Really? Another thread? I would cough but we have so many to choose from, I don't know where to start.

I'm going to need more direction than that. You should check out the Goodreads thread, though.

Because, see, Quintin is a jerk!

I am not trying to be confrontational, but I just think this is far to often the response on the internet. It assumes that any person who tries to become a member of the community has to go back and read every thread on a topic in order to make sure that they don't make the mistake of asking a question that was asked before. I see it a lot on these forums and others, and it is unfortunate. If we were sitting there with a beer and I asked you if you had read anything good lately, I doubt that you would blow me off and say, "Gees, guy, we talked about this last March! Are you even paying attention!"

Well, maybe you would, see:)

While I don't disagree with your hypothesis, (hazing for the noob) I think part of the negative reaction comes from the fact that there *is* a search function that sort of works reasonably well-ish, which could be used to find the information you're looking for.

But, hey, WELCOME! And I highly recommend (for the upteenth time here on GWJ) Glen Cook's Black Company books, especially the first three. If you're interested in some good fantasy, that is.

Ordered from the library - thanks!

"All sorts of fiction" is still open to a wide variety of settings and stories. What books have you read and enjoyed, and what sort of things aren't you interested in?

I can recommend all sorts of books for you... lets see what I can do.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
A story about a fictional island just off the coast of America, whose people have deified the creator of the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Told through letters written between various inhabitants when the monument in his honour starts to fall over, and is taken as a sign from above, and the government starts to ban letters of the alphabet from being used.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Now a major motion picture! A girl is murdered, and her ghost must help her dad deal with her death and find her killer.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
A story told from the perspective of a dog about his race car driver owner.

The Bishop's Man by Linden MacIntyre
Father Duncan MacAskill has spent most of his priesthood as the "Exorcist" - an enforcer employed by his bishop to discipline wayward priests and suppress potential scandal. He knows all the devious ways that lonely priests persuade themselves that their needs trump their vows, but he's about to be sorely tested himself. While sequestered by his bishop in a small rural parish to avoid an impending public controversy, Duncan must confront the consequences of past cover-ups and the suppression of his own human needs. Pushed to the breaking point by loneliness, tragedy and sudden self-knowledge, Duncan discovers how hidden obsessions and guilty secrets either find their way to the light of understanding, or poison any chance we have for love and spiritual peace. (copied from the publisher)

The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs
One man's quest to become the smartest man in the world by reading the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica. Not a work of fiction, but still an entertaining and fun read.

A Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
The same man's new quest to live a year according to the bible, as literally as possible. Again, not fiction, but an insightful read and look inside various extremist interpretations.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
A delightful tale about Armageddon and the Anti-Christ. With a cast of Angels, Demons, Witches, Tibetans, Aliens, Americans, Atlanteans and other rare and strange Creatures of the Last Days.

That's a few for you to start to look at.

I read about 20 pages of this and just couldn't go on. Was he trying to write like a dog would - meaning very simple, no descriptions of color/setting/etc just statements of facts? If not it was just poorly written, if he was then it might have been cool but I couldn't stand it.

Our fierce overlords also have a habit of consolidating threads, so we try to help and direct people to established threads when possible.

Highly recommend George RR Martin if you haven't read him. He gets a lot of attention around here.

I haven't read any of his novels, but his short stories are excellent. "Sandkings" and "Meathouse Man" are personal favorites.

I also finished Christopher Priest's The Prestige recently. I'd seen the movie first, so I knew the story, more or less...but the novel was still a compelling read.

I'm reading David Peace's Red Riding quartet of crime novels (1974, 1977, 1980, 1983) in anticipation of the movies being released. Very, very grim. Highly recommended.

I'm enjoying re-reading Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, a really intelligent take on the same source material that inspired Dan Brown.

I also just finished China Mieville's The City and the City (which is a royal pain to find in a library catalog by keyword search). I thought it was a much tighter read than his earlier Bas-Lag books; he's really grown as an author in a short time.

Edit: and I just became a consultant!

It really doesn't have anything to do with noob-hazing; tagged members with years of experience get coughed regularly too.

I can't really recommend much at the moment, as I seem to be stuck in a rut of reading Stephen King books for the eleventy-billionth time, and wondering why for the eleventy-billionth time. I have also been reading Charlie Brooker's collected columns, but they won't mean much unless you are a) British, and b) watch far more TV than is good for you. Luckily, I fit into both categories, because they are hilarious.

I didn't get this book I just... what happened exactly? The book had no answers for me in the end. I'm pretty sure none of was real, I guess, except for the stuff that was.
It was long, wordy and confusing but an absolutely enjoyable, wonderfull read anyways. Not good for anyone who can't stand ambiguity.

I read it a while ago, so I may not be remembering it right, but I'm fairly confident that the ending was left open in certain ways. I guess I just enjoy concrete endings and that was completely not the point of this book.

As for a book recomondation; the Dark Tower series if you haven't read it.