Favorite Book?

[Chocofreak13]

Murakami sounds familiar......what else has s/he written?

[stewartsage]

If pressed to answer, which I never have before because I refuse to believe in such things as a favorite book, I would reply the best book I ever had to read for class would by either Heart of Darkness by Joesph Conrad.  Other then that The Rum War at Sea, George Washington's War, Go Dogs, Go!,  Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, and Commodore Perry in Japan are all pretty damn good.

Okay, I do have a favorite book.  It's Cosmic Banditos by A.C. Weisbecker; opened my mind man, to quantum physics as well as other things all in the Seventh Grade.  Who the hell bought that book for a middle school class, seriously, that's not 4 kids at all!

[Chocofreak13]

mike mulligan!! <333

Beowulf (the book) was damn good, too. (my high school teacher let me keep my copy of the book. :3)

[stewartsage]

Okay, not gonna lie Beowulf was a fantastic read too.  I'd just forgotten about it.  So was Persuasion.  What? It's okay for guys to enjoy ONE Jane Austen novel.

Worst book I've ever read had to be either 1984 or Jane Eyre.

[Pitkin]

1984 the worst book? Care to explain, stew? :/

[Chocofreak13]

ugh, on the topic of WORST book we've ever read, i'm going to have to nominate Anthem by Ayn Rand. no offense to her, but i didn't like it the first time i read it, and hated it when i was forced to read it a second time. >__<

[Nichi]

I think the book I hated the most was one Star Trek novel I read (I can't remember the title, but it took place between the final episode of the original series and the first movie). Unlike some of the others I read, this one was painfully slow; dragging down the pace of it's plot with J.R.R. Tolken-like detail on everything down to the already lengthy technobabble, which resulted in it feeling less like a story and more like a book on science from the Star Trek universe that happened to mention the crew of the Enterprise a few times.

[Chocofreak13]

yeesh. :\ it's like the problem i had with the 5th harry potter book, that there was a whole chapter about harry walking around the neighborhood. >__<;

[Nichi]

It's been a while since I read any of the Harry Potter books, but I do seem to remember a chapter like that

[stewartsage]

I grant that 1984 is a superb work of literature, but I simply don't like it as a book to actually read.  There are moments that I really want to like it (when Julia and Winston are arrested, any of O'Brien and Winston's interactions, the last chapter {not sarcastic, broken Winston sitting in the cafe and that ending line!}) and as a historian I love the whole theme on the ease with which the government can manipulate the news/information/truth.  In the end though it was just painful, implausible, preachy, and overly hyped.

[Pitkin]

Okay. I wanted to hear the reasons for your opinion as - while I actually agree with what you say about it being preachy and hyped - I liked it a lot myself and hadn't heard anyone call it a bad book before you. Cannot really call it the best of reads myself either, and I don't think I'll be reading it again anywhere in the near future.

[stewartsage]

No one believes me when I say it; especially from people in my English class who conversely hated reading Heart of Darkness while I loved it.

[Chocofreak13]

i think i might upgrade my hatred of Anthem to a hatred of Ayn Rand's books in general; i've heard that the fountianhead is just as pretentious, uncomfortable, and fake as Anthem. :\

[Nichi]

@stew: That sounds about like my opinion on Watchmen; it was good, but it was very overhyped.

[stewartsage]

Ayn Rand is ridiculously pointless if you don't subscribe to her theories.

Pentium: I couldn't make it through Watchman.  Or any comic by Alan Moore or Frank Miller; I want to be entertained damnit!