Summer reading and you

Huxley

I just started reading Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe. Wow!

Anyone dig this author? What are you reading (or hoping to read) this summer?

Huxley

the_classicist

Well, after many years of starting to read it and not finishing it, I just finished Gulliver's Travels.

Now I'm going to finish the Annals of Imperial Rome by Tacitus (started in class, but with all the exams I didn't bother finishing). I'm also going to read the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and perhaps something else.

Huxley

C, The Iliad has been on my list for a while. Never actually thought about reading Gulliver's Travels. Probably a good read though... Huxley

Panda

Hey try some James Joyce --- one sentence at a time. just kidding.

One of my favorite books was Treasure Island... I still love it.

Tacitus is great if you like history (I do)

The Iliad is better than the other. That's got the great (hi)stories.

Try some Shakespeare that you won't read in school. Titus Andronicus wow great drama.

Huxley

Panda, I've heard Joyce can be enjoyed on many levels. One sentence at a time is probably a good way to tackle his work! Huxley

talesin

I'm reading The Ruins of Isis, early feminist sci-fi by Marion Zimmer Bradley. The Mists of Avalon is also a great summer read by the same author, and a popular classic.

Try reading some Latin ... hahaha,, it was my ninth grade summer reading, interesting stuff. lol (I kid you not)

And how about some Colette or de Maupassant, if you like enjoy classic erotica?

Dickens is also a great read, my favorites being David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities 'it was the best of times, and the worst of times' `it is a far better thing I do today, than I have ever done before`.

For a good trashy read, I started the Confessions of a Shopaholic trilogy ... book one finished, now I'm on to the second. It's a hoot. The Diary of Bridget Jones was really funny as well, and much better than the flick.

More great trashy novels are by Judith Krantz (if you haven't read Scruples, one of the biggest hits of the 80s, you are really missing out). And don't forget Steve King's The Dark Tower series, and The Green Mile., or his collection of four novellas called Four Past Midnight, which includes Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (from which the famous movie was made).

Romance? Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights can't be beat.

Interview with the Vampire, and The Vampire Lestat et al are yummy tales of the undead by Anne Rice. She also has some erotica under the pen name Anne Rocquelaire (warning: not for the faint of heart!).

Return to childhood, learn the true meaning of "a kindred spirit", and read Anne of Green Gables. You never forget it.

Ooooo, and for brilliant sci-fi written in the early 70's that has eerily come true in many ways, one of my personal favorites, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is a scary story of a twisted future-world (and that is a must-see movie as well, Natasha Richardson, Aidan Quinn, Faye Dunaway and Robert Duval make this superb tale come to life).

tal

Panda

Also by Margaret Atwood The Blind Assassin

For some fine writing by Anne Rice try The Violin

I've just finished The Death of Woman Wang by J.Spence; but it's real history and if you aren't into all the manuscripts of criminals in late Ming China you might get bored... but I hope not.

dorayakii

Everyone's heard of 1984 and Animal Farm and a lot of the stuff in both of those books is relevant to the WTS, but i'd also highly recommend one of George Orwell's lesser known works such as Coming Up for Air.

Philip K Dick's short stories are cool, i found some of his longer works like The Man in the High Castle a bit of a heavy read even though i consider my vobabulary quite decent.

For a light hearted frolic through space, the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy in Five Parts is a ripping read if you can purge your brain of the film.

I've read all four of Dan Brown's books and all of them have almost exactly the same storyline (the only reason i carried on was that Brown's simple language was easy to understand and i didn't get bogged down having to look up every fifth word in a dictionary as i had done with the Man in the High Castle). If you decide to read just one of them i recommend Deception Point.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a really interesting look into human nature.

I also can't leave without promoting my cousin Zadie Smith's book White Teeth. She wasn't brought up a JW (her mother was) and she has had little to no contact with the JW side of the family. The book is not too heavily loaded with WTS bashing but a lot of what she writes about the borg can strike a chord. The best book i've read this year has got to be Stupeur et Tremblements by Amélie Nothomb. I read it in french but the english version Fear and Trembling is available. Its highly amusing and surreal in places, and its a solid narrative.

tetrapod.sapien

the only fiction i will be plugging away at this summer will be Singularity Sky by Charles Stross.

non-fiction:

The Science of Good and Evil - Dr. Michael Shermer

The Ancestor's Tale - Dr. Richard Dawkins

Introduction to Evolutionary Computing - A.E. Eiben (for school)

Panda

Sapien, I am so looking forward to the Ancestors Tale. Written in the descending rather than ascending timeline. And for lovers of G.Orwell try Orwell's Notes On Nationalism from May 1945.

Here's an excerpt:

"The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of Western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States ..."

WOW That was Orwell in 1945 ... and look how much the world hasn't changed in 60 years.

Summer reading and you

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