Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

I see you've read some Palahniuk works.If you haven't already read it,there's Pygmy,came out around May...
Another personal favorite I recommend is How To Survive a Horror Movie by Seth Grahame Smith which is comedy,similar to the Zombie Survival Guide.

I've been trying to get through Pygmy but the syntax is REALLLLLY throwing me off.
I have not read the others but they sound quite interesting, so yes, I'll definitely add them! Thanks so much!

I recommend the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz. Most of his books are really good. The Dark Tower series by Stephen King is also very good, and The Stand by Stephen King.

I WILL be reading those. I love Koontz. I love his style, his twists and pretty much everything about his writing!

These are the best of everything I've read, in a general order of most recommended (all are worth reading though, and more than once in a few cases). Quite a few of these are all-nighters, so be careful. smile

1. The Descent by Jeff Long - Probably my all-time favorite book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. heart

2. The Last Hot Time by John M. Ford - Fantasy, set in modern times. Highly captivating read.

3. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson - I believe there are nine books in this series. Heavy, but amazing reads. Great for increasing vocabulary -- keep a dictionary close by.

4. Iron Dawn (Sequel: Jericho Moon) by Matthew Woodring Stover - Historic fantasy. Very good, and higly enjoyable. Not too heavy.

5. The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - Hard Scifi. Absolutely amazing. Great details, believable, and well thought out.

6. The Swordswoman by Jessica Amanda Salmonson - Fantasy. I've read this one at least five times.

7. The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold - Very long series, but well worth it. Scifi, awesome characters, detailed plot. Great author overall.

8. The War Against the Chtorr (Series; currently unfinished) by David Gerrold - Scifi. One of my fave series of all time, but it is unfinished and cliffhanger-ish.

9. Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield - About the Spartans (but better than 300). Amazing story, and very moving too.

10. The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton - Scifi. Kind of slow at the beginning of Pandora's Star, but kicks up to a maddening level of tension towards the end. Judas Unchained is a wonderful sequel.

11. Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks - Some of the best imagery you'll see in Scifi. Wonderful book.

12. The Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman - Fantasy, and although not as well written as some of the others, highly enjoyable and a good read.

I hope you check some of these out, and enjoy them too. Good luck! biggrin

I'd like to recommend The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist, The Original Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks and also the prequel to the trilogy, The First King of Shannara and also The Heritage of Shannara which is set hundreds of years after the first trilogy.

Corporate - WOW! What a list! Thank you so much for taking the time out to list and explain those. It seems like you have definitely honed in on the types of books I like to read! I will certainly take a look at them! Thanks so much!

Lyon - Thanks! I'll check 'em out!

Have you read anything by Neil Gaiman? He wrote Coraline, American Gods, Good Omens (with Terry Prachet), and Stardust. He's a great author.

Try to read:
Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn all by Isaac Asimov.
The Martian Chronicles, and The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury.
The Acid House by Irvine Welsh

i would suggest Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer and the two books that come after it The Land of the Silver Apples and The Islands of the Blessed they are a twist on the rhyme Jack & Jill(went up the hill)

i say a good read is "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova.
It's a longer read with a few really slow chapters, but the overall story keeps you interested.

it is a vampire novel, but not the usual romantic novel that you'll find everyday on the shelves.
it delves more into the story of Vlad Tepes [dracula] so you have a better understanding of what he was like when he was alive,
but just as any nonfinction novel has lots of twists and turns along the way.

I loved the Tales of the Otori by Lian Hern. There are 5 books in the series.
1. Across the Nightingale Floor
2. Grass for his Pillow
3. Brilliance of the Moon
4. Heavens Net is Wide
5. The Harsh Cry of the Heron

The series started out as a trilogy, then she wrote Heavens Net is wide with the story set 14yrs after Brilliance of the Moon. The Harsh Cry of the Heron is set before Across the Nightingale floor. It's written to make the story seem to go in a circle. You can read it forever!~

It's all set in a fake Japanese Type Feudal era. It's really well written and beautiful. My favorite series (besides Harry potter)

Gonna be a movie in years to come. ^^

CS Lewis: Chronicles of Narnia, Christopher Rowley: A Sword for a Dragon/Bazil Broketail, Lemony Snicket: A series of Ufortunate events, Karen Hancock: The Light of Eidon, John Flanagan: Rangers Apprentice(Series-<3), Riordan/Miramax Books: Percy Jackson and the Olypians, David Gemmel: White Wolf(other books in series), Cornelia Funke: Inkheart/Inkspell, James Patterson: Maximum Ride(series), Joanne Bertin: The Last Dragonlord, Jennifer Roberson: The Novels of Tiger and Del, Stephanie Meyer: The Host, Garth Nix: The Seventh Tower, Midnight for Charlie Bone, Eragon, Harry Potter etc..

Some of my suggestions:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Suggestions:

All the Harry Potters
To Live Is To Die ( http://www.goldminemag.com/upload/contents/290/field_1742/ToLiveIsToDie.JPG )

Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

You probably haven't read these yet. His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman has great fantasy. Clive Barker's the Great and Secret Show is a book built on ********, I highly recommend it even though it's friggin' huge. I also highly recommend Garth Nix's Sabriel/Lirael/Abhorsen series. Kate Elliott's Spirit Gate is not your typical fantasy book, although I've yet to find/buy the rest in that collection.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett is excellent, but there's a lot of British humor, which is great, but a little more subtle. It features an angel and a demon who seek to thwart the Apocalypse, deciding that they aren't ready to lose everything they've grown accustomed to over six millennia.

Also, a very quick and easy book is Stone Fox, by John Reynolds Gardiner. It's less than 100 pages long, but a good story nonetheless, about a boy who enters a dogsled race to save his grandfather's farm.

Anything by Marcus Zusak is AMAZING and will blow your mind. :]
[edit] anything, as in any of his books. that's not a book title. XD

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
Playing by Melanie Abrams // has sexual themes, but it isn't raunchy
Rose Madder and Desperation by Stephen King, those are my favorite stand alone books he's done, my favorite series by King is The Dark Tower, but someone had already suggested those... The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain. I think that's about it for now...