Novels

[Muxel]

The current favorite is Terry Pratchett's DiscWorld series.

Hi Gimpy. ;)

I won't spoil the story though but it is in the same kind of setting (Victorian + Love story + Magic) as Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell which I really liked as well :)

And hi Tigersoap. Lol. I also read The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories in which Clarke stepped up the Faerie atmosphere...with a potent dose of feminine craft and, as always, the Raven King.

 

[Zadius Sky]

As far as novels go, I read tons of them in earlier years. I read a lot of Greek authors, then Jules Verne, Bronte sisters, Dickens, Hemingway, Toni Morrison, Tolstoy, Dumas, Tim Robins and Paulo Coelho, to name a few. I haven't read a novel in a while, but recently a friend gave me The Night Circus and told me "You NEED to read this", so I put it on my pile and am looking forward to it :)

I used to read all of English books by Paulo Coelho except for the recent one (Aleph) as well other major sci-fi books.

I've recently brought a lot of sci-fi/thriller books at the county book sales, so whenever I get a break from reading non-fiction books (I still get a lot of them on the pile), I'd grab one from the fiction piles. My bedroom is literally a library.

Added:

Recently, I finished reading Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum which took me three months to read. One needs a dictionary handy while reading this book.

;)

 

[Aiming]

Thanks for starting this topic, abeofarrell. It has come up for me recently as well. As others have said, it does feel heavy from time to time to only read non-fiction packed with tons of info. I usually love it and enjoy getting up to speed, and the idea of reading 'only a novel' seemed to me like wasting precious time. So thanks everyone for your perspectives on it, and for recommended titles. :)

What I did recently for a 'break' was to read two more books of John Keel, which have a novel quality to them; once I even 'read' a comic, which was actually both fun and surprising, as the plot of the story revolved around a hero fighting extraterrestrials who feed on our emotions, and even though there were flaws to the concept, I just wondered where the story writer got his ideas from. And I remember I really enjoyed reading Lessing's Shikasta years back.

 

[abeofarrell]

The issue I have is with the idea that we can learn about many kinds of people from reading novels, even learn about human nature. Novels are created in the mind of the author so we are really only learning about him and his world view. If an author is particularly observant then we may catch glimpses of humanity in the actions of other on which he bases his character's actions. The problem is that everything we see is distorted by our worldview. Take Ayn Rann's novel, Atlas Shrugged. Although her characters are certainly interesting they are representative of her personal philosophy, psychopathy. Hence I hesitate to accept that I can learn something from characters and situations in novels unless I know that the author has a high level of consciousness.

Any thoughts?

 

[Biomiast]

Hi to all,

I have recently read Hunger Games triology. I know some forumites enjoy the books, but as I read, I felt this shallowness of the characters, especially the main character and their inability to form deep thoughts, experience deep emotions. It is always like "I like this vs. I don't like this" and a good example of mechanical nature of the author. That particular book was an example of popular culture characters, and I guess it was useful to observe the society but do not add anything to my "real" part.

On the other hand, some of the novels I have read are so rich, both in terms of ideas and characters that you can literally feel that your perception of the world widens with each character. You can associate with a number of them and as their ideas clash with each other, you can understand that decisions or ideas are not so clear cut. The best example I have seen on these type of books is Ender's Saga by Orson Scott Card and first 3-4 books of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth Series.

Also Amin Maalouf's books are very rich in terms of characters and historical events, especially if you are interested in Middle Eastern and Persian history, I highly recommend Samarkand which is about Omar Khayyam's life and Balthasar's Odyssey which talks about a doomsday prophecy in 1666 and how people are taken in by it, Balthasar, a merchant, sets on an odyssey to find a book that contains the One Hundredth name of Allah.

My two cents, fwiw.

 

[loreta]

When I am depressed or stressed or bore, between serious essais, I like to read detective novels. I specially like British writers and I love in particular Mr. Colin Dexter with is rich language and his particular detective that has an extremely bad temper, is intelligent and alcoholic. He likes also women. :)

But I also like Swedish authors. I discovered a very interesting Swedish writer, ÅKE EDWARSON. His novel Death Angels is terrible. I mean, very scary. And so well written. Here is a link to information about him:


http://www.scandinaviancrimefiction.com/Ake_Edwardson.htm

I like to fall on writers that very few people know. I don't know why. And I am good at that. Maybe because I am very curious. And I don't really like writers that are famous, I don't mean classics, but famous today and forgotten tomorrow. I don't like fashion in books. That's why.

 

[RGG]

My family had an extremely rough Christmas this year and I found I just didn't have the attention span to get through the Iliad which I started after reading the Odyssey so I picked up a fiction book my mom had given me that had been sitting on my shelf for half of a year. I'm usually pretty leery of my mother's suggestions since she pours through the latest romance and science fiction novels, but she said this one was different. The Title is "A Discovery of witches" by Deborah Harkness who is a professor of history at the University of Southern California. The book centered around a missing alchemical manuscript from Oxford's Bodleian library referred to as Ashmole 782 and named after the man who donated the collection which is all fact an provides the base for the story. The main character is an alchemical researcher who has been stubbornly avoiding the old and distinguished lineage of witches she belongs to throughout her career only to have it creep back in. It was a great distraction in my opinion and I loved the history referenced all the way through and the author's exploration and spin on the meaning of the alchemical texts as well as the romance aspect of the book. So now I'm hooked as it is part of a trilogy with the next book out this summer.

happy reading!

 

[RGG]

Oops! I forgot to mention "Sophie's world" by Jostein Gaarder which is a mystery woven around a girls thirteenth birthday. It cleverly surveys all of the great Philosophical thinking schools within a great story. Even though the main character is thirteen, I would say that that would be the earliest age at which someone should read this book since it is so rich with info. I read it in my early thirties and loved it.

I'll definitely be putting Night Circus on my list!

 

[Buddy]

Fiction, non-fiction doesn't matter to me. What I read must be able to teach me something useful though. I'm currently reading The Chain of Chance by Stanislaw Lem because that long conversation with French computer scientists is intended to cover all the known pitfalls of inductive and deductive reasoning. The Quantum Brain by Jeffrey Satinover is just too awesome to even comment on right now. And Women's ways of knowing, by Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule because that's about as quantum as it gets with respect to describing some results of our sub-liminal computations, OSIT.

Also reading a few other books online and reviewing various other papers related to interests.

 

[Mrs.Tigersoap]

Take Ayn Rann's novel, Atlas Shrugged. Although her characters are certainly interesting they are representative of her personal philosophy, psychopathy. Hence I hesitate to accept that I can learn something from characters and situations in novels unless I know that the author has a high level of consciousness.

Any thoughts?

Well, it seems to me that if you saw that her characters are interesting but representative of her psychopathy, you did learn something! You saw throuh it. If you wait until you find a novel author with a high level of consciousness to read novels, you won't be reading any novels anymore. You can learn from the characters and the way the author tries to depict them and learn from that, whether the author is enlightened or not (for example, many crime/thriller/horror authors tend to try and make you like the psychopathic main character and that's something I don't appreciate so I don't read these. That and the fact that there is enough horror in the world as it is).

There are also just silly books where you don't learn much except that the author has nothing to say... You then learn that you should avoid that author and then there are books that are just plain funny and you don't learn much but you laughed a lot and that's a great benefit in itself. ;D I think it's OK to let one's hair down once in a while and read for one's pleasure, without worrying if you might get something valuable in return.

That's my take on it, at least.

 

[Alana]

I haven't read a novel in a while, but recently a friend gave me The Night Circus and told me "You NEED to read this", so put it on my pile and am looking forward to it :)

I recently read The Night Circus and I really liked it !
I won't spoil the story though but it is in the same kind of setting (Victorian + Love story + Magic) as Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell which I really liked as well :)

I really liked it too :) It was a very easy reading, intriguing story and the most beautiful images to dissociate in I had no idea what it would be about, so I was surprised with every turn of page, and with the writer's imagination. If it ever becomes a movie, it will be one of the biggest challenges Some parts of the story left me wanting a bit more explanation and background, though

This quote by Celia also spoke to me:

You are not destined or chosen, I wish I could tell you that you were if that would make it easier, but it's not true. You are in the right place at the right time, and you care enough to do what needs to be done. Sometimes that's enough.

I guess I'll like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell then too!

 

[Tigersoap]

I guess I'll like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell then too!

It's still very different from the Night Circus even if their share similarities because I think it is destined for a more mature audience in the way it is written and there is a lot more going on imho.
Hope you'll enjoy it !

 

[hiker]

After reading a lot of non-fiction, I also seem to develop "a need" to read something lighter. A good fictional book then really feels like a fresh breath of air, like Mrs. Tigersoap mentioned.

Well, I may be wrong, but I've always thought that there are things you can learn from novels that you can't easily learn from non-fiction (and vice-versa). To be able to follow a group of characters, their development, their interactions, the words they say and the ones they don't, the choices they make, all tell me something about human nature. I can read about defense mechanisms, personality disorders, neuroses, etc. till the cows come home, but until I see it or read it (whether that be in life, a movie, or a novel), I can't say it really makes sense to me.

That said, I think there are a lot of dangers with fiction in general. It's a form of propaganda, we see what the author wants us to see, and that may be influenced by his or her own biases and lack of knowledge. They may have an agenda, for example, to humanize someone who isn't human, to promote one psychological theory or another, or create characters that seem real but perhaps have no relation to any real person. So it pays to be critical.

That is great reflecting AI, thank you.

Some good recommendations for potential books here, and also on the Positive Dissociaton thread.

I haven't seen them mentioned much, so I thought of bringing up Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea -books. She has a very readable and lovely way of writing, minimalistic but still "deep". And there certainly is depth in the stories and characters.

There's five novels and one collection of short stories with the Earthsea books. The first three were written in the late sixties and early seventies, the fourth book 1990.

Down the road I had read the first four quite a few times, when I found out the short story -collection and the fifth novel being published in 2001. I was very impressed and amazed how well and gracefully Le Guin rounded up things with the last book, as I had thought the fourth book was the last and there were no loose ends. I was quite wrong.


Edit: Typo as requested

 

[dreamer]

Diana Wynne Jones

Howl's Moving Castle

Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl's castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there's far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.

Castle in the Air

In which a humble young carpet merchant wins, then loses, the princess of his dreams

Far to the south of the land of Ingary, in the Sultanates of Rashpuht, there lived in the city of Zanzib a young and not very prosperous carpet dealer named Abdullah who loved to spend his time daydreaming. He was content with his life and his daydreams until, one day, a stranger sold him a magic carpet.

That very night, the carpet flew him to an enchanted garden. There, he met and fell in love with the beauteous princess Flower-in-the-Night, only to have her snatched away, right under his very nose, by a wicked djinn. With only his magic carpet and his wits to help him, Abdullah sets off to rescue his princess....

House of Many Ways

Charmain Baker is in over her head. Looking after Great-Uncle William's tiny cottage while he's ill should have been easy. But Great-Uncle William is better known as the Royal Wizard Norland, and his house bends space and time. Its single door leads to any number of places—the bedrooms, the kitchen, the caves under the mountains, the past, and the Royal Mansion, to name just a few.

By opening that door, Charmain has become responsible for not only the house, but for an extremely magical stray dog, a muddled young apprentice wizard, and a box of the king's most treasured documents. She has encountered a terrifying beast called a lubbock, irritated a clan of small blue creatures, and wound up smack in the middle of an urgent search. The king and his daughter are desperate to find the lost, fabled Elfgift—so desperate that they've even called in an intimidating sorceress named Sophie to help. And where Sophie is, can the Wizard Howl and fire demon Calcifer be far behind?

Of course, with that magical family involved, there's bound to be chaos—and unexpected revelations.

No one will be more surprised than Charmain by what Howl and Sophie discover.

 

[Ina]

A couple of months ago it occurred to me that I have never read the Foundation series (Isaac Asimov). I am close to finish the Prelude to Foundation. So far, I find it both fascinating and intriguing and when I finish it I’ll probably read it again to understand the intriguing side, related to psychohistory.
As a novel, I am happy the story is developed over seven books, because it will keep the excitement thirst at bay, meaning that I can keep reading other type of technical and non fiction literature efficiently.