Books

[Brent]

Originally Posted by raiderz4life

I'm an english major as well and I enjoy Shakespeare's plays..Macbeth and Julius Caesar being 2 of my faves...just hate having to go through em in every class. Like I said, to me they're plays and should be treated as such not books. Idk why but I have a huge bias against Shakespeare in my english classes, maybe it because it seems a few of my teachers and professors have tried to shove it down my throat and I hate that.

Julius Caesar? Really? God that is seriously the most boring ******* play. I get it, "beware the ides of march", "Et tu, Brute?", and "Brutus is an honorable man", but my god that's a boring one with a bunch of ******* blabbering on and on.


Give me The Tempest, King Lear, Much Ado, and Midsummer Night's, Coriolanus, Comedy of Errors, Merchant of Venice, Taming of the Shrew, 12th Night, Winter's Tale, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Titus Andronicus, and Henry the 5th, before I ever have to read Caesar.

[vidae]

A Midsummer Night's Dream = greatest.
Macbeth / Othello / Taming of the Shrew / Much Ado About Nothing = great.
Rest = meh.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by vidae

A Midsummer Night's Dream = greatest.
Macbeth / Othello / Taming of the Shrew / Much Ado About Nothing = great.
Rest = meh.

[Raiderz4Life]

The one I absolutely hate is Romeo and Juliet. That one really chaps my ass.

[Nalej]

Read Midsummer night's Dream in high school... surprisingly, I loved it

[Raiderz4Life]

I read it too...or was supposed to anyways...can't say I remember much.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Just started Infinite Jest. This book is ******* huge.

[Rob S]

Originally Posted by Dr. Gonzo

Just started Infinite Jest. This book is ******* huge.

but ******* awesome. Very few books that large are difficult to put down, Infinite Jest absolutely is.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Originally Posted by Rob S

but ******* awesome. Very few books that large are difficult to put down, Infinite Jest absolutely is.

That is why I picked it up. Heard nothing but great things and it sounds fascinating. Also picked up Brief Interviews With Hideous Men and Beat the Reaper. Gotta start reading more again.

[Jvig43]

I haven't read infinite jest but have heard wonderful things about it. We started our existentialism class with a long reading from one of Wallace's books and it was interesting to say the least. Reading about his suicide is also pretty depressing. The fact that he thought he could control emotions somewhat and find happiness even in sadness was a flawed logic that would lead most people down the same road with that line of reasoning.

[jojo]

Originally Posted by raiderz4life

The one I absolutely hate is Romeo and Juliet. That one really chaps my ass.

Actually many say that's his best.... probably b/c it was the 1st. Loved Mercutio's dying speech (I repeat it to myself every election yr ) :

"A pox on both your houses! You've made worm's meat of me!"

B/C my Shakespeare prof got busted for drugs many decades ago (heavy rap in Texas) when I was an English major, I took Shakespeare at Long Beach St. -- the designated dirty back alley campus of the Cal St. system when I lived in Orange Co. )Actually Chico St. is the party school ...............)

Anyway I really loved the bigtime tragedies like MacBeth ("Double, bubble, toil & trouble"), Hamlet, R&J, etc. that end the last act with the curtain coming down on a stage full of dead people.

The whole class saw Ian McKellan's Richard III at UCLA, very creepy, set in a hypothetical fascist England in the 1930s, great stuff!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114279/

King Lear was surprisingly scary & also very creepy, like a horror movie, Act I is all about the concept of zero & nothing.

I recommend seeing the film Anonymous is you like his biog & wonder about his life & times, I saw it & was blown away, thought it was Pic of the Yr. material, unfortunately no one else saw it though.

[iowatreat54]

Originally Posted by vidae

On book 3 of The Hunger Games atm and I'm enjoying it. The first was really good and the second was pretty good.

Just my opinion, but Mockingjay sucked. The books go from best to worst 1, 2, 3. I feel like Collins just wanted to stop writing and end the story, so she just started writing in stuff that makes little sense and just makes things abruptly happen.

[Damix]

Originally Posted by iowatreat54

Just my opinion, but Mockingjay sucked. The books go from best to worst 1, 2, 3. I feel like Collins just wanted to stop writing and end the story, so she just started writing in stuff that makes little sense and just makes things abruptly happen.

I agree with you, I thought the 3rd book was terrible.

[vidae]

I didn't think the third book was terrible, but the way she decided to "wrap up" a few of the storylines really pissed me off.

Killing Prim really rustled my jimmies.

[iowatreat54]

Originally Posted by vidae

I didn't think the third book was terrible, but the way she decided to "wrap up" a few of the storylines really pissed me off.

Killing Prim really rustled my jimmies.

I guess it was just a huge let down to me after the first two. I was expecting some things to happen that I didn't want to happen, but just the whole way things happened and what happened just made me go, "Um, ok then..."

Agreed on Prim, and while I kind of get how it made it "necessary" to the point where she ends up killing Coin once she realizes it would just be Snow and the Capital all over again, still lame.

Also, while I completely expected Finnick to die, the way she did it was just terrible. It's out of no where, and everyone's just like "Oh, Finnick died, let's move on," when he was one of the biggest influences/supporters/closest confidants of Katniss.

Idk, just so much about the last book ruined parts of the series as a whole for me. While it wasn't the best or most well written series, it was entertaining. But the last book and ending was just kind of a let down and somewhat depressing.

[fenikz]

Reading The Road, not really my favorite writing style but only 90 pages

[Brent]

I love Cormac McCarthy!

[iowatreat54]

Originally Posted by fenikz

Reading The Road, not really my favorite writing style but only 90 pages

I'v wanted to read that for a while now, just based on the topic, but wasn't sure about the style. What is it like?

[Vox Populi]

I haven't read much this year, but I did re-reads of Utopia, Brave New World and Animal Farm in January and re-read Slaughterhouse Five a few weeks ago. SH5 is probably my favourite book of all time.

[diabsoule]

SH5 is on my list of books to read. I picked up Fahrenheit 451 last night and started reading it.

[SuperMcGee]

The Road is pretty good, not great. I liked it. There is much better McCarthy, though.

Slaughterhouse V is just the tits.

I'm engrossed with labor history literature at the moment, so I've only been working in some graphic novels for the past month or so. Brian Vaughn, mostly, and some Batman. The usual light stuff.

[Babylon]

Started reading a series of books by Matt Hilton. His character is an ex-military tough guy named Joe Hunter. Him and his sidekick Rink seem to get themselves into major fixes without really trying. I wouldnt put this guy in the same league as Lee Child's Jack Reacher but he is none the less entertaining. The Jack Reacher series (around 15 books by now) is second to none in that detective/problem solver genre.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Read this over the course of three days during work. Infinite Jest required more of my attention I figured so I held off. I have to say I was kind of blown away by how good Super Sad True Love Story was. Really entertaining novel, thought provoking, and all around just a pretty great book.



Never read this one before and just started. Loving the hell out of it so far. Vonnegut is the man.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Loved Cat's Cradle so much that I decided to read The Sirens of Titan. ******* incredible novel. I mean really incredible.

[Matthew Jones]

Since the current discussion is trending towards dystopian novels, has anyone read 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami? I just started it today and read about a fifth of it already (it's 928 pages long.)