Books? Reading? Yes!

So I noticed we have yet to start a book thread, so therefore let's see what books we all tend to read (if you do, and if you don't for SHAME).

Currently reading: Dune Series (Frank Herbert)
Past Favorites:Legend of Drizzt series (R.A. Salvatore), Blue Moon/Rising(Simon R. Green), Redwall (Brian Jaques) Harry Potter (everyone knows Rowling).
Future Readings: Macross/Robotech Novels (Jack mcKinley)

and does anyone have recommendations for good fantasy books? or science fiction?

Ah Redwall. Many a day as a child were spent reading about a bunch of pacifist mice in an abbey who could skill beat the living snot out of any pirate rat or other vermin that came along. No they were good books as a kid, got my copy of Lord Brocktree (I think it's that one, hardback as well) sign by the man himself.
My brother is a big fan of the Dune books. He's 10 years older than me and was reading them when I was born so when my parents were naming me and they let him choose he named me after two of the characters from Dune. If your interested they were Paul Atreides and Duncan Idaho.

I'm mostly a sci fi fan and at the moment I'm reading Only Forward by Michael M. Smith. It's really good and this is actually the 3rd time I've read it.
As for other books, for fantasy David Gemmel is good. The Jerusalem Man series is more sci fi I guess but there is also the Rigante series and several others which are mostly fantasy. Would take a good while to get through all his books.
Also for sci fi there is the Ringworld series by Larry Niven. Halo probably got their design idea from this but the ringworld in this is much bigger and has a star at its centre.
Finally I think that Ken Macleod is a good combination of sci fi and politics at least in the 4 book series I've read from him which was the Fall Revolution series.

As for fantasy, I also enjoyed the Redwall series and used to be heavily into (and highly recommend) Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" novels.

I'll read practically anything, but my favorite genres are usually horror, suspense, or comedy. A few of the books I'm reading now are "Drood" by Dan Simmons, "Tourist Season" by Carl Hiaasen, Alexandra Sokoloff's "The Unseen," and Andrew Vachhs' "Flood."

Next up are Phillip K. Dick's "A Scanner Darkly" and whatever lies ahead in Hiaasen's realm.

Well, whenever I have the money (damn you college...DAMN YOU!) I'll go and buy those books you guys recommended. speaking of which...what is your favorite book/series of all time. And you can only choose one.

You'll probably be spending alot if you buy everything, maybe look in a library to rent them. Sometime libraries sell them for cheap too. That or you could look online to see if you can read them there, though personally i dislike the idea of sitting at a computer or laptop to read a book.
Favourite book is really hard. I can never pick just one of anything like that, films, books, games etc.
Normally I divide them in to genre an pick my favourite for each one.
If pushed though I would probably say Only Forwards is my favourite. There is something about the way it is written that makes it sound more like a friend is telling you a story rather than you just reading about some stuff that happened. You can imagine sitting with this guy and having a drink while he reccounts this experience to you.
Now I've said this there is a voice saying 'What about Starship Troopers or any of the Chris Ryan books?'

So hard to choose.

Hahaha, I totally understand how you feel about choosing a favorite. There are so many different things to choose from, and it's just so dang hard to choose 1 favorite. and I don't mind paying for books to read, I like having a nice collection of books to have, and its just kinda like my hobby. My brother has a video game/action figures/movie/anime collection (yes it's expensive as hell). And honestly, the only games I would want to collect would be NIS, Atlus, and Gust video games...but I already have most of them, so books are the one thing that I enjoy to collect the most. Money be damned on how much is spent =p

You sound like one of my friends. He's got major cravings for fantasy but also just books in general.
We used to go to the library and hunt through the books they were selling for the gold sticker which represented fantasy. They only cost 50p to £1 so he's got loads. I used to joke that he used the books to make a bookshelf to store even more books, but then I saw his collection and it turns out I was right.
I also have another friend with a vast collection of Final Fantasy figures which probably cost alot. Most of them are girls though which I find odd and several of the same person.
Ah well, think the next book I'll be getting is another Ken Macleod one or I might start on some of the Warhammer 40K books.

Ahhh, I didn't think about the 40k books...since I used to play the table-top I found the back story of 40k to be fantastic. I always joked with my friends on how star craft was a babies version of the Warhammer table-top and they didn't believe until Dawn of War 2 came out with the Tyranids. I should check out Barnes and Nobles sometime this is week and just sit in read like I usually do xD

Some of the finest books you can read are as follows:

The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. This comes in five parts:
The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy
The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe
Life, The Universe And Everything
So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish
Mostly Harmless
Only the first two are really required, but they're all fairly short, and you can get all five in a single volume, so you may as well.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, every single part of which is awesome beyond measure.

Dracula by Bram Stoker, which can be had for like five bucks nowadays.

Do I have to even mention The Lord Of The Rings by JRR Tolkien?

Eltoshin wrote:There are so many different things to choose from, and it's just so dang hard to choose 1 favorite. and I don't mind paying for books to read, I like having a nice collection of books to have, and its just kinda like my hobby.

I'm the same way, but those library sales (and second-hand bookstores, if you have a good one nearby) could also be a great way to get some books that may be hard to find somewhere else. Sometimes I've had to dig pretty deep, but I've come up with a few gems, that I previously had no idea existed, that way.

Prior to and including my teenage years, my favorite series (and biggest obsession) was R.L. Stine's "Fear Street." These days, two of my favorite series are Laurell K. Hamilton's "Anita Blake Vampire Hunter" and Tim Dorsey's Florida-based crime/comedy novels.

I haven't read Hitchhikers on Lord knows how long. I should invest on getting them again...and I'm sure I can find those at Half-Price books...shouldn't be too hard.

And I remember those R.L. Stine books, all of those were classics when I was a kid xD

Wasn't R. L. Stine the guy who wrote Goosebumps or is that someone different?
They were pretty good horror stories as a kid. Bit tame nowadays but good for their time I think.

Yeah, he wrote all those Goosebumps books when I was a little tyke lol