Robert

5 books I want to read

Friday, 2. October 2009, 09:06:53

I've wanted to start reading books again for a long time. We recently purchased “The digital fortress” by Dan Brown, which will probably be the first book I'll read, but other than that, here are five books I want to read:

1. Jurassic Park

Since I was a child, I've been fascinated by dinosaurs. And when “Jurassic Park” came out in 1993, I was thrilled to say the least, even though I was only 7 years old. I could tell the names of every character we saw during the movie, although “Dilophosaurus” was a bit hard to pronounce. The movie was awesome, and it has a great soundtrack. It's on Spotify, so I've listened to it quite a lot there. The book is, from what I've understood, quite different from the movie adaptation, thus I would want to read it to experience what it was like.

2. Dune

I love science fiction. “Dune” is a sci-fi novel from 1965 written by Frank Herbert. It is cited to be the world's best-selling science fiction novel, and it is at least the first science fiction novel that actually became a best seller. I would very much like to get acquainted with the book and the Dune universe.

3. The Lost Symbol

Dan Brown has been an issue for debate. His lawyers are onto VG, after VG, one of the largest newspapers in Norway, published a review of the book before a given date. His “DaVinci code” was sued for being too similar to The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. I have only read “Angels & Demons”, and the amount of awesomeness the book has is astounding. The Lost Symbol is the latest of Dan Brown's novels, and I have been excited about this since it was first announced.

4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I watched the movie, and I didn't understand a thing. What was the greater meaning? What's the purpose of this story? How's the sequels? What's the answer to life, the universe and everything? If you answered 42, you have either watched the movie, Googled it or read the books. Ooor... just heard it from someone. From what I perceived in the movie, the story is non-linear, crazy and probably better in written form than the movie adaptation. Nonetheless, I want to read the books.

5. “The Wheel of Time” series

Andreas told me to read this series years ago. I purchased it in an English paperback version in a Swedish book store along with The Lord of the Rings. I started reading it, but I didn't get far due to various reasons and the book was simply forgotten. The series came to a halt when Robert Jordan died in 2007 due to cardiac amyloidosis. A fellow fantasy author, Brandon Sanderson, is now finishing up the last book of the series, which will be in three volumes, making it a total of 14 books.

What do you think of the choices of books? Are there any other books that I really should read? Please come with comments and suggestions!

Happy birfday Espen!New e-mail address directive at Oslo University College fails in life.

Comments

MannyCalavera # 2. October 2009, 10:31

If you are going to buy english books, I would advice (if you don't know it already) the website BookDepository, really cheap books and free shipping to a lot of places

I'm not a book expert but here are some books that I have read and I think are really great:

Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace;
Papillon by Henri Charrière;
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco;
The "Dexter" Series by Jeff Lindsay. If you enjoy the show, you will definitely like the books even more (the storylines are not identical);
The Watch Series by Sergei Lukyanenko. If you haven't, see the movie adaptation of the first chapter of the novel "Night Watch". If you like the movie, you will love the books;
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. An awesome unusual love story, I'm a sucker for everything that involves time travel but the author really does an amazing approach to it in this book. There is a movie adaptation.
Any book by Haruki Murakami

Out of my head those are some books that I remember. I have on my bookshelf, waiting to be read, the Lord of the Flies by William Golding and 1984 by George Orwell.
Hope you find my suggestions to be good! See ya!

coxy # 2. October 2009, 10:44

I recently read The Vesuvius Club - it was the first complete book I'd read in years. Literally, years. I'm now reading The Death of Bunny Monro, which is quite enjoyable.

You should check out Vernon God Little. I started reading this a few years back but never finished it (as was the case with most books I own), but it's widely loved / appreciated.

Also, you may notice that the links in this comment point to Shelfari which is a nice book-based network. You might like it.

Zaphira # 2. October 2009, 18:17

I tried to read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy once. I gave up after 25-30 pages, that was simply too weird.
I loved the movie though!

Anonymous # 3. October 2009, 10:18

Marte writes:

You haven't read the Hitchiker's guide? Bad Robert! I have the whole thing in english as in the WHOLE thing (the ultimate hitchhiker's guide) so feel free to borrow it next time you guys come to Skien. The movie makes more sense after reading but of course you alsoe get annoyed by all the things they failed to include, just like with most books turned to movies =)

Anonymous # 3. October 2009, 18:51

Eivind writes:

Well, i have not read The Wheel of time series, but i can recommend the rest, will get the series and start reading it next week!

marblemadness # 6. October 2009, 10:12

I've just started the series "A Song of Ice and Fire" myself. I'm a slow reader, as I only read a chapter every other day (if that much), but this book is kind of getting into my head and I catch myself stuck in that universe quite a few times during the day.