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Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
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Author:  Joseh123 [ Fri Jan 04, 2013 12:11 am ]
Post subject:  Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
So guys, I just want a good suggestion to read a book and I also want to make a topic for ya'll to talk about some books.
The book I want is a book that isn't fictional, isn't about romance, and isn't about comedy.
I want a book about a new way to see things of life, to see the world.
EDIT(and thanks Metal, for your suggestions, it might help me with future topic creations (if I will do any)): I want a book that has a medium length, between 500 and 1000 pages. I never read one about the same things, and that's the main reason I want one. And I know there is one like that out there.
I haven't read a book in ages, and don't come at me saying stuff like: "Well, you can't read a book then." Because you know what they say, "sharks are born swimming."
Anyways, let's say the book I would read if I didn't find any others that are specifically like the one I want would be one about Hitler's biography. Maybe that makes you know a little more about what book I want?
If it doesn't, well, I guess that I can't get any suggestions from you guys, so just use this topic to discuss about books you have read. Thanks for reading. And sorry for any idiot stuff I usually write.
And also, something more off-topic here:
Author:  Metal Chao [ Fri Jan 04, 2013 12:15 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever
So you make a topic to discuss books, but the only book you reference is one that you haven't read and that's already infamous for being bad and has had all jokes wrung out of it many months ago.
You ask people to recommend books to you but again have made no specification as to length, genre, content or a selection of other books you particularly enjoyed so any suggestion is basically going to be the equivalent of picking something out of a hat.

You have much to learn in the art of topic-making.
The first post of a topic is extremely important and if it's one as lazy and content-free as this one, your topic has a short and tedious life ahead of it.
Author:  WalkableBuffalo [ Fri Jan 04, 2013 2:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
Aw Joseh I love you <3
I wish I had something to recommend but I literally only ever read fiction

I'd like to say that I'm reading The Day After Tomorrow, which has absolutely no relevance to the film with 100 pages left
I read Call of Cthulhu the other day, which was very interesting (read it on my tablet because I'm a giant ♥♥♥♥♥♥)
And my copy of Roadside Picnic got here yesterday, so I'm very excited to read that
Author:  TheKebbit [ Fri Jan 04, 2013 2:33 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
I would suggest Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks.

It's nonfiction and it sure as hell changed my view of the world, in that his other work (Anthropologist on Mars, the Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat) inspired me to consider neuroscience as a career; Sacks explores the human condition in incredible, mind-bending detail.
Author:  Joseh123 [ Fri Jan 04, 2013 2:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
WalkableBuffalo wrote:
Aw Joseh I love you <3
I read Call of Cthulhu the other day, which was very interesting

Haha, thanks, anyways, I got a little obsessed with Ctulhu after I played the game (Dark Corners of The Earth), because I found it quite interesting. That might be a good book to read when I have got nothing very good to do (almost all the time). I usually only watch movies/play games, because I'm a lazy ♥♥♥♥. But now I really want to change and get some knowledge, and that knowledge can't be achieved with only reading lots of stories, but reading things that make sense, things that gives me knowledge, etc.
And also, I've watched a movie called The Road, and TBH, I think that movie needs more renown. I'm also probably gonna read the book, too.

EDIT: @TheKebbit, sorry, didn't see your post. I'm going for sure to look after the books you've suggested, thanks.
Author:  Metal Chao [ Fri Jan 04, 2013 2:50 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
One book I read recently was The Long Earth which is a decidedly fictional collaboration between a hard Sci-Fi author and Terry Pratchett

It was definitely a good book and I found it hard to put down, but I'd still struggle to recommend it to you because of one thing:
It's the first book of a two-part series, and as far as I can tell they just released it as a book because they thought it'd be too long as one volume?

It opens a lot of questions, establishes tension and sets plot hooks and then... only adequately addresses half of them by the conclusion (which in iteself creates a lot of unresolved drama), so until the second part is released to complete it you're only going to be unsatisfied by the ending.
Author:  maart3n [ Fri Jan 04, 2013 4:19 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
How about some Ken Follett? Great books based on real events with some of the best characters I've ever seen. And the way he presents them is just magical, with all their interconnected timeliness and lives.

Take for instance "fall of giants": 800 something pages worth of early twentieth century life, worm from the perspectives of a very diverse cast of characters. A earl, his sister, his maid, her brother, the earl's German friend, an American, two Russian brothers, one of whom went to the states.
All their stories are connected, and they coke to live as you experience the events leading up to and the actual first world war.

Or pillars of the earth, sharing the same awe inspiring way of writing with more than halve a dozen characters, including the antagonist as you follow the built of an English cathedral.

Read something by him.
Author:  Sothe [ Fri Jan 04, 2013 4:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
The only book people should ever read in their lifetime is Leaf House
Author:  Bad Boy [ Fri Jan 04, 2013 4:53 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
Metal Chao wrote:
One book I read recently was The Long Earth which is a decidedly fictional collaboration between a hard Sci-Fi author and Terry Pratchett

It was definitely a good book and I found it hard to put down, but I'd still struggle to recommend it to you because of one thing:
It's the first book of a two-part series, and as far as I can tell they just released it as a book because they thought it'd be too long as one volume?

It opens a lot of questions, establishes tension and sets plot hooks and then... only adequately addresses half of them by the conclusion (which in iteself creates a lot of unresolved drama), so until the second part is released to complete it you're only going to be unsatisfied by the ending.
Amen to that, I got the book recently too and also couldn't put it down, it was great. Not life changing perhaps, as joseh might wish, but it was thought provoking all the same in terms of the possibilities the long earth would provide. Also just a good story and such.

As for the topic, if you don't mind it simply being non-fantastic fiction rather than only non-fiction, I'd say check out A Fine Balance. It's about India (google it if you need details), very well written and moving.
Author:  Urch [ Fri Jan 04, 2013 7:41 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
I read an abridged version of Les Miserables in english class. Some day I want to read the unabridged version, I would reccomend to anyone to do the same thing.
Author:  Contrary [ Sat Jan 05, 2013 4:13 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
Nonsequitorian wrote:
[that one book about that gorilla who talks about philosophy] - I didn't like it so I don't remember its title, but I know a lot of people who do like it.

Ishmael was incredibly mind blowing for me when my understanding of the issues were a lot less sophisticated than today. It's very readable and I recommend it if you're a noob at social awareness and philosophy.

Also Joseh, I really don't think you should be instantly ruling out fiction on your search for truth. Werner Herzog once said

“There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.”

and while I think he phrased it much better elsewhere, this is the gist of it. A story doesn't need to by literally true (as in, it happened) to be true (meaningfully consistent with the operation of reality). In fact, literal truth is often impediment to higher truth.

Anyways you might enjoy some Malcolm Gladwell books such as Blink and The Tipping Point. Pleasant to read and accessible to everyone (in a literary sense) and they're a good look into some interesting topics like intuition and zeitgeist.

Also call me if you ever level up and start wanting to read some trashy fantasy or scifi.
Author:  David Rodrigov [ Sat Jan 05, 2013 6:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
I thought "Carrie" was a nice fictional book, but I'm not quite the reader.
Author:  Metal Chao [ Sat Jan 05, 2013 6:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
Anyone who hasn't read the complete works of Terry Pratchett should probably stop whatever boring bull♥♥♥♥ they're currently doing and do that
Author:  Joseh123 [ Sat Jan 05, 2013 6:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
Contrary wrote:
Also Joseh, I really don't think you should be instantly ruling out fiction on your search for truth

I'm not in the search for truth. I can't actually explain what exactly I want/need just by letters, but I'll try to.
I need to find something that can give me the knowledge of what people think like. I'm not seeking for new ways to see the world, I'm seeking for how people see the world. I have my own vision, my own personality, and I won't change because of someone. I change if I want to, if I think of a better way to think. But I will never change if someone tells me about a better way to think.
For an example of how I think, I don't believe in love. I think love is just a trick that makes your brain like someone, but instead you can just be friends with that person.
And I don't believe in anything that hasn't been fully explained, but I also believe in everything that hasn't been fully explained, because you see, everything is possible.
I don't want a fictional story about a satellite that gets infected with a virus, making everyone in it die. I don't want a book about a guy that is able to ride dragons and has to defeat a spectrum to save the world of elves, dwarfs, etc.
I don't need a book, but they would surely help.
So if you don't like the way I think, I don't care about it (:
And that's why I need a good book just the way I want. And please don't try to discuss about this, let's not change topics like we did in the Dungeon Keeper thread.
So, anyone else has books that I want? Some of the books you guys recommended weren't available here or were way too expensive. Thanks for caring about it, tho.
Author:  Metal Chao [ Sat Jan 05, 2013 6:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best book ever (also some off-topic text)
See that is where I think you are mistaken, while it is true that many books do simply exist to tell you a story about a man killing dragons, just as many use the realm of fiction to examine the human condition and, yes, different approaches to understanding the world around you.
Not every book has a moral but plenty of them will clearly demonstrate an author's way of thinking or ideal view of what a person should be or do. Become widely read in all realms of fiction and you'll have tasted hundreds of different perspectives on how a person should view the world and what they are expected to do with their life.

It's also much less galling to swallow philosophy entwined with a narrative than it is to read someone literally telling you how to think!
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