Favourite Book List

I love reading. It's totally awesome. So I am going to make a list of awesome books and suggest to anyone who can be bothered that they read them. I love the feeling of reading a book for the first time, not knowing what will happen, and it's delicious to read the first words. Reading the last is so sad. But I devour books, and in the second reading I go over everything. Sometimes it takes me more than three tries to read all the sentences. It's great to reread and find something new. Well, have a whole list of (maybe) new and (hopefully) delicious.

Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
A diary-style book. It's about a girl who moves from her home town, goes back to visit her grandparents during summer vacation after missing her old house, and is invited to a party where she is introduced to drugs. It made me cry.

Blankets, by Craig Thompson
I just finished this today. It's a visual novel, comic-y sort of book. It's about a boy growing up in rural *some American state, starts with M* with Christian parents and his younger brother, who he shares a bed with. When he gets a little older, he meets a girl called Raina and they fall in love. It's really beautiful, but it made me sad when I finished it, because it reminds me of a boy I love.

His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman (The Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass)
Excellent. It came very close to making me cry last year or the year before. It's so interesting, about a world when part of a person's soul is tangible and stays with them their entire life. An excellent piece of imagination and writing that I found in year 7 and bought a copy of.

Uglies trilogy, by Scott Westerfeld (Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras)
Yeah, I know it isn't really a trilogy. It was intended to be, I'm sure we were all really unhappy at the end of Specials. But then Extras came out, and I couldn't believe my eyes that were staring at the bookshelf in front of me. About us in 300 years time, after a virus that eats petroleum and wipes out the majority of the population, so that the current population is eco-friendly, makes sure they recycle what they take, uses solar power, magnetics for vehicles, and technology is so amazingly advanced (but once you read Extras, you'll think Uglies is old fashioned!), and everyone is beautiful. Everyone over 16, that is, when they are given an operation to make them healthy, super beautiful, and to remove discrimination and racism. But there are special circumstances involved.

In fact, anything by Scott Westerfeld (this includes So Yesterday, the Midnighters trilogy, Peeps and The Last Days, and the other books he's written but I have yet to find - I'm sure they're good though)
Midnighters, so good and imaginative. So Yesterday, incredibly well written. I wonder if life is really like that? Peeps and The Last Days, absolutely fan-frigging-tastic. I could barely put them down, the language and writing styles were so good, the imagery, etc.

I suppose when I find books worthy of this list, I'll add more posts...but as of yet, those are the most excellent. I've read plenty, but these have influenced my thoughts.

Another point...Terry Pratchett is a writer worthy of respect and awesomeness. Of his books that I've read, The Last Continent is my favourite, along with anything with the Wee Free Men (Nac Mac Feegles, I know some of you are thinking) in it (Carpe Jugulum, The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full Of Sky - really good - and Wintersmith). The last part of The Last Continent has definitely made me think differently, and about witches - sooo not stereotypical. So he is very good.

Louise Rennison is an excellent writer, the only female I will list. She writes books for teens, and I am a big fan of the Georgia Nicholson diaries. As you can tell, diaries written in the view of a British teen girl. Really good, really funny.

And James Patterson. His When The Wind Blows and The Lake House are wonderful. Although I think his Maximum Ride series have gone downhill a bit, these are so much better. They don't stick out to me so much anymore, but I think about things relating to them almost every day. It's been a while since I first read them.

ADDED: Puberty Blues by Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey
This is so excellent. From what I know, it's pretty close to what Sydney surfie life was (damn the fact I was neither alive nor do I live in Sydney, so I can't be sure), and the language and writing style is really very good. I know it's a book that (if I should have kids) I will have my kids reading. I really enjoyed it.

ADDED: The Catcher In The Rye by J. D. Salinger
I love this book. It's different to everything else I have ever read. And I know some schools have to read it in English (we really only have to do Shakespeare), but I wouldn't mind doing this because I love it a lot. Or maybe I would, cos reading something over and over and over again for english sorta ruins it, you know? You understand how they do it. I'd rather not understand how this book makes me feel and just keep it.

'You know what I'd like to be?' I said. 'You know what I'd like to be? I mean if I had my goddamn choice?'
'What? Stop swearing.'
'You know that song "If a body catch a body comin' through the rye"? I'd like-'
'It's "If a body meet a body coming through the rye"!' old Phoebe said. 'It's a poem. By Robert Burns.'
'I know it's a poem by Robert Burns.'
She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye." I didn't know it then, though.
'I thought it was "If a body catch a body," I said. 'Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.'