.