Lightice="Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are obviously household names. Alan Moore should be with them, as well."

ALAN MOORE = LOVE. My lovely lovely boyfriend got me interested in Alan Moore. Loved just about everything I've read, except The Watchmen. I love the idea behind it, but I have a hard time getting interested in it. I'll try again soon. Have you read Lost Girls yet? I really want to...

Lightice="I enjoyed Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, both books and movies, but I never managed to like Hannibal. It feels like disgrace of the character, giving Hannibal childhood traumas and he really doesn't feel like the same person, any more"

I liked the aspects of luxery, and I like the broader look into Dr. Lecter's many and varied intrests, but yeah, I'm kinda put off by the parts with the childhood trauma. I think he seems more powerful behind bars then he does on the loose, and in a way I think that's because when he's loose, there's a lower profile to be kept, but when he's behind bars he can show off, and make everyone realize just how much more fucking brilliant then everyone else he is.

...ahhh...yeah, okay.

morosemocha wrote:

I haven't seen the movie, actually, because someone told me that the ending is waaay wayy different from the book, and that pissed me off cause I loved the ending. I want to be Clarice so bad, and I somehow feel a little strange admitting that.

No no, wanting to be Clarice is perfectly reasonable. But funny you should say that, I personally preferred the ending for the movie, although it is radically different and more disappointing for the characters involved. But...oh...OH so romantic. (What? Dammit it was a romantic story.)

morosemocha wrote:

I liked the aspects of luxery, and I like the broader look into Dr. Lecter's many and varied intrests, but yeah, I'm kinda put off by the parts with the childhood trauma. I think he seems more powerful behind bars then he does on the loose, and in a way I think that's because when he's loose, there's a lower profile to be kept, but when he's behind bars he can show off, and make everyone realize just how much more fucking brilliant then everyone else he is.

I must be particularly used to villain backstories; the childhood trauma didn't bother me in the least. You're right in that he's far more menacing behind bars, but he's such a damned snob on the outside that I can't help but adore him. I mean seriously, the amount of snob here is unholy. He's like Touga except he takes eating people to mean something different.

I'm not sure what to make of the new book, in concept I'm cautious for this very reason; he's not going to be his usual snobby self yet, on the other hand, I'll eat anything Hannibal feeds me on principle.

Sanguine_Rose wrote:

One of my favourite books has to be Dream of the Red Chamber. You just can't beat a big house full of provocative maids and perverted men. Classic chinese novel that kicks ass. Though i've got to say the beginning of the book weirded me out so much; i mean, a stone and a flower deciding to live on earth to see what love is like?! Its sad that the origional author died half way through the book so someone else had to finish it off. Makes me wonder what the origional ending was supposed to be.

I looked this up and the scale it's written on makes me dizzy. It sounds like a boatload of awesome but how do you keep up with such a massive cast? (I rather like this stone and flower business...)

Sanguine_Rose wrote:

Oh for those horny romantic times!

The best kind. Sappy romance pisses me off.

Sanguine_Rose wrote:

lol, all the Hannibal films scare me. Anthony Hopkins does a crap Othello by the way, mostly because Othello is meant to be black.

I can't speak for his Othello, though it does seem rather odd to cast him to play a black dude. In fact I've never even heard of this, it sounds kinda absurd. Then again didn't Mel Gibson do Hamlet? I did, however, rather enjoy Titus. Then again, I loved the play and I love Anthony Hopkins so there might be bias here.

The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle, is my favorite book. It is the only book I know of that can consistently make me cry at several different points.

Some of you have probably seen the movie when you were younger. The cartoon adaptation is excellent. However, it can't compare with the book, which has so much more depth and so much more wit to it.... although, I suppose, for those of you who haven't heard of it, I should probably give a summary.

This is a book about a unicorn; obviously, the last one. She lives in a forest, all alone, and has no contact with the others of her kind. One day she hears some hunters saying that this is the last unicorn's forest there is, and if a unicorn truly lives there, it is the last one on earth. This starts her on a journey to seek the rest of her kind. Along the way, she meets a magician, a harpy, a witch, a dishmaid, a prince, and many others.

I'm intentionally only giving you all the bare bones of this story because there's no way I can compare to the wonderful, slightly purple prose that Beagle uses. For example:

"The Unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonless night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea."

If you like that, you will like this book. It's probably the most amazing book I've ever read-- for the compassion in it, for the wit, for the anachronisms, for the way that these fairytale characters undoubtedly know that they're in a fairytale. It's a somewhat depressing book to read, but in the end, I think that anyone who makes it through the story will find that it's the kind of tale that rings True.

After all... "There are no happy endings, because nothing ever ends."

Giovanna wrote:

I should write about my favorite book...hmm. Doesn't strike me as something most people would read though.

So let's hear it anyway!

I picked up Red Dragon a couple days ago, at one of those amzing little cornor hole in the wall bookstores. I have to say, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I like it, certainly, but it's strange to see Dr. Lecter interact with Someone Not Clarice, and he somehow doesn't seem quite as polished or quite as menacing, despite the fact that he really does more damage in this then in Lambs. Although I must say, Dolarhyde was pretty damned awesome. Oh yes.

I don't have much time to actually pick up a book and read these days, but my wife has been reading to me on our morning and evening commutes (we drive 35 miles each way to work, so depending on traffic, we can have between 45 and 90 minutes of reading time!).  Recent books she's read include:

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (we're about halfway through)
The Jazz by Melissa Scott
A Fistful of Sky by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Dreaming Metal by Melissa Scott

I love Melissa Scott's work because of the details, the political twists and turns, and the fact that most of her lead characters are queer (and it's not a big deal -- they're just queer).

Hoffman's book is a beautifully-written piece of dealing with being a teen outcast, and there's even shoujo-ai in it!  (Weird, twisty shoujo-ai, but it's there!)  I highly recommend A Fistful of Sky to Utena fans.  It's got some quite dark bits as well as insanely funny bits, and boy is the plot twisty!

Yasha wrote:

Oh god, I had such a crush on Sherlock Holmes when I was fourteen. If I'd had any interest, I would have been ing all over the place to that man and his gigantic pulsing brain and marvelously restrained and yet crazy habits. How do you like it so far?

Hehe.  I'm enjoying it, and the wife's enjoying my commentary, e.g, "Um, wait, the trees, they're 200 years older now."

And the slashy-mcslash potential...!  I totally understand the people who write Holmes/Watson now.  I recently found a very nice little story that not only slashed H/W but ALSO Irene Adler/Violet Hunter.  It made me all warm inside, even if I couldn't quite believe the ending.

Speak, Catalyst, and Prom. All of them were written by Laurie Halse Anderson, and they're very good, in my opinion. :3 I'm not sure about Catalyst and Prom, but I know that Speak is loaded with symbolism. I actually had to identify the symbolism in it in my freshman year. :3

Kealdrea wrote:

Speak, Catalyst, and Prom. All of them were written by Laurie Halse Anderson, and they're very good, in my opinion. :3 I'm not sure about Catalyst and Prom, but I know that Speak is loaded with symbolism. I actually had to identify the symbolism in it in my freshman year. :3

I love the symbolism in Speak. I always find the tree symbolism to be rather amusing, since trees are a huge symbol for Miki and Kozue as well. I reread Catalyst a week or two ago, and I was able to find tons of symbolism. I'm sure that there is lots of symbolism in Prom too, but my mind went blank when I reread it the other day.

Laurie Halse Anderson is one of my favorite authors. She's very talented. I wish that we had gotten to decipher Speak in my English class, but I ended up writing about it for a book essay, anyway.

My god... I read too much to have a favorite book.  And I don't tend to read... what self-important people refer to as "literature."  I consider that an artificial division, if there ever was one.

I read a lot of SciFi/Fantasy...and a few things that touch on Horror. 

I love Robert A. Heinlein in SciFi.  Another favorite is Jacqueline Carey for Fantasy.

I'm fond of Hermann Hesse for "literature" and Joseph Campbell for non-fiction.

Currently I'm picking up a lot of Neil Gaiman and I have plans in the immediate future for Kurt Vonnegut, cuz it's so fashionable to read him.  Well, ok, because a lot of smart people I know love him. ;)

Oh, i was amazed by Perfume from Patrick Süskind, a shame that it was also adapted to a movie u_u

By the way, the movie sucks >_> (as ussual)

Well at the moment I am re-reading The Devil Wears Prada, for the first time I put it down and never picked up again due to time issues. Some how even though the Editor in Chief is a ball crushing, Satanic, bitch that rules hell; I would love to be her assistant, for she brings power, and who doesn’t want more power?

I did however just finish reading Midnight Mass about . . . Oh God it was back in August! Anyways it was a very different style in Vampire books, for the fact that the Vampires were not sexy pieces of man meat that Rice gave us. They were however blood thirsty rotting corpses, that had over taken the world and completely crushed out the major world powers of the 21st century. It was one of those novels that if done right, would make a really entertaining movie.

Over my month long break I want to try and get my hands on trying to actually finish Interview With the Vampire, for some odd reason I get halfway through and never continue. Though I desperately need to go to a B&N and try and kill off some of the critical books on my list


My Short yet Sweet Books List:

The Marvelous Land of Oz & Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum

(Since reading Wicked I’m trying to re-read the Oz books, unfortunately The Wizard of Oz is about the only book I can find in the series, up until about September when some God like figure released both of these books in a nifty set.)

Dead as a Doornail and Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris

(The latest two novels in my favorite vampire series! It is set in rural northern Louisiana, with the lead character, Sookie Stackhouse. She was gifted with the power of telepathy, but was never able to control it, until a Vampire named Bill stepped into her life. And ever since then it has been adventure after adventure.)

Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser

(Eh, since seeing Sofia Coppola’s movie I’ve wanted to read a nice biography on the ill fated Queen, and this is the one the director based the movie off of. So yeah . . .)

The End by Lemony Snicket

(I started to read the series when I was in wee Jr. High, now that it is over I want to know what happens to those damn orphans!)