Good morning/afternoon/night!
I just wanted to continue the weekly poll and ask who reads, and what do you read. The first poll is to ask how much you read, and the second will be a genre poll. Also, leave some comments regarding your favorite books/authors. Personally, my favorite volume right now is The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and some people think it’s overrated, but I’m rereading it now and I love it. Anyways:
I love to read, to the point where I would read even dictionaries for fun when I was 6. I’m the one who voted 20+ hours, I would read all day if I could. I’ve read about everything I’ve ever got my hands on. Good thing I’m a very fast reader.
My all time favorite author is J.R.R.Tolkien, I love all of his books, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I’ll read anything and everything I find. To be fair though, I don’t love all books. I hate books that are nothing but “fluff”.
I am starting to read The Merlin Saga series, it seems very interesting so far.
I also love to read! I spend 15 to 20 hours reading a week, but I used to be above 30. Having hobbies like reading, playing instruments, programming, and then random stuff like knitting, video games, calligraphy, etc. are all really time consuming things, and balancing that all out with school and family is definitely a feat that I’ve been struggling with.
It’s nice to see other readers though. I own the LotR books, but I haven’t read them for a few years. I own the entire Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, too. My favorite author is Brandon Sanderson, and he has 20+ scifi books, some with series, many of them revolving around each other, and they are honestly just fantastic. What I love about them is that they can be anywhere from 700 to 1300 pages, but all of it is really, really good.
I will read anything as well, so I really love classics and a lot of fiction too.
My current favorite novel is The Martian though.
Anyways, thanks for responding! Great to see people that love to read.
That’s perfectly understandable. I also do some gaming, compose music, draw, etc. I do know how to knit, but it’s not something I do often. I was homeschooled, and I’m “done” with school, but I’m still learning more school online to learn even more, I’m designing my first Apple app, and balancing family as well (12 siblings to get Christmas presents for! ). I’d love to say it gets easier as you get older, but it doesn’t.
I am a big Middle Earth geek and have every book Middle Earth related. I’ve never read the Wheel of Time series though, I’ll try to read those sometime, and all the other books and authors you mentioned. It’s awesome to see other big readers out there.
If you like Arthurian stories, add John Steinbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights to your must read list. Also add Terence White to the list of excellent reads. Every young person should read all of the above (not to exclude mature readers).
As authors go, you cannot go wrong with any Steinbeck novel or novella. The above King Arthur is unique among his writings, and the only one of the genre. Cannery Row and Tortilla Flats are among the lightest reads, and quite humorous. The Pearl is heart rending but a perfect jewel of a novella, as is Of Mice and Men, as tragedies go. I absolutely love re-reading The Moon is Down every few years. If a long read is what you’re after, East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath are classics of their respective genre.
My most gifted book is The Snow Walker by Farley Mowat. Must have given a couple dozen copies by now. He is another author who belongs on every reader’s wish list. He didn’t write too many fictions, but his non-fictions read like fiction, also.
I don’t know if there is such a thing as a bad Margaret Atwood novel, or short story. Once you get hooked on her, it’s hard to let go.
If one has never picked up a Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) book, then make a point of seeking out anything by him. Roughing It is one of my all time favorites, probably because it is a compendium of so many fantastic stories, most of which will make you fall out of your chair with laughter. Life on the Mississippi is roughly in the same genre.
For this time of year, look for the Christmas and New Year stories by Charles Dickens. Everyone is familiar with A Christmas Carol, but who has read The Cricket on the Hearth or The Chimes? Great reads.
Add Tale of Two Cities to your historical fiction list. A must read for anybody interested in the French Revolution.
The women authors of the Romantic Period (in and around) are hard to pass up. George Elliot, The Brontë sisters, Jane Austen and of course Frankenstein author, Mary Shelley.
I’ll end this list with Timothy Findley, Not Wanted on the Voyage and E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, two very different novels, but written by two of the most gifted authors of all time.
I go through books really fast and my family keeps asking if I’m even reading them or just flipping through them. and then they read it and ask me questions about them and I can answer them all correctly. ive been spending a lot of time reading the really popular books that have come out recently. it took me two weeks to read all of the harry potter series, but I could only read at night and I only had a couple of hours a night to read. I’ve also reread the divergent trilogy and the lord of the rings, all 5 of the maze runner books and I am currently reading the original Dracula by Bram Stroker, which is pretty good so far. I am really surprised that no one has mentioned the Enders Game series. there are almost ten books directly linked to the world and I hope to get them for Christmas. The first is very well written and I found myself having to stop reading just to think through all of the concepts Orson Scott Card had invented throughout his books. there are many other books that I’ve read recently but to talk about them all I would be here all night. My current favorite book is “Me And Earl And The Dying Girl” which is a really funny book that even though people will think its a rip off of “The Fault In Our Stars” it truly is not. the entire time the author Jesse Andrews is making jokes about how stupid the book is and how he is surprised that you are still reading. I have read it 23 times now since last summer when I bought it. BTW I read at least 30 hours a week now that I am homeschooled.
@mtfA Tale of Two Cities is one of my all time favorites, I have so much of that book highlighted. Jane Austin’s Emma is fantastic.
Have you read Anna Karenina? I haven’t, but I’ve heard such good things about it.
I’ve read a lot of Mark Twain too.
I think some of my favorite classic stuff is Edgar Allen Poe because it is something that I feel like is easily related to, even now.
Other random things I love are To Kill a Mockingbird, Crime and Punishment, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, Julius Caesar, and Emily Dickinson.
I have a lot of irrelevant things I like besides classics, but that would take me forever to go through.
@kalebmfratello The Ender’s Game series is perfect honestly, and The Maze Runner’s series is also fantastic. The same author, James Dashner, has another series called the Eye of Minds, and I love it. I really enjoyed Eleanor and Park which I read a couple years ago. It didn’t go over my head, but I was probably not mature enough at the time to fully grasp it, but it is tragic.
@iknights I just read Of Mice and Men for the first time about a month ago, and it’s so short but SO good. I’m glad that you are deciding to pick these things up! And you compose music?! That’s SO awesome! What kind of music? Piano compositions? I play the piano and guitar, but a lot more of the piano, because I’ve been playing for 6 or 7 years and use sheet music mostly.
Thanks everybody for contributing and recommending things, because I’m constantly looking for new things to read. I shall make a list and scavenge my local public library.
No. But I did see a classic film of it. Very depressing, as one would expect. I did buy the book, though, if intentions count for anything.
Poe invented the detective novel, you know? He is also credited as the father of the Short Story. A genre, and a literary form both to his credit. Love his works, ‘quoth the raven.’
It is tough to take in Tolstoy. But I have read up the summaries and a few essays on his works. I got the gist, and missed all the stimulation (depression). I’ve just never had it in me to actually read the stories. Sort of like hating spnach when you have never tasted it. (Bad example. I love spinach.)
The only Daphne Du Maurier book I ever read was Rule Britannia. The story premise was interesting then, as it might even be now.
If you are a Poe fanatic then you will rave over Nathaniel Hawthorne.
I really like tragic stories. I might give Anna Karenina a go. I have heard that Tolstoy is a tough read though.
The only thing that I’ve read by Nathaniel Hawthorne was The Scarlet Letter, but i didn’t finish it, because i was out of town whilst reading it, and i left it.
I haven’t read anything else by Daphne Du Maurier, but I really enjoyed Rebecca because it was a shocking read.
i have a really hard time reading new things. I’ll read the same book four times before I decide to find something new. I’m working through Douglas Adams Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy volume right now, which is taking me a while. It’s hard for me to get through the second and third books.
I find reading more efficient than talking because I can read fast. Not only that, but it’s nice to be able to pull an old book from gutenberg ebooks and to work through it as I want/need. I usually cut and paste it into notepad++ or something.
Some days I take public transport to a library to return book A while picking up book B, and a cycle develops.
The first is the best but the second two are quite good. Adams had to sort of gut out the next two. It must have been frustrating, because he’d already used a ton of ideas. That said, I still enjoyed the final one, and I enjoyed them a lot on rereading. Just…it’s not you finding it a bit slow. The books get less intuitive but there’s still a lot of good stuff there.
I liked the BBC’s 1980 rendering of the books. The movie was okay, but it wasn’t as faithful.
@kyleaw Sorry for waiting 2 days to answer, I was celebrating Christmas with my family.
I try to learn every instrument I get my hands on, but my main two are the piano and guitar, violins and drums would be next. I usually start off with the piano then I add more instruments to my compositions. Most instruments I don’t actually have on me, so I use computer programs to get extremely close. I mainly do Classical, Country, Rock, or Metal. I don’t do Jazz, sorry, I don’t like Jazz
Jane Austin’s books are wonderful, I’ve read Pride and Prejeduce, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion, very good books. The Maze Runner books are awesome, while yes, the movies didn’t exactly go along with the books, they were still very awesome movies. The 13th Reality series, also wrote by James Dashner, were very gripping.
so I’m not sure anyone else has more to say on this subject but I figured I would give an update on what ive been reading since Christmas.
I have started and finished these classics :
The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Romeo and Juliet for the 2nd time
Macbeth
Dracula
Grimms Fairy Tales
Anna Karenina
The Scarlet letter
The call of the wild
The Yellow wallpaper(short story)
The Most dangerous game(short story)
The Iliad
The Odyssey
these are the books that I started but haven’t finished yet as far as classics
The divine comedy
the phantom of the opera
Moby ■■■■
Frankenstein
Emma
The entire Sherlock Holmes collection( I’m on book 3)
On The Origin of Species 6th Edition
Alices Adventures in Wonderland
A Tale Of Two Cities
The Three Musketeers
A Journey Into The Center of the Earth
I’m sure I missed a couple but I think that’s most of them. As far as not classics I have
re read the Harry Potter series
re read the Percy Jackson series (all 11 books that have Percy)
read a lot of parrot training books as study material( and its working. my parrot turns around on command )
Fantastic beasts and where to find them
thirteen reasons why
and I think that’s it. I haven’t had much time to read fun books because my dad bought me a 150 book collection of the classics that you should read before you die.
). I’d love to say it gets easier as you get older, but it doesn’t. 
)