Okay, so I didn't come back on Monday and add my list. I'm too busy reading.
1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Really only counts as one book, and not only brilliant but visionary. The foundation of modern fantasy.
2. The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (with assistance by Brandon Sanderson). The term "Epic" as a compliment was invented for this series. Perhaps the most ambitious and fascinating series I've ever read.
3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Also visionary, but this time terrifying, because it's true. It also has some of the loveliest prose I've ever seen in science fiction, and also has a personal connection for me.
4. Lamb by Christopher Moore. Along with Dirty Job and Fool, also by Moore. Christopher Moore is the funniest novelist I know, and Lamb is fascinating as well.
5. The Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon. Remarkable depth in a genre not known for it.
(5.5: Me. I like the book I wrote. But that's not really fair.)
Books I hate:
Well, there's this one. Magician's Apprentice, by Trudi Canavan (At the bottom of the page if you follow the link -- that's my book report site! Because I am the king of book nerds! All will bow before me and despair!), which is just about the lamest high fantasy book I have read all the way through. And then there's this one, The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima, which was so ridiculous that it inspired me to write my first online book review. But the worst book I know is the one I was required to teach for the first four years of my career, in California: A Separate Peace, by John Knowles. Here, I'll ruin the story for you: there are a group of privileged snotty rich kids at an all-boys prep school during World War II. Two of them are best friends, and one is envious of the other, who is more popular, a better athlete, and happier. So the envious one chucks the popular one out of a tree, and he breaks his leg and later dies. That's the book. Now stretch that out over 220 pages, and make all of the characters loathsome and pointless human beings. You get the idea.
No: I take that back. The worst book ever? That would be Breaking Dawn. That book needs to be taken out behind the shed and given a whuppin'.
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Yeah, it's true, Breaking Dawn sucked in all ways possible. It was like...eating cake. You start out with the top (because it's still in the pan)and then you get down to the bottom, and you're like "WTF!!!!! It's soggy!" And it totally ruins your cake experience, because the bottom.
ReplyDeletedefine "whuppin" used in this context
ReplyDeletewell i would use whuppin as "needs to be put through the wood chipper" but hey i don't know....sigh the sad part is that it is true because everything was so cheesy.
ReplyDeleteWHY STEPHENIE!?!?!?!?!? WHY!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?
"Whuppin'" would be a humorously folksy colloquialism for "whipping" -- which isn't really humorous, but I managed to avoid the implication of excessive force by focusing on the book itself, rather than the characters or the author, as the target of said "whuppin'." I would like to take my copy of Breaking Dawn -- or the library's copy, or any copy, really -- and beat it with a stick. Flog it, one might say.
ReplyDeletewhy thank you, that clears it up some, but urban dictionary says it is...
ReplyDelete"Whuppin
Replaces the phrase "What happens if" in moments of extreme agitation.
Whuppin we get caught?"
which makes me wonder if this sentence makes any sense at all and is really an incomplete cliffhanger of a sentence?