With millions and millions of books out there, it can be extremely hard to grab the right piece for yourself that will suite your needs and tastes. Or I rather should say it used to be a bit harder to find the best books to read before the rise of the Internet – now it takes approximately five seconds to have access to countless lists and book social sites with dozens of recommendations.
Am I going to offer another dull book list, no different from thousands of others that have been published in the past years? No. Instead, we’ll have a look at a representative from 10 common genres and in each, I’ve carefully tried to select the best book to read. Might not be the most famous ones and it would be folly to expect you’ll agree with everything I say – but a little controversy and personal opinions are closely bonded with all book lists that don’t have some tangible data to draw from (such as a number of sold copies).
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With the last movie produced and launched, people might say that a great story / fugacious fad passed into legends. But the fact is Harry Potter books and the story they tell made a strong impression on the kids of its generation, showed them that reading isn’t as outdated as it seemed and even made Latin cool again a bit.
Albeit there are voices saying the author of this modern fairy tale, Joanne K. Rowling, has gotten a few ideas here and there, didn’t come up with anything original and above all, her writing style lacks the true classic touch authors like Hemingway or Shaw showed, let’s keep in mind that Rowling also created a great world to which children and adults alike can relate. I happened to be growing up with Harry and his fellow witches and wizards and the story of a boy whose sole purpose was to deal with pure evil and who managed to outlive his fate has a solid place in my childhood memories. Let’s have a short look at each of the 7 books which comprise the Harry Potter book series! Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 22nd August 2011 by Ondrej Dyrka in Book Information
Tags: john grisham, thriller
Image Source: blogs.clarionledger.com
It’s time for an overview of another excellent author. We will take a look at John Ray Grisham Jr., one of the best selling American authors who wrote many popular books from the legal thriller genre. In fact, Grisham is a great example how good can you become even if you have very, shall we say, modest origins. His fascinating journey began by earning 1 US dollar per hour from his first job and “ended” by winning the Galaxy British Book Awards – one of his books sold more than 2 million copies on first printing (only two more people in the world have this award, Rowling and Clancy).
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Posted: 9th August 2011 by Ondrej Dyrka in Best Fiction Books
Tags: fiction, science fiction, star wars
In a galaxy far, far away… Every civilization has its grand tales and even though we pretend we’re so modern, advanced and evolved, the fact is we still enjoy fairy tales. Star Wars is a rather successful franchise and it’s definitely not about the 6 movies from Lucas alone – you’ve got books, comic books, TV series and video games at your disposal. The truth is that especially Star Wars Books with dozens of authors and hundreds of published pieces have vastly expanded the Star Wars universe, far more than the movies alone ever could.
I originally intended to make a complete bibliography of the Star Wars Books but since it would be a task beyond my modest skills, I have rather chosen to focus on a single piece of this mozaique - Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice by Jude Watson (and Dave Wolverton, as far as the first book is concerned). It got my attention because this series focuses on some remarkable adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his master Qui-Gon Jinn which shortly predates the story we know from The Phantom Menace. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 28th July 2011 by Ondrej Dyrka in Fantasy Novel
Tags: fantasy, fiction, humor
It’s been a while since I took a look at a single book (if you don’t take into account anything related to Dune). The fact is that even though I’m pretty caught up in even more Dune books, I am of course reading something different as well – and one of the members of the “other” group is the fantasy series written by Thurman beginning with Nightlife.
I stumbled upon it by accident while I was browsing through my library to pick something for the summer and I’m glad I did. This cycle (called The Cal Leandros cycle) composes of 6 books and even though I’ve read only 3 so far, I’m thrilled already – but let’s focus on the first book from the series. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 19th July 2011 by Ondrej Dyrka in Best Fiction Books
Recent decades are filled with very successful book series. Be it The Lord of The Rings, the Foundation Series, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Harry Potter, book series seem to attract a lot of crowd and attention; perhaps due to their length and ability to cover a lot more ground than a single book can.
I’m going to share my Hunger Games Summary, which is a fancy name for a closer look at the relatively new member of the great book series family. It’s been written by an American author Suzanne Collins. Albeit I never heard of her before I crossed paths with the Hunger Games, she apparently wrote another best selling series, The Underland Chronicles. If you’d like to know more about Mrs. Collins, I believe her personal website is the most qualified source of information. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 14th July 2011 by Ondrej Dyrka in Good Reading
Tags: dune, good reading, Legends of Dune
Without even reading a single letter, it is obvious that the final book of the Legends of Dune trilogy ought to set things roughly as we know them from the original Dune universe. And even though you basically know how it ends, The Battle of Corrin is still a thrilling and excellent piece of literature which was obviously given a lot of thought while it was written.
Just to give you a quick heads up if you haven’t read the reviews of the two previous pieces (The Butlerian Jihad & The Machine Crusade) – mankind is fighting with thinking machines and human brains within machines known as Titans and all three sides want to exterminate the other two to live in the universe as they see fit. The Jihad went on for more than a hundred years now and so many deaths are beginning to take its toll among humans. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 11th July 2011 by Ondrej Dyrka in Best Books To Read
Tags: book list, nicholas sparks
Image Source: allmoviephoto.com
Nicholas Sparks is an American novelist whose books are based around love, fate, tragedy and Christian fate. He was born in 1965 and is well known due to his best selling books (Nights in Rodante, Dear John and so forth). Some of them were even made into very successful movies.
But Mr. Sparks also happens to be a good person beyond mere writing; he used his well earned money on multiple occasions to give less fortunate folks a fighting chance in life and also contributes to many charities on a regular basis. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 6th July 2011 by Ondrej Dyrka in Good Reading
Tags: dune, good reading, Legends of Dune
Legends of Dune have three pieces and we are about to take a look at the second part. Machines and humans wage war against each other, no side has the upper hand – yet. Galaxy is torn apart, lives are lost on a daily basis, but time still flies by.
The Machine Crusade takes us deep into the conflict and continues the magnificent story that predates the original Dune. You will better understand the nature of Harkonnen, how did the very origins of Bene Gesserit looked like and you will also find out that Dune is pretty much resistant to time and looked the same thousands of years ago. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 3rd July 2011 by Ondrej Dyrka in Book Information
James B. Patterson is an American author famous for his thriller series, romance & non fiction novels and many individual pieces of literature. His best known work is the series about Alex Cross, a forensic psychologist from Washington D.C. who works with the local Police Department; but Patterson has also written many more popular book series, such as:
- Maximum Ride
- Daniel X
- Women’s Murder Club
- Witch & Wizard
- Maximum Bennett
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