What other books are you reading?
 

I just got done reading The Lord of the Rings for the second time. Boy, does it get better and better!

Anyhow, one of my friends referred me to some Brian Jordan novels (The Wheel of Time). I'm thinking about giving those a shot.

Are there any other good fantasy novels out there? Please chime in. Thanks!

Wheel of Time guy is Robert Jordan, not Brian. Just a hint in case you can't find a Brian Jordan. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
And they are very good books too.

Now you've done it... [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander (start with "The Book of Three")

Anything by Brian Jaques (Redwall)

"Ratha's Creature" by Clare Bell (and after that, try finding "Clan Ground", "Ratha and Thistle-Chaser" and "Ratha's Challenge")

The unicorn books by Merideth Ann Peirce ("Birth of the Firebringer", ack I can't remember the middle one! and "The Son of Summer Stars")

The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (start with "Dragon Wing" there)

"Powers That Be" by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis...

Heh, that oughta' keep you busy... Hope some of these interest you! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

read the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
they are comedy/fantasy...
there is an extremely large amount of imagination while at the same time the books are hilarious

You really wanna know what book I am currently in the middle of? Well ok, but I warn you, you might find it a little boring...

"To Fly and Fight: Memoirs of a Triple Ace"

Basically the autobiography of WW 2 P-51 pilot Clarence 'Bud' Anderson.

(Yes, I do read books other than sci-fi/fantasy, its good to be diverse [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img])

You've opened the can of worms that is my bibliography of further reading.

At the moment I'm on some standard stuff for this site: The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, the author and editor of which need no introduction, and there's a copy (translation I blush to admit) of Beowulf awaiting my attention in conjunction with the essays on the subject.

Most recently I've been through, inter alia, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud; Harlequin by Bernard Cornwell (historical drama set in the Hundred Years' War and culminating in the battle of Crecy); The White Rabbit: the man the Gestapo couldn't crack (the biography of an RAF officer turned secret agent); Mansfield Park by Jane Austen; Hero in the Shadows by David Gemmell and Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett. Also I recommend The Greek Myths, I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves, and Covenant with Death by John Harris.

I'd continue, but you're already asleep. One of the banes of my existence is a wide range of interests and another is a paucity of time.

Right now I'm reading "Lord of the Rings" (agian), "The Silmarillion", "Tolkien: A Biograph" by Humphry Carpenter, "The Jesus I Never Knew" by Phillip Yancy and "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. And I just got "The Hobbit Companion" today, so I might start into that as well. (Yes, I'm reading these all at the same time. It's more enjoyable that way, like being at a big party with lots of food and having a bit of everything on your plate so you can eat whatever you feel like eating.) Heh, books are to me as food is to hobbits! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] I'm the Hobbit of bookworms! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

I could write pages on good fanatasy novels!!

The Belagriad Series, Mallorean Series, Elenium Series, and Tamuli Series by David Eddings
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles and the Lyra Books by Patricia C. Wrede (or anything else she's written)
The Song of the Lioness Quartet, the Immortals Series, the Protector of the Small Quartet, and the Circle of Magic Series by Tamora Pierce
Avi
Madeleine L'Engle
C.S Lewis
Brian Jacques
Lloyd Alexander
Robert E. Feist
Robin McKinley
Diana Wynne Jones
Mercedes Lackey (the Valdemar Books are the best)
The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea

I could go on and on, but that should last for a LONG time! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Patricia C. Wrede, Mercedes Lackey, and Anne McCaffrey are all good. So's Michael Chrichton. I also recommend Rosemary Edghill, especially The Sword of Maiden's Tears and its sequels. Simon Hawke is good for some comic sci-fi-fant. And Laurie R. King has a Sherlock Holmes series that's even better than the original.

Most recently finished Great Expectations by Dickens, The Once and Future King by T. H. White, and G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories. Am currently in the middle of the Silm., La carta esférica by Arturo Perez-Reverte, Don Quixote, Shakespeare's Language, and I pick up a Sluggy Freelance every so often.
Squatter, you are far from alone. After all, this is only what I read! Let's not even get started on everything else I try my hand at...

Thanks for all your recomendations. Those books should last me a life time. =)

I've seen "Tolkien, Man and Myth," by Joseph Pearce lying around bookstore shelves. Looks very interesting indeed! Has anyone read that? It would be great to get some incite.

Someone else who does this! Every I know thinks I'm mad because I tend to read about 6 books at a time. At the moment I'm only reading 3, shall have to start some more soon.

We should start a book club... "For those who regularly read more than three books simultaniously..." And that doesn't count my college textbooks, (heh, um, I kinda don't read those...at all if I can help it. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] Bad Rosa! 'Tis no way to earn an English degree! But 'tis the most enjoyable way... [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] )

While re-reading LoTR, I'm also reading Nickel and Dimed: On (Not)Getting By in America. When the struggles of the working class get me sufficiently P.O.'d I flee back to Middle Earth.

On the coffee table, waiting:

King Jesus - Robert Graves
When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Life of Animals - Jeffrey M. Masson
Tis - Frank McCourt
The Practical Princess and other Liberating Fairy Tales - Jay Williams

Also something called The Silence in Heaven, by Peter Lord-Wolff, which appears to be about the adventures of banished angels here on earth. If anyone's read that and wants to give me a quick review, feel free.

Man, where's Evelyn Wood when you need her??

[ February 08, 2002: Message edited by: Birdland ]

I just finished Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin and found it quite enjoyable. Terry Pratchett too is excellent, amazingly witty and full of unexpected bits of wisdom.

Robert Jordan can be a bit of a drag at times though.

Ooooh, I also have The Other Wind, "the fifth Earthsea novel", waiting in the wings. Can't wait to read that.

(Must stay away from bookstores...must catch up...)

I'm in the midst of The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell -- most interesting stuff, but on the dense and dry side -- which I'm reading along with Robert Louis Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae. I have several books jostling for the next slot, including Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Richard Burton's translation of The 1001 Arabian Nights, a couple of Barbara Tuchman books, and Bradbury's Farenheit 451, which more or less jumped off the shelf this morning and begged to be reread.

Farenheit 451?! I read that book in seventh grade and it scared me no end. A world without books...*curls into fetal position and rocks back and forth*

I highly recommend Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Excellent book and terribly sad since the society described in the book occures in varying degrees throughout the world... Stupid Taliban...

I have not read this series, but I have read the AngelWalk Trilogy by Roger Elwood. Very good. Also, I like Frank Peretti. Anything by Randy Alcorn is very good. One of his books, Edge of Eternity, is a good mixture of CS Lewis's ShadowLands and John Bunyan's Pilgram's Progess.

I read Dragon Wing but I can't find any of the others, what are the names of the rest of the series and do you know anywhere/one who still sells them?

Apart from that: 10th Kingdom by Kathryn Wesley

any book by David Gemmell

Dalamar The Dark by Nancy Berberick (i think thats how you spell it).

They're good books to read if you like J. R. R. Tolkein.

I'm in the middle of Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch's first volume about the Civil Rights struggle in the Southern U.S. from 1954-63. It centers on MLK, but it also touches on many other lives. I grew up in the South (Mississippi to be precise -- any other Gulfport folks out there?), and though I don't live there anymore, I find the book absolutely fascinating. The sequel -- Pillar of Fire -- is next on my list.

You must read the "Death Gate Cycle" in this order, or it will make absolutely no sense whatsoever:

Dragon Wing
Elven Star
Fire Sea
Serpent Mage
The Hand of Chaos
Into the Labyrinth
The Seventh Gate

You should be able to find them at most well-stocked libraries. If they aren't there, I've seen the pocket paper backs at most book stores in the sci-fi/fantasy section. Good luck and happy reading! (Haplo's dog is cool, isn't he?) [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Daggerspell and it's sequel by Katherine Kerr.

Okay, I know that her novels aren't really fantasy, but I am completely shocked as to why I havent seen anyone mention Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles yet in this forum?
Maybe Iv justed missed someone mentioning it, but if I haven't does anyone else like her novels? Because I absolutly LOVE them!!
I am on The Queen of the Damned (yes... i know.. its comming out in theaters soon, but I wanted to read the book first) and boy is it good!
So for all of you who have never read anything by Anne Rice, read her Vampire Chronicles!! They're SO good!!

Birdland- I'm dying to read that one too. Do let me know how it is.

Yes Haplo's dog made me laugh. Thanks for that info.

Robert Jordan's "the wheel of time" books are definatly great for the heart sick tolkien book reader after he or she finishes the lord of the rings and wants to read more more more more more. READ THEM THEY ARE GREAT AND PLENTIFUL.

Eol the elf that was simply misunderstood.

Am taking a break from reading...LoTR somewhat exhausted me [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] currently taking a casual stroll through the Appendices though. Then plan on reading the Hobbit then the Silmarillion. Ooh - then I might hunt for the Chronicles of Narnia [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] my first encounter with fantasy when I was only knee-high to a hobbit [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] <skips off happily with happy-kiddy-memories> <wonders what happened to Old Plastic Yellow Sword...>

Heh, hey Starbreeze, want a sausage? [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Okay, y'know that big ol' list of books I said I was reading, well, let's add some more to it! "The Oath" and "The Visitation" by Frank Peretti, and I just bought "Unfinished Tales" and "The Hobbit" at Wal-mart (if I suddenly stop posting here, you'll all know why: because I didn't have enough to by food after all this book buying and subsequently starved to death). [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Excellent choice. I picked that up in a charity shop a couple of years ago. Very Scottish [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Speaking of that, soon I shall have to start on the salvages from my last visit to the British Heart Foundation: Under Milk Wood, Last of the Mohicans and Le Carre's The Naive and Sentimental Lover; which promises much upliftingly world-weary cynicism if I know the author.

Excuse my ignorance - but what does that mean?

Oh, sorry. Haplo's dog had a fixation for sausage throughout much of the series. He even inadvertently helps an assassin find Haplo's ship because he wants the man to get him a sausage from the hold. (I think that bit's in "The Hand of Chaos".) Heh, I'd forgotten that you hadn't read the whole series yet.

The "Ender" series by Orson Scott Card is very good.

1 Enders Game
2 Speaker for the Dead
3 Enders Shadow
4 New one just out. Don't remember title. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

Ok

Other than J.R.R. Tolkien, I have mostly read Frank Herbert's Dune, and I have the first three of Glen Cook's The Black Company series.

I finished book 10 in the Wheel of Time series a couple a days ago. Although it's not amongst the best book in the WoT series it's still one of the best fantasy book I've read.

Right now im reading Sword of Truth 4: Temple of the Winds, I strongly recommended it.

I tend to drift to more science fiction, so you'll have to forgive me.

I think one of my favourite trilogies of all time will always be the Frank Herbert-Bill Ransom Jesus Incident books: The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect and The Ascension Factor. I just love the rich world and real characters.

The first author I ever really got into was Isaac Asimov, so those books will always be dear to me, especially the robot novels and especially Caves of Steel which I've always felt would make an awesome movie, but I'm still waiting.

Probably my favourite novel of all time though would be Clive Barker's mammoth Imagica, which I'm planning another reread of this summer.

H.C.

I am currently reading Amazing Gracie by Dan Dye. It's actually a true story about his dog, who is an (almost) albino, oartially blind deaf Great Dane. It's actually a very good book, and I recommend it to all you animal lovers out there.

Also a sci-fi fan, and I'm currently reading the Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. Good book.

My absolute favorite book is Dune by Frank Herbert. Also, The White Plague by the same author is one of the greatest books I've ever read.

I also enjoyed the Redwall series, though I've fallen out of touch with it.

Oh, and I personally enjoyed All Quiet on the Western Front. Just had a lot of true things in it.

Good luck with it all. ~_^

As of now I am working on re reading ROTK and a book called Death shock. I can't really remember the author right now...
Also I must say I am guilty of reading Harry potter. I got the new book and am reading it. Is anyone else?
I am also reading the Chronicles of Prydain.

Also for anyone who wants something to read might I sugest Uncle Johns Bathroom Readers. They are packed with awsome facts and unusual tidbits of information. And you don't have to read them in the bathroom.

I had plans to read Fredrich August Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom", but then I discovered that it isn't as popular as I had anticipated and that the only copy was missing from the local library. If I overcome my current bout with sloth, perhaps I'll make my way downtown to the Harold Washington Lib... For now, I'm watching my DVD edition of "Commanding Heights: the Battle for the World Economy", along with "Signs", "Orange County" and "A Beautiful Mind". Later on this summer, I have plans to read Oxford's history of Britain, as well as Beowulf and the last two parts of Hugo's Les Miserables. The mere thought of it makes me tired. I wish I had a good book right now...

Iarwain