Who Dominates your bookshelves?

[Gatefan1976]

So rather than ratling off long lists of books you think everyone should read, WHAT authors sit on your bookshelves at home in "collection" amounts. I don't care about Genre here, but, just who interests you.

Here are some of the Authors that dominate my (and my wife's) bookshelves:

Anne Rice
Sara Douglass
William Gibson
Doug Naylor
J.K. Rowling
Marion Zimmer Bradly
Guy Gavriel Kay
James Patterson
David Gemmel
Raymond E Fiest
Julian May
Timothy Zahn
Sephen King
Christian Jauq
Dean Koonz
Brian Lumley
Eoin Colfer
Janny Wurts
Margret Wiess & Tracy Hickman
Michael Stackpole
H P Lovecraft
August Derleth
Anne McCaffrey
Dan Brown
Carl Jung
the "Classics" (Homer and so on)
William Shakespeare
Agatha Christie
Ellis Peters


There are alot more "one offs" and so on, but these are probably the most "complete" sets we have sitting on the bookshelves.

Any reccomendations (besides the obvious such as Asimov, Lanier and so on that I have read but don't own)?

 

[Rac80]

Saw the title and thought "gatefan's getting kinky!" then I realized what you meant so here's my list:
Isaac Asimov (have just about everything he wrote that was scifi)
Terry Brooks
J K Rowling
Jane Austen
The Bronte Sisters
Louisa May Alcott
L M Montgomery
Anthony Hope
H G Wells
Ray Bradbury
charles dickens
Alexander Dumas
Daphne du Maurier
the rest of the Classics (emily dickinson, Baroness Orczy, wordsworth, brams stoker, too many to name oh you get my drift......)
Shakespeare - the complete works.
Michael Crichton
Agatha Christie
Edgar Allan Poe

 

[Gatefan1976]

Saw the title and thought "gatefan's getting kinky!"

I KNEW someone would think "dominance in the bedroom" , I just did not think it would be you my dear

then I realized what you meant so here's my list:
Isaac Asimov (have just about everything he wrote that was scifi)
Terry Brooks
J K Rowling
Jane Austen
The Bronte Sisters
Louisa May Alcott
L M Montgomery
Anthony Hope
H G Wells
Ray Bradbury
charles dickens
Alexander Dumas
Daphne du Maurier
the rest of the Classics (emily dickinson, Baroness Orczy, wordsworth, brams stoker, too many to name oh you get my drift......)
Shakespeare - the complete works.
Michael Crichton
Agatha Christie
Edgar Allan Poe

Most of the stuff you have there I would consider "classics" but tell me more about "Daphne du Maurier", Thats the only name on the list I know I haven't read anything of.

Terry Brooks, meh, rates up there with David Eddings imo (:puke, but whatever floats your boat I guess, I'm sure there are ones on my list people would on as well...

 

[Nani]

My list will look a lot like yours, Rac...

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - the complete works
Andrew Davidson `Gargoyle`
Roddy Doyle
Barbara Kingsolver
Jane Austen
Stephen King
H G Wells
Ray Bradbury
Isaac Asimov
Larry Niven
Shakespeare - the complete works.
Michael Crichton
Dan Brown
Rebecca Wells
J K Rowling
Diana Gabaldon
Marian Keyes
Diane Setterfield `The Thirteenth Tale`
Fandemonium SGA books

 

[Rac80]

I KNEW someone would think "dominance in the bedroom" , I just did not think it would be you my dear



Most of the stuff you have there I would consider "classics" but tell me more about "Daphne du Maurier", Thats the only name on the list I know I haven't read anything of.

Terry Brooks, meh, rates up there with David Eddings imo (:puke, but whatever floats your boat I guess, I'm sure there are ones on my list people would on as well...

She wrote Rebecca.


I must also add the Stargate Fandemonium books - both sg1 and sga.

 

[Gatefan1976]

She wrote Rebecca.

Thanks Rac80, not my speed, but If it's the book the movie is based on I can at least get the gist :beckettu:.

I must also add the Stargate Fandemonium books - both sg1 and sga.

I must admit to having none of those books, but I do have a 250+ book collection of Buffy, Angel, Dragonlance, Star wars and Star trek books..........

 

[Rac80]

I am an unrepentant book nerd.

Thanks Rac80, not my speed, but If it's the book the movie is based on I can at least get the gist :beckettu:.



I must admit to having none of those books, but I do have a 250+ book collection of Buffy, Angel, Dragonlance, Star wars and Star trek books..........

yep that's the book and of course the book is much better than the movies!


oh we have a host of star trek and star wars books too. I must add Stephenie Meyer to the list (the twilight books) and Lynn Kurland a great romance/time travel/fantasy author. I also have several bookshelves devoted to biographies- Allison Weir is one of my favorite biographical writers- her research is amazing. I have current biographies (george and laura bush's newest books as well as his mother's memoirs) biographies of the founding fathers (and a wife or two), renaissance biographies(I have one on michelangelo that is fascinating)- I love history and enjoy reading about it. I also am on my second copy of a much loved book by Natan Sharansky "fear no evil" about his efforts to LEAVE the soviet union. What an inspiring book. We also have a wide variety of religious books.

Most of the books in my bookshelves fall within three categories:
Fluff and fun (twilight series, potter,etc...)
Interesting (the classics)
Deep reading (shakespeare, the histories, etc...) I will be reading one from each cetegory at any given time.

 

[Gatefan1976]

yep that's the book and of course the book is much better than the movies!


oh we have a host of star trek and star wars books too. I must add Stephenie Meyer to the list (the twilight books)

Did you have too, that means I do as well
I thought you and Nani were doing an excellent job of not mentioning that drivel.

 

[Rac80]

Did you have too, that means I do as well
I thought you and Nani were doing an excellent job of not mentioning that drivel.

Stop being a book snob...drivel has it's place (as you show by having Dan brown's books ) and I use drivel to fall asleep to. don't want heavy tomes keeping me awake at night.

 

[Gatefan1976]

Stop being a book snob...drivel has it's place (as you show by having Dan brown's books ) and I use drivel to fall asleep to. don't want heavy tomes keeping me awake at night.

Drivel has a place, sure (wouldn't have so many "fanbooks" if it didn't), but Twilight (for me) is an even more effective "sleep aid" that SGU. I got some 50 pages in and I looked at my wife and said "WTF?"

And I'm not a book snob, I read almost anything. My problem is I'm a "speed reader" (i.e., I read very fast) and if the book cannot keep me engaged over the course of an hour, I tend to put something aside and move on.

 

[Rac80]

Drivel has a place, sure (wouldn't have so many "fanbooks" if it didn't), but Twilight (for me) is an even more effective "sleep aid" that SGU. I got some 50 pages in and I looked at my wife and said "WTF?"

And I'm not a book snob, I read almost anything. My problem is I'm a "speed reader" (i.e., I read very fast) and if the book cannot keep me engaged over the course of an hour, I tend to put something aside and move on.

how can you read Dan Brown then? all of his books have the same plot! I read the Davinci code and enjoyed it- nice light reading but predictable. then read angels and deomons...same plot, so read deception point...SAME PLOT>>>> well you get my drift...he writes the same story over and over and OVER again.

Twilight is written for teenage girls...maybe if you had read it with that in mind. I too speed read...drives hubby nuts that I can finish a book in 2 to 3 hours. (the fluffier the book the shorter the time...the harry potters were under 3 hours for the last two.)

 

[Red Mage]

I own essentially zero scifi books. I don't think I own any fiction books at all. Everything I own is basically is either a textbook/reference or a nonfiction science book. I borrow any fiction I want to read from the local library.

Authors that populate multiple books on my shelf:

Carl Sagan
Stephen Jay Gould
Richard Dawkins
Paul Davies
Brian Greene
Richard Ellis
Niles Eldredge

 

[Rac80]

I own essentially zero scifi books. I don't think I own any fiction books at all. Everything I own is basically is either a textbook/reference or a nonfiction science book. I borrow any fiction I want to read from the local library.

I don't even count textbooks... hubby has a Phd, I am in law school and snookie is finifhing up a degree in communications....we ahve TONS of textbooks in this house. but then we are simply book nerds...bookcases in all the bedrooms the offices (hubby and I have separate offices...I share with snookie), the family room AND living room, the kitchen (gotta have room for my cookbooks!) and even on the landing at the top of the stairs. I also do sewing and crafts as well as home decorating-- that's two bookcase's worth right there.

 

[Gatefan1976]

how can you read Dan Brown then? all of his books have the same plot! I read the Davinci code and enjoyed it- nice light reading but predictable. then read angels and deomons...same plot, so read deception point...SAME PLOT>>>> well you get my drift...he writes the same story over and over and OVER again.

Twilight is written for teenage girls...maybe if you had read it with that in mind. I too speed read...drives hubby nuts that I can finish a book in 2 to 3 hours. (the fluffier the book the shorter the time...the harry potters were under 3 hours for the last two.)

Notice I said in my first post "My AND my wife's bookshelves"

Lets be honest here, 99.95% of all stories are repetative if you really want to look at them that way, but the delivery and the characters are what I find enjoyable. For example, I can reduce swathes of fantasy to "a classic tale of coming of age" (and that includes HP), but that does no justice to the author or the world they create. To quote SK from one of his own books here:

"It's not the tale, it's he who tells it"

For a (relatively) long time I disagreed with that assesment because I just didn't recognise the repetative hooks and elements in stories (hey, I was reading Tolkien, SK, and James Clavell when I was 12, gimmie a break ) Nowadays, I truly agree with it.

 

[Gatefan1976]

I own essentially zero scifi books. I don't think I own any fiction books at all. Everything I own is basically is either a textbook/reference or a nonfiction science book. I borrow any fiction I want to read from the local library.

Authors that populate multiple books on my shelf:

Carl Sagan
Stephen Jay Gould
Richard Dawkins
Paul Davies
Brian Greene
Richard Ellis
Niles Eldredge

Why do you only collect (not just read) the "provable"?
My brother is a mechanic (has his own business), and his shelves (such as they are) pretty much only contain "technical manuels" as well. Is it a sorta "grounding in reality" type thing, or a lack of interest in the "fantastical"?
Truly, I am curious to know.

 

[Red Mage]

Why do you only collect (not just read) the "provable"?
My brother is a mechanic (has his own business), and his shelves (such as they are) pretty much only contain "technical manuels" as well. Is it a sorta "grounding in reality" type thing, or a lack of interest in the "fantastical"?
Truly, I am curious to know.

More of a money thing than anything else. I enjoy nonfiction more so I tend to purchase it. Plus, I play alot of rpg videogames so alot of the time when I'm in the mood to read fantasy or scifi, I'll usually play a game from my backlog instead. Between nonfiction books and videogames, I don't have alot of free money to buy fiction books so I use the local library.

 

[Gatefan1976]

More of a money thing than anything else. I enjoy nonfiction more so I tend to purchase it. Plus, I play alot of rpg videogames so alot of the time when I'm in the mood to read fantasy or scifi, I'll usually play a game from my backlog instead. Between nonfiction books and videogames, I don't have alot of free money to buy fiction books so I use the local library.

Fair enough mate :beckettu:

(but seriously if you want to play RPG's, get away from the computer and find a gaming store )

 

[Illiterati]

Terry Pratchett
Mercedes Lackey
Spider Robinson
Steven Saylor
Anne Rice
Laurell K Hamilton
Steven R Brust
Lillian Jackson Braun
Diana Gabaldon
Robert A Heinlein
Jack L Chalker
David Eddings
Charlaine Harris
P.N. Elrod
Janet Evanovich
Robert Asprin
Larry Niven
Alan Dean Foster
Anne McCaffrey (before her son Todd took over)
Piers Anthony (while he was still writing GOOD books)
Edgar Allen Poe

I have a Kindle, and I know how to use it (though I do have paper copies of most of the books on my Kindle)

 

[Gatefan1976]

Mercedes Lackey
Spider Robinson
Laurell K Hamilton
Steven R Brust
Diana Gabaldon
Jack L Chalker
Janet Evanovich
Robert Asprin


I have a Kindle, and I know how to use it (though I do have paper copies of most of the books on my Kindle)

Please tell me more about these ones, I don't feel I have read any of these authors works.

 

[Illiterati]

Please tell me more about these ones, I don't feel I have read any of these authors works.

Mercedes Lackey - mostly fantasy stuff. She often writes with her husband, Larry Dixon
Spider Robinson - Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (and several other Callahan books - very good and contain PUNS)
Laurell K Hamilton - Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series and Merry Gentry series. Both contain lots of very kinky sex, with the wilder stuff in the Anita Blake series.
Steven R Brust - Vlad Taltos series (mostly written first person stories about an assassin and related stories about the historical background of Dragaera. Good sense of humor to them all)
Diana Gabaldon - time travel-related series. Nearly romance stuff, but fun because the main character is from the 20th century, so she uses that knowledge in 18th century Scotland and elsewhere
Jack L Chalker - Well of Souls series, Four Lords of the Warden Diamond series, etc. Overall occurrence in his books is that people may start out as human (or whatever their original species was) but by the time the book's over, they're something else entirely
Janet Evanovich - Stephanie Plum mysteries with a New Jersey base
Robert Asprin - The Myth books (Skeeve and Aahz) and the Phule's Company series. Also wrote Bards Tale short stories