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[foxe]

Did anyone else check out that 50 books LJ community when it was spotlighted a week or so back? The basic idea is to read 50 books in a year and post about your literary adventures - reviews, recommendations etc. When I initially read the premise, I thought "hmm, 50 books in a year? That's not much," and then thought "Wait, do I even read 50

Comments

[foxe]

Hmm, you have interesting tastes in literature! None of your recommendations here or in the poll are any that I've read, or (mostly) even heard of. I look forward to trying them!

[saralonde24]

I enjoyed 100 Years of Solitude too when I read it for the first time last year. Don't think I'll ever be able to read it in the original Spanish though, lol. I really want to re-read The Handmaid's Tale now, because I read it about 6 years ago and don't remember much about it.

I'm looking forward to doing a lot of reading on the train to work this year, as I won't be driving so much anymore. Yay, reading :-)

[pezzae]

Oops. Meant to start a new line, but accidentally submitted poll by pressing enter...
The sequels to 'Ender's Game' are also very good, though quite different. The series following Ender's friend Bean is very well-written sci-fi, but won't make you go 'oooh...' like 'Children of the Mind'.
Other 'best ever' books:
'The Left Hand of Darkness' by Ursula Le Guin. Interesting thoughts about how people would relate if we didn't have two sexes. Also 'The Word for World is Forest' which is about colonialism and environmentalism and people.
'Sophie's World', can't remember the author but it's an exploration of philosophy in a novel.
'Green Monkey Dreams' by Isobelle Carmody - a collection of short stories, but linked. Brain-bending, in a good way!
And you already share my love for GGK, so I'll leave it there (knowing that I will get home and realise I forgot to tell you about some other fantastic book...)

[foxe]

Ooh yes, I've read the Ender series - still think the first was the "best" (in the sense of most original/creative, the others are very readable though) - and the first three of the Ender's Shadow series, the fourth hadn't come out when I was reading them and I got sick of waiting for it. Sophie's World I've also read and liked. We obviously have similar tastes in fiction :)

I've wanted to read "The Left Hand of Darkness" for a while, must get round to finding a copy... and I like Isobelle Carmody's other stuff, so that sounds like a good one too. Thanks!

[notalwaysweak]

Oh, Green Monkey Dreams is so good, but so surreal!

[tqd]

I should have put more info into the poll! I would have also added for the Read in 2006 And Enjoyed list:

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Jonathan Stroud
Any book by Anthony O'Neil

And if you haven't read Everything is Illuminated, I cannot recommend it enough.

[foxe]

Hmm, I saw the film of Everything Is Illuminated (I was on a plane from somewhere to somewhere else, can't remember where!) and it almost worked as a movie, but I could see that it would have been a much better book. Thanks for the recs!

[tqd]

It is an *insane* book. They really only took a portion of it for the movie.

I was thinking "but when are we going to get to Brod?" the entire movie, before I realised they'd had to cut the (unfilmable) backstory of the shetl. And that (unfilmable) bit was the best bit of the book. (Apart from Alex, who was the other Best Bit of the book.)

I do rather like the movie, but compared to the book, it's pretty weak.

[spinningtoofast]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez' autobiography 'Living to Tell the Tale' is also really good. I'd also like to add to my list, 'A Room with a View' by E.M. Forster & 'Heading South, Looking North' by Ariel Dorfman.