What do you like to read?

my favorite writers are Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Umberto Eco.

Fantasy (any) and stuff on ancient civilisations. And comics, loads of those.

Usually fantasy and sci-fi.Stuff that I enjoy and think is a cut about the rest (off the top of my head):

JRR Tolkien. Have a collection of hundreds of Tolkien/Tolkien related books.
George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series
Tad Williams' Memory, Thorn, and Sorrow series
Ursula K. LeGuin's great.
Phillip K. Dick
Heinlein's juvenille books (he lost me with everying including and after Stranger in a Strange Land)
Guy Gavriel Kay
Roger Zelazny
Jack Vance
Gene Wolfe
Stephen Donaldson
Paul Park
Lucius Shepard
Orson Scott Card
Raymond Feist (lightweight but fun)
Eddings' Belgariad. Everything after those first 5 books, let's pretend it didn't happen ok?
Now, don't get me started with the ever popular Robert Jordan. First few books were great. Then right into the toilet he went.

hate to read, don't even know why I read the msg boards so much! hehe

alright if and when I do rarely read it usually is some grusome book something scarey

Jordan seems to recycle the same topics in every book. In that sense it's even flatter than Eddings. Luckily it's still entertaining, unlike Orson Scott Card. I almost fall asleep if I read his stuff. *yawn*

Memory, Sorrow & Thorn is very good. But my fave will probably always be Musashi by Yoshikawa

Crae is that a Japanese historical novel about a Samurai? It sounds vaguely familiar. I think I remember seeing an English translation in the book store a few years back.

As for Jordan, I got tired of reading about every side-character's minion's lackey's best friend's evil man servant's struggle with the some distant toady's underlings' warrior's inn keeper's wive's best-friend's prostitute's evil henchman.

Okay, but I read rather fast (60-100 pages/hour), so I skim over the excessive bits.

As for Musashi, it is indeed a historical novel. Deals with the story of Minamoto Musashi and his continuing fued with the Yoshioka school, the swordsman Kijiro and his aunt (or was it his mother in law?). 1300 or so pages, biggest book I ever read (that is: biggest single volume book).

Love Fantacy, and si-fi, but best book ever is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

SF, horror and fantasy mostly. Asimov, Tolkein, Heinlein, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, James Herbert, Frank Herbert, Robin Cook, Anne McCaffrey, etc.

For grins...Doonesbury, Calvin & Hobbes, For Better or Worse, Bloom County, Outland (Berkley, please come back), Foxtrot, Dilbert.

Yep Musashi is definitely the book then. I remember it was huge. It looked intriguing and intimidating.

For grins, Bloom Country is great. I just had to chuck my ancient Bill and Opus stuffed figures as they were looking mighty sad. Billy and the Boingers anyone? DeathTongue?

As for comics, SandMan, Ultimate Spider-Man, and J. Michael Strazinksi's Rising Stars.

The orginal Grisham's were good, but it is getting a bit repetitive so I've skipped the last 3 or 4. Mostly I read action adventure stuff like Ludlum, Clive Cussler, Stephen Coonts, Clancy. But, like my music taste, my library is quite varied with some SciFi and Fantasy, as well as several non-fiction books and interesting biographies.

Shelby Foote-"Civil War" (a fantastic history series)
James Burke-"Day the Universe Changed" (a fascinating book about how western civ/tech got to where it is today)
George Orwell "1984" "Animal Farm" (imo, two of the most important books about society ever written)



Tolkien (c'mon the man practically created the fantasy genre)
Heinlein
Asimov
Donaldson's early works (everything else he has done has been the same stories in different settings)
Steven Brust (I started reading him when I was young and as I grew up so did his main character)
Fiest
Larry Niven
Fred Saberhagen

I read mostly historical fiction and fantasy. My favourite authors include:

L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Chaz Brenchley, Anne Bishop, Mercedes Lackey, Katherine Kurtz, Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Sara Douglass, Terry Goodkind, George R.R. Martin, Jack Whyte, Bernard Cornwell, JRR Tolkien, Guy Gavrial Kay (he's Canadian! ), Pauline Gedge, David Eddings The Belgariad (as someone above said, forget everything that came after), Robert Jordan (except I'm going to have to start re-reading all the books, I'm totally lost), David Gemmell, Robin Hobb, and the list goes on and on...

My fiance introduced me recently to Asimov, and I quite enjoyed his books as well.

I love reading - I read on the bus on the way to and from work, and I read for at least half an hour every night before going to bed - it's how I unwind and get ready to sleep.

Oh, I forgot the comics:

Artesia, Age of Bronze, Knights of the Dinner Table (hilarious if you've ever role-played), Sojourn, Scion, Meridian, Queen & Country, The Red Star

I love SciFi............some of my favorite authors;

Peter F. Hamilton
Orson Scott Card
Jack Chaulker
W. Micheal Gear
Issac Asimov
Charles Sheffield
Aurthur C Clarke
Cordwainer Smith
Friedrick Pohl

Bob Heinlein
Larry Niven (until his publisher turned him into a "sequel machine")
King's Dark Tower series
Koontz
C. S. Lewis' fantasy and SF
Mark Twain
E.A. Poe

To name a few...

Robert Ludlum
Jeffrey Archer
Robert Jordan

Now I got a whole bunch of new stuff to read - just in time for camping season. Sun, a good book and a beer or 2, or maybe more

Asimov
Poul Anderson
Roger Zelany
Ursula K Leguin - (a pen name, iirc)
Frederick Pohl
and many others

I liked a few of Twians 'Tom Saywer/Huck Finn' books, but found his other works VERY bigotted.

I'm looking for a Sci-Fi book I read many years ago. I don't remember the title or the author. It was a post apocolyptic tale that centered on a man and his bear friend (the bear could talk - genetic mutations due to fallout). Does this sound familiar to anyone? I would really love to find it and re-read it.

Peff,

Was it Dave Wolverton's Golden Queen books?

The Golden Queen
Beyond the Gate
Lords of the Seventh Swarm

First one came out about '94.

/me does a little digging online....
Okay, here's more info on the 1st book. See if this rings a bell: http://www.xmission.com/~jeffress/reports/b/B199911.html

michael moorcock - i cannot stress this enough
h.p. lovecraft - again, the inspiration and master of king, ludlum, koontz, etc.
r.e. howard
tolkien
dostoyevski
anne rice
roger zelazny
fritz leiber - wow
neil gaiman
larry niven - did anybody used to play traveller?
terry pratchett
douglas adams
robert asprin - another major must-have
harry harrison - best sci fi series.. stainless steel rat.. awesome
asimov, ray bradbury
u.k. leguin - verry cool
philip jose farmer
p.k. dick
dickens
joseph campbell
frank miller, alan moore, kevin eastman

i got a big start on fantasy and horror authors by looking in the big 'suggested reading' appendix in the old d&d dungeon master's guide

hmmm.. twain biggoted.. an interesting debate i'm of the camp that feels he was trying to point up biggotry and prejudice, and set it up for examination and criticism..