Book Club

[Elysah]

I'm reading a brilliant book at the moment, so far it's proved to be of the "just-one-more-chapter-oh-bugger-it's-1am-and-I-need-to-get-up-soon" genre of books. Something I have found to be a bit of a rare breed of late, so I would love to know what other people have found too engrossing to put down too.

No Fifty Shades of Grey - or other similar trash - recommendations allowed

The book which has inspired this thread is, The Painted Man: The first book in a trilogy of The Demon Cycle. It's set in a world where demons rule the night, whilst the humans cower behind their wards waiting for the dawn with no means to fight them. I'm about 100 pages in, and the main protagonists are three children (although it's not a children's book)... The story follows their individual stories, and presumably their paths will cross at some point. I'm eager to find out. I find myself reading it every spare minute I have. For those frugal Brits out there, I got this book from Waterstones online for a bargain of £2.99 (didn't even know you could buy anything for £2.99 anymore, other than sweets ) with free delivery

Orcs I read awhile ago, and as the title suggests, it tells the story from "the bad guy's" point of view. I found myself feeling sympathetic towards our Horde brethren (not a WoW book tho!) and almost rolled an orc for a time. UNTIL I remembered they were pretty ugly and, well, green

Also, and to prove I am not one dimensional in my book genre choice, my favourite book of all time is Good Omens - a typical tongue in cheek effort from Terry Pratchett, but it's nicely tempered by Neil Gaiman's darker style. In short, it's an end-of-the-world-four-horsemen-of-the-apocolypse style book with plenty of humour

Other good, eclectic books

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Probably the teacher in me, but I found this fascinating. It follows the story of a severly autistic boy who sets out to find the "murderer" of his neighbour's dog. It's very simply written, but done very well. I found it gave a wonderful insight into how those on the autistic spectrum view the world and how they cope with situations the rest of us find mundane. I've probably not sold this very well... It is a story, and not a study!

For a good (girly) cry, Five People You Meet In Heaven. It's a beautiful book about the meaning of Life, and Death. It follows the story of Eddie, who after reaching Heaven, meets five people explain his life to him... Real tear jerker, but don't mistake it for chick lit. It's incisive and thoughtful.

They're my recommendations, what are yours?

[Nightmarish]

I think the kind of books most of our member read are the top shelf kind!! Lol

[Windavell]

excuse me, I think not. Got the internet for that, Im more a images than words guy

I'll post some books later as I need to look up the names since I got rid of all my books when I got kindle versions to save space (recycled, not binned!)

[Daelyn]

O.o a book club. Excellent idea! I currently use http://www.goodreads.com/ for keeping track of books that I have read or want to read. It has an iphone app so it's really handy. It also gives suggestions for books that you may like and I also pick up some good books by following authors I like and seeing that they read of recommend.

[Office]

i read a few books many moons ago, they were quite compelling The Avatar Series set during the Time of Troubles, a really good read... there was another accompanying series which covers the trials of Elminster whilst he intertwines with the Avatar books, but im damned if i can remember the names of the books so cannot find any reference to them, there is also a series called The Elminster Series which covers Elminster's life

[Daelyn]

The Hanging Shed is a good book. It's a gritty thriller and whilst not a particularly nice subject has a bit of pace to it.

My chic lit recommendation Is for Anybody Out There?. I cried my eyes out reading this and one of the few books that I read in a day as it was so engaging.

[Brethren]

Any book my David gemell. Especially with druss

[Bluejangles]

A great idea for a thread, it is always good to get suggestions from other people.

I will probably give El’s “The Painted Man” recommendation ago. It sounds like it is along the lines of Philip Pulman’s Dark Materials trilogy and they were a pretty good read. Northern Lights was the first.

I agree with El’s in that “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” was a wonderful book. Inspiring in a way. I read all the other books by the author (Mark Haddon), but a Curious night was by far the best one. I can only echo what she says and thoroughly recommend it.

I have to admit that I wasn’t so impressed by “Five People you meet in Heaven”. It wasn't a bad book or anything, I just found it a little lacking somewhere. I can’t even really put my finger on it, but perhaps my opinion shouldn’t put anyone off reading it.


Those two books bring two more to mind that I would like to recommend. The first is called Mister God this is Anna. Whether religious or not (and for the record I am not) I found this book simply charming. Probably in the same way as El’s liked “Five People”. It is by an author called Fynn and really is about the wisdom of children. It is almost more a book on the philosophy of life than anything else, and in many ways was life changing for me. (Really was it? Life changing? Well it made me talk to myself for starters). I admit I di dread it many years ago, and so perhaps if I re-read it now I wouldn’t be so gushing about it, but it is one of those books I think everyone should read and everyone could get something out of.

The other book I will recommend is one I have just finished is called Born on a Blue Day and is the autobiography of Daniel Tammet. Daniel is an autistic savant. A very high functioning one, but on the autism scale nevertheless. The fact that he is high functioning is great though as it means he actually gets to tell his story. There was a documentary about him, that if you google you pube and Daniel Tammet you will find. I find it absolutely engrossing. He has synaesthesia. This means he sees numbers as shapes and colours. So for example if you tell him your birthday he knows what colour that is, and as such will immediately tell you the day of the week you were born. He can also multiple long numbers together really quickly, simply by seeing the shapes of the two numbers – and seeing the shape between them if they are places side by side. He then can translate that shape back to a number, which is the answer. He also currently holds the record for memorising Pi. He recited Pi to 22514 decimal places! It took him over 5 hours to do. He is also pretty good at languages. He mentioned this in the documentary, and they challenged him to learn Icelandic in a week. He did. He was interviewed on Icelandic TV, In Icelandic and he looked pretty fluent to me. All these gifts though, but due to the Apsergers he finds it very difficult to interract socially with people. Maybe it is only me fascinated by the subject, but I find it a fasciinating read, and have now got his other two books (not read yet).

And talking about that gives me one more book (for now) to recommend. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I know the film is out now, but I would recommend reading the book first. I havent seen the film yet, but probably will. I am not sure they will do it justice though. If I told you it was about a boy shipwrecked on a lifeboat with a tiger I wouldn’t be doing it justice. It is far more than that. Very highly recommended.

My goodness I could go on recoomending books all day...

[Elysah]

Oooh, His Dark Materials... I really loved those books. Spent ages trying to work out when it was set and what my daemon would be I also thought for a children's series, it was pretty highbrow. Shame the film was so poor, even Daniel Craig couldn't rescue it

I whole heartedly agree re The Life of Pi. I read it a few years ago, and despite taking a few goes to get going with it, I persevered and really enjoyed it. I saw the film in a rare girls afternoon out the other weekend. Really good film, but the ending although the same as the novel was much more... explicit. The book left me with loads of questions. The film didn't, it was more of a this is how it is. That said tho, the cinema-tography is breathtaking, especially in 3D.

I very much like the look of the other two books you mentioned. As well as a love of all things sword & monster related, I do love "individual" books, ones that don't really fit into any sort of genre, like Life of Pi, Curious Incident, 5 People etc... When I am done with "The Painted Man" (and the next one!), I've got "The Name of the Wind" (more magicky adventuring) but then I'll take a nosey at Mister God, this is Anna. Thanks, Beej

[Florentia]

Was going to post here earlier in the week, but I had my slacking time outrageously snatched away from me for a few days at work!

I am quite bad for re-reading books, but I only do so because I love the stories so much I have been 'collecting' Stephen King books since I was about 13, and when I moved away I left them all behind and so starting buying them again, then when I got the Kindle I got them a third time I have always loved Horror and I went from reading a horror series that was written for teens (Point Horror collection, not bad really, for early teens) to picking up a copy of IT and I never looked back That was the first book that actually gave me the proper creeps while reading it in the dark by a small light! I remember totally having a panic when I heard the house creaky noises

Stephen King may be a kind of cliche recommendation as he is so well known, I don't know. But he is mah hero! My favourites are: The Stand (absolutely massive book at over 1,000 pages but it is amaaaazing), The Shining, IT, Misery... aargh ok I could just list them all to be honest. Misery will make you absolutely cringe at times, if you have seen the film then times what happens in that by a hundred Also I'd highly recommend reading the Shawshank Redemption if you are fan of the film - the short story is brilliant, as well as the other short stories in that book (Different Seasons is the book - it also has the story which became the film Stand By Me, another classic!)

Moving on from King, another one that I have more recently gotten into is Chuck Palahniuk. He is probably best known as the author of Fight Club, which I have read a few times and I enjoyed it enough to try his other books. The style of writing is generally the same throughout most of them - most of the characters are quite misanthropic I guess, and his style is probably not for everyone. I very much enjoyed Choke, a story about a sex addict and his struggles to look after/pay for the care of his mother who has dementia, while gaining an unhealthy obsession with her doctor. It sounds grim from that description, but it's not always. Some parts are hilarious. Survivor and Invisible Monsters are also good - the latter was quite bizarre in places and full of twists. Snuff is hilarious at times, but graphic - it is written from the perspective of 4 different male 'performers' on the set of a porn film. Their observations cracked me up, difficult to keep a straight face when reading it during my lunch break!

I am slowly branching out to other authors, have tried some Dean Koontz (bit hit and miss with his so far) and also read most of the True Blood series - it starts out good but mah gawd, does it ever get silly by about book 6! I kept on it with as I'd developed enough curiosity/empathy with some of the characters to want to see how things pan out, but some parts really grate on you after a while.

Thats it I guess! I re-read things a LOT, so while I am always reading something it's not always something new Really not a fan of 'chic lit' or anything soppy, very much like to stick with horror or at least gritty themes.

[Bluejangles]

I like Stephen King, his books are extremely readable. His characterisations are great and you just get so drawn into the people - possibly more so than the end of the story. The stand was one of my favourites, and I loved the journey as you say though it was a long book and I wasn't so interested in the conclusion just the story of the jorney. It is the people in his books though that I think make them particularly special.

Another author who is good with characters in the same way, making all his books enjoyable regardless of the story is Orson Scott Card. He writes a lot of science fiction, but there are also non science fiction there as well. The one I would recommend to start with is Seventh Son which is the first part of a trilogy, but can be read stand alone.

I also love Chuck Palahniuk and I thought I had read everythong he wrote until I saw the wiki link. So I will be ordering some of the later ones from Amazon. If you like Chuck then I would like to also recommend Toby Litt. Its been awhile since I read them now and I see hw has more books than I remember. The one I would recommend most is Deadkidsongs. Possibly it isn't everyones cup of tea though.

[Tendai]

Take a look at an writer called Laurell K Hamilton..... i cant put her books down

[Windavell]

writing style?

[Myrelle]

The book which has inspired this thread is, The Painted Man: The first book in a trilogy of The Demon Cycle. It's set in a world where demons rule the night, whilst the humans cower behind their wards waiting for the dawn with no means to fight them. I'm about 100 pages in, and the main protagonists are three children (although it's not a children's book)... The story follows their individual stories, and presumably their paths will cross at some point. I'm eager to find out. I find myself reading it every spare minute I have. For those frugal Brits out there, I got this book from Waterstones online for a bargain of £2.99 (didn't even know you could buy anything for £2.99 anymore, other than sweets ) with free delivery

I have read The Painted Man (or The Warded Man US title) and the sequel "The Desert Spear" and I agree it is realy good. The third part, "The Daylight War" will come out in hardcover in february.
It is not the a book with children as main characters even thou about half? the first book is about them growing up. The main part of the series will feature these 3 characters (and others) as adults.


And a recomendation of my own:
The Dreseden Files an urban fantasy series by Jim Butcher. Part one is called "Storm Front".
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Storm-Front-Dre ... 846&sr=8-1

[Elysah]

I have read The Painted Man (or The Warded Man US title) and the sequel "The Desert Spear" and I agree it is realy good. The third part, "The Daylight War" will come out in hardcover in february.
It is not the a book with children as main characters even thou about half? the first book is about them growing up. The main part of the series will feature these 3 characters (and others) as adults.

I think you just gave away a bit then. Granted its no surprise but the American's always need stuff shoving in their faces

But yes, the book does follow them grow up. Of course, I didn't know that when I wrote the original post as I'd not gotten too far

Will be ordering the sequel later. Fingers crossed for another £2.99 bargain

[Thamew]

Nice to see a book club on the forum.
I have read all the Harry Potters liked them all
I have read all 3 lord of the rings trilogy could i suggest The Silmarillion for you who like the lord of the rings
I'm currently reading Game of thrones i'm on book 5
Do you remember the film Eragon well the books are way better than the film and there are 4 of them by Christopher Paolini

WOW His dark materials are awesome read them loads of times

if you like Murder/serial killers try the Alex Karva books

and if you got a kindle give me a shout i have 2500 authors of books for that
including Hitler lol only his first book from 1933

[Tendai]

Wind Laurell K Hamilton is Fantasy/Horror id called it, Vamps Werewolves Faries Necromancers.... everything that goes bump in the night lots of sex too if that helps which also goes bump in the night lol

[Windavell]

no wonder you like it then!

[Tendai]

haha yea but honestly they are awesome books when im not in wow im reading them

[Nightmarish]

going to take Els recommendation of the Painted Man. Will be starting this on Monday