Assuming you havn't read them (or you could read them again if you already have) : Narnia series (all seven books), Lord of the rings series (including hobbit, but i can't say i'd recommend silmarion, although you might like it, who knows), and Hitchhicker's guide to the galaxy.

LW: I ordered that one last week, and I'm dying for it to get here!

The DaVinci code....I was looking at that yesterday and wondering if it was any good.  It's been so popular that I wasn't sure I wanted to read it, but now that you've recommended it.....I think I'll give it a shot.

I've never head of Swan Song, but I'll go and have a look at it too.  The Thorn Birds...I think i started reading that when I was in my 20's, and I didn't finish it.  I'll have a look at that on Amazon too!

Good luck at the surgeon.....might we be commiserating with each other post-surgery soon?

but i can't say i'd recommend silmarion, although you might like it, who knows

It reads more like a history book than a novel.

Are you into Sci-Fi?  If so, The Foundation Trilogy.  If not James Mitchener (anything by him, but you might like Texas and Centenial).

Hmmm, I do have a few books lined up that I'm reading right now. One of them that I recently started reading is Cooking for Mr. Latte, a food lover's courtship, with recipes by Amanda Hesser. it's about this gourmet food writer's love of food and her romance with her recipes (her actual love, Mr. Latte and her "foodie" group of co-workers as she call them). So far it's pretty interesting and fun to read. Very light stuff and some really great recipes (that I hope to try one day)!

I'll take a look at the other titles that I can't remember right now that I have at home and tell you about them tomorrow.

Also I do have a list of "To be read books" that I keep on my hard drive. I think one of the books I mentioned is one you were reading some time ago and recommended on your JU book site and also the Dune series which either Doc or Elie recommended for me to read since I love the movie so much! I'll copy it for you here:


SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME
A Year of Passionate Reading
by Sara Nelson (nonfiction)

Mary Hunt’s Debt-proof Living
By Mary Hunt

The Complete Tightwad Gazette:
Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle
by Amy Dacyczyn

WILD CARD QUILT
Taking a Chance on Home
by Janisse Ray (nonfiction)


EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY
by Susan Jeffers, Ph.D. (nonfiction)

Learn How To Bank Like A Banker, Kimberly Griffiths.


AN EMBARRASSMENT OF MANGOES
by Ann Vanderhoof (nonfiction)


The Dune Series –
House Atreides
House Harkonnen
House Corrino
By Brian Herbert & Kevin Anderson

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
By Mark Haddon

The Tipping Point
By Malcolm Gladwell

Learning to Fall – the Blessings of an Imperfect Life
By Philip Simmons

Always Wear Joy, My Mother Bold & Beautiful by Susan Fales-Hill

Monkey Dancing by Daniel Glick

Lend me your Ears, A collection of the World’s great speeches
by William Safire

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Here's some that are not brain benders, but none the less, entertaining

Wally Lamb: She's Come Undone (my faaaavorite book)
Ben Stein: Hollywood Days, Hollywood nights
Nicholas Spark: The Notebook

"Switch Bitch", "Kiss Kiss", and "My Uncle Oswald" by Roald Dahl (or any other of his adult short-story collections, those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.)
the "Canopus in Argos: Archives" series by Doris Lessing
"Briefing for a Descent into Hell", by Doris Lessing.
"The Sound and the Fury" and "As I Lay Dying", by William Faulkner
"The Sun Also Rises", "A Farewell to Arms", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", and "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway.
"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess. Also a bunch of other stuff by him, although none has reached anywhere near the heights achieved by that one.
Any book by Terry Pratchett, but particularly the "Discworld" series. Gently humorous but engrossing, rather in the tradition of...
Any book by P.G. Wodehouse, but particularly the Bertie Wooster stories (aka the "Jeeves" stories) and the Psmith novels.
Any Dilbert book.
A book of crossword puzzles or other mental gymnastics (or perhaps a couple weeks' worth of newspaper crosswords).
"Starship Troopers", "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", and "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein.
"Little Fuzzy" and "Fuzzy Sapiens" by H. Beam Piper.

My favorite author is JG Ballard, a great 70's British sci-fi writer. But the books that I enjoy the most which he wrote are Empire of the Sun, which was made into a movie that was directed/produced by Stephen Speilberg, and The Kindness of Women which is a sort of continuation of the story.
I've got a book I'd like to mail you... send me your address at my email and I'll post it asap. I'll even include a note as to why I love it so much, and why it makes me think of you. Nic.

stopsonadime@yahoo.com

Oh yeah, anything by Larry McMurtry. Did I tell ya I met him once? He doesn't live far from me, BTW.

oh and Tigers child by torey hayden, also her other book called: One child...both are awesome books, read on child first, then tigers child, so that they makes sense, as tigers child is about the same child in one child, only years later...

I havent read as much as I'd like to lately, but I recently finished Stardust by Neil Gaiman. The tagline is something like "A grown-up fairy tale", which it is. He's written a few other books and graphic novels / comics and is fairly well known for his work. Terry Pratchett writes good SF-humor, similar to Douglas Adams but with a more fantasy feel than SF.

If you would like something different, try finding some trade paperbacks of certain comics. You might think of them as kids' stuff, but a lot of it isn't. Which reflects that comic readers are getting older, or kids are getting more jaded. Hellboy is a safe bet. Hopeless Savages is extremely entertaining, since it's so far off from most comics and is like a well written sitcom in comic form. Runaways is getting very good. Global Frequency is killer, as is the TV pilot if you can find the torrent on the Internet. Preacher is weird, weird, NC-17 stuff, but very well known. Marvel and DC's runs are so huge that I can't even touch on it at all...

I'd recommend more comics, but there's so many... If you're lucky enough to live near a real comic store, or at least a book store with a good selection of them (I know B&N's online store has plenty) you can ask some people there. If the staff doesn't help you, I'd bet some customers would Oh, I almost forgot. If you're in a learning mood, try finding some books written by Richard Feynman. He's a famous physicist and professor, and while his books often touch on some science, it remains very accessible.

Oh yeah, anything by Larry McMurtry. Did I tell ya I met him once? He doesn't live far from me, BTW.

I'll remember that Shovel. The next time I lay my hnads on one of Larry's books, I'll send it to you so's you can get me his autograph.

I'll second the recommendation for "Gormenghast", and for Harry Turtledove (though his "World at War" series is just ridiculously huge), and for anything by Neil Gaiman (can't believe I forgot him the first time around!), and specifically for the trade paperbacks of "The Sandman" series (by Neil Gaiman, as a matter of fact). Another fantastic trade paperback comic book series to get is "The Watchmen". And, for a fascinating look into medieval Japan, try the "Lone Wolf and Cub" series. And now that I'm at home and in front of my books, I'll make a few more recommendations...

"Lord of the Flies" by Willaim Golding
The complete works of Lewis Carroll
"Watership Down" by Richard Adams
"Steppenwolf" and "Demian" by Herman Hesse
"The Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson, and then the "System of the World" trilogy ("Quicksilver", "Confusion", and "The System of the World").
Just about anything by Dave Duncan
Just about anything by Patricia McKillip, but her "Riddlemaster of Hed" trilogy is her best-known work. (Everything else of hers is a single book, though, if you want to keep it shorter.)

If you're feeling REALLY geeky, you could check out "The Story of sqrt(-1)", "Fermat's Enigma", "e: The Story of a Number", "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea", and "Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the greatest unsolved problem in mathematics". (Yes, I'm a math dork. Can you tell?)

Oh yeah, and one more on the lighter side (Well, the darker side of the lighter side, anyway): "Red Meat", "More Red Meat", and the third "Red Meat" collection whose title I don't know, by Max Cannon. If you're not reading these comic strips already, you should be. http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/current/index.html

I can see I am a little late giving you a suggestion on what books to read but I will name some anyways.

"Getting Over It", "Running in Heels", "Behaving Like Adults." --All by Anna Maxted. She is a great author. One of my favorties. Her stories are funny and easy to read. They are hard to put down too, so you will finish them quickly. I love her stuff.

Also try, " The God of Small Things." By Arundati Roy. Words can't describe how beautiful that book is.