Author Topic: Best book you've ever read...  (Read 39042 times)

kevinpii

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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #60 on: September 19, 2008, 08:09:28 PM »

The three musketeers is a good book don't get me wrong but in the continuations its easy to get bogged down. the Comte de bragalone really took me a while, the first 100 pages were great but after that i couldn't wait for it to be over.  if your really into sword fighting classics try Rafael Sabatini. I can vouch for captain blood, or Scaramouche, either is a very good read. I also loved Ivan Hoe by Sir Walter Scott. If i run out of books to read, I read Sherlock homes stories you just cant beat a who dun it story.

Hanami

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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #61 on: September 19, 2008, 10:35:31 PM »
"Scaramouche" I loved. Same with "Ivanhoe". I read all the Sherlock Holmes novels a loong time ago, and I can't re-read them quite yet because my memory keeps pestering me... I always remember who the assassin was and how he did it. Annoying.

Anyway, I liked "The Comte of Bragelonne", even if it isn't one of my favourite reads.

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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #62 on: September 20, 2008, 12:14:22 AM »
Simply because I've only recently gotten back into reading, and catching up on books, my current favorite is Wheel of Time and I'm anxiously awaiting the last installment, while I finish the eleventh book. :-\

I definitely need to read more and some of the books you guys have posted look interesting, so I've got some work to do.
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zchance

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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #63 on: November 07, 2008, 06:30:45 AM »
I know it's been almost two years since the comment was made but I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight unless I respond to the idea that "pulp fantasy" or pulp anything for that matter is unworthy by any standard against so called "classic" works. You take any novel written before 1900 that is still being read today and it was, in its own time, just as frivolous, just as unworthy. Anyone who gets really exposed to shakespeare generally learns to love his writing, but let's face it, he was writing the equivalent of "days of our lives" for his time. His audience wasn't the intellectual elite but the underclass.

Fiction for the masses is what has endured, precisely because it had broad appeal, and so beloved it was passed from generation to generation. The great classic literature 200 years from now will likely include names like Stephen King and Robert Heinlein. While many so-called "important" writers' names will be long forgotten.

As for me, I don't know how anyone chooses a single book as their favorite. Reading the many wonderful titles put forth I recognized several that were my "favorite". One thing is for sure, the same names came up over and over again, and I think our many greats grandchildren will recognize those names just as easily.

The Jade Knight

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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #64 on: November 09, 2008, 02:25:22 PM »
Methinks you're confusing "pulp" with "popular".  King is not "pulp" in any sense that I'm aware of.  The Warhammer novels, to provide a counter-example, generally are.  Shakespeare was also not pulp; he was no Disney sequel.  He was more the "Titanic" of his day:  Nothing brilliant or revolutionary, but just terribly popular.
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Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #65 on: November 11, 2008, 07:43:33 AM »
I would disagree. Shakespeare was popular because he appealed to the masses; true. But he endured because he appealed to more than just the masses. His plays were written on many different levels and appealed to all classes. The masses watched the plays on the floor of the theater, but the rich people watched from the expensive boxes too. Remember, this guy was the king's own playwright.

Shakespeare was dang good and deserves his reputation.
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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #66 on: November 12, 2008, 11:22:32 AM »
I disagree.  Shakespeare was immensely popular among all classes, yes.  He was not pulp, no.  But his writing really was not terribly clever or brilliant; more stylistically and thematically complicated stuff had been written by Chaucer, frankly.  Not to mention the fact that Shakespeare borrowed all of his stories…

Like I said, he's about on par with "Titanic".
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Loud_G

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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #67 on: November 12, 2008, 07:27:57 PM »
Except that he wrote a "Titanic" in just about every genre possible. I don't think the writers of Titanic ever produced anything even approaching its success again.

(Though I disagree fundamentally with the comparison to Titanic, I'm just using it here for comparison)
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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #68 on: November 13, 2008, 09:40:49 AM »
Shakespeare worked in a total of 2 genres:  Comedy, and Tragedy.  Some of his plays virtually repeat themselves.  Chaucer, on the other hand, worked in many, many genres.
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Loud_G

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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #69 on: November 13, 2008, 04:14:59 PM »
Shakespeare worked in a total of 2 genres:  Comedy, and Tragedy.  Some of his plays virtually repeat themselves. 

Not true. I mean yes, they were all either comedy or Tragedy, but those aren't genres. He wrote romantic comedy, he wrote slapstick, he wrote slasher/gore, he wrote fantasy, he wrote ghost stories, fairy tales, etc.
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Reaves

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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #70 on: November 14, 2008, 12:24:04 AM »
Also remember, to the Greeks, where he got much of his inspiration from, all plays were either Tragedy or Comedy. All of them were variations on that theme.
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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #71 on: November 14, 2008, 05:40:32 AM »
Have you ever seen "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)"?  Watching it helps to put things into perspective a little more.

Shakespeare wasn't a bad writer, but he's definitely overrated.  Most people today who like his writing are more enamored with Early Modern English than they are with anything unique to his plays (or they simply like him because they've been taught they should).
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Vatdoro

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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #72 on: November 22, 2008, 12:37:09 AM »
I read a lot of fantasy, but my favorite book of all time is The Count of Monte Cristo. I've read some of Alexandre Dumas' other books, but they were just "okay". Nothing great. I personally thing the Count of Monte Cristo is a masterpiece. I'd recommend it to anyone, regardless of their preference in books.

There you have it. Alexandre Dumas is not my favorite author of all time, but he did write my favorite book.

Reaves

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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #73 on: November 22, 2008, 04:19:27 AM »
(or they simply like him because they've been taught they should).

guilty. Actually its more that I don't like him, but I've been taught I should.
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The Jade Knight

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Re: Best book you've ever read...
« Reply #74 on: November 22, 2008, 12:48:20 PM »
I read a lot of fantasy, but my favorite book of all time is The Count of Monte Cristo. I've read some of Alexandre Dumas' other books, but they were just "okay". Nothing great. I personally thing the Count of Monte Cristo is a masterpiece. I'd recommend it to anyone, regardless of their preference in books.

There you have it. Alexandre Dumas is not my favorite author of all time, but he did write my favorite book.

I wish I could say Dumas reads better in French, but he's ruddy difficult to understand in French—the man had a massive vocabulary, and wasn't afraid of using archaisms.  I did enjoy Les trois mousquetaires, however.
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