Can anyone recommend to me any good books?

[DDMAN26]

I'm going to Mexico next week to chill out with family and friends. Since 80% of the time I'll be either by the pool or the beach I'm going to need something to read. Now I've read The Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit and the Harry Potter series many times over. But is there anything new in the Fantasy genre that I should give a try? And I loved the movie Holes, is the book worth getting? I'm also into sports biographies. Or if anyone has anyother suggestions I'd appreciate it. Thanks for your input everyone.

[Luke]

Well, I remember a thread from long ago that asked for book recommendations for a vacation...here it is:
http://www.ultimatedisney.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=307

I don't really have anything new to add.

[Squirrel]

I'd recommend Watership Down. It's an older book, but if you haven't read it ... and any of the Redwall novels. They're all fantasy, with animals as the main characters ...

[Tangela]

When people come to me asking for suggestions on good books, I always lead them to classic novels instead of modern writing.

If you are looking for good, not too scary suspense books, I would look for books by John Bellairs, an awesome writer, who has written many suspense books in his lifetime but today, they have become underrated.

Here's his best novels:

The House with a Clock in its Walls
The Figure in the Shadows
The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring (The best of them, if you can't read them all, don't miss out on this one, the best one ever)
The Ghost in the Mirror (Didn't read this one, but I've heard it's really good. Also, although it is a sequel to the first three, it was started by John Bellairs, but completed by Brad Strickland.)
The Vengeance of the Witch-Finder (Also completed by Brad Strickland)
The Doom of the Haunted Opera (Also completed by Brad Strickland this is the one that can actually give you nightmares.)

Then there are the other more modern novels that I also enjoyed:

Number the Stars
Holes
Out of the Dust
To Kill a Mockingbird

And the classic literary novels:

Oliver Twist
Heidi
The Dog of Flanders
Lucy of the Southern Rainbow
The Little Princess
Little Women
Little Men
Pollyanna
Remi, the Homeless Girl
Lassie
Daddy Long Legs

[Ludwig Von Drake]

The Black Cauldron and the rest of that series by Lyold ALexander and the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. Also I don't know whether you have read The Silmarilion by JRR Tolkien.

[Mushu2083]

Well the book "Holes" is better than the movie so I'd pick up the book. Try the book Artemis Fowl. I'm blanking on the name of the author though. ALso even though it's not fantasy, try The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot for a laugh.

[STASHONE]

Books I'm reading now...


- Said The Shotgun To The Head, Saul Williams
- Shakey: Neil Young's Biography, Jimmy Mcdonough
- Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: A Biography, Judith and Neil Morgan


Other good books...

- Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
- Catch 22; Joseph Heller
- The Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, Kim Deitch
- Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
- Survivor, Chuck Phallaniuck
- Broken Windows: Graffiti NYC, James and Karla Murray
- Dondi White: Style Master General, Andrew "Zephyr" Witten and Michael White
- The Holy, Daniel Quinn
- Cosmic Trigger Trilogy, Robert Anton Wilson
- Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut
- The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
- 1984, George Orwell
- The Vice Guide To Sex Drugs & Rock and Roll
- The Town & The City, Jack Kerouac
- Last Exit To Brookly / Requiem For A Dream, Hubert Selby
- I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
- The Fleischer Story, Leslie Cabarga
- Chuck Amuck: The Life & Times Of An Animated Cartoonist, Chuck Jones
- Walt Disney's Nine Old Men & The Art Of Animation, John Canemaker
- The Moose That Roared: The Story Of Jay Ward, A Flying Squirrel & A Talking Moose, Keith Scott
- The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown
- Tales From The Time Loop, David Icke
- Tenderness, Robert Cormier
- Anything by Henry Miller, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Susan Blackmore, Richard Dawkins, Hunter S. Thompson, Robert Anton Wilson, etc.

[pinkrenata]

Ever tried The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley? It's not light reading (about 900-some pages, I think), but it's an excellent re-telling of the Arthurian legends. If you've only seen the TBS mini-series, you need to get that out of your head and read the book!

[Kram Nebuer]

Why not try reading novels Disney films were based on like:

Mary Poppins
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Hunchback of Notre Dame
101 Dalmations (I think this was also the name of the book)
Danny, the Whistling Dog (Lady and the Tramp)
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Charles Perrault's History of Tales from Times Past

I can't think of any more, but I know the novel of Mary Poppins has a lot more than the movie. If you imagine the movie counterparts, it could be like watching Mary Poppins again with deleted scenes, hehe.

[jambo*rafiki]

Try the book Artemis Fowl. I'm blanking on the name of the author though.

Eoin Colfer. All his books are good - the two sequels to Artemis Fowl, Benny and Omar, Benny and Babe, and a few others that I can't remember right now. As Squirrel said, Watership Down and the Redwall series are both awesome, and then there's Tales from Watership Down which is the sequel to Watership Down, but I haven't read that.
I'm reading the Odyssey over my vacation. Should keep me occupied . . .

[wwwjim]

In the fantasy genre, I would recommend the novels of David Eddings -- the first book in a five-part series (pentalogy?) is Pawn of Prophecy.

[DDMAN26]

<<Also I don't know whether you have read The Silmarilion by JRR Tolkien.>>

I have once and it was a difficult book to get through

[DDMAN26]

I was referring to the post about me reading the Similarrion

[2099net]

Tales From The Time Loop, David Icke

You're actually reading that? Is this before, during or after his completely knock-down crazy period?

Other than that, some interesting books STASHONE!

Ever tried The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley? It's not light reading (about 900-some pages, I think), but it's an excellent re-telling of the Arthurian legends. If you've only seen the TBS mini-series, you need to get that out of your head and read the book!

Or you could just read the original: Le Mort d'Arthur (don't worry, it's been translated into English)

http://www.archive.org/texts/texts-deta ... ionid=1313

[Matty-Mouse]

I'd going to reconmend the Redwall series. Okay so maybe after the first book they all followed a slight pattern but they're still great pages turners (expect for "Lord Brocktree" which was dull as).

[STASHONE]

Tales From The Time Loop, David Icke

You're actually reading that? Is this before, during or after his completely knock-down crazy period?

haha, his books actually make some sense... until he starts talking about reptiles and lizard people. :}

I think he once declared he was the second coming of Christ on a talk show.

I downloaded some interviews off Soulseek recently, the most recent one called "Revelations Of A Mother Goddess" where he interviews some woman who was supposedly mind-controlled for most of her life by Joseph Mengele ("The Angel Of Death" - a high ranking nazi officer from WW2). It was around the part where Icke asked her whether Prince Charles and the Queen looked similar after they had shape-shifted into lizard people and munched on a few foetuses that I started questioning the sanity of this dude.

If you water down his opinions though, you might be able to draw some intelligent thought from it, but at the end of the day the guy is a loon. Icke's the television evangelist for the paranoids... but it's always entertaining.

He actually does talk some sense at times. I was reading "Children Of The Matrix" and he had some incredibly good points about human psychology and the like, than he started harping on about how albino reptiles will kill us all. Most of his lectures just come directly from his books, he's a little too extreme.

Check out Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco or Manly P Hall for the real deal. Principia Discordia is a pretty absorbing read too, and Behold A Pale Horse... but that's a little bland.

[2099net]

Icke was actually a top ranking and very popular Sports reporter for BBC1 over here. He was on programmes watched by millions and millions of people!

It has been facinating to watch his decent into madness and now (apparently) he's okay (or almost okay). He has apologised for declaring himself the "son of God" and he does, in fact, laugh about it now.

Is he still on the Royal family being shapeshifting reptiles? I thought it was virtually sane now.

[Prince Adam]

If you want an amazing animal fantasy in the spirit of Watership Down, try "Fire Bringer" by David Clement-Davies. Also, his second novel "The Sight" is good, though not as strong as the former.

Plus, there is a companion novel to "Watership Down" that's about bears and is written by "Down's" author.

And right now I'm reading "To Kill a Mockingbird". I can barely keep my eyes open-it's so boring! This is without a doubt the worst book I've ever read, but I have to for English class.
If you want a good book on a child's view of racism, try Mildred D. Taylor's "Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry".

I've got a list of "essential books" that I've written that I'll post later.

As you can tell, I'm a big bookworm, and you really shouldn't have gotten me started on this topic.

[Son of the Morning]

Try 'The Dice Man' by Luke Rhinehart. It is possibly the most entertaining book I've ever read.

[Loomis]

Well, I always recommend Chuck Palahniuk.
Survivor is my favourite, but Fight Club; Diary and Lullaby are also good.

Dude Where's My Country - Michael Moore.
No Logo - Naomi Klein.

Divine Comedy - Dante (maybe not a holiday book)

Any of the Harry Potters...but I don't like them any more...

Requiem for a Dream - Selby (Stash and I seem to have similar tastes)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep; any short stories - Philip K Dick

The 5 books of the Belgariad (Pawn of Prophecy etc) - David Eddings

I'll post more when they come to me...