Favorite Books/ Books which you currently read

[ArkadiosV2]

.....

[Afraid]

the best book i have ever read is Mario's Puzo's Godfather, but i think most of you have already readed this book?!

Now im reading one book for school, its one of the best book written by lithuanian Vincas-Mykolaitis Putinas "in the shaddows of altar" (or sth like this, im not sure abt english title)

And when i will have time, im planing to read Axel's Munthe's The Story of San Michele. And i know i have somewhere the book abt soldier Svejk, but cant find it nowhere

[Levenspiel]

And when i will have time, im planing to read Axel's Munthe's The Story of San Michele. And i know i have somewhere the book abt soldier Svejk, but cant find it nowhere

I'm reading "the good soldier Svejk" currently, and I recommend it . it's published in English by Penguin collection (all 4 books combined into one, about 750 pages). You can find it through PenguinBooks website (I found it in Budapest airport).

[Afraid]

Godfather is a ticket to success. Book, film, music, you name it.

I never read a Lithuanian author work and i don't think there are many books in West Europe from this country. What is 'altar'? Rings a geography bell but...

i dont know a lot abt lithuanian authors books translated in english. the book that i told u abt in previous post is translated into many languages as i think in english too. the most widely read lithuanian author is Jurga Ivanauskaite. her books is translated into polish, latvian, garmanian(?), english, russian and other languages. sad, but she died this year due to a cancer.
Theres also one raelly good book from lithuanian author Antanas Škėma "the white shroud". This book is my favourite from lithuania (well, im not reading lithuanians books a lot)


Altar- the main place in the church, lords table.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

just finished reading James Patterson, Four blind mice (that's 8th book, failed to get 1st and 2nd of the series) and Game of thrones (don't remember the author... Martin or sth.)... a relaxing easy read, since I got tired of some Vietnam biography and thought I could change the perspective after Churchil's WW2 (both were even harder to read in english) and Slovenia 1945, which is kind of too cruel to bother... but fits in my interests scheme...
right now I'm getting a bit nervous since I've read all things I intended to way ahead of schedule, reducing my sleeping time instead and will now probably return to some books I left unfinished... probably "Il pendolo di Foucault" by Umberto Eco, or "book of essays" from Drago Jančar...
my weakness is I never go to the library, since everytime i'm in a book store i'm carrying loads of it back home... it's kind of fetish...

as for the college, yup the books are lying on the table opened... for the past 3 months...

[mvblair]

3. Let's try to stay away from history books (unless you are a history freak) to prevent arguing, fighting and setting this thread on fire.

I'm a history buff, so I'll probably have to mention a few.

My favorite 'recreational' book is of course 'Good Soldier Svejk' by Czech writer Jaroslav Hasek

This sounds like an interesting book. I'm normally not a fan of humor, but you make this book sound pretty good. I think I'll try to find it.

My favorite book? I've read a lot of books, but I'm having a terrible time thinking of a favorite. I'm sure I have one, but I can't think of it off-hand.

One that I've read several times is "Fire on the Plains," by a Japanese soldier after WWII. It's his memoir of Japan's disintegration. He mostly discusses his slow loss of humanity after losing contact with the military.

Perhaps "Earth Abides" is my favorite. I think the author's name is George Stewert. It's the one book he wrote that stuck. It's science fiction about the endurance of nature. The main character tours North America after some kind of apocalypse.

This week, I am reading "An Ordinary Man," by Paul Rusesabagina, the man on whom the movie "Hotel Rwanda" was based. The book is very well written (with a co-author). I'm surprised at some of the author's insights into people; he is a very intelligent man. But the book is pretty much what I expected. I've read a lot of books about Rwanda, and Rusesabagina's book is one of the most "tame" that I read. For some reason, I read a lot of books about the horrible parts of our people: Cambodia, North Korea, the Balkan Wars, and so forth. I don't know why.

One book that was very fun to read that a lot of people here might like is "Big Game, Small World," by Alexander Wolf. It's just a collection of various stories about basketball. There are chapters on James Naismith, Zalgiris, Philippines, Israel, and even a wonderful chapter about the King of Bhutan. It's fun to read, but not very informative.

Nuts, I'll just come out and say it: my favorite books are comics. I like the "Mafalda" collections and Ruis' "Supermachos" especially. But I absolutely adore collections of old "Pogo" comic strips by Walt Kelly. "The Jack Acid Society Black Book," which is a collection of Pogo's trials with communism and a pretty obvious critique of the US during the Cold War is my favorite. There I said it. I like comics.

[qiangdade]

I only really started reading books recently and i was particularily impressed by 2: The Trial by Franz Kafka and The Code Book by Simon Singh.

Currently reading The Castle by Kafka again.

[Levenspiel]

I'm currently reading the Nobel prize-winner physicist, Gerard't Hooft's "In Search of the Ultimate Building Blocks". It's quite good read if you're interested in quantum mechanics and subatomic physics.

As for my favorite books, there are many. But Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "The Road Back" are probably the first books by which I was truly impressed.

Adalet Ağaoğlu and Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar are my favorite Turkish writers.

[qiangdade]

I totally lost my mind when reading The Trial. It causes you the outmost panic and horror, i even started imagining myself in that situation, really strong book. Bureaucracy...

Which even makes your frustration bigger because nowhere in the book is the reason for which K was arrested in the first place.

As a Jewish he expresses the fear and insecurity of the Jewish people against the system, against the machine.


My eye caught 'Code' in your post before i read it, fortunately it was another 'code'

The Trial is sick. It also inspired some very nice movies imo like Brazil or The Game.

As for the code book, it is just the history of cryptography from ancient times till now combined with some nice history elements in it. No conspiracy theories whatsoever

[Billy]

I dont have a tv so I go through atleast two books a week on average.

This last week I read "Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed " by Jared Diamond after finishing his most excellent "Guns, Germs and Steel: The fates of Human Societies". I can strongly recommend both.

Right now I am going through "A world History of Architecture" by Moffet, Fazio and Woodhouse as it is part of my curricullum and I am supposed to make a presentation about it tomorrow (the Gothic architectures influence in France).

For anyone wanting an indepth look at architecture I can strongly recommend it as its exceptionally comprehensive.

On Monday and Tuesday I read "Palace", a book (in Swedish) about a hotel that I found interesting.

The week prior to that I read two books by Jan Guillou called "Tjuvarnas marknad" (The market of thieves) and the sequal "Fienden inom oss" (The enemy within), two books that deals with the absurdity of everydag life (in Swedish obviously).

I dont think it would be very interesting for anyone living outside of the Nordic countries but Guillou is probably the greatest writer of the same region in the last century and if you have a chance I can not strongly enough recommend reading his "Crusades Trilogy" about a knights life during the crusades.

Another one of my all time favourites is "Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred" by Carl-Johan Vallgren.

I can not stop myself from going back and read a few pages every now and then as both the story (about a mind reading midget in the German city states) and the language is simply...well, I struggle to find a better word than "delicious"!

I can also very much recommend "Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market" by Eric Schlosser. It is a fairly indepth look at different subcultures primarily in the USA and their different subeconomies.

More later!

[Juan Carlos Nadal]

Briefly (I am writting this while in the middle of an experiment ):

"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Exposes the weaknesses of religious arguments and makes a point for the undeserved respect that religion enjoys compared to other notions such as political beliefs. Also pinpoints the absurdity of putting religious labels to kids. A week after I read it Dawkins was in town to give a talk which I attended. Was pretty cool

"The book of general ignorance": A list of ~250 facts and factoids that we think we know but we are wrong about: e.g. what is the tallest mountain on earth, is there an animal called panther?, etc. Very easy read and quite entertaining.

"Sacred Origins of Profound Things": Describes the socioeconomic reasons that brought about the various traditions, beliefs and rules of the 3 Abrahamic (and not only) religions.

Waiting to read "Salt" which describes the history and impact on humanity of salt across the years.

[alermac]

My picks:

1) The Ground Beneath Her Feet (Salman Rushdie). It's a very twisted love story involving rock stars from India and earthquakes, based on a Greek myth. Very long but great.

2) Jack Frusciante Left The Band (Enrico Brizzi). Written in a really weird way, it represents late-teens that don't feel like ever doing anything.

3) Night Train (Martin Amis). A police investigation on the death of a supposedly happy woman, involving drug experiments and depression.

I also enjoy history and political books, but let's not go in there :P

[mvblair]

One book that was very fun to read that a lot of people here might like is "Big Game, Small World," by Alexander Wolf. It's just a collection of various stories about basketball. There are chapters on James Naismith, Zalgiris, Philippines, Israel, and even a wonderful chapter about the King of Bhutan. It's fun to read, but not very informative.

Can anybody recommend another basketball book that is not about professional players or coaching? I really enjoyed "Big Game, Small World." Is there anything similar to it?

[mktackabery]

Can anybody recommend another basketball book that is not about professional players or coaching? I really enjoyed "Big Game, Small World." Is there anything similar to it?

Michael Mandelbaum, The Meaning of Sports (2004, Public Affairs Press) - this is a book on how Americans view baseball, basketball and (American football), but the section on basketball is really excellent. It calls basketball a game of "systematic innovation;" I just love that definition. If you can find this book in a library or something, the chapters on basketball are a must-read.

I'm not sure how much anyone can read from the Google repository, but it's on Google Books here.

[mvblair]

Michael Mandelbaum, The Meaning of Sports (2004, Public Affairs Press) - this is a book on how Americans view baseball, basketball and (American football), but the section on basketball is really excellent. It calls basketball a game of "systematic innovation;" I just love that definition. If you can find this book in a library or something, the chapters on basketball are a must-read.

Thanks for the recommendation. I just ordered this from my metro library, so I'm going to read it this weekend. I'm not into the other sports, so I'll probably just read the intro and the basketball chapters.

[Levenspiel]

Currently reading;

"Catch-22", by Joseph Heller

It's hilarious at times. Coincidentally, the plot takes place among officers in an airbase just like where I myself am now. That I didn't know before buying the book.