Favorite books or current reads?

Juliet

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The video game thread inspired me to make this one! I hope there are at least a few other book lovers on TAG :bookworm: I am reading/have read recently:

Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)
The Earthsea cycle (Ursula K Le Guin)
Killing Commendatore (Haruki Murakami)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

As for my favorite book, that would probably be The Once and Future King (T H White) but its super hard to choose!
 
I recently finished a Haruki Murakami binge - "Norwegian Wood", "Kafka on the Shore" and "South of the Border, West of the Sun".
"Norwegian Wood" was by far my favorite. It just clicked for me on a very personal level while the other two books just didn't.

It all started because Murakami came up in one of my Japanese lessons, and as I haven't heard of him at the time, I asked the teacher what books he's most famous for, and she said probably "Norwegian Wood" but that she didn't like it much because "it was kind of erotic". Well, that sure made me read it :) And yes, it was quite erotic, and very well done at that, but it's also so much more than that.
 
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is my favourite.
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson? Also stayed with me a while after i read it.
 
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I recently finished a Haruki Murakami binge - "Norwegian Wood", "Kafka on the Shore" and "South of the Border, West of the Sun".
"Norwegian Wood" was by far my favorite. It just clicked for me on a very personal level while the other two books just didn't.

It all started because Murakami came up in one of my Japanese lessons, and as I haven't heard of him at the time, I asked the teacher what books he's most famous for, and she said probably "Norwegian Wood" but that she didn't like it much because "it was kind of erotic". Well, that sure made me read it :) And yes, it was quite erotic, and very well done at that, but it's also so much more than that.

I love all of Murakami’s books but Norwegian wood was surprisingly my least favorite of them all and not necessarily because of how erotic it is. Really loved Kafka on the shore, 1Q84, Sputnik sweetheart and my all time favorite hardboiled wonderland and the end of the world.

currently reading Killing Commendatore
 
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle is probably my favorite by Murakami, followed closely by 1Q84 and Kafka by the Shore. I tried reading Norwegian Wood but just couldn't get "hooked" for some reason... I might try it out again soon though.

the wind up bird chronicle was really good too! I wonder if it might make a difference to re read some books over the years to see if our views have shifted. I did so with a book named Momo by Michael Ende and really enjoyed reading it. I didn’t so much when I was a teenager.
 
My favorite book is.. probably Samarkand or Leo Afrikanus by Amin Maalouf
Or “The Histories” by Herodotus
A book I’ve read at the end of last year was giving reference to “The Histories”, that was a pleasant surprise.
 
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Just finished New Earth by E.Tolle
Favorite book? Hard to choose. Maybe the Sea of Fertility tetralogy by Mishima .
 
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Hmmm.... so hard to choose just one. My tastes run all over the place. Some random grabs from my "keeper" bookshelf....

William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch (read it - you'll never believe it was written in 1959)
Philip K. DIck's The Man in the High Castle
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Aleister Crowley's Magick
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five
Robert Heinlein's TIme Enough for Love
Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince
Bram Stoker's Lair of the White Worm
Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series
 
Mind you... if Dubliners is not on your list then... I dunno.
 
Hmmm.... so hard to choose just one. My tastes run all over the place. Some random grabs from my "keeper" bookshelf....

William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch (read it - you'll never believe it was written in 1959)
Philip K. DIck's The Man in the High Castle
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Aleister Crowley's Magick
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five
Robert Heinlein's TIme Enough for Love
Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince
Bram Stoker's Lair of the White Worm
Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series
Crowley? Hmmmm... just out of intellectual curiosity or for practical purposes? o_O
 
Crowley? Hmmmm... just out of intellectual curiosity or for practical purposes? o_O
Eclectic tastes. I also have a large collection of Calvin and Hobbes.
 
Mind you... if Dubliners is not on your list then... I dunno.
I've never actually read anything by Joyce... should probably rectify that at some point.
 
A recent read is “The Minervan Experiment”, a retro futuristic fiction written decades ago. (A gift by one of my clients who knew I am interested in “space stuff”) The plot is about a story that ensues after the discovery of an “ancient astronaut” found on the Moon hailing from an unrecorded advanced civilization that existed 50.000 years ago. The book is of encyclopedic thickness and takes a long time to finish reading, so the lockdown was a good time to grab it from my shelf.
 
One of my traditions is to read "Dracula" by Bram Stoker every October. It's one of my favorite books and I've been reading the same copy I've owned since I was 16. It even has words that I highlighted to look up in the dictionary later.

The most recent book I read was "The Jordan Rules" by Sam Smith that covers the season leading up to Michael Jordan's first championship in 1991. It was partially inspired by the mammoth "Last Dance" documentary on the Chicago Bulls. Felt appropriate to read it given the collective nostalgia trip basketball fans were on.
 
The most recent book I read was "The Jordan Rules" by Sam Smith that covers the season leading up to Michael Jordan's first championship in 1991. It was partially inspired by the mammoth "Last Dance" documentary on the Chicago Bulls. Felt appropriate to read it given the collective nostalgia trip basketball fans were on.

Ah, those were the days. Real competitors, not pussys like LeBron or KD;)
 
There are only a handful of books I've read in my life that I ended up reading them multiple times over the years. I would count my favorites as...

Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden

Hemingway: For Whom The Bell Tolls

Rand: The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged

I enjoyed others like Buck's "The Good Earth," and most anything from John Irving's good years always had a cathartic effect. I of course enjoyed everything from Mario Puzo's "The Godfather" trilogy. I immensely enjoyed "The Count of Monte Cristo," but only the properly translated version and I can't seem to find that on Kindle. Otherwise, novels from the past twenty years have just sucked donkey balls and I end up reading the same books over and over again after a five or ten year waiting period. I've got Steinbeck uploaded to my Kindle for whenever I'm allowed to fly into NRT again.
 
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One of my traditions is to read "Dracula" by Bram Stoker every October. It's one of my favorite books and I've been reading the same copy I've owned since I was 16. It even has words that I highlighted to look up in the dictionary later.
I’m a big fan of the 1992 movie as well, including Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves as main cast. I love gothic romance &horror.

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This was a go-to read during the critical stay-at-home/work-from-home phase in the first four months of this year.
I’ve got a modest kitchen and needed to get disciplined with my diet, so my focus was on soups.

On my favourite mushroom soup, which gets better overnight.
— “Drizzle a few tiny drops of truffle oil over the surface just before serving. Why the hell not? Everybody else is doing it.”

On soupe au vin, which absolutely needs a good red Bordeaux wine.
— “Don’t substitute cheap cut-rate wine; it will taste like cheap cut-rate soup.”

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Guys, if you haven't read Remains of the Day you are dead to me. Also, A History of Love. Also also Peace, Print and Protestantism. Also, obviously Watchmen and V for Vendetta.
 
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I've never actually read anything by Joyce... should probably rectify that at some point.

Honestly, for all that he is obviously one of the greatest non living irishmen, Dubliners is the only thing of his worth reading.