Does anybody around here read?

[MrMatthews]

Fiction is a complete waste of time, it deserves to burn in hell with the likes of Grey's Anatomy and "reality" TV. Any reading I do is non-fiction and mostly online.

I'm MrMatthews and I heartily disapprove of this message.

Except for the Grey's Anatomy part.

[Tanegashima]

I read a ton of non-fiction. I read gunsmithing manuals, schematics, reference materials and even more books on historical subjects I'm interested in.

If that was all I read, however, I think I'd put a bullet in my skull. Fiction can have some amazing writing, it is a cool feeling to be drawn into a story. There is no other medium for story telling that can be so descriptive, detailed and involving simply because so much has to be left up to you.

Also, do you mean all fiction or just book form fiction? Because you might get started burning your video game collection right now...as that is a form of fiction.

EDIT:

OH YEAH! I forgot to add, I'm big into studying the Thirty Years War and I stumbled across a novel a few years back.
The War Hound and the World's Pain by Michael Moorcock. I read the entire novel in an evening, it was the best 'historical fantasy' books I've ever read. It rocked! MM is most famous for his Elric series but I've never read any thing else of his.

I've heard a lot about Terry Goodkind, but most of it mixed.

[108 Stars]

Wow, thirty year war....an interesting era of history in Germany...at least if you did not have to live in that time.^^

[Phantar]

Yeah, regarding non-fiction, I kinda have a thing for books dealing with pirates... not pirate-fictions, though, just historic researches into pirates... this stuff fascinates me.

And checking my bookshelf, I notice that I have quite a large collection of philosophical and scientific books dealing with madness. And nope, I don't have a medical degree (I'm a M.A. of history and english Literature).

Aaand I forgot to mention another one of my all-time-favorite authors: Lewis Carrol! Man, I LOVE "Alice's adventures in wonderland".

[MrMatthews]

Aaand I forgot to mention another one of my all-time-favorite authors: Lewis Carrol! Man, I LOVE "Alice's adventures in wonderland".

Ewww!

[Phantar]

you can read it as a children's story, a weird acid trip, or a really creepy horror tale! I don't know many other stories that work like that.

[MrMatthews]

I actually read both of the Alice stories when I was younger and kind of enjoyed them.

But finding out who Alice actually was and how he wrote the stories took some of the magic out of it for me.

Roald Dahl, now - that guy's a genius!

[Smii]

That's sort of sad. Not on the same level as the horrors implied by 17days/snip comment, but still. It could be said that a high percentage of writers aren't the sort of people you'd want to spend too much time with, but you shouldn't necessarily let that affect your reading. Personally, I learned much too much about Mr Dodgson at uni, and I still like the Alice books.

I used to read far too much, now I don't read enough. Probably why I've avoided this thread 'til now. But anyway, here's a list of some things I like:

Watership Down - yes, me too I've liked this one ever since I was six or seven! I have Richard Adams' collection of stories that follows it as well; much less epic, but still good
The Odyssey - I read this at college, and enjoyed it so much thanks to an excellent lit/classics teacher, and a classful of similarly enthusiastic nerds While I've forgotten most of the details, flicking through it still makes me smile.
Only You Can Save Mankind (+ other Johnny books)
Bromeliad trilogy - I could never really get into the Discworld books, but enjoyed his "kids books", and Good Omens (by Pratchett & Neil Gaiman - another good author)

Other books I enjoy are by people like Tom Holt, Deric Longden (a Yorkshire writer), James Joyce (especially Finnegans Wake ), Spike Milligan, and... others.

Also

Has anyone ever read the Sonic the Hedgehog novel 'In the Forth Dimension'? That was awesome

Yes, and I quite enjoyed it. I had the others as well, but that was my favourite I also used to buy the Sonic adventure gamebooks, until Waterstones stopped stocking them. And that was ages before they became a horrible glob of HMV-possessed, Ottakars-eating scum!

[MrMatthews]

That's sort of sad. Not on the same level as the horrors implied by 17days/snip comment, but still. It could be said that a high percentage of writers aren't the sort of people you'd want to spend too much time with, but you shouldn't necessarily let that affect your reading. Personally, I learned much too much about Mr Dodgson at uni, and I still like the Alice books.
!

Hmm... I guess I am being a little closed-minded, but I wasn't exactly crazy about the books to begin with. It would be different if I were, I suppose

[InternalPrimate]

This is my (hopefully) last semester in college, and I took a Modern Fiction class to get rid of an elective. So I'll be reading seven so called "classics" over the next few months Here's the first:



I'm also reading Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. It's so so.

[Phantar]

I've just finished "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman and can highly recommend this book! It's clever, witty, at times very funny, and at times very, very dark!

Currently I'm reading "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" by Michael Chabon, and so far, I really like it! A fun crime novel in an alternate history setting.

[InternalPrimate]

I've just finished "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman and can highly recommend this book! It's clever, witty, at times very funny, and at times very, very dark!

Currently I'm reading "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" by Michael Chabon, and so far, I really like it! A fun crime novel in an alternate history setting.

I've read both of those! Check out Anansi Boys by Gaiman, it's kind of a follow up to American Gods.

And I don't know if you've read anything else by Michael Chabon, but The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is one of my favorite books of all time

[Phantar]

I've heard of Kavalier & Clay, and I'm seriously considering of checking it out soon

The same goes for Anansi Boys; though I've heard it doesn't quite keep up with American Gods.

Could take a while before I will get those, though, because I still got two or three books ahead of me (I went on a serious post-christmas book shopping spree )

[johnnyb]

I just recently finished the book "Not a good day to die; The untold story of operation Anaconda." by Sean Naylor. It took awhile to get into the action but once it did it was a great read!

[TheEdge]

In the process of reading Crossfire: The plot that killed Kennedy. Unfortunately I have been too lazy to really get into it.