The books and comics thread

Mink · Post by **Mink** » Sun Jan 24, 2010 20:07

Finally bought these with an Amazon gift card I got for Christmas.

I've been on somewhat of a David Foster Wallace kick after reading his Infinite Jest a few months ago and have been working my way down the pile. The top four are finished now, and I've just started Gravity's Rainbow (as I wanted to take a bit of a break before diving into DFW's short story collections). I highly recommend DFW's stuff, especially Infinite Jest, which is hilarious (actually, all of his stuff is pretty funny, including his more "serious" essays).

ckguy · Post by **ckguy** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 2:35

Godel, Escher, Bach is my favorite nonfiction book ever, and it's by quite a bit. That book has changed how I think about stuff in so many ways.

Mink · Post by **Mink** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 2:48

CK Guy wrote:Godel, Escher, Bach is my favorite nonfiction book ever, and it's by quite a bit. That book has changed how I think about stuff in so many ways.

Now I'm looking forward to reading it even more. Maybe I'll have to postpone Gravity's Rainbow (I'm only on like page 15 anyway) given the amount of awesome stuff I've heard about GEB.

Post by **KeenRush** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 11:32

Same here -- I've been to read it for ages but I always forget all about it and end up ordering something else.

Maybe next time...

Hm, this Wallace seems quite interesting too... And his suicide (perhaps) adds an interesting level to his work.

ckguy · Post by **ckguy** » Fri Feb 12, 2010 21:38

The guy next to me on the train yesterday was reading Godel, Escher, Bach. So awesome to see other people reading it.

ZidaneA · Post by **ZidaneA** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 22:18

Right now I'm reading Promises Broken. (The end of The 4400 series :<)

When I'm done, I'll start reading Dune!

Mink · Post by **Mink** » Fri Apr 02, 2010 21:39

Well, I finally finished GEB a few days ago. So so mindbogglingly awesome, definitely worth a read if you haven't checked it out yet.

So now I'm a little over halfway through Girl with Curious Hair. The short stories in it are pretty good, but nowhere near the level of awesomeness that DFW's novels and essays have.

Edit: And I recently picked up a few more books: Catch-22, War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, The Catcher in the Rye, and A Brief History of Nearly Everything. I REALLY need to stop getting more before I've finished my current pile.

Day of the edits: How the hell was I under the impression that it's A Brief History of Time. It's actually A Short History of Time. Meh, doesn't really change how much I'm looking forward to reading it, though.

Mink · Post by **Mink** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 2:27

So apparently I can't go anywhere near a bookstore without getting something, even if I've already got a pile sitting on my shelf unread.

So yeah, bought Pynchon's Mason and Dixon today, looking forward to it for when I can get to reading it.

Snortimer · Post by **Snortimer** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 9:48

From what people have mentioned so far, I've only read:
"Bone" (fantastic)
Discworld books (mostly great. My favourites are "Thief of Time", "Jingo" and maybe "Unseen Academicals")

Comic series:
Garfield (eh... the art style is great, let's leave it there)
Calvin and Hobbes (I didn't like it much at the time... though there are some brilliant ones among them)
Gary Larson's "The Far Side" (love it)

I follow a lot of webcomics, mostly through isitfunnytoday.com. Full list over here (sorry, I'm too lazy to change all the HTML to BBCode).

Two of my favourite webcomics are The Abominable Charles Christopher and Cat and Girl.

VikingBoyBilly, here's an awesome H.P.Lovecraft comic I stumbled across. Too bad it's been "put on hold"...
http://mockman.com/?p=7

Lately, I've also become a fan of the Xanth fantasy series. It's not high literature, but... it's fun, and I like the way the writer thinks. "Currant Events" is my favourite one so far (despite the unpromising title and cover).

I already own too many books, so I get most of them from the library now and only buy a book if I really like it and know that I'll be re-reading it.

Post by **Levellass** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 11:38

I just finished Gulliver's Travels, got it and 20 other books from a school fundraiser (Most of them are kid's books of course, but you can't turn down a classic.) it has some very interesting language and moral ideas.

I too am a fan of Larson and Watterson, as well as Pratchett.

Mink · Post by **Mink** » Mon Apr 19, 2010 3:47

Woo, finished up GWCH a couple days ago. Most of the short stories aren't as awesome as DFW's novels/essays, BUT it's worth checking out solely for three stories (Here and There, My Appearance, and Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way). WtCoETiW is definitely the gem of that collection, and thanks to numerous allusions in it I picked up John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse short story collection yesterday which seems...trippy, to say the least.

And I also finished Catcher in the Rye, and am nearly done with Catch-22. Oh, and Gravity's Rainbow is about a third of the way. Still chugging along on that.

Sigh, I really do need to read more often.

Post by **KeenRush** » Tue May 04, 2010 22:35

I'm reading The Angel And The Perverts (Lucie Delarue-Madrus) and The Pyramid (William Golding). The former is better. It's about a hermaphrodite in 1920s Paris.

VikingBoyBilly · Post by **VikingBoyBilly** » Wed May 05, 2010 2:44

I finished reading Ender's Game a month ago, and I just finished the final installment of The Softwire just now. Ender's game is a real Commander Keen story. A kid genius gets sent to space for military training to fight an alien race. He has an evil brother back on Earth just as smart as him who plots his own world domination schemes, a perfect Mortimer McMire

I found out this spawned a whole series of sequels, but when I finished the first one, it already feels complete. I somehow don't feel a sequel is necessary and from where it left off it would turn into a totally different story (which is better than repeating the same thing over again, I suppose).

The ending to The Softwire is way too sad, but also very epic. Alot like the feeling you get at the end of Mother 3, but it's massive spoilers so I can't tell you why I'm crying like a little girl

(as if any of you are actually going to read it... heck, who knows, maybe. I've learned not to underestimate the pckf).

I'm about to continue reading The Gripping Hand pretty soon. (Three sci-fis in a row, heheh)

Post by **Ceilick** » Thu May 06, 2010 23:06

Ender's Game rocks. I had tried to start the sequel, but had moved onto other things at the time, but I tend to agree: book 1 feels complete in and of itself. From what I recall, five of the books revolve around Ender and the later five revolve around his peer Bean.

VikingBoyBilly · Post by **VikingBoyBilly** » Fri May 07, 2010 0:25

I just got the ultimate hitchiker's guide (all books in one). Lol, I'm in for a lot of reading. It's time to finally find out who this creature is that's dumber than a dopefish