Lol Wut? A Book Recommendation Thread? Impossible!

[Tragic]

The old classic The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger is awesome. I've always liked it. It's a fun read if you're trying to kinda jump into the "bigger world" of reading. XP

I just starting reading the books that the Shakugan no Shana anime is based off of, and like the Haruhi Suzimiya ones, it's pretty good. XP

UPDATE: The Shana light novels are kickass, the Haruhi light novels are kickass. I just picked up the novel Welcome To The N.H.K. and it's pretty damn good. (The anime was based off the book.) I also picked up the Full Metal Panic light novels, but haven't gotten around to those yet. 

[Zanibas]

"The Story of My Life" by Giacomo Casanova .

It's so scandalous =P

[killroy]

a old but  good book if you like odd sic-fi books is The Metamorphosis by Franz  Kafka

[Tragic]

I recently picked up FAUST vol. 1 from a bookstore. If you don't know, it's a Japanese literary journal encompassing light novel excerpts, interviews, etc..

Nice if you're a LN fan or just an avid reader imo.

[Flyvåpnet]

One of my favorite books, which I reread every few years, is La Peste by Albert Camus (Paris:  Librairie Gallimard, 1947).  That's "The Plague" in English and it's a novel describing how the people of Oran in Algeria, the place where Camus was born, deal with a plague which decimates the population.  Camus had lots of witty insights into human behavior.



=^..^=

[Alice]

Camus... I've definitely heard of him before ~__~
sounds like an interesting read :P


I can't believe it's not MADNESS I haven't posted here before. :/

One of my all-time favorite novels is Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. It's really interesting, especially if you read the abridged version that cuts out most of the political stuff. xD It details the later life of Jean Valjean, a man who was formerly a convict in France, and how he is able to come to terms with himself. A lot of the novel also revolves around Cosette, a beautiful but clueless girl who falls in love with Marius, a man who is one of the leaders in a (failed) attempt at revolution.

Other than that, I liked No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain. Let's be honest, I only picked this up because it was recommended in the back of a volume of Evangelion. And for good reason, too -- 44 resembles Kaworu in many ways. He shows up out of the blue to these guys who work at a printing shop and completely captivates all of them, including the main character. He has creepy powers and the main character is kind of weirded-out by him.... It was a pretty good book; I read it almost non-stop. Not too long, either.

At the moment, I'm reading Don Quixote. It's pretty hilarious, actually. I didn't expect it to be so entertaining. Basically this guy reads about knights until he goes insane and decides he is a knight. So basically he just goes on knight-adventures and people think he's crazy. (Which he is). Be prepared, though, it's about 900 pages. =w=

[Silent K]

Marcel Proust's six-volume In Search of Lost Time is incredibly well-written and compelling...if you wanna think about time and memory. I haven't even finished the first volume, but it's awesome in my opinion.

If you can get ahold of any Japanese novels, read Taiyou no Tou by Morimi Tomihiko. I haven't laughed this much while reading a novel in as long as I can remember. He also wrote Yoru wa Mijikashi Arukeyou Otome, which is a manga now.

Also, Makime Manabu's (I think that's his name) novel Kamogawa Horumo has been manga-nized too!

[Kov]

I'll look into those K.
After reading Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui I want to read more, which is a strange feeling.
Having watched the anime film adaption of Paprika I pretty much had to read the source. And it was even better than the film. If the novel just had the music that the film had then it would have been sublime.

[Alice]

Hm, I didn't even know Paprika was based off of a book. cool


Recently I've been into Russian literature! I picked up The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky the other week. It's a very interesting book, I love Ivan and Alyosha. I wouldn't recommend it if you dislike reading about religious things though. Half the book is about monks, monasticism, and Christianity. Still, if you don't mind reading a sermon now and then, it's so far been a fun and insightful read.

After I finish that, I'll start on The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy. I already got it from half-price books!

If you're interested in other Russian lit, Anna Karenina was fantastic. Levin is so moe!