Hey everyone. Just curious to see if anyone has read any good books lately. Do you follow the books in the Monk series?
I finished "Mr. Monk in Outer Space" and now I'm reading "The Darkest Evening of the Year" by Dean Koontz.

The last book I read was No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. Right now I'm reading An Instance of The Fingerpost by Iain Pears. Next on my reading list is The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon.

Ashley

I just saw the movie "No Country gor Old Men" a week ago! It was very good and I'm sure the books good too.

Don't get me wrong, Lee is good writer... But I'm way too used to the rough psychological horrors of Stephen King and the awesome horror-comedy of Christopher Moore, so it's hard to satisfy and hold my interest. It was fun reading the first two Monk books (which I got for Christmas last year), but I love my dramatic stories.

Here are few I can see from my chair:

Small collection of Stephen King books.
Lamb and A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
Various paranormal phenomenon books (ghosts, sleep paralysis, etc).
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. First heard it being read on the radio, HAD to read this 400+ page puppy!
Book of 1980s horror stories released from my old school library. One of my favorite reads.

Wow. I never realized how much of my book collection has to do with scary stuff.
It's hard to entertain me!

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one of my all-time favorite books!

Ashley

Oh i like this topic!! Because i love books and reading!!

I have the MONK books, which are my favourite and are my main books that i read over and over (and that i never ever find boring), then on the sidelines are:

-Jeffery Deaver- Twisted (and some more)
-Harry Potter- All of them
-Eva Ibbotson- The secret of Platform 13 (Others that i can't remember the names of)
-Stephen King- Green Mile

There are more but i can't remember, the only ones that are anwhere near prominent in my mind as in the whole story are the MONK books because they really hold my attention and keep me gripped because of the detail and relation to the show.

The rest are good but i prefer the MONK ones though.

Lesse, on my shelf right now...

Redwall series
Warriors and Warriors New Prophecy series
City of Heroes series
Harry Potter series (also have the first book in Spanish)
An assortment of manga/graphic novels
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Various textbooks on topics ranging from Adobe software, to graphic design, to psychology, to communication, to astronomy, to Japanese, etc.
The OCD Workbook, Second Edition
Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu (on loan from the local library)

I'd love to actually own copies of the Monk books, but money is kinda tight for me right now.

I have Snow Crash - I haven't read it yet, but I have read Stephenson's Baroque Cycle Trilogy.

Ashley

Cool!
Feels like I'm reading something different every chapter! Never gets old.

I love suspense novels and books by Stephen King too! Two of my favorite books by Stephen King are "Pet Semetary" and "The Dead Zone." I also forgot to mention I'm also a huge fan of Harry Potter also. Dean Koontz is one of my favorite authors because he is a suspense writer.

hey ya'll visting from the CI boards... i have a pretty good mix of books on my shelf. i have everything from dan brown's books to old sherlock holmes to good old fashioned haunting stories. i really like to read so i have a bit of everything, but my 2 favorites of all time have to be 1984 by george orwell and angels and demons by dan brown

On my bookshelf are Monk books, books about Sherlock Holmes are in the bookcase but not everytime. Sometimes I have Sherlock Holmes on my bookshelf. Other books I have on my bookshelf are about John Paul II and some poem books (Adam Mickiewicz "Dziady" and etc)
Most of the books we have (me and my parents) in the bookcase 'cause my bookshelf is full, small but full with the books and one photo album

Just got (Mr. Monk in Outer Space) last night and have read half of it already. I can't wait till tonight when I read the rest of it. Don't know what book to get next.

Yeah I have all the Monk books arranged on my bookshelf and "The Sign of Four" which is one of the Sherlock Holmes novels. I think I have read all the Sherlock Holmes novels and stories that ever existed!

I have lots of books on my shelf, too many to mention. I have a lot of V.C. Andrews ones.

WOW! Good topic!

I have Dean Koontz, Jonathon Kellerman, J. Patterson, S. King, The Prey Series, Kay Hooper's psychic thrillers, The Earth Children Books, Diana Galbaldi and, and so many more...along with all the Black Stallion books, the Tarzen books (inherited from my grandfather) and tons more. Right now I'm reading a Iris Johanson trilogy. Springled in are some by Anya Seton and a few self-help books on living in fear, with agoraphobia and books on destressing. I have so many my book shelves are double stacked and my spare room contains boxes I don't have room for.

I have lived my life vicariosly through books since I learned to read and have read historical fact/fiction, mystery, psychic thrillers and so much more I won't bore you with all my variety of interests.

Well now, let's see...the series of Conversations With God books by Neal Donald Walsh, The Secret, The Law of Attraction, and The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent, by Esther and Jerry Hicks, Whitley Streiber's books about his experiences with extraterrestrials. I also like novels. An excellent one I just finished was The Dog Who Spoke With Gods--can't remember the author, and right now I'm reading a really good book called The Thirteenth Tale byDiane Setterfield. I've also read many times Jean Aeul's Clan of the Cave Bear and all the ones that followed.

I am reading a autobiography from a Rock and roll guitar player from Guns And Roses. the book is called "Slash" getting a new monk book in a few days.

Well you can't go wrong with a Monk book. I think they are all good and funny!

I have all the Monk books on my shelf! Okay.. Well they are actually under my bed... I just finished reading the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer and loved them.

Aside from three sets of encyclopedias, Childcraft, several dictionaries (French to English, Spanish to English and just plain English) and various versions of the Bible (though I'm not particularly zealous about it) I have a several books about artists (Manet, Degas, Rodin...) kinds of Art (Scuplture, Rennisance, Impressionist, photography), Specific subject matter in art (sex in art, the human form, animals in art, ect), symbolism in art,, basically a whole lot of art books, as well as one or two books about creative writing, and various books about the symbolism, styles, various subject matters in literature (from Naked Is The Best Disguise, a study of the Sherlock Holmes stories to Exploring Harry Potter, a book about the mythological roots of the Harry Potter books), A couple of books about genetics and genetic disorders, a few books about ADD, ect.

As far as fiction, I have a couple of collections of mythology, Jane Eyer and a few other books by Charlotte and her sisters, Silas Marner, The Selfish Giant, The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, quite a few Sherlock Holmes pastiches, including the works of Adrian Doyle (not very good, really) and Nicholas Myer(pretty good as pastiches go), a few Grisham novels (he is a Mississippian after all), Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Scarlett, a few books written by friends, a load of Star Trek novels, most of the works of L. M. Montgomery, The Fantastic Mr. Fox...

I have a fairly eclectic taste in reading material I guess, and it would seem mostly I like older stuff and reference or non-fiction. But art type books seem to make up most of what I read. And lately, much of what I 'read' has been stuff I can either listen to (audio books) or things that I can get from the internet, feed into text reading software and listen to on my MP3 player while I work, which is anything from email to news to articles and fiction (fan fiction and classic fiction gotten from Project Gutenberg). I like to keep my brain busy on a lot of different things.

LOL Liv,

You'll learn soon enough when you get to be my age all those things you have learned are taking up so much space that for every new fact you try to cram in something important falls out and leaves no memory of what was there to begin with.

Like alot of you, I have a bookshelf crammed full. All arranged by author, in the order that they were written. It's so full, I had to quit standing them up, and now have them piled on top of each other. They aren't arranged in any other way than by author.

Whom do I read?? Mostly mystery or horror. I've even been known to read a cereal box for lack of anything else to read. A few of my favorites:

All of the Sue Grafton "alphabet" series to date; John Grisham; Robert B. Parker; Tess Gerritsen; Harlan Coben; John Sandford; Johnathon Kellerman; John Lutz; David Baldacci; Michael Connelly; Janet Evanovich; Sara Paretsky; James Lee Burke; Stephen King; Tabitha King; Dean Koontz; and on and on.
And, of course, four of the five Monk books.

I've been a member of the Mystery Guild book club for several years, and have probably earned the title of Most Books Bought. The local librarian used to tell me that I was their most prolific reader. She'd tell other people to ask me about a mystery story, because if they had it for more than a month, I'd read it.

Meme

Well I'm not a huge book reader like I know some people are.. I really have to be craving the information to read. But what I do have are books by Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Neale Donald Walsch, Esther and Jerry Hicks, books on crystals, meditation, astronomy, astrology, books about Shih Tzus and my art books from my two favorite artists MC Escher and Salvador Dali.

I like your list Raven!

I know who MC Escher is! Wow, I actually learned something in school. He painted pictures of differnent interlocking figures. They looked really cool. We watched a video in art about it and it made me wish I had artistic talent...

Oh, I already know, I can't remember everything I read. Some things I remember very well, certain subjects, things that have nothing to do with numbers or dates, and some things tend to fade with time, and things that have to do with numbers and dates seem to fall out of my head through my ear as soon as I move. That's why I keep the books, so I can always go back to them and check what I think I remember. I almost always remember enough to have a clue, and remember where it is, which book to go back to look in to get what I need.

But my long term memory is pretty good, I can remember down to small details about things that happened a long time ago, especially in certain circumstances, and my short term memory is crap. Also, the way memories are formed, or the things we are the least likely to forget, are things that cause the strongest emotional reactions in us. It's an evolutionary survival thing. Our memories are linked with our amygdalas, the fear center of our brain, as well as other emotions that affect our continued survival. When we witness something that terrifies us, even if we 'block it out', we never quite lose the fear reaction that being exposed to similar situations, places or experiences trigger in us. If a caveman went into a cave where a saber tooth cat lived, and managed to escape with his life, the fear he experienced will strengthen that memory so that he won't come back to that cave later. Fear creates the strongest memories, I believe, but extreme joy, passion, anger, ect... will also strengthen memories. Most of the books I have here are things that I am extremely passionate about, or that I have a strong emotional reasons, including fear and anxiety, for reading, such as the genetic disorder books or books about psychology; it's extremely important for me to understand what my son is dealing with. So I remember enough. I may not remember everything that happened in the Sherlock Holmes books, but that just means I can read and enjoy them again, but I remember at least enough of the important stuff to be able to find it agan when I need it. That's enough.