How many book have you read in total and which is/are your favorites ?

[incel]

17 hours ago, P41R47 said:

Can't help to think of all the books i will, probably, never read... unles i hit the lottery or find a lucrative job. I think i have better chances at winning the lottery :)

 

Oh, c'mon, you can always rely on the Buccaneers' Cove.

[P41R47]

54 minutes ago, incel said:

 

Oh, c'mon, you can always rely on the Buccaneers' Cove.

Not on my language :P

Well, yes, but i love reading on paper.

Also, I don't take the tablet outside of home as i can possibly die just by that :/

But a book is no problem, thiefs can't praise the flavour of a good book ;)

[Yandere_Doomer]

12 hours ago, Silhou3tte said:

It used to be “Everything Else” but my guess is that people were either arguing about the US elections, or were warned not to.

all in all, its a dumb name. they should change it back, Everything else made sense

[Silhouette 03]

11 minutes ago, Deathclaw886 said:

all in all, its a dumb name. they should change it back, Everything else made sense

They most likely will. The name was most likely a warning against political squabbles due to divisions in the US.

[Andromeda]

When I was younger I used to be an avid reader - I'd finish two or three books in a week. Nowadays that's the number of books I read in a year! I think the drastic change comes from the fact that I used to read at least an hour at night before falling asleep (oftentimes more, depending on how much I was enjoying it), now I'm usually so tired at the end of the day that I fall asleep instantly :P

 

On 1/2/2021 at 10:51 PM, P41R47 said:

The pandemy got me starting reading Jose Saramago's ''Blindness'', and the similarities between that book and what we live throught all this months are atonishing, bordering our most horrendous fear.

It's a great read, hope you enjoyed it! Saramago has quite the peculiar style.

[P41R47]

2 hours ago, Andromeda said:

It's a great read, hope you enjoyed it! Saramago has quite the peculiar style.

Outstanding book!

Even after almost a year after reading it, i still remember every part of it.

Every atrocious moment of it.

 

Shame there are no more authors at this level.

Salman Rushdie, may be the last one.

[dei_eldren]

i used to read a lot, i don't anymore.  For me, the reason is i don't want to fill my head with other people's ideas, which personally is how i've come to see books, on the whole - as vehicle for other people's ideas.  i never was much interested in the stories, but in the ideas being conveyed with them.

 

That said i love Edgar Allan Poe, and HP Lovecraft (being exceptions to the above). So different, yet in their ability to use words, and write (to me) imaginative, original and interesting stories with them, without trying to influence what the reader thinks, very close to each other - and in my personal opinion, above all the rest.  (Poe of course (?) being ever so slightly superior)  To me they represent what i'd call pure literature.  (Yes, i'm very well aware of what's been said, for example, by post-modernists mostly, to be behind Lovecraft's writings, but i do not agree.)  Though, i acknowledge that there must be something in their core way of thinking that finds sympathy with mine for me to feel that way, whereas with most authors i am completely out of sympathy with (especially the ones i perhaps 15 years ago would have said i "love", like Dostoyevsky).

 

Oh, and i still do like Marquis de Sade's works.  The same thing with him.

Edited January 5, 2021 by dei_eldren

[TenenteZashu]

I'm from a leftist family (some of my grandfather's relatives were partisans during the italian civil war) so growing up I read some theory books like Das Kapital and some by Lenin.

When it comes to books that I read because I felt like it I'd say I've read around 5 maybe 7 books, of which my favorite is Moby Dick.

[holaareola]

I was voracious as a kid, who even knows how many.  I read much less now, and also more slowly.

 

Also find that things I loved don't hold up for me on return. So some that come quickly to mind and that I haven't read too long ago:

 

Havelock Ellis - Selected Essays (I read it every year. Though Havelock Ellis has a few of-his-time Victorianisms such as positive abstract considerations of eugenics that give me the squeams, he is so learned and wide-ranging and yet so straightforward-- such a humane and curious soul. It really comes through on the page. I think in many aspects he grasped human psychology better than his contemporary Freud and with less of the wild speculation. The essays on Nietszche and Casanova are particularly superb.)

Kafka - The Trial (hilarious, befuddling and fuck, the parable Before the Law alone and the dissection of it afterwards is stunning)

Jonathan Franzen - Freedom (I need to read this again, I loved it so much though)

Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex (multigenerational immigrant family story bonkers in its scope)

Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

 

But the book I enjoyed least in my life. That's an easy one. Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet. Maybe I was in the wrong mood. It was pre-smartphone era and I took nothing else with me for a trip. I hated every minute of it and yet kept reading as it was the only escape from my own thoughts available.

[seed]

Quite a few dozens before I finished school, but I'll be damned if I can still recall the names of the books without a list in front of me, and most writers were also from my country anyway.

 

In recent years I've not found much motivation for reading, not because I don't like reading (quite the opposite), but simply because I am a very slow reader and I tend to get bored before I even am halfway through it... I know people who can finish a few romans in a week... and I struggle to read... maybe a measly third of that amount in the same time.

 

I think I last touched something by Mark Twain.

[Doom_Dude]

Way too many to count.....

 

In the early days of school I remember reading Farley Mowat's Lost In The Barrens and Curse of the Viking Grave. Also Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. After that I got more into Fantasy and Sci-Fi. I recall opening the doors of the TV stand my dad made and there were these books with which was the Lord of The Rings trilogy.

 

As for favorites. I think any list will be a bit different due to various factors and having read such a large amount of stuff over many decades....

 

The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien. I knew absolutely nothing about the books and found my dad's copies in the TV stand / entertainment unit. They had odd but fascinating covers so it was just a matter of time before I actually tried them out. It was the 70's so I missed all the hype and stuff and it blew my mind and I ended up reading it all about 3 times.

 

The Complete Chronicles of Conan - Robert E. Howard. Picked up the hardcover of the complete chronicles in 2017. I had previously read the Conan stories in various paperbacks and in The Savage Sword of Conan comics. It was a joy to read the stories again, this time in the order that Howard wrote them. Conan crushed his enemies and it was the best.

 

Legend - David Gemmell. First Gemmell book I read. Has nothing to do with any film of the same name. It's about a veteran warrior who has to come out of retirement to help a besieged fortress get it's defenses in order prior to a huge battle. It would make an awesome movie, I'm sure. Then I went on and read 99% of Gemmell's books and then he died in 2006. I should read the Troy Trilogy soon. I'd recommend Legend, Waylander, King Beyond the Gate, and Quest for Lost Heroes. Oh also Lion of Macedon and Dark Prince. Love Gemmell.

 

Barsoom / John Carter of Mars series - Edgar Rice Burroughs. One of the first series of books that I read, which was back in the 70's so it was fascinating to read at the time. Even today I reread some of it from time to time. The John Carter movie was kinda cringe-ish... It probably could be made into a cool series if done right. I probably read most of Edgar's stuff, tho I do have a pile of Tarzan I never did read through. I tend to like old stuff even if it's dated. heh.

 

Humanx Commonwealth Series - Alan Dean Foster. Haven't read all of them and as far as I recall the stories are pretty much standalone. The ones I really enjoyed are Drowning World, Phylogenesis, Dirge, Diuturnity's Dawn, Midworld, Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, Nor Crystal Tears, The Deluge Drivers and Bloodhype.

 

 

 

 

[kalaeth]

On 1/5/2021 at 12:48 AM, P41R47 said:

Outstanding book!

Even after almost a year after reading it, i still remember every part of it.

Every atrocious moment of it.

 

Shame there are no more authors at this level.

Salman Rushdie, may be the last one.

 

At least there are like 20 other books by Saramago.
I heartily recommend Seeing, the sequel to Blindness (that in portuguese is called "an essay on lucidity" just as blindness is "an essay on blindness"). Also, Cain, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, Baltasar and Blimunda and Death With Interruptions.

If you are into portuguese early 20th century poetry, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis is definitively in my top 3 of Saramago's books, from what I have already read (which isn't everything yet).

 

By Rushdie I only read Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses, both of which I enjoyed, the first maybe even more so, but I do want to read more by him eventually.

In reply to the topic:

I have no freaking clue but it is very likely a number above 500, but it has been growing slower in the past few years, and this last year was close to none (I think I might have read about.. 10 books in the entire year which is a really small number, but then again, 4 of those were the History Of The Lord Of The Rings ones which are kinda big).

 

Also, favorites.. My top three :

Silmarillion by J.R.R.Tolkien;

the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov;

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. 

(there are more, but these are my "holy books")

[_bruce_]

-Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" - 'helped my English in a big ways and is a beautiful little tome'.

-various books on world war II from American authors - 'shone light onto things that mainstream history loves to sweep aside'.

[Silhouette 03]

1 minute ago, _bruce_ said:

Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"

Still a fantastic novel and truly ahead of it's time on the subject matter.

[QuotePilgrim]

How many? No idea, but not really a lot. Probably like 50 my whole life. I read a lot, but not a lot of books.

 

Some of my favorites include:

 

- 1984 by George Orwell

- Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

- The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

- Oedipus Rex and Antigone, both by Sophocles

- A Study in Scarlet by sir Arthur Conan Doyle

- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

 

And that is basically what I would answer to almost sound smart lol. I do love those books, of course, but if I'm really honest my real favorite book is From a Buick 8 by Stephen King, which is not even one of his most well known works. Probably almost half of all the books I've read are by King, and for some reason that one book stuck with me more than any of others. I also read a lot of short stories by H.P. Lovecraft and Egar Allan Poe that I didn't mention because they aren't books; so I would say Poe, Lovecraft, and King are my favorite authors overall. I like reading short stories much much more than long form works like novels.

[NaturalTvventy]

Hmmmm tons.

 

Favorites:

 

Nonzero - Robert Wright: How the world works

Lucifer Principle - Howard Bloom: Even better how the world works

Never Cry Wolf - Farley Mowat: Funniest book I've ever read by far

Give and Take - Adam Grant: Why to be a good person

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels - Alex Epstein: Appreciate one foundation of our society

The Righteous Mind - Jonathan Haidt: See through the eyes of others

The Signal and the Noise - Nate Silver: How to understand information

For Men Only/For Women Only - Shaunti Feldhahn: How to be a good life partner

How To Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie: How to be a good friend

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking: The universe is beyond comprehension

Edited January 7, 2021 by NaturalTvventy

[dei_eldren]

4 hours ago, QuotePilgrim said:

- 1984 by George Orwell

- Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

- The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

- Oedipus Rex and Antigone, both by Sophocles

- A Study in Scarlet by sir Arthur Conan Doyle

- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

 

That is seriously a list to my liking - all of those works were favourites of mine, and i still think all of them have some worth.  But i'm sad to say in my post i totally forgot about Conrad since i haven't read him for about ten years, yet he is right up there with Poe and Lovecraft, and de Sade, for me (and i'd be hard-pressed to come up with a fifth one.)

 

i admit though, i don't like King, at all!  Not even Pet Cemetery.

 

EDIT: Howard - the fifth one!  Over half of his stuff is really good, but he wrote a lot of silly things too that turned me off (though i don't think he was ever a hack or dishonest - he just wrote too much (to try earn a living i think), and about topics, like pugilists, that i'm like Zzzzzzz).  But his Solomon Kane, Conan (they're a bit uneven but never less than pretty good, always fun to read, most of the time worth reading, and often times excellent) and Bran Mak Morn stories are all by the by excellent, as are many of his horror stories - to be sure, i think his horror stories are those that frightened me the most.

Edited January 8, 2021 by dei_eldren

[P41R47]

35 minutes ago, dei_eldren said:

i admit though, i don't like King, at all!  Not even Pet Cemetery.

i don't like it much, either.

My wife, and my teenage self, bought almost all his book on paperback, back when we were young.

I read...5 or so. Not bad, but a bit overrated for me.

 

One i liked is Dr. Sleep.

May be weak and not one of his best, but it remind me a lot to where a lot of great authors are aiming today.

So, after reading it, i will not say i started liking his ouvre, but i started looking it with another point of view.

[dei_eldren]

11 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

One i liked is Dr. Sleep.

May be weak and not one of his best, but it remind me a lot to where a lot of great authors are aiming today.

So, after reading it, i will not say i started liking his ouvre, but i started looking it with another point of view.

 

Interesting.  i just checked that it's a sequel to the Shining.  i read PC because a friend of mine thought it was great, about 30 years ago (funny, it could've been just two years ago for me) but didn't fancy it because i don't think the way King does, don't have the same attitudes regarding life as him.  Also other attempts at reading different books has resulted in coitus interruptus (i much preferred the movie the Shining over the book...)  i see King as a moralist, and i'm not one.

 

But what you say is interesting, and if i get a chance i'll check Dr Sleep (oh, there's a movie of it - i think i'll see that one first!)

[bfredric]

Rocket Jump https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1070183601/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Silhouette 03]

16 hours ago, QuotePilgrim said:

1984 by George Orwell

I'm glad I'm not the only one who read this. Horribly depressing, but Orwell's message about totalitarian and the destruction of individuality and free thought is frighteningly relevant in this day and age

[smeghammer]

Hmmm... I must admit, not so much nowadays because - you know - children.

 

I did read crap-loads when I was younger though:

 

I grew up on Asimov, A.C. Clarke, E.E. Doc Smith, A.E. Van Vogt - and even Patrick Moore (yes, the astronomer) etc. classic sci-fi and read pretty much all their stuff - I got a load of 1960s and '70s Panther paperbacks of these and other then-contemporary authors from my dad which got read until they fell to bits. As I grew up I continued reading sci-fi and branched out into people like Larry Niven, Greg Bear, Gerry Pournelle and also more fantasy sci-fi like Anne McCaffrey and Julian May. More recently, I read a load of Stephen Baxter (very excellent hard SF).

 

In my late teens/early 20s I also read a LOT of Stephen King and James Herbert (with a smattering of other 80's/90's horror guys- Shaun Hutson, F. Paul Wilson and the like). 

 

About a decade or so ago, I went through an Anne Rice phase, mainly the vampire stuff.

 

Terry Pratchett - of course - has been a constant and again I have read all his stuff - even the older non-Discworld books.

 

Do graphic novels/comic books count? Loads of 2000AD, both as actual comics back in late 70s/early 80s and as pretty much the entire Judge Dredd reprints to date. Also a lot of Nemesis the Warlock, Rogue Trooper, Judge Anderson, Slaine etc. Oh, and DR and Quinch (very early Alan Moore stuff, along with Skizz). Not much of a Marvel/DC fan, but really loved The Dark Knight (Frank Miller) 

 

And Watchmen of course.

 

So - many hundreds, I guess, not including education and work related stuff.

 

Faves? Thats a hard one as it changes over time. I had fond memories of loving 'The Gods Themselves' and the robot sequence  by Asimov, but reading some of his stuff again more recently, I found it almost unreadable as his writing is actually really bad - his characterisation and dialogue is terrible. some of his science fiction ideas are brilliant though (resublimated thiotimoline anyone?). Arthur Clarke style definitely has more longevity for me though - probably his best from that era is Rendezvous with Rama. 

 

I keep coming back to Niven, particularly the Ringworld sequence and also his Warlock stories.

 

However, the ones that left the biggest impression were Greg Bear's Eon and its sequel Eternity - absolutely mind blowing the first (and second, and third...) time you read it; and also the Niven/Pournelle/Barnes collaboration The Legacy of Heorot. This has possibly the most heart-pounding monster attack sequence I have ever read [these guys are good - there are many collabs, particularly by just Niven/Pornelle, that are also superb]. Lastly, the novel Titan by Stephen Baxter has the best disastrous Shuttle re-entry sequence ever - it's about 60 pages and reads like a tense action sequence in a very good movie.

 

This list may well change tomorrow though...

 

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by smeghammer

[smeghammer]

On 1/6/2021 at 3:30 PM, Doom_Dude said:

The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien. I knew absolutely nothing about the books and found my dad's copies in the TV stand / entertainment unit. They had odd but fascinating covers so it was just a matter of time before I actually tried them out. It was the 70's so I missed all the hype and stuff and it blew my mind and I ended up reading it all about 3 times.

 

Amazing! My parents had these exact versions too! I remembered the covers after looking at your image. Struggled with reading them though - then and more recently. Much preferred Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant chronicles. 

Edited January 8, 2021 by smeghammer

[Doom_Dude]

29 minutes ago, smeghammer said:

 

Amazing! My parents had these exact versions too! I remembered the covers after looking at your image. Struggled with reading them though - then and more recently. Much preferred Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant chronicles. 

 

Cool! I was tempted to paint the covers on canvas just recently but I decided not to bother. I also enjoyed the Thomas Covenant Chronicles, tho I like the LOTR trilogy better. The first Covenant Trilogy was great (awesome world building and interesting characters for sure) and I found some of the second trilogy to be a bit of a downer. It's been a long time since I read them, so a lot about the story is a bit murky. I never did read any of the novels that followed the first six books. Have you read them?

Edited January 8, 2021 by Doom_Dude

[smeghammer]

1 hour ago, Doom_Dude said:

It's been a long time since I read them, so a lot about the story is a bit murky. I never did read any of the novels that followed the first six books. Have you read them?

 

I did, yes.

 

I have read the first six many times but the last four only once - they are quite heavy going. He has been accused of too much literary indulgence - and I can see why. He uses a lot of very dense descriptive prose where a sentence or two would probably do, and this seems to be worst in the last four books. Having said that, I absolutely love the first chronicles and to a slightly lesser extent, the second chronicles. I find them hugely immersive and certainly took me into The Land when I was younger. The last four do require quite a bit of investment of time - they are 'ing huge books! - and that is more difficult nowadays.

 

Did you try any of his Gap series? I tried the first one - I just didn't get on with it - which was weird because I love TTCC and also love SF, but just didn't work. Dunno why...

[Doom_Dude]

5 hours ago, smeghammer said:

Did you try any of his Gap series? I tried the first one - I just didn't get on with it - which was weird because I love TTCC and also love SF, but just didn't work. Dunno why...

 

Nope. I haven't tried the Gap series. Not yet anyhow. I may reread the first trilogy again sometime.