I'm slightly curious as to what the other people here like to read, and am really searching for suggestions of books to read. Obviously I am going to say what I like first, so here goes...

Authors:
Stephen King- I really like a lot of his books, because they just draw me in for some reason and I like how he kinds of ties his books together. I also like this quote, which can be found in the intro to Four Past Midnight

Kurt Vonnegut- I just like his books because they're funny. Other than that...

Micheal Crichton- Once again, I like how his books kind of draw me in for some reason unknown to me.

Ray Bradbury- I like his short stories, they're just interesting.

I'll probably add some more authors later, I just want to move on for now...
Books: A Sound of Thunder- ok, so not really a book, but this is ome of my favorite short stories by Bradbury
Anthem- Aside from being the shortest book (I think...) but it was much easier and interesting than the others
Dark Tower series- A series of seven books written by Stephen King. They were very interesting

And I'll just leave that list a little short for now so I can acutally get this posted...

William Gibson. His Cyberpunk was good, but Pattern Recognition is just a flat out awesome book. It's cerebral and a thriller at the same time, and makes you wonder, as well as not having an entirely happy ending. That, and the way he does his characters (Deeply shallow, can barely seperate their vices from their virtues and the bad guys aren't all that bad) are interesting.

I use to like Stephen king... but.. his endings suck... Entirely. I almost cried at the end of the stand because after reading all about that.. there was a very very crappy ending.


I wanted to stab something.

Terry Pratchett: He writes books that are weird, whimsical, funny, and intelligent, at the same time. His Death series are probably the most intelligent fantasy books anyone ever wrote.
Douglas Adams: I don't really have to say anything, do I?
Greg Hill (Malaclypse The Younger) and Kerry Thornley (Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst): Five points to whomever knows what they wrote.
H.P. Lovecraft: I never thought his books were actually scary, just interesting and very well-written.

Pratchett forever! Reaper Man is actually sitting on top of my keyboard, keeping me from working on Lusternia stuff.

Oh, and Malaclypse? Principia Discordia? All I remember is a "Malaclypse the Younger" mob in Imperian and all the great knowledge he yielded.

Ooo lets see...

David Weber - His Honor Harrington series is the best

John Ringo - Quite a few good scifi books

Laurell K. Hamilton - Anita Blake series when I feel like vampires and were-creatures

Terry Goodkind - Sword of truth series

Harry Turtledove - Really interesting alternate history writer

I could go on but I'll leave it at that.

Whoo Terry Pratchett and Discworld

I also love Kate Forsythes Witches of Eileanan and Rhiannons Ride series (set in a world filled with people who fled persecution in their homeworld, Magic is very subtle things like fireballs are hard to do)

Oh and Garth Nix

Aussie Pride!

EDIT:
Oh they have priests who pray to non-player gods (On discworld lp)
Here is an example of the oddest/coolest

Try reading the Dark Tower series.

"So, Mr Protagonist, looks like after FOUR THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED PAGES you'll have to do everything all over again.

Again.

And again.

And again."

Still my favourite author. (Btw, if you've never read the Dark Tower series, spoiler warning: don't read the above.)

Piers Anthony!!



gooooo Xanth!!



The books are fantasy/satirical in nature, and are 'light' enough that I don't have to devote my whole being to try to puzzle them out. *cough* Wheel of Time *cough*

Piers Anthony has been writing for the last 3 decades, and has been sitting out a well-written Xanth book out, about once per year. (my sister has a collection of the first 22, so I'm busy reading those at the moment)

Wonderful series, connected enough to be continuous, and yet separated enough that you can read a single book by itself, no matter where it falls without being confused.

Jeez don't you people have any taste?

The Halo series
Harry Potter
Lots of the White Wolf stuff
Mechwarrior
Anne Rice

and I must say I'm a sucker for romances..but I won't get into details hehe

Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code, etc
Robin Hobb - The Farseer Trilogy
David Gemell - Tales of the Rigante, Morningstar
Neil Gaiman - American Gods (also the film MirrorMask)
CS Lewis - Chronicles of Narnia (No, I'm not a bandwagon hopper, I have loved him since I was a kid)
Holly Lisle - The Secret Texts

Lets see... I'll list my favorites in descending order, starting with my absolute favorite, down to the ones I vaguely remember to mention, or have read but don't really care enough to read more...

1. Christopher Paolini
Inheritance Trilogy, Eragon, Eldest, Empire (not released yet)
2. Stephen Coonts (Not to be confused with Dean Coonts)
Saucer (Very good book if you like Sci-Fi)
3. R.A. Salvatore
I've enjoyed reading all of the books from him, favorites are acctually the ones involving Artemis Entriri more than Drizzt.
4. Jean M. Auel
Earths Children Series
5. J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter series, naturally.
6. Jonathan Stroud
Bartimaeus Trilogy
7. I can't remember the author off the top of my head, but all of the Ender books. There were something like six of em, but Ender was always my favorite... Must have read it a dozen times since middle school.
8. C.S. Lewis
Chronicles of Narnia, had the original set since as long as I can remember...
8. Tolkien
Lord of the Rings
9. Frank Herbert
Dune
10.Clive Cussler
I generally only enjoy reading the Dirk Pitt novels... Never got into the others much.

The others I've read are Stephen King, too long winded for me, Dean Coonts, loved Shadows when I was young, haven't read one of his in ages... Terry Brooks is another one I should mention... Though his works aren't high enough on my obsessed reading to rate on my favorites, they were good. Theres also been dozens of others, many of which I can't really remember off the top of my head for one reason or another, Star Trek type stuff I've never read, only watched... Same with Star Wars... the list is pretty long, my library consists of several hundred books sitting in boxes, all of which I've read...

A small note, if you haven't read Eragon... And you have any interest in dragons, fantasy, or good storys, you should read it. Not exactly sure why, but I loved that book.


Edit: I ended up adding a few after the initial post because I kept remembering good books I've read, or have... It wouldn't surprise me if this list grew to twenty books by the end of the day...

Okay, I have some favorites too:

Raymond Feist--Riftwar Saga (starting with Magician), but his Empire trilogy co-authored with Janny Wurts is really good too

Mercaedes Lackey--The Castle of Deception...Ive read some of the other Bardic Tales works of hers, but this one is by far the best!

Anne McCaffery--Her Pern series is the only one I read, but her characterization is wonderful though I'm not sure how good her Acorna series is. Try the Crystal Singer trilogy.

Douglas Adams--Hitchhiker's Guide, for some of the best light reading, British slapstick ever.

And of course CS Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia), Tolkein (Lord of the Rings, Jordan (Wheel of Time), Rouwling (Harry Potter), Terry Brooks (Shanarra series) and Piers Anthony (Xanth) already mentioned.

I'm sure theres more, but this is what I can remember.

Terry Goodkind - Sword of Truth series, love it for all its long but its getting so sad lately
Anne Mccaffery - Pern! Best ever Ive read
Piers Anthony - Emulate is such a cute character (Up in a heaval for those who dont know which one Im talking about)
Robert Newcomb - The Chronicles of Blood and Stone series
Sara Dougless - The Wayfarer Redemption sereies
Tamora Pierce - All of them
Sherwood Smith - the Crown Duel series (its also known by Crown Duel, Crown Duel and I think Court Duel but I may be wrong on the last part and Im not mistaken in putting Crown Duel twice)

More, but Ive run between my bookshelf too many times already today

I never understood why Harry Potter was so famous or big, its alright but it just didnt seem anything special.

But for my list;


Terry Pratchet has to be on it, everyone loves him.
Brian Jacques not that good anymore but from when I was a kid his books were really interesting.
Sheelagh Kelly for her Jorvik book, historically accurate and really in-depth and interesting story.
Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman etc- all the dragonlance stuff is fun to read
William King is pretty good his new stuff anyway some of his old stuff is a bit poor but you can really see the improvement from the old ones to the new.

I’ve not been reading many good books lately just kinda haven’t had the time to read anything except silly trashy books before going to bed.

The Heralds of Valdemar stuff is also really good. I especially like the Mage Winds trilogy.



I agree. I loved the Dragonsinger trilogy by McCaffery, and The Song of the Lioness quartet by Pierce.

More good ones:

Phillip Pullman - His Dark Materials trilogy
Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game, etc
Patricia C Wrede - The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
Irene Radford - Merlin's Descendants

I agree with most of the authors stated thus far so I won't bother echoing them, but I will throw in a Dune, by Frank Herbert (how has no one mentioned it yet?)

Oh, and the Foundation series, by Asimov. That's pretty good.

I loved Asimov and Frank Herbert too, can't believe I forgot to mention them.


My god... If Verithrax ever ascends, that's who I'm going to be.

Ehh. I haven't really been doing as much leisure reading as I should have in the past few years. I used to read a few books each week, but I sort of stopped that.

However, I am a fan of..
Tolkien
JK Rowling
C.S. Lewis
Lloyd Alexander - Prydain Chronicles (Like the Black Cauldron and things. For younger kids but I still love them)
Sophie Kinsella - Confessions of a Shopaholic series
Christopher Pike - horror novels
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I HIGHLY recommend Love in the Time of Cholera)

Marquez is a good author, but I hated 100 Years of Solitude. It was too dragged out and confusing. Do you like Isabel Allende too? I really reccomend The House of the Spirits, and Daughter of Fortune. It's a similar sort of magical realism to what Marquez uses.