List books that you have read (and think others should read) or are looking forward to reading in 2016:

1) Submission by Michel Houellebecq

Edited 1/2/2016 02:53:36

Ready Player One - If you haven't read this book yet... What the hell's wrong with you?

Edited 1/2/2016 11:28:24

Crippled America...Government Zero...Plunder and Deceit

How to survive Hillary

I am surprised really that you know about Michel Houellebecq, really surprising.

I started Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.

The Giver

@Angry - I try to read a diverse collection of authors. I must admit that European political fiction is really intriguing to me though!! Damn Tolstoy? Credit to you...that thing is like a concrete block. How far into it are you? I gave up after like 100 pages :P

ahah Jai just started it but for now I must admit I find the first 30 pages boring...
If I would advise one book to you it would be Sophie's World by the Norwegian author Jostein Gaardner, if you like anything related with Philosophy, it is a great and very inspiring book and it helped me greatly during High School, it is my own Bible in some way now.

Edited 1/13/2016 00:12:26

Cool I'll add it to my list...unfortunately its #15 on it. Right now I'm reading Robert Penn Warren's "All The King's Men"

All the King's Men has such beautiful language. I hope you like it. Sophie's World is also good :) War and Peace is very good, but you do really have to commit to it. Long hours with the book. I read it before I got addicted to Warlight - I don't know if I'd get through it now :P

I haven't read Houellebecq, and other than the theme of his last book i don't know much about him. I saw an interview from him while he was promoting the book, and he sounded like an old and bitter out of touch with reality kinda guy.( Also, he lost all credibility to me when he said that he shifted from atheist to agnostic/deist after watching a few tv shows on the cosmos hahaha)

I've also read Sophie's World (never finished it) when i was a teen, and it is mostly just that: a pseudo deep/intellectual phylosophy book for teens who wants to give meaning to their prepubescent lives :D
At least that's what i thought at the time i read it, but again i was a teen so...lol

I'm reading the Quran right know, with 3 highlighters pen (green,red and yellow) on the side to highlight the stuff i find interesting (red=bad stuff, green=good stuff, yellow=crazy stuff)
I've also started Hitch22 audiobook, and i almost finished A Universe From Nothing from Lawrence Krauss (I highly recommand it for those with some medium understanding of physics)

Edited 1/13/2016 02:19:29

War and Peace was good (I read it last year). The first part was a tad difficult, and the French can be tedious, but the plot was excellent and the characters well-developed. It gets a lot better as you get to the war. Plenty of twists. Although all the different characters make it hard to follow if you don't focus.

Edited 1/13/2016 02:25:29

How's the Quran? I need to read it (I've only ever read excerpts). How does it coompare to the Bible (if you've read that)?

I read most of the Bible. I have a copy of the Quran but haven't cracked it open yet...probably should. Does anyone read Aristotle anymore?

I must say I have not. The only philosophy I've really read is Machiavelli

The Quran is much more easier to read than the Bible. It has a lot less pages, and isn't as boring and tedious to read as the Bible (i have never read the Bible from cover to cover). It is also more interesting to read in my view because it has documented historical context that you can compare to the stories in the Quran, being more recent than the Bible. It also helps understand the headlines you see everyday on your prefered news channel. I'm planning on fully reading the Bible after the Quran (wich i admit isn't the best way to do it, since the Quran rely on some of the Bible stories). For example the creation myth in the Quran is much more succinct, as if it was just a quick reminder of the Bible myth of creation.

Edited 1/13/2016 02:58:02

Michel Houellebecq is one of the authors that is being most promoted at the international elvel at the moment... not surprising at all

All the King's Men has such beautiful language. I hope you like it. Sophie's World is also good :) War and Peace is very good, but you do really have to commit to it. Long hours with the book. I read it before I got addicted to Warlight - I don't know if I'd get through it now :P

The King's Men seems to be a very interesting book, Beren do you have any other books to advise?

I also used to read many Sci-fi related books such as Bernard Werber's books, quite easy to read and very original (like "Les fourmis"), and I just started the Mars trilogy saga of Stanley Robinson. I also read the entire books of GRR Martin, just because I am a huge fan of ASOIAF universe and I can't wait for the next book being released soon.

Another current French author with a very pleasant writing is Marie Darrieussecq in my opinion, one of the most awarded author recently, I particularly liked the book "Le Pays" (translation of the Nation/country) which is centered around a fictional small nation that achieved independence mainly inspired from the Basque Nation, identity and current struggles (and yeah I'm Basque so indeed I consider it as one of the best book ahah).

I've also read Sophie's World (never finished it) when i was a teen, and it is mostly just that: a pseudo deep/intellectual phylosophy book for teens who wants to give meaning to their prepubescent lives

xD Well more than that, as I told you I read this while in high school, and it helped me greatly to achieve good scores in Philosophy classes ;) I could not have some philosophical principles or understanding without Sophie's World, so again it helped me greatly.

Edited 1/13/2016 11:50:21

https://archive.org/stream/lifelettersofgen00jack#page/n0/mode/2up

go there ^ and you can read the whole damn book

Couldn't resist reccomending a song of ice and fire, although its very long. As in, its gonna take a couple of months to finish. The romance novel I got for Christmas was also surprisingly not-awful.