Is Schmendrick the villain?
If you ever feel like being incensed, read “The Blue Bicycle”, Margaret Mitchell should be spinning in her grave.
I picked it up when it first came out to take on a camping trip, I think I threw it across the campsite at least a dozen times, complete rip off of GWTW, complete.
No, he’s the hero, but it takes him a while to get up to speed. The villains are the evil King, and his Red Bull.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.
As far as Star Trek goes:
The I.K.S. Gorkon series of novels by Keith R.A. DeCandido, and the assorted Deep Space Nine relaunch novels.
I ask because the name has negative connotations in Yiddish.
(Oh, I heard the word before in the past, but never knew it was a ‘thing’. ) The Last Unicorn Schmendrick trained to be a ‘magician’ but the true magic …well, let’s say it was delayed… The evil king made him be a frustrated court jester kind of ‘magician’ doing stupid tricks, to entertain the king’s bitter, long days… yeah, he was made into quite the fool, a Schmendrick.
I’ve read* The Curse of Chalion*, by Bujold, probably 8 or 9 times, which is 6 or 7 more times than any other book I can think of. It’s just a beautifully written book, an interesting fantasy incorporating an interesting theology.
Gone With the Wind and Jane Eyre for me. I’ll open them at any point and be sucked right in. Sometimes I re-read parts from memory.
Once in high school, I found a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy someone had left behind in class. I started reading it and was riveted. A couple of class periods later, one of my friends got annoyed because I wouldn’t put it down, so he took it and hurled it away. We were sitting on the top row of the bleachers in the gym and it landed on a tiny ledge up near the ceiling, where it may be to this very day. I had to go buy a copy. :mad:
Every few years I find myself drawn back to Gary Jennings’s Aztec, a great historical novel, and George R.R. Martin’s Tuf Voyaging, an equally great sf environmental satire.
It is very good. Something that stuck with me all these years since I first read it - phlegmatic, tough-as-nails Coast Guard pararescue divers referring to terrifyingly mountainous seas as “sporty.” Sporty!
I’ve read The Catcher in the Rye many, many more times than any other book. There’s a nostalgia factor to it. But the Song of Ice and Fire series were the books that kept me up late into many nights. I’d say, “one more chapter,” for about three chapters.
I have enjoyed and periodically re-read Willie Sutton’s autobiography, Where The Money Was.
The robberies are interesting; the escapes from prison are fascinating.
yes! and the descriptions of what they have to go through in training - very interesting
That would be [noparse]This meat tastes funny[/noparse]
See?
The Lord of the Rings, like Qadgop. I long ago lost track of how many times I’ve been through it. And now I have it on audio, as well, and can “read” it in my car.
The Day of the Jackal – just a superbly written thriller. I like Forsyth’s other early stuff, too, but this one is th overall best.
Cecil Scott Forester’s Hornblower saga. Just about all the books. I never got into Patrick O’Brien’s series, but I’ve re-read all of Forester’s books many times
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories.
“Blood Meridian”, “Suttree”, “No Country for Old Men”. Cormac McCarthy is the greatest living American author in my opinion. I get something new out of them every time I re-read these books. I’ll get the urge to pick one up and then that’s it…gotta finish it.
I love those!
For me it’s the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.
Me, too. In fact, I love - and frequently reread - all of her “World of the Five Gods” works. The religion is, as you noted, fascinating - one reviewer called them works of “speculative theology”. The last novel, about Penric and Desdemona, she seems to be writing as a series of novellas. The first three, Penric’s Demon, Penric and the Shaman, and Penric’s Mission can be read as standalones; but the next one, Mira’s Last Dance, not only flows directly from the event’s of Penric’s Mission, but ends on a cliffhanger. I suspect that is when she realized she’s writing a serialized novel. I can’t wait for the next installment.
Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga is also fantastic. She has the gift of writing believable, fleshed out male characters, as well as female. As well as a nice touch of humor.
A series that I periodically return to again and again - for no reason I could easily describe - is William Gibson’s post-cyberpunk “Bigend” trilogy - Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, and Zero History. Interesting stories and compelling characters - I especially like Hollis Henry, Fiona, and Milgrim - but there’s something about the flow of Gibson’s prose that is both soothing and quietly compelling.
Same here. Got almost no sleep for a good chunk of 9th grade as a result. For me the “another book” was “Bored Of The Rings”. Fell off my chair laughing, in Algebra class, where I had it tucked inside my textbook.
Have read “Little,Big” by John Crowley at least a dozen times and have given away at least a dozen more copies. Also find myself picking up “The Dubliners” by James Joyce to read a few pages at a time. Get lost in the flow of rich characters.
A few books were like that for me. I was a voracious reader when I was a kid. Grandfather taught me how to read before I started school, and I almost always had a book with me. He used to give me books by the boxload. I even got chased out of the adult book section of my local library (my mom had a fit and balled out the librarian).
Anyway, my very first pageturners were probably the Tom Swift series. The next one was probably T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King”. I also ravenously consumed a whole lot of Asimov, starting with “Pebble in the Sky” (never tried his juveniles), and then discovered “The God’s Themselves” which I still think was his best work. I read almost everything of his that I could find (not all of which were page-turners). Of course I devoured his Robot stories.
The next big page-turner I found was “Dune”. I devoured “Time Enough for Love”, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, and “Stranger in a Strange Land”
When I got older, and in college, I had a Vonnegut kick, and went through several of his novels in a few days – "Mother Night"was my favorite.
I’ve been a much slower reader lately. “American Gods” is my current favorite, but still, it took me a few days. I’ve devoured a few of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, but it’s not like when I was younger, and could just sit and read for hours at a time. My focus just isn’t what it used to be.