Your Taste in Literature

[mcgillcomposer]

Hey everyone,

I am curious to know, in a few select words, what your taste is in literature.

- Andrew

[ted]

Modern, preferably non-standard idiom, or at least with a very strong intellectual overtone. I like books where nothing much happens but I am given plenty to think about. Just as I don't like structure in music ,plot is unimportant to me in literature. I cannot handle big, complicated sagas with hundreds of characters or "blockbusters" with a lot of drama, romance, sex and fighting. These leave me cold after the first few chapters - if I ever get that far.

I like Joyce (obviously Finnegan's Wake) , Huxley, Virginia Woolf, some of Burgess, some of John Wyndham, all of Janet Frame, much of Eliot (poetry), J.B. Priestley, Guy de Maupassant, the ghost stories of M.R. James. Many more, but all in some sense lying within the above criteria.

[jas]

Historical and fantasy. When I read I like a bit of escapism. I'm currently making my way through Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, which is really good so far.

I hate chick lit with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

Jas

[term]

I like eco very much. Try Foucault's Pendulum @jas =)

[johnny-boy]

Favorite book - Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand).

Best, John

[rc]

Human nature, told through a story. I'm sure nearly all literature would fit with that, but it's what draws me into a story. From there realism is important, where unpredictability plays a part...

I used to read a lot of escapism fantasy, but haven't been into that for a long time. Seems like fluff to me now, I like to feel I've gained some insight from a book. The last fantasy book I've read was some Stephen King, and while his writing style is excellent his stories all become pretty bland, I had to force myself through to the end of the book and was glad to be done with it.

For the most part, I'm into the classics. You can generally know there's something good about a book if it's stood the test of time, whereas I'm highly suspicious when something new gets hyped to the heavens.

War and Peace would be my favorite novel, before reading that I never knew a book could be so good on so many levels. Unlike the King novels where I had to force myself through the end, most of my favorite books I had to force myself through the beginning... From there my interest gained momentum right to the end, I'll usually finish off the last couple hundred pages in a night because I'm that into the story.

[contrapunctus]

I am surprised you all don't like Goethe. heheh, jk.

My favorite is historical fiction, e.x. Herman Wouk.

I am actually addicted to Harry Potsmoker right now, which is actually very very complex if you dig deep into the text.

[mcgillcomposer]

Interesting replies so far   Are there any fans of Canadian literature here?

- Andrew

[kelly_kelly]

Favorite book - Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand).

Best, John

Great book- only 150 more pages to go!

[johnny-boy]

Great book- only 150 more pages to go!

Yes it is Kelly. Glad to see people still reading Ayn Rand. Check out her other writings, especially "The Fountainhead", "The Virtue of Selfishness, and "Anthem".

I read Atlas Shrugged three times - I just couldn't get enough of it.

Who is John Galt?

Best, John

[kelly_kelly]

Yes it is Kelly. Glad to see people still reading Ayn Rand. Check out her other writings, especially "The Fountainhead", "The Virtue of Selfishness, and "Anthem".

I read Atlas Shrugged three times - I just couldn't get enough of it.

Who is John Galt?

Best, John

I've read Amthem and The Fountainhead, but Atlas Shrugged far surpasses them (in my opinion).

[johnny-boy]

I've read Amthem and The Fountainhead, but Atlas Shrugged far surpasses them (in my opinion).

Yeah, Atlas Shrugged was definitely her masterpiece. I’ll have to read it again someday.

John

[thalbergmad]

Enid Blyton is my favourite.

[pianistimo]

is that a title or an author?  just curious.  wanted to check out the book and then i thought, maybe that's the author.

i like reading a wide variety of things - but the hard thing is deciding on which book to read.  if i go to the bookstore or the library - i'll have a stack of ten and read bits and pieces from all.  it's really not good.  like - i had this FANTASTIC autobiography of claudio arrau and i just read a few chapters.  now i wish i had read the whole thing.  then, i read a bit about mozart.  then piano concertos and so my mind mixed everything up.

also, i buy books and then don't read the whole thing.  i have several new books (one is 'sound thinking' by philp tacka) and need to re-read instead of glance at.  sound thinking is based upon the kodaly method but goes into it further.  it seems like a lot of good ideas for : a sense of hearing, a sense of rhythm, singing in tune, a sense of coordination, improvisation skills, part-work skills, music-reading and writing skills, a sense of form, and listening skills ideas.

[alwaystheangel]

Right now I'm Reading "Shake Hands With The Devil"  By Roméo Dallaire,  It's an incredibly powerful and disturbing book.  Roméo Dallaire was the head of the UN Mission for Rwanda (UNMIR)  I haven't finished it yet, but it is one of two books that has ever given me nightmares.  
The Poisonwood Bible also gave me nightmares, excellent book though.  I'm normally big into Hisotrical fiction or old books that are ficiton.  Jane Austen, for example, the pride & Prejsudice movie ruined it.  TheBBC version is so much better!  

[prometheus]

I can't imagine one could read a novel with more than one thousand pages based on a plot that is extremely silly and far too black and white while the function of the plot is to grind in a particular simplistic ideological view, over and over again.

I mean, even if her philosophical views had some worth from a literary point of view, which they do not according to most academics,  this is suicide. A novelist tell stories that kindle the imagination of the reader, not to put it down. A good novel answers questions; it does not answer them.

A book that tries to label irrational altruism ('the looters') as weak and the embodiment of evil and the rational self-interest as strong and the embodiment of goodness and forces this idea down on the reader with such 'violence' must be terrible to read it.

The idea that evil is a parasite of the good and that it can only exist when good allows this to happen is so absurd.

If you write a 1000 page novel in which all the intelligent and creative characters are 'author surrogates' and all characters that are not 'author surrogates' are stupid and creatively backrupt something is wrong with you.

If you call your 'philosophical theory' 'Objectivism' then this just radiates an Orwellian nature.

Narrowminded elitist arrogance sold as 'reason' and 'objectisivm'. If you can't accept that you can accept the plot.

[bertrand]

For you fellow Eco fans, if you haven't read "Island of the Day Before" I thoroughly recommend it.  I have just started reading Baudolino and am really enjoying it so far.

[jehangircama]

Oscar Wilde -Picture of Dorian Gray
Homer-Illiad and Odyssey
Dickens-Great Expectations
Brian Greene-The Elegant Universe
these come to mind immediately. currently begining (with trepidation) dostoyevsky stories.
Agatha Christie and P.G Wodehouse are great to read also!
btw has anyone here read Vikram Seth's An Equal Music? i just finished it. it was quite interesting.

[Floristan]

Living: Shirley Hazzard, Ian McEwan.
Dead: a huge list from Dafoe through Joyce.  My favorites are probably Thomas Mann, Fyodor Doestoevsky, Joseph Conrad, and George Eliot.  Serious stuff.... 

[jas]

Enid Blyton is my favourite.

Did you read the Magic Faraway Tree? I loved that! I wouldn't mind rereading it, actually. When I finish uni I'm never reading another intellectual book again. Kid's books are the way forward.

[rob47]

I like "weird fiction"

China Mieville, neil gaiman

[lilypiano]

Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre
Alice in Wonderland   SOooo good. 
Gone With the Wind (maybe not great lit, but i love it)
Edgar Allen Poe
fantasy- Tolkien, Harry Potter, Roald Dahl when I was  little
sci fi
Sherlock Holmes stories
oh, and Dracula         Love THat Book

i need to read more.
I think I've gotten less verbal since I started getting more into music.  I used to read so much more. I was a better writer too.   

[bertrand]

Has anybody else read "Against Nature" (called "a rebours" in the original French) by Huysmann?  One of the best books I've ever read, but I've only ever met one other person who has read it!

[elisianna]

I like classics... Like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray... etc.  (I've got way too many that I love!!  From Dostoyevsky to John Milton! XD

My favourite book ever is Dante's Divine Comedy.  It's really neat.

Recently I've been into history and poli sci  I honestly feel like a man (well.. not quite but...) I work in a bookstore and I haven't really ever seen a woman looking through the books about wwii... always older men... So I'm a little out of place in there... u.u (women love to hang out in the nearby biography section.)  Cultural and Women's studies are also interesting to read XD.  After reading fiction for so long I decided I needed some good old nonfiction in my life.

I regret to say that I've read two of Sophie Kinsella's books.  "Can you keep a secret?" was amusing, I enjoyed it because it was a very easy and relaxing read.  After reading Crime and Punishment it just let my brain turn to mush... but then I read "Confessions of a Shopaholic."  I hate the fact that I read that... worst thing I've ever read... u.u

[alwaystheangel]

I Couldn't get past the 2st chapter of confessions... augh.. I was afraid my brain would shrivel up and die from the dumbness.

[elisianna]

I'm shocked that mine didn't!  It was AWFUL... but I was very bored one day, with nothing to do because I was away from my piano (and the TV >.>; and read it.  I really really hated the main character... u.ui

[Waldszenen]

Classics. Goethe, Hugo, Dumas, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy... =)


Oh yes and anything written by Tolkien, too. I enjoy the Harry Potter novels as well.

[tompilk]

Terry Pratchett, Tolkien, Michael Chrichton are some of my favourites at the moment...

[keys]

Frederic Bastait's The Law
Jane Eyre
The Bronze Bow
The Turn of the Screw

I still have around 150 pages left in Atlas Shrugged. It is ever so long, but it's a really entertaining read.

[letters]

i like all sorts, im having a go at "doctor zhivago" at the moment but its pretty confusing and heavy going.... past two years or so have been mainly books ive had to read for exams etc. i really like george orwell eg animal farm, 1984, down and out in paris and london. i might look for more of his books to read over the summer when ive read the ones for my exams.

[Floristan]

Has anybody else read "Against Nature" (called "a rebours" in the original French) by Huysmann? One of the best books I've ever read, but I've only ever met one other person who has read it!

Yes, I've read it.  We read part of it in my college French class.  It's a great novel.

[alwaystheangel]

L'étranger by Albert Camus.  Creepiest book ever.

[steveie986]

The Crying of Lot 47, or is it 57?