Help!

[listersgirl]

Okay, you smart and lovely people, I need assistance.

I'm a little bored with my books lately. I'm having a hard time getting into anything I have out from the library, I've read a couple of bad/unexciting things recently, I have nothing coming in from my holds any time soon. In short, I'm in a reading rut.

So, tell me: What is your favourite book? Who is your favourite author? What book do you think everyone around you should read? What is the book that changed your life? What is comfort reading for you? What book can always make you laugh? What have you read recently that got you excited? What book, when you find someone else who loves it, makes you need to be that person's best friend forever? What author do you wish was your best friend?

Give me something, anything, that I need to read. Fiction, non-fiction, genre, new, old, I don't care. Well, I might care a little if it's a western, but I'm willing to have my mind changed. I am your willing reader.

Comments

[alchemi.livejournal.com]

What is your favourite book?

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is a distant second.

Who is your favourite author?

Vonnegut. Carl Hiassen deserves an honorable mention.

What book do you think everyone around you should read?

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett is brilliantly funny - like the Hitchhikers Guide only faster and more dense.

What is the book that changed your life?

Catch-22 changed the way I thought about everything. It was a complete mind fuck, in the best sense. I was thirteen, reading mostly Ed McBain novels and it hit me hard.

What is comfort reading for you?

I like old mysteries - Earle Stanley Gardner, Raymond Chandler, etc. Few have read him compared to other great mystery authors, but give Dick Francis a chance. He writes about horse and racing related mysteries, which makes it seem like he'd get old, but he knows so much about it and picks characters and locations so well that his books seem so much more realistic and worldly then most.

What book can always make you laugh?

Strip Tease, Skin Tight and Native Tongue (Hiassen), Cat's Cradle, and Good Omens.

What have you read recently that got you excited?

Bel Canto was such a wonderful magical book that it was hard to even describe. It is the type of book that is so poetic and beautiful that it moved me to tears while I laughted. It is the perfect solution to cynicism.

What book, when you find someone else who loves it, makes you need to be that person's best friend forever?

This is the hardest question - I tend to feel an initial bond to people who like Enders Game. There are so many though, and enough of them are assholes, that it only gets your foot in the door.

What author do you wish was your best friend?

Vonnnegut - he seems like he'd be hilarious and cynical and the best person to just sit in a cafe and bitch about the world with.

[listersgirl]

Good Omens is probably my favourite book - or at least it's the book that I use to prevent myself from having a fit of indecision whenever I'm asked about my favourite book. I like Hiassen and Vonnegut, too, though it's been a while since I've read anything by either of them.

I haven't read Bel Canto yet, though, so that's going on the new list. Thanks!