iDB Community Forum

Ok... where to start.... (avid reader)
I'll give you a few of the best...
All of these are PG, I think. At worst, PG-13.
Title: Ender's Game
Series: Not so much a series.... Enderverse?
Author: Orson Scott Card
Genre: Sci-fi, but emphasis isn't put on the science so much
Synopsis: A couple years ago, Humanity found Other life. The Formics. These Formics, or buggers, as they are called, decimated China with a single scout ship. Since then, two wars have been fought. Humanity has barely survived. (this isn't important though) In order to prepare for the next invasion, humanity is gathering the brightest minds it has to offer. These brilliant children go to Battle school to be trained for the future. And among those kids is a young boy, Ender Wiggin. This is his story.
Why to read: Card seems to understand the human psyche better than anyone. You can see the world through this boys eyes. Philosophical, dry humor, and strategy. Best part is, the series (in my opinion) gets better as it goes on.

Title: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence
Series: Not a series as far as I know
Author: Robert Pirsig
Genre: Philosophy?
Synopsis: The whole story is a metaphor.... A guy basically is looking for the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. (punches anyone who was thinking up some stupid 42 reference)
Why to read: It makes you think. Fin.

Title: Twilight
Series: Twilight series (real original, eh?)
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Genre: Fantasy/Romance?
Synopsis: A girl moves. Meets a cool guy. The guy is a vampire.... Yeah. It's really good though.
Why to read: If not a fan of romance or vampires, just read for the language. Its so vivid!!!

Title: The Amulet of Samarkand
Series: Bartimaeus Trilogy
Author: Jonathon Stroud
Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis: Humans can and have summoned up demons in the past. Among them is Bartimaeus, Sakhr al Jinni, builder of Uruk, etc. He helps a young Nathaniel get revenge.
Why to read: It's Hilarious!!!!!! Make sure to read the footnotes.

Other good books, which I'm too lazy to go into detail about. If you liked the other books, you probably will like these: Sandry's Book, Fantasy, Tamora Pierce. Magic or Madness, Fantasy, Justine Larbalestier. Goblin Wood, Fantasy, Hilari Bell. If you want more, PM me. I know a lot.
*Hugs Wings of Light* You have good taste. Patricia Wrede..... *sighs*

Wings of Light Wrote: I read that! But not its sequel. D: *borrows from Library*

Title: Fire Bringer
Author: David Clement-Davies
Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis: A deer is born with a leaf-shaped mark on his brow... A mark of prophecy. The tyrannical Lord of the Herd fears it, and young Rannoch is forced to flee for his life, into the wild land beyond the herd's boundary.

Hey I'm reading the telling pool right now which is also by him. Are they related?

Title: There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom
Author: Louis Sachar
Genre: Children's novel (though it may as well be adult material in my eyes)
Small Synopsis: Bradley Chalkers is a lonely 5th grader who believes everyone hates him, so he hates them before they have a chance to really hurt him. Then a counselor comes to the school, who claims to like him even though he doesn't like her.
Why You Love It: It's an inspiring story of loneliness everyone should be able to relate to (or at least those who have been stepped on and forgotten through the social programming of school). Even though it's supposedly a children's story, it has many hidden layers which can only be perceived by adult minds, making it wonderful for all ages. Heck, just read it because of the odd title. At least you will then be tricked into reading something poetic.

I read that book when I was much younger. Hardly remember it but I did love it.

oogabooga Wrote:I read that book when I was much younger. Hardly remember it but I did love it.

I recommend reading it again. I read it back in 4th grade, and didn't touch it again until 12th, and was so amazed by the complex feelings all the characters had, I wrote a report about in in my Psychology class.

I noticed that Yakking posted about Ender's game; I read the book originally when I was a bit younger... I want to say 10, and found it to be a fun story about an alien invasion. More recently (I'm 17 now) I've re-read the book, and realize just how much Card seems to understand human relationships, and the way we respond to certain things. It's a great book, but I'd like to note that anyone who enjoyed it should most definitely look into two other similar novels that I found much better.

Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon. The first of these is targeted towards a slightly older audience than Ender's game, and the second an older audience than that. Either way, they're great books that I really enjoyed. Now on to the reason I'm here.

Title: A Thousand Splendid Suns
Author: Khaled Hosseini
Genre:Recent Historical Fiction
Synopsis: Story of two women, living in Kabul, Afghanistan throughout the last fourty or fifty years.
Why You Love it: Radically different story from the life I experience, and something that I really enjoyed reading. Kite Runner, Hosseini's previous novel was quite good, but this just blows it out of the water. I can't even comprehend putting up with some of the thigns these two women dealt with on a daily basis.

Series: The Sword Of Truth (Book 1- Wizards First Rule)
Author: Terry Goodkind
Genre: Fantasy/Epic (as it's called on the back cover )
Synopsis
It starts with a simple woodsmen, and ends up with a full blown war between the dark side (subtractive) and good side (additive) sides of magic. He meets all sorts of different types of wizards in his quest to save the boxes of orden from getting into Darken Rahl's hands (to take over the world, basically)

hard to summarize, but a must-read. I'm now halfway through the second book (of eleven, I believe)

Title: Neuromancer
Author: William Gibson
Genre: Cyberpunk (or sci-fi)
Small Synopsis: Someone needs to get who-knows-what and assemble a team. A rehabilitated hacker, a highly skilled assassin razor-girl and lots of money to back them up. Then you will travel across the hearth to complete the puzzle meanwhile you break some ICE.

Lots of fun... I heard that this was the first novel were the word "Cyberspace" was used.

Why You Love It: Action and intrigue plus some hackers and strange characters. Plug in to the action.

Title: Traitor
Author: Matthew Stover
Genre: Sci-fi (or pseudo sci-fi)
Small Synopsis: The biggest threat to the Jedi universe takes Jacen Solo into a new path of comprehension. He meditates if there is a dark or light side of the force or something else.
Why You Love It: Because is introspective.

Title: The Merchant of Death (that's the 1st out of 10 books in series)
Series: Pendragon
Author: DJ MacHale
Genre: Fantasy
Synopsis: Bobby's a normal 14 year old does not know what is in store for him. His Uncle Press takes Bobby through time and space where Bobby must help different territories survive after they are soon to be a reaching a critical turning point.
There are ten books in the series. To be able to understand the series, you must read the books in order. The book is in a journal and real life format. Where Bobby's friends receive journals from Bobby and you read the journals. In the real life part, it talks about Bobby's friends and how they are to cope with all the interesting events that they must do to help Bobby. In the ten books, nine are fantasy territories and the last book will be based on the Earth (Second Earth as it is called in the book.) The authour has not written the entire series yet but has already published 8 of the books in the series with the 9th book being released in approx. 35 days. I highly recommend this book to people who love fantasy and have a great imagination.

Book site: http://www.thependragonadventure.com/


By the way, this series was already mentioned by Wings of Light on the 3rd page of this thread but I explained it more.

Title: Annie on My Mind
Author: Nancy Garden
Genre: young adult, romance, lesbian
Small Synopsis: Two teenage girls friendship blossoms into love, and despite pressure from family and school that threaten their relationship, they promise to be true to each other and their feelings.
Why You Love It: Girls kiss in it. but seriously, it's a good story which has good commentary of *censored* love in a world that doesn't understand it. Heck, this was made in 1982, and it's content is STILL viable.

Title: Bridge to Terabithia
Author: Katherine Patterson
Genre: Family/Children
Small Synopsis: A boy with a lot of problems, meet a girl, and together they built their own imaginative kingdom named Terabithia.
Why You Love It: It's the book which inspired me deeply (as far as a trauma state), and it started my love for Literature.

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Title: The Faerie Path
Author: Frewin Jones
Genre: Fantasy
Small Synopsis: A girl named Anita is an ordinary teenage girl, until she finds out that she was a princess of Faerie, the kingdom she originally was in.
Why You will Love it: It is one of the very few books, where I really found it hard to put the book down after you start reading it. A lot of adventures, fantasy, and suspense. (This is book 1 of the trilogy, I have yet to read the last 2)

Will add more soon, when I find other books to enjoy. I usually enjoy fantasy genre, so expect them more from me