The Kavar's Corner Book Club

[Darth InSidious]

I disagree. While I think Wodehouse was a talented writer... I believe George Orwell has the one up on him.

Orwell is undoubtedly a great storyteller, a great intelligence, and a talented writer, but his use of language is simply not in the same league as Wodehouse - the use of metaphor, simile, and other parabole is where Wodehouse reigns supreme, and reigns alone, IMO.

[igyman]

It also has to be something someone can reasonably find in a library or bookstore.

Keep in mind Jae that not all of us live in the US. You can't possibly expect of me to know what of the things I've read can be found in your local library.

 

I know. I meant to suggest that people pick out books that are fairly well known, not obscure titles. --Jae

 

Anyway, I have just finished reading R.A. Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy and have started reading the first book of the Icewind Dale trilogy. For those that didn't already guess, the genre of the books is fantasy, now, the Dark Elf Trilogy consists of three () books - Homeland, Exile and Sojourn. The main character is a non-typical Dark Elf called Drizzt Do'Urden, who's fighting against the ideals widely accepted by the rest of his people. The books tell of an inner conflict within Drizzt and also of his attempts to find a place where he would be accepted for who he really is, a place he could truly call home. I found these three books a very exciting, interesting and enjoyable read and would recommend that everyone else who decides to read them and likes them also continue with the Icewind Dale trilogy as I have, because the Dark Elf trilogy is not the end of Drizzt's story, it's only the beginning.

[Achilles]

Here's one of the books I'm currently in the middle of reading:

Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak

It can be purchased online, so no worries about availability. It's definitely not at risk of violating any PG-13 restrictions. Also, it has an international audience

[Fish.Stapler]

Devon, I've read Atlas Shrugged, and I have to say...Ayn Rand is undoubtedly the worst writer of the 20th century. Good idea for a story, absoloutely terrible execution and story-telling. I have all her other books but I'm pretty sure I'd rather remove my eyes with a sharp instrument than read another one of her books.

 

I'm ready to start with whatever you guys reccommend, I'm currently reading The Fall of Constantinope, very interesting but it's in Greek which I imagine the majority of forumites don't understand. I'm going to put it aside as soon as we get a (decent/non Ayn Rand) reccommendation for the book.

[Aurora Starfire]

Hey guys! I had a couple of thoughts, since I started a summer book club, which is now in its fourth or fifth year. The way we choose books is we send out to everyone interested a list of books to choose from, and then the interested parties return to us their top 10 or so books that they'd like to read, and then I compile a list of the books with the most votes, that we'll read this summer. We usually end up with quite a variety of selections, from science fiction to biographies.

 

Perhaps something like this could work here, as well? Now, since it's over the summer, we do it weekly, or bi-weekly, but here we could vote for the top twelve books for the year, and assign one to each month.

[mur'phon]

Great idea, but I'm not sure I can get the books where I live.

My sugestions for books are: Animal farm, the corporation and 1984.

[Bee Hoon]

@JM12 To Kill A Mockingbird is a great book: definitely on my list of favourites. Read it a couple of years back. It really is thought-provoking, in an oblique sort of way=p

 

@igyman, I read that ages ago! It was pretty enjoyable... Not often do you see a drow behaving like his lighter brethren.

 

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy is a riveting read... It deals with many things. A pair of twins that were separated since they were children, the story of their parents, especially that of their mother... I can't do it justice. Just read it;)

[JediMaster12]

@ mur'phon: Animal Farm is a great book that I read in ninth grade and I love Orwell's take on using the animals to reiterate the rise of Stalin, that kind of thing. My favorite of Orwell's is 1984. I often use it to refer to the Patriot Act enacted here in the state with the whole Big Brother is Watching You. My favorite line is when Winston writes 'Freedom is the ability to say that two plus two equals fives. If that is granted then all else follows.'

 

Another good classic that ties in with the themes exhibited by 1984 and Animal Farm is The Handmaiden's Tale by Margaret Atwood. This is a tale that actually uses the Christian evangelical form as a means of imprisonment. It is told through the eyes of one woman who lives in this Christian community that forbids reading and is ranked by their usefulness. No offense to the Christian peoples there but this is one strange tale but probably not improbable.

[Jae Onasi]

In no particular order.....I'm looking through http://www.greatbooks.org for inspiration, and am looking at the list and saying "oh, yeah, read that one and liked it...."

Dante's Inferno

The Prince

The Art of War

Jane Eyre

Anything by Poe

Any poetry by the Brownings, Keats, Shelley, other Romanticists

Much Ado About Nothing and Julius Ceasar (or other Shakespeare)

The Social Contract (Rousseau)

Letter from Birmingham Jail (King)

The American Constitution

Canterbury Tales

The City of God (St. Augustine)

Pilgrim's Progress

The Republic (Plato)

Dracula

The Color Purple

Cuckoo's Egg (Cherryh)

Sherlock Holmes

Murder on the Orient Express (or a Miss Marple story)

 

Just for fun

The Dragonriders of Pern series

Those Who Hunt the Night

The Stainless Steel Rat

The Cat Who...

 

There's a start of a list, anyway.

[Pavlos]

The Color Purple

 

Is it possible to like that book? It is good but (maybe because I'm a man...) I can't bring myself to like it. I'm not sure if I'm making sense here.

[JediMaster12]

There are some things that I don't like but I read it because it is for the class and is used as an example of certain themes. I didn't particularly like Their Eyes Were Watching God but I found it interesting and Zora Neal Hurston is a talented writer.

[Emperor Devon]

Devon, I've read Atlas Shrugged, and I have to say...Ayn Rand is undoubtedly the worst writer of the 20th century. Good idea for a story, absoloutely terrible execution and story-telling.

 

Personal taste I guess. I found Ayn Rand's writing style and the philosophies she presented to be very interesting and very different from what I usually read. Not at all like Marx.

 

{a list}

 

Nice ideas. Some of those Id really like to read but haven't yet gotten around to.

 

I say we stay away from Dracula and most of the poetry, tho. Doesn't quite fit with the topics usually discussed at Kavar's Corner.

[Jae Onasi]

I disagree--the Romantic poets and Dracula reflect a lot about the culture of the time. You can determine what they consider important enough to mention, how social conventions went, what they were trying to say to the reader, etc.

 

Dracula would make a great Halloween-time read. There's so much vampire lore in our culture that come directly from this book.

[Emperor Devon]

Kavar's Corner is forum for mainly current issues. Not quite the topics present in those. And in any case you'll get more of an education reading a book that directly talks about a culture rather than indirectly, IMO.

[igyman]

For those who like a good action SF, I recommend Prey by Michael Crichton. The book is written in a way that while you read it you can picture every scene in your head, like watching a great movie.

[Darth InSidious]

Another great sci-fi book worth reading is The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke, unless someone's already mentioned it...

[Jae Onasi]

Oh, and Foundation by Asimov.

[igyman]

Well, I've got (that is my father's got) a fairly big collection of SF novels, so I could go on and on with SF recommendations, but right now I'm just going to mention Wargames by David Bischoff. The lesson of this book would probably be something along the lines of ''don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong.''

[Samuel Dravis]

Any poetry by the Brownings, Keats, Shelley, other Romanticists

I'd read Shelley!

Much Ado About Nothing and Julius Ceasar (or other Shakespeare)

I'd do that.

Pilgrim's Progress

Sorry, no can do. That book is so transparent it's uninteresting.

 

The Dragonriders of Pern series

Seconded, though its educational value is somewhat nil.

 

Another novelette by Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End. Super depressing but rather philosophical.

 

Just for fun books - Piers Anthony's Xanth series.

However, another of his books, On a Pale Horse, is quite good on its own (and the only one of that series really worth reading IMO). It also deals with how people react to death, so I guess it's sorta philosophical too.

[Emperor Devon]

Oh, and Foundation by Asimov.

 

The whole series while you're at it (Foundation & Empire, Second Foundation). All three are excellent books. Foundation's Edge is worth reading if you really want another sequel, but the way it turned out disappointed me. Foundation and Earth was fairly well-written too but didn't have a very good ending. The last two books just got too far away from the feel of the original three IMO. (Though Foundation's Edge did introduce some interesting new details on the second Foundation)

 

While we're on the subject of science fiction, I'd recommend Frank Herbert's Dune and the five sequels to it. He's one of the few authors I know of who can write that many sequels to a novel and actually make each one better than the last. All six are nothing short of superb - definitely my favorite science fiction books. I also like the pacing the books have, too. The story takes places over the course of 15,000 or so years.

 

His son Brian Herbert wrote some pretty decent prequels I enjoyed, but they're not quite as good as his father's. And on a less positive note he wrote a sequel to the original Dune series, which was terrific up until the end where he shamelessly borrowed something from the prequels he'd written and thus butchered any possibility of the eight Dune book being more interesting than a piece of preteen fan fiction.

[The Doctor]

Frank Peretti.

[Pavlos]

While we're on the subject of science fiction, I'd recommend Frank Herbert's Dune and the five sequels to it. He's one of the few authors I know of who can write that many sequels to a novel and actually make each one better than the last. All six are nothing short of superb - definitely my favorite science fiction books. I also like the pacing the books have, too. The story takes places over the course of 15,000 or so years.

 

Please, no! Maybe I have subhuman intelligence but I'm fairly sure that Dune is not written in normal English. Every time I sat down to read the blasted thing I had to adjust my understanding of the language.

[igyman]

While we're on the subject of science fiction, I'd recommend Frank Herbert's Dune and the five sequels to it. He's one of the few authors I know of who can write that many sequels to a novel and actually make each one better than the last. All six are nothing short of superb - definitely my favorite science fiction books. I also like the pacing the books have, too. The story takes places over the course of 15,000 or so years.

I second this recommendation, Frank Herbert's Dune is definitely the best SF novel ever written (and by saying Dune I mean the sequels too). It's a must for any fan of science fiction because it's a classic, a story that will never cease to be interesting and popular.

When it comes to prequels, I have read House Atreides, but House Harkonnen and House Corrino haven't been published here yet as far as I know. As for the new sequels, they, that is the one that was published, also still hasn't been published here, so I'll have to wait a while to read that.

[Emperor Devon]

Please, no! Maybe I have subhuman intelligence but I'm fairly sure that Dune is not written in normal English.

 

Weird, that happened when I got a friend of mine to read it too. Seems only half the people who pick up Dune can finish it.

 

When it comes to prequels, I have read House Atreides, but House Harkonnen and House Corrino haven't been published here yet as far as I know. As for the new sequels, they, that is the one that was published, also still hasn't been published here, so I'll have to wait a while to read that.

 

The Legends of Dune series (The Butlerian Jihad, the Machine Crusade and The Battle of Corrin) are more well-known as the prequels. They might be published in Serbia. They've been out for a while now.

 

Hunters of Dune was a fantastic book up until the ending. The authors butchered it right there.

[Rogue Nine]

Given the recent interest in vampires and stuff (thanks stoffe xD), I'd recommend Twilight and its sequel New Moon, written by Stephenie Meyer. They're both excellent reads about a family of vampires trying to survive in the modern day world. As they are, both books are love stories, though Twilight has the heavier emphasis on romance while New Moon is more action-oriented. They both have that quality that just seems to draw you into reading, or at least they did for me, as I finished each one within a day of starting it.