What's you're favourite book?

[hiyamotherfers]

I'm a huge reader. If you know me you know this and that I'm always looking for things to read. So if you could please list a book and tell me about it. Just please don't spoil it

[BungusHighFivePizza]

I'm kind of picking about writing style (perhaps more so because I'm a horrible writer). But Nicholson Baker's "Mezzanine"is the greatest to me.

>> But my mother’s informal punctuation in the op-ed letter came as a complete surprise; and the fact that my immediate instinctive response to it was to point out the misplaced commas so harshly that she wept (the only time, as far as I remember, that I ever hurt her feelings — for she understood and was even amused by my teenage request that whenever the two of us walked down the street together, she would please walk at least three yards ahead of me, so that people wouldn’t know we were related; and she even played along in her compliance, whistling, walking with a theatrical solitariness, checking her pocketbook, pausing abruptly to glance at a window display), as if these faulty commas called into question our standing as a family — the fact that I had been instinctively so cruel, made me double up with misery when, after I was married, I came across some sentences in Boswell that were punctuated just as hers had been. Boswell (and De Quincey, Edward Young, and others) had treated the sunken garden of a parenthetical phrase just as my mother had — as something to be prepared for and followed by the transitional rounding and softening of a comma. And such hybrids — of comma and parenthesis, or of semicolon and parenthesis, too — might at least in some cases allow for finer calibrations between phrases, subtler subordinations, irregular varieties of exuberance and magisteriality and fragile conjunction. In our desire for provincial correctness and holy-sounding simplicity and the rapid teachability of intern copy editors we had illegalized all variant forms — and, as with the loss of subvarieties of corn or apples, this homogenization of product was accomplished at a major unforeseen cost: our stiff-jointed prose was less able, so I now huffily thought, full of vengeance against the wrong I had done my mother, to adapt itself to those very novelties of social and technological life whose careful interpretation and weighting was the principal reason for the continued indispensability of the longer sentence.

[BungusHighFivePizza]

The above quote, in my opinion, defies so many writing conventions while exhibiting mastery and simultaneously infusing a great deal of sentiment.

[BungusHighFivePizza]

* kind of picky

[hiyamotherfers]

That looks really good!

[BungusHighFivePizza]

He's a bit on the stream of consciousness style but with tremendous mastery over English and a highly introspective and observant way of looking at things. A shorter excerpt:

>> I gave no direct thought to the escalator's grooves that afternoon, and indeed at that time I had indistinct notions as to their purpose – I thought they were there for traction, or possibly were purely decorative; grooved to remind us of how beautiful grooved surfaces are as a class: the grooves on the underside of the blue whale that must render some hydrodynamic or thermal advantage; the grooves left in loose soil or by a harrow in a field; the single groove that a skater's blade makes in the ice; the grooves in socks that allow them to stretch, and in corduroy, down which you can run your ballpoint pen; the grooves of records.

[hiyamotherfers]

And you write too?

[BungusHighFivePizza]

No, I'm engineer! I am the worst writer ever. Also drunk! But I admire his writing style. It shows us beauty in the mundane things we take for granted. Everyone finds beauty in the sunset. He shows us beauty in the bits of sand that get stuck in our shoes.

[Mansearching]

Have 2. Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird.

[hiyamotherfers]

YES! Both of those are so good!

[Mansearching]

Seen movies too. But there is 2 of lord of the flies. Seen 1 b&w one but not new one. But that one came out in late 80s or very early 90s.

[hiyamotherfers]

yeah

[NamerOfStars]

If you're looking for a series, I'd suggest the Vorkosigan saga- character-driven space opera in the vein of Horatio Hornblower. I'd been hearing about it for years, but held back on reading it because I feel the weight of time differently from most people, and waiting for a series to finish grates on me more than others. But I kept stumbling upon quotes it, and I kept wondering about the context, and finally I caved- and I'm glad I did; the first book came out in 1984 and the most recent entry was in 2018, and I don't think it'll ever be properly "finished". The author wrote the first book, then the second, then realized she'd left WAY too many open hooks in the past to leave unresolved, so she went back and wrote two more books (about the main character's parents met and married), then decided that from then it, she'd only write in one direction- forward. Although it's not really a motivation to read them (more of an "aspect that I like"), the franchise is also available in omnibus editions, except for one book which was deliberately excluded for plot reasons.

If you're looking for single volumes, try The Man Who Was Thursday. I go back and forth on whether it or the Napoleon of Notting Hill deserves the title of Chesterton's masterwork, but Thursday is much more accessible, and serves as a fast-paced metaphysical thriller from start to finish. While I'm at it, I'll toss in the Napoleon of Notting Hill; it's longer and denser, but more a meditation on humanity than on its place in the world. Plus, it begins with the phrase "The human race, to which so many of my readers belong", which (supposedly) made the publisher stop reading and immediately buy the rights, figuring anyone who opened a book with THAT line had to be an amazing author. As an added bonus, Chesterton's works are in the public domain now, so you can read all of them for free!

[msmissydc]

I think my favorite book is still hero of ages from the first mistborn trilogy. But depending on genre there is so much more I would consider close.

Hero of ages is the end of the first mistborn trilogy from brandon Sanderson. A high fantasy book with a unique magic system (or three to be precise). It has some cool twists and I love how the books unravel the mysteries of this world slowly.

[lightbulb27]

How emotions are made -

For the sake of all living things - awful, sad, woke up my soul.

The Bible - tough read, read new testament

Hidden Figures - Can learn a lot in this book.

there's many... favourite, no idea.

[Iron_Man]

Run baby Run the Nicky Cruz story the life of a troubled youth turned gangster in New York City , and finally turn Christian I wrote to him as a kid twice we responded back-and-forth

[hiyamotherfers]

Thats really cool!

[Iron_Man]

Thanks

[EmmaMary]

How Green Was My Valley... Richard Llewellyn.

[purplepoppy]

Fun fact, llewyllen was actually English and the film had to be shot in California because of the war. Most of the singing was done by a choir from Los Angeles.

[EmmaMary]

@purplepoppy

Poppy darling, this I heard from my late Grandfather many, many years ago.

It also made Roddy McDowall (Huw Morgan) and extremely famous actor.

[LavLavLuv]

kinda cringe but i still like it lol😭😭😭

[ChillaxingLove]

I love Jules Verne books. My favorite so far is journey to the center of the earth

[LiamJHayden]

No one book, but I love the entire Asimov Robot / Galactic empire / Foundation mythology.

[Andres77]

Lord of the Rings and the stories of Sherlock Holmes

[PointTaken]

Many books are good. The Road To Avalon was a good read for me.

[Rangers]

I don't read books, I don't enjoy anything but reading is particularly not enjoyable

[Tstrbrainer]

I love fiction.
I used to read Enid Blyton's works as a kid.

[hiyamotherfers]

For a while I thought I was going to be an author

[Tstrbrainer]

You should try writing if you like it

[hiyamotherfers]

I almost never have time. Plus I don't think I could finish a book. Publishings a bitch, and people are really critical

[Telekinetic-Potato]

check out critiquecircle. com

The community there is great and the best way to get started is by reading peoples work that has been critted already.

[hiyamotherfers]

@Telekinetic-Potato oh cool. Thanks!

[exitseven]

i liked Dune by Frank Herbert.

[KostasKouvalis]

Journey to the Center of the Earth

[Anonymous]

You're my favourite book to read..

[Simslover92]

Jane Eyre

[CubaPirate]

The Bible