The Zone

by **Keepcoolbutcare** on Sat Jul 16, 2005 6:06 pm

Gotta go get to "Order of the Phoenix" which FYI I got for FREE yesterday by finding the Golden Snitch during a contest at the bookstore. Shoulda seen the looks on all the Potterheads faces, HA! BROOKLYN YA'LL!! (since I got the book for free I picked up the latest Boondocks collection)

It's such a shock that Harry dies in the 3rd Chapter! (Oh, whoops, SPOILER!!!) Just kidding, obviously, but we should have some pretty damn strict rules here at the Phantom Zone regarding spoilers. Don't be an ass, some of us like to be surprised. Speaking of which, that sex scene with Ron and Hermione...(I keeeed, I keeeed)

So, uh, the topic...Oh Yeah...FAVORITE BOOKS, GRAPHIC NOVELS
I gotta go read like 400 more pages so someone else kick this bad boy off.

by **The Ginger Man** on Sat Jul 16, 2005 7:27 pm

AICN Comics turned me on the The Losers. Just grabbed the first TPB and it blew me away. Recommend everyone pick it up. Almost always have a Transmet TPB sitting by the toilet. Fave book? Currently reading A Confederacy of Dunces and enjoying it. The Last Tycoon, Fitzgerald's unfinshed novel. And I'm certain I'll love the new Potter book...if it ever gets delivered to me.

by **John-Locke** on Sat Jul 16, 2005 8:06 pm

My favourite two Authors are Kurt Vonnegut and Elmore Leonard, anybody got any good sugestions?

by **The Ginger Man** on Sat Jul 16, 2005 8:13 pm

I just started reading Vonnegut (finally). So far I've only read Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse 5. I love how you don't get everything Vonnegut's trying to say until you read the last line.

What do you think of DiCaprio's company trying to make a film out of Cat's Cradle?

by **John-Locke** on Sat Jul 16, 2005 8:34 pm

Cats Cradle is one of a handfull of his books you could even contemplate adapting. It should be good and I'm looking forward to it as long as they don't tinker with the ending too much and try and make it happy.

Cats Cradle is a good onne to start on because it sets up the whole Wampeters and Granfaloons thing.

The Sirens of Titan might be possible and thats a crazy SciFi one.

Some of his old short stories could be turned into TV Shorts, There's one about an experimental Pilot/Astronaught who goes up into Orbit in the 1950's only to discover the Ghosts of all of the worlds dead in Limbo up there, he goes crazy and a conspiracy is set up so we dont know, always wanted to apapt it into a Full lenght feature.

Ho Hum

by **bluebottle** on Sun Jul 17, 2005 7:51 pm

I still think Slapstick would make a fantastic film, if it was done properly... That... mess... that was Slapstick of another kind... ugh.

Sirens would be fantastic, but it would have to be done so carefully, i would imagine most filmmakers are scared of his stuff because of the all the crap that's been made... I imagine he's quite nervous as well.

I just read the two Scott Pilgrim Manga/Graphic Novels that Edgar Wright is supposedly making into a film... They're fantastic, i reccomend them highly. The writer/artist has a real flair for dialogue, i hope they keep it set in Toronto.

EDIT: This thread should be moved to AICN BOOKS

by **Keepcoolbutcare** on Mon Jul 18, 2005 12:46 am

Neil Stephenson....start at Snowcrash, Cryptonomicon (you math nerds will love it), Zodiac, The Diamond Age

Philip K. Dick...A Scanner Darkly, Ubik, The Man in the High Castle...the guy wrote over 50 books in his lifetime and is on his way to having more movies based on his work than anyone. The short story collections are a great place to start.

Thomas Pynchon...V., The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland may be his most accessible novel. The "keep cool but care" is his line.

Mark Leyner...Et tu, babe...Tooth Imprints on a Corndog...he's fallen out of favor, but Et tu is the funniest book I've ever read

William Gibson (Neuromancer), Irving Welsch (Filth), Palahniuk (he's Dumbledore you know, not that it matters but it's always fun to throw that at some young homophobe who loves Fight Club), Jose Luis Borges (astounding short stories), David Foster Wallace ("Infinite Jest"--mindfuck), Eggers (who doesn't look at McSweeney's?), Cormac McCarthy (read "Blood Meridian" and tell me that wouldn't make a phenomenal film)...it goes on and on...

by **Keepcoolbutcare** on Mon Jul 18, 2005 12:57 am

I started this topic up before the AICN books made it to the forum index. Any way you can transport this out of here and put it at the book forum?

by **Bean** on Mon Jul 18, 2005 1:55 am

An admin needs to move the topic, maybe users should be allowed to move their own threads doc?

by **banthafodderUK** on Tue Jul 19, 2005 10:55 am

..... that theyre sorting out a screenplay for his latest novel (porno)????? that is the funniest, nastiest stuff ive read for ages!

by **PVIII** on Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:06 am

I love Harlan Ellison and Haruki Murakami. Also, I'd recommend WE3 and Ex Machina for comics.

PVIII

by **Mantenna** on Fri Dec 09, 2005 6:59 am

PVIII wrote:I love Harlan Ellison and Haruki Murakami.

Harlan ellison is one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) author of all time. For ten years I have tracked down every single copy of a H.E book I could get. Pretty hard to find in Germany, because no one, not even College Professors, seem to even have heard of this great man.

I also higly recommend Dan Simmons 'Hyperion' Books, especially if you're a SciFi geek. An adaption of the Hyperion/Endymion stories were planned and reported about on AICN couple of years ago. Haven't heard anything about it since...

by **Nachokoolaid** on Fri Dec 09, 2005 7:49 pm

The entire run of Garth Ennis' PREACHER. That is all.

by **Adam Balm** on Fri Dec 09, 2005 8:12 pm

I've been holding off on posting on this because this stuff sounds pretentious as hell.

Anyway, my favorite books are pretty much anything by these authors...

Okay, fiction: Emile Zola, the greek tragedians (Euripides, Aesychlus, Sophocles, etc..) Stephen Crane (all the naturalists), Bret Easton Ellis, Tom Wolfe, and thanks to the Zone, Raymond Carver, the hard SF writers: Greg Bear, Greg Benford, Greg Egan, Kim Stanley Robinson, Stephen Baxter, James Blish, PK Dick, (although I haven't
read enough of him) John Milton, John Casti...

Nonfiction: Bertrand Russell, Daniel Dennett, Von Neumann, Richard Dawkins, Stuart Kauffman, Carl Sagan, Janna Levin, Feynman, David Bohm, Edward O Wilson, John Manyard Smith, the Leakeys, and textbooks (Because I'm a shitty reader and don't trust myself to understand something unless I can answer questions on it. :oops:

)

YouTube · by **Tubbs Tattsyrup** on Sat Dec 10, 2005 5:24 am

PREACHER is possibly the most entertaining graphic novel in the history of the form. It's a shame it'll never be made into a good filmic adaptation. But it's basically a movie anyway.

My favourite book of all time's probably Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the series. Up there too are Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Stark, Rendezvous with Rama (wasn't that the target of a film adaptation recently? or did it slip away?), No Logo, 1984 obviously, Raptor Red (something about a novel by a paleontologist that really gets me going), Moab Is My Washpot (by S. Fry), If Chins Could Kill, a nice nonfiction book called Stiff, Life of Pi, The Gods Themselves, A Scanner Darkly, A Clockwork Orange, and Puckoon. Also a number of books by Ben Elton, Elmore Leonard, Michael Moore (so flame me, they're good reads), Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov, and Dick.

Graphic novels:
Preacher!!
American Splendor
V For Vendetta
30 Days of Night
Ghost World
Watchmen.

That is all.

by **Coldfire24** on Sat Dec 10, 2005 5:42 am

My favorite book is Catcher in the Rye followed by 1984 but modern i would go with choke and invisible monsters. FUck eyahhhhh bring em out.

by **You Know My Name** on Sat Dec 10, 2005 3:06 pm

Here's a few of my favorite books. I don't know why the first 3 haven't been adapted to film (except for CoS which was made into a BBC TV movie). They'd make great movies.

Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke
The Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
Solaris - Stanislaw Lem
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
1984 - George Orwell

by **Ribbons** on Sat Dec 10, 2005 3:24 pm

Wasn't Kimberly Peirce (Boy's Don't Cry) actually in talks to direct a movie version of Childhood's End? I never found out whether or not that was just a rumor though.

by **You Know My Name** on Sat Dec 10, 2005 3:25 pm

Ribbons wrote:Wasn't Kimberly Pierce (Boy's Don't Cry) actually in talks to direct a movie version of Childhood's End? I never found out whether or not that was just a rumor or not though.

Haven't heard about that.

by **Ribbons** on Sat Dec 10, 2005 3:31 pm

Yeah, I tried Googling it and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information, although it was in the Hollywood Reporter, so I assume it was a legit piece of news. I guess the project just never came together.

by **You Know My Name** on Sat Dec 10, 2005 3:32 pm

Ribbons wrote:Yeah, I tried Googling it and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information, although it was in the Hollywood Reporter, so I assume it was a legit piece of news. I guess the project just never came together.

IGN had some news on Asimov's Foundation trilogy being made into a movie. That has the potential to be awesome.

by **Shane** on Sat Dec 10, 2005 3:57 pm

My Current Favorite book is

And the Ass Saw the Angel
by Nick Cave

by **buster00** on Tue Dec 13, 2005 12:14 am

In a word: Poe.

by **DirtyRatBastard** on Tue Dec 13, 2005 12:21 am

Henry Rollins is the most underread author today.

His words will blow your mind.

by **EliCash** on Tue Dec 13, 2005 12:59 am

Catch-22, one of the most amazing books ever written. Structural genius, amazing characters, and an incredible ability to understand the world before anyone else has cottoned on to it, and then to predict where that situation will lead to. And like one of my other favourite books, you love the characters, are fascinated by them, and laugh your arse off with them and long to experience their world, until the final chapters, when the real horror of their experience and their personalities just hits you for six. The other book is Less Than Zero

by **Chairman Kaga** on Tue Dec 13, 2005 2:04 pm

If you enjoy Elmore Leonard I suggest you track down some Carl Hiaasen. Tourist Season and Double Whammy are both great. As a Floridian though I am slightly biased when it comes to Hiaasen's genius.

by **cinephile2000** on Mon Jan 30, 2006 12:04 am

My two favorite books right now are East of Eden, and predictably Catcher in the Rye(I just finished it today for a school assignment). The thing I liked about East was the history. The thing I liked about Catcher was the ADDness, just totally reminded me of my brain. It also had some good themes in it. A man who hates the outside world but doesnt know how to deal. Just a good book.

by **doglips** on Fri Feb 10, 2006 6:09 am

This thread has almost turned into Top Ten favourite Books, so I figured I'd post this here.

Someone asked me the other day what my 10 favourite books through childhood to the present day were. I thought this was a pretty interesting question, to see whether or not your most read books as a child/teen overide the literature you enjoy as an adult.

My list shows that I was better read as a child than I am now.....weird. Anyway.......

Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
The Coral Island - R.M. Ballantyne
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pincher Martin - William Golding
The Lorax - Dr Seuss
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers
His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
Tintin in Tibet - Herge

Bit of a strange list really, most of the books are ones I read or had read to me as a child and that I have gone back to read again as an adult. It also made me glad that I have some good books to read my son when he is old enough.

Anyone else care to make a childhood to adult list?

by **ThisIsTheGirl** on Fri Feb 10, 2006 7:37 am

The only one I can think of off the top of my head that you haven't already mentioned, Dog, is The Hobbit - an awesome bedtime book.

Childhood's End is probably my favourite sci-fi. Other than that, much of my favourite stuff I read during my degree. Some of these really need to be studied, rather than read, so they aren't exactly the kind of thing you can pick up and read for 10 minutes on the bus. However, I found them all to be thouroughly rewarding:

Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
The House of Dr Dee - Peter Ackroyd (my favourite living author - this man is like a god to me)
Pedro Paramo - Juan Rulfo
100 Years of Solitude - GG Marquez (yes, I love Magical Realism - hence the Lynch-fixation)
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Ulysses - James Joyce (best book I ever read, but that was largely because I had a lecturer guiding me through it. Almost impossible to read without some kind of study guide, but if anybody here is thinking about attemping it - READ THE ODYSSEY FIRST!)

...and I haven't even finished this yet, but The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mullisch is definitely shaping up to be one of the coolest things I've ever read. This book will make you smarter.

by **The Wrong Guy** on Fri Feb 10, 2006 8:12 am

Dumbasses, the lot of you.

Fyodor Dostoevsky- Crime and Punishment/The Idiot
Alexandre Dumas- The Three Musketeers
Jane Austin- Pride and Prejudice (So what? What's it to ya? Wanna fight about it?)
William Shakespeare- MacBeth,
Charles Dickens- Oliver Twist,
Jules Verne- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,
Albert Camus- The Outsider,
Bram Stoker- Dracula,
R.L Stevenson-The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde
Joseph Conrad- The Secret Agent
Mark Twain- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire- Candide
Homer- The Odyssey

How do you like them apples?

Er, I mean books...How do you like them books?

And if you're too stupid to appreciate any of those, I also like my Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Jake Arnott and James Ellroy.

by **ThisIsTheGirl** on Fri Feb 10, 2006 8:18 am

The Wrong Guy wrote:And if you're too stupid to appreciate any of those, I also like my Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Jake Arnott and James Ellroy.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yeah, because understanding 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea requires an IQ of at least 160. If you're any dumber than that, you may as well simply not bother..... :roll:

by **doglips** on Fri Feb 10, 2006 8:40 am

ThisIsTheGirl wrote:
The Wrong Guy wrote:And if you're too stupid to appreciate any of those, I also like my Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Jake Arnott and James Ellroy.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yeah, because understanding 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea requires an IQ of at least 160. If you're any dumber than that, you may as well simply not bother.....

Shit, and I just thought it was a story about a submarine and it's Master.

So what did I miss Wrong Guy, you 160'er ?

by **The Wrong Guy** on Fri Feb 10, 2006 9:07 am

Meh. I love my Verne. I guess you're all too stupid to full appreciate grand adventure stories like I, genius mastermind, does.

Good lord, I am so full of shit. :shock:

by **Keepcoolbutcare** on Thu May 11, 2006 5:57 am

Bluebottle wrote:I just read the two Scott Pilgrim Manga/Graphic Novels that Edgar Wright is supposedly making into a film... They're fantastic, i reccomend them highly. The writer/artist has a real flair for dialogue, i hope they keep it set in Toronto.

*nearly 10 month later reply...Zoner historians, is that some kind of record?*

verily oh much missed 'Nuck, verily.

I haven't had this much fun reading a comic, like, ever.

Praise be to the powers that be who devised "free comic book day", where I picked up

. Picked up, walked home, read, and then drove back to the shop in giddy anticipation of picking up

the first trade, found they had sold out, drove to another comic shop, found the LAST copy, drove home, read, laughed, sighed, played with my flava saver rapt in recognition of a life I've led, of characters I not only identify with but swear I've met over the years, floored by how work with such few lines can convey so much, why manga eyes make everything so damn adorable, how a fight scene that's totally out of sync with the rest of the book can just work so damn well...

picked up trade number 2 today, and it's fucking better than the first.

SCOTT PILGRIM WILL PWN YOUR PATHETIC SOUL! if you let it, or, like, if your not too busy with whatever it is you're interested in. but it's funny, biting, satirical, slackered, and if you've got a girl, I bet she'll love it.

sage Zoners will recognize Scott as bluebottle's longstanding av.
*sniffle* I miss my favorite Zoner writer *sniffle*

by **Pacino86845** on Thu May 11, 2006 6:39 am

You've convinced me, keepcool.

In any case, the only record you'd break in thread resurrection would be your own, you are the Zone's very own Herodotus, our HISTORIAN!

Favorite book: the dictionary.

by **The Thin Man** on Thu May 11, 2006 9:00 am

Mantenna wrote:
PVIII wrote:I love Harlan Ellison and Haruki Murakami.

I also higly recommend Dan Simmons 'Hyperion' Books, especially if you're a SciFi geek. An adaption of the Hyperion/Endymion stories were planned and reported about on AICN couple of years ago. Haven't heard anything about it since...

Good call about Dan Simmons. I also like his Illium/Olympos books.

by **unikrunk** on Thu May 11, 2006 9:16 am

The Silmarillion - fuck, I know I am a total nerd, start flaming me, but I read it constantly, over and over.

Lots of Octavia Butler

Dune - just the first one

Lots of Arthur C Clark

Some Asimov

A History of Pi

by **The Vicar** on Thu May 11, 2006 10:52 am

Shatterday by Harlan Ellison

I am Legend by Richard Matheson

The Haunting by Shirley Jackson

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

Castle Keep by William Eastlake

Great Military Disasters by Geoffrey Regan

Almost anything by EA Poe
Or the above mentioned Matheson/Ellison

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robt. Heinlien

The Trilogy by JRR Tolkein

Holidays in Hell by PJ O'Rourke

The Rape of the Ape by Allen Sherman

by **Lurker Johnson** on Thu May 11, 2006 1:24 pm

Non-fiction:
"Why People Believe Weird Things" by Michael Shermer

"The Equation that Couldn't be Solved" and "The Golden Ratio" by Mario Livio

Fiction:
Heinlein
Tolkein
Herbert

by **Keepcoolbutcare** on Thu May 11, 2006 1:58 pm

unikrunk wrote:The Silmarillion - fuck, I know I am a total nerd, start flaming me, but I read it constantly, over and over.

HAHA!

NERDBOY!!

LOSER!!!

not that I've repeated over and over ad infinitum how The Lay of Beren and Luthien would make for a phenomenal film or anything

*lights Smokey Thingie, pops collar*

**coughs, stains shirt with porridge**

not that I think certain stories in the Silmarillion are the best writing Tolkien's ever done or anything...I'M COOL, DAMMIT!!!

by **unikrunk** on Thu May 11, 2006 2:05 pm

@KeepCool

shit yes. Lord, seeing Beren pry the Silmaril from Morgoth's crown, and Huan the wolfhound fucking up Carcharoth would make me the happiest man alive.

/PJ, get on it.

by **minstrel** on Thu May 11, 2006 2:10 pm

"The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers". If you think poetry is just precious tripe by mewling, effeminate pansies, you NEED to read Jeffers. Jeffers comes at you like thunder.

"For Whom The Bell Tolls" - Ernest Hemingway. His best work, IMO.

"Kim" - Rudyard Kipling. I don't know any writer who had more sheer talent than Kipling. His prose is electrifying to me.

"20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" - Jules Verne. I haven't read it since I was a kid, but I read it about 14 times between the ages of 9 and 12. Mind-blowing to me back then.

â€œLeaves of Grassâ€

by **DDMAN26** on Thu May 25, 2006 11:28 pm

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings by some Tolkien guy.

Ender's Game-Orson Scott Card

Treasure Island-Robert Louis Stevenson

Tom Sawyer-Mark Twain

Of Mice and Men-John Steinbeck

by **Carolian** on Wed Jun 07, 2006 8:21 pm

The best novel I've ever read (bizarrely enough) is ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS by Luo Guanzhong, a 14th-century historical novel based on the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history. Just absolutely fucking amazing. I read it at least three times a year (yeah, I KNOW!), and it just keeps getting better.

Almost anything by Stephen King, but the Dark Tower series most of all.

George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series.

Anything by Neil Gaiman, especially STARDUST and AMERICAN GODS.

The Harry Potter series. Jesus, I couldn't have even imagined saying that five years ago.

Orson Scott Card's ENDER series. Sweet Christ.

LotR, of course.

Ursula K. Le Guin's EARTHSEA novels.

The Tao Te Ching.

And a whole hell of a lot more that I can't think of this second.

by **thebostonlocksmith** on Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:04 pm

Joseph Heller is the king of observational social commentary, with catch 22 or something happened
being two of his best. Another great book that not a great deal of people know is 'The shadow of the wind' by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, it would make a brilliant film too. Also anything by Jonathan Coe is worth reading all of his books are equally great. finally 'No country for old men' by Cormac McCarthy which is currently being filmed by the Coen's and includes Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin in the cast, it's like Fargo only not so cold...

by **Kilgore** on Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:58 am

My favorite contemporary author is easily Matt Ruff, and nobody knows him...pick up any of his three published works and click into modern America.

by **mister six** on Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:32 pm

Keepcool - props for mentioning Neal Stephenson. The Diamond Age & Snowcrash are just amazingly good cyberpunk/future fiction...in fact it makes me want to read Diamond Age again!

Have you read any Jon Courtney Grimwood? His early books (NeoAddix, Lucifers Dragon) are fairly typical cyberpunk, but enjoyable reads. His Arabesk trilogy is a great alt. history / SF / mystery blend set in North Africa though - well worth looking at.

No Michael Marshall Smith fans?? Spares, One Of Us & Only Forward are great alt. SF reads. They have all been optioned, but the option on Spares was allowed to elapse so they could make their own VERY watered down version - The Island (bleurgh...).

One more...Jim Dodge. Three books worth a read: Fup is a novella(?) about a man, his son and a duck. Fantastic little story. Then there's Stone Junction - follows the life of a boy to man who becomes involved with alchemists, outlaws, magicians, etc. who have their own loose society outside the law. Sounds a bit pants when you read that back...but its a good un honest. Not Fade Away is set in the 60's and is a little bit Jack Kerouac, a little bit Fear & Lothing, a hint of Leonard and a dollop of 60's pop culture. Basically a cross continent quest in a Caddy with drugs, interesting characters and some measure of self discovery. Good stuff.

by **Keepcoolbutcare** on Sun Jun 25, 2006 10:31 pm

shit, where were you yesterday when I needed you?

The Jim Dodge stuff sounds great, hope they're available at my library.

Thanks for the heads up...

by **mister six** on Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:20 pm

Keepcoolbutcare wrote:shit, where were you yesterday when I needed you?

The Jim Dodge stuff sounds great, hope they're available at my library.

Thanks for the heads up...

(I meant to answer earlier...honest...)

No problem on the suggestions. Always ready to spread the word on a good read :wink:

Have you read any Steve Aylett? Insane future fiction full of wonderfully comic characters. Gibson on LSD & laughing gas...

by **mister six** on Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:25 pm

I just noticed noone has mentioned Jeff Noon...how can that be??

The Vurt series takes you somewhere new with each book (his Lewis Carroll imitation is flawless) and other books such as Needle In The Groove & Falling From Cars keep you reading long after you should be heading out the door...

The Zone

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all the irvine welsh stuff is very cool - is it true...

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