Paulo Coelho

Oh nice one imafool. The Alchemist is an amazing book.

@ottovanbis

Did you actually read the bible?

Douglas Adams
C.S. Forester
Stephen King
and many many others

used to be into Fantasy (stock standard dragons, quests, wizards etc) as a teenager but ive given up and now tend to read morehard sci fi.

william Gibson
iain banks
alister reynolds
charles stross
china mievelle
richard k morgan
greg egan

on a somewhat related note
about banned books in the US

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep/30/american-library-association-banned-books

Actually i think phillip Pullmans books walked all over the Harry Potter series(nothing new, derivative , somewhat funny light reads) but im an athiest so i might be biased:)

Clancy and Ambrose

Isn't banning books against the first amendement right to free speech

The problem is outspoken parents or religeous fundamentalists complaining to school libraries to get books removed from the shelves not some central authority " banning" the books as such.
i like this quote from the report

"That's why it's so important to resist censorship. We believe parents do have the right to dictate their children's reading, but that right exists for their children alone and should not be extended to others."

Presently reading Bradbury,

Non Fiction

Malcolm Gladwell, all 3, Thomas Cahill -- Hinges of History Series),
Michael E. McCullough --Beyond Revenge: The evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct)
Jonah Lehrer -- How we decide.

Fiction:
Anita Daimont
John Steinbeck -- East of Eden is a must read
Zora Neal Hurston
Craig Ferguson's novel is a enlightening bit of entertainment, surprisingly so.
Glad to see Orson S C
Robert Heinlen
Pullman, have the two last ones in the waiting pile (Um neither his or JK Rowlands books are religious, and CS Lewis writes all things well.)
Guy Gavriel Kay
W.P. Kinsella
Orwell, duh
Hemingway.
Rohinton Mistry.
Anne Marie MacDonald

Giapeep you should join my live game.

We'll call it abortion wars. lol

And I'm sad no one else is listing Vonnegut. he's really great

nice thread hijack sean.

surely you would agree that any group is within its rights to ask for a book to be removed from a library... or is asking something that you can't do anymore??

look, it's no secret that i'm a christian, but i don't have a problem with harry potter, in fact i've read them all. i don't think they teach kids to practice witchcraft...i think some people have gotten kind of carried away with the anti-hp stuff. having said that, there are some things that are obviously not appropriate for a school library. i think (i hope anyway) that everyone would agree that porn doesn't belong in a school's library even though the publishers of porn have the freedom to publish that material.

so...somewhere between porn and harry potter there exists a line of what is and isn't acceptable. everyone has the right to weigh in on where they think that line falls, don't you think?

i fail to see why it is a problem for religious groups to complain. they may not be able to succeed in getting books removed, but they can complain all they want. so maybe that really isn't the problem, eh?

Haha I thought you mistook me for sean for a moment there Jacob.

And by the way you should also join my live game.

And there is a huge difference between banning books and denouncing them.

The latter is trying to change the culture peacefully. The former stifles free speech, a right. But if you just gradually convince people that what they watch and right is filthy, they'll just stop doing it eventually.

And please join my live game lol never done one.

i like

dickens
asimov
melville
hugo
lewis
l'engle
card
and a slew of others i can't think of at the moment (i should be in bed...)

as for rowling, while the harry potter books may be good enough to get you to read all seven they're not any kind of amazing writing. the eragon books fall in this category too even though i love the story..

sry thucy...i'm going to bed now =)

i'll catch you next time around

Haha alright alright. It's rare it spam like this, so sorry. Night

Ah Thucy,
You made me spray water on my puter. Too flipping funny.

I'm crashing, been a busy night.

Check ya later and good luck!

@warsprite - I don't think its off the main to believe that those authors are the clear masters - like I said, I come off sounding like a defender of the cannon, which is anything but off the main.

Meanwhile, I'd have to dispute the notion that books exist for entertainment. Some do, and most good books are entertaining, but that can't possibly be their sole purpose. Additionally, I don't think the main fault with Rowling is that she limits herself to being entertaining - its that she's rather formula-driven while at it, and her prose are distractingly bad.

I'm not a master of literature, you're right, though I do have a Masters in English Literature, so.

Oh my Gods! Nobody has mentioned Terry Pratchett, Poul Andersson, Peter Hamilton, Joe Haldeman, Walter M Millar Jr, H.G.Wells.

Speaker +1

Sir Terry Pratchett is my favourite author, having moved from mocking fantasy standards to complex and well written satire

Iain Banks (both without and without the M) writes genius sci-fi and 'proper' literature with equal style

Peter F Hamilton does just the most loony space opera ever

Jasper Fforde writes clever, funny literary fiction - anyone who loves books should read the Thursday Next series

Loving Joe Abercrombie's work at the moment - a dark take on fantasy standards

Christopher Brookmyre does (very) darkly cynical political-ish thrillers, but very funny with it

Ian Rankin's Rebus series are very good - I don't normally read detective novels. Maybe it helps I can picture the streets of Edinburgh

Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting, Porno especially) is a good challenging read

On the downside, while I respect JRR as the founding father of a genre that has brought me lots of pleasure (both reading and RPGing), LoTR is one of the worst written books I've ever read. Pullman really disappointed me, and JKR has been in need of a good editor since The Goblet Of Fire, and really needs to stop with the alliterative names

Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut are probably my two favourite fiction authors. Richard Dawkins for non-fiction. I am also a big fan of Dave Bary.

Arthur Koestler, Aldous Huxley, Terry Pratchett.

Philip K Dick (really messes with your mind... the movies are nearly as twisty as the books/short stories!)

Douglas Adams: I've read Hitchikers multiple times and STILL find jokes I didn't read the first time. Only writer I know that can put 4 jokes/puns/funnies in the same sentence!

Heinlein: Starship Troopers, while a "juvenile" scifi, has sooo much thought about war and how soldiers see it differently from the outside world.

Frank Herbert: Not a fan of his later work, but Dune, by itself, is simply a masterpiece

Joe Haldeman: "The Forever War" was my intro to science fiction, so it holds a special place in my heart.

yall are into sci fi and fantasy stuff and haven't listed Octavia Butler. hands down the best.

+1 to fortknox. I *loved* the Forever War.

I'd like to add the 'classic' Le Carre novels to the list (Tinker, Spy From The Cold, Looking-Glass War), as well as kudos for Orwell, Irvine Welsh, and Chuck Klosterman.

Ha ha! You are all nerds.

Harper Lee
Steinbeck
Katherine Dunn (Geek Love)
Mikhail Bulgakov (The Master and Margarita)
William S. Burroughs
H.P. Lovecraft
Ambrose Bierce
Paul Avrich for non fiction

Obviously others

Also add Ursula LeGuin. We've talked about it before, but the Lathe of Heaven is still a thought provoking mind bender and one of the best reads of the later half of the 20th Century.

FYI - for all you scifi geeks:
I'm not a big fan of Asimov (yeah yeah, call me a blasphemer... he tends to bore me, though), but this is one of my fav short stories, and he gives it away for free on the web (will take you 15 minutes to read).
If you haven't read "The Last Question", here's a free treat for you:
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

The Last Question is good. One of my favourite Asimovs. I like this story too. It is a "Postcard story" (stories of 180 words, that you can write on the back of a postcard). Well worth the minute it will take you to read. "Earth's flaming debris still filled half the sky..."

Quarantine - Arthur C Clarke.
http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/learn/html/e.8.2.shtml