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QOTD - July 24th, 2013

Greetings.

Today's question comes from Magoonie, in regards to the literary world.

"What's your favorite book(s)? And what are you reading right now?

For me, I really enjoy The Dark Tower series as well as The Stand. The Kid Stays In The Picture is fantastic. Aztec and Aztec Autumn are really good too. Another one is The Gospel According To Biff, funny stuff.

As for what I'm reading now, I'm most of the way through The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa In Theory And Practice which is really eye opening. Did you know Mother Teresa was a sadomachist bitch? Neither did I. Also I'm reading Much Ado About Nothing again before I see the Joss Whedon movie."


My all time favorite author is Brian Keene. He's a horror/fantasy writer, and I have absolutely no qualms in saying he's the greatest of all time. Besting Mr. King. I know that's sacrilege, but Keene's work just sucks you in like nothing I've ever read. He's absolutely incredible. As for my favorite books and what I'm reading now, I recently got two new books that I just finished;






Blood On The Page by Brian Keene - it's a collection of his out-of-print and hard to find short stories. As with all things Keene, it's great, and as a long time fan it's great to these stories.


Gilvert by Oriana Small - Oriana Small is the real name of pornstar Ashley Blue. This book is all about her time in the industry with her boyfriend Tyler. There's a lot of drug use, a lot of sex, and a lot of 'what the fuck are you doing? Stand up for yourself' type moments. It's a good read.

Haha, in regards to Mother Teresa, yeah, I knew there were some not-right things about her when I saw an episode of P&T's Bullshit. They did a piece on her, and it was surprising. Of course, Bullshit is a show with an agenda at times, so I did my own research. I had no idea there was a book out about her that painted her in a non-favorable light.Sounds interesting.

Is the Gospel According To Biff written by Biff Tannen? Because I'd read that in a heart-beat.

Oh, and everyone should read my book, The Man Movie Encyclopedia Vol. 1, available for 99cents [which is LESS than a dollar!] at amazon. While you're there, grab some of the literary works of Scott Keith, and I believe Brian Bayless also has some items out. 

How say you?

Comments

  1. Favourite book is THE TOY COLLECTOR, the only novel by James Gunn who wrote and directed the films Super and Slither, as well as writing the Dawn Of The Dead remake. For whatever reason the story (about an alcoholic who collects toys in a vain attempt to prolong his youth) really resonated with me. Sometimes quite painfully in regards to issues with women and whatnot. Awesome book - very funny too.

    Honourable mentions go to Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, Under The Dome by Stephen King, Little Star by John Ajvide Linqvist (who wrote the equally amazing Let The Right One In) and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin is a recent book that I absolutely adored.

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  2. I just finished Wiseguys by Nicholas Pileggi (it's the book that Goodfellas is based off of). Very good quick read and I recommend it for anyone that loves Goodfellas. It fills in a lot of the gaps the movie could not go over.

    I'm about 2/3 of the way through Mistrial by Mark Geragos. He was the lawyer for Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson, Wynona Rider, and Nate dogg. I decided to buy his book because over the last 3 months, he has been on the Adam Carolla Podcast about 5-6x talking about his opinions on the law and specifically the George Zimmerman case. I liked listening to him on the podcast and my thoughts about him changed a great deal through listening to him. It is very interesting to read from the defense's pov on trials. Very entertaining book about reading some of his major and more interesting cases, how he does his job a a lawyer from picking a jury to working with the DAs office to doing a cross-examination.

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  3. Elmore Leonard's stuff is usually pretty awesome-Pronto, Riding The Rap, Rum Punch(which Tarantino turned into Jackie Brown), 3:10 to Yuma.

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  4. I am embarrassed to say but I mostly read wrestling books. My favorite book will always be Mick Foley's Have a Nice Day. I am in the midst of reading Shawn Michaels' Heartbreak and Triumph.

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  5. My favorite novel is The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem. Hard to really explain why, it just hits al the right notes with me. I'm also a really big fan of Lester Bangs, Chuck Klosterman, HunterS. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jim Munroe. Actually another favorite novel is Munroe's Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask, something I could see resonating with people here.

    Recently I've read Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice, which will be Paul Thomas Anderson's next movie, and really enjoyed it, especially if you're a Big Lebowski fan. In between longer stuff I usually read Kinky Friedman as a palette cleanser for something light, most recently The Prisoner of Vandam Street. Next I'm thinking about trying out some Robert Bolano, i'd like to read The Savage Detectives but my library only has 2666.

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  6. Your_Favourite_AssholeJuly 24, 2013 at 10:43 AM

    enders game

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  7. For others who read UNDER THE DOME and are now watching the tv show. I enjoyed the book, not one of Kings best, but it kept me entertained. Meanwhile the show feels really bad save for a couple of spots. I know they are going to change things and they need to stretch the book out but damn if the show doesn't suck. Anybody else get that feeling?

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  8. The Gospel According to Biff is actually "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal," by Christopher Moore. It's the story of Jesus's life and ministry as told by Levi Who Is Called Biff, who's Jesus's childhood next-door neighbor and best friend. All of Moore's stuff is good, but "Lamb" is by far the best.
    My favorite series is the Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher. It's urban fantasy/magic with some detective elements and a lot of irreverent humor.

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  9. Yeah, I gave up on the show after two episodes. They ruined Junior and what they did with the Radio Station negates what comes later, I think, which was one of my favourite stretches of the book. Hank from Breaking Bad is good as Jim Rennie (though I woulda got Buddy Garrity from Friday Night Lights for the role) but everything else seemed pretty sucky - basically nothing was panning out as good as the book while many things seemed to be much worse so there was little reason to keep watching. If it suddenly starts getting good reviews, I may jump in but for the moment, I'm out.

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  10. Thanks Caliber, I know this question won't be big on comments but it's a nice break from the movie talk (which I love). Thought maybe we could give each other ideas on new books to read. Yeah I kinda remember that P&T from years ago (they took on Gandhi in that episode as well, right?) but I just recently discovered this book and got into the subject. The author has an agenda as well and has a disdain for Christianity/Catholicism but he has people from her "church" write about the experiences and facts to back his claims up including quotes from MT herself. I still did research after I read 3/4 of the book and it did seem to check out that she was a grade a bitch who in no way deserves to be a saint.

    The Gospel According to Biff is a lot of fun, no it's not written by Tannen but I still think you'll enjoy it Caliber. It's from the POV of Jesus's best friend Biff who's much less holy.

    I tried one of Brian Keenes books years ago but it didn't really grab me. I'll try him again though, any suggestions?

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  11. I got into Moore after reading A Dirty Job, which is still my favorite Moore book, but Biff is right up there as well. His earlier Island of the Sequined Love Nun is criminally underrated and is a great light comedic read.

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  12. Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere tops my list. I also dig Stephen King's Needful Things; he was in a dark frame of mind writing that one. Also Jack Ketchum's short story compilation Peaceable Kingdom. "The Box" is a masterwork in that book.

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  13. Oh, and right now I'm reading Terry Pratchett's short story compilation A Blink of the Screen. It really shows his progression as a writer over the years.

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  14. I don't really read fiction (not since I was a teenager anyway) but in recent years I would put:

    "Dharma Punx" by Noah Levine... really helped me turn my life around as cheesy as that probably sounds.

    "The Art of Happiness" by The Dali Lama... more than what people think it is and has some great insight.

    "The Audacity to Win" by David Plouffe... brilliant political mind, amusingly written, and very insightful.

    "Dreams From My Father" by Barack Obama... again very insgihtful, and also interesting to see how so many quotes from it have gotten twisted by the public.

    "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama... see above

    "My Life" by Bill Clinton... Bill is a great story teller and has a great story to tell.

    "True Compass" by Ted Kennedy... Basically a chronicle of the 20th century, and very moving at points.

    "Living History" by Hillary Clinton... Interesting in its own right, but even more fun to see how she and Bill remember the same things differently

    "In My Time" by Dick Cheney... Probably my favorite political book ever. He was behind the scenes for SO many of the major events of the last 40 years and has seen so much, and I learned a lot about him that I didn't know. Also Cheney's arrogance is so incredible that it is amusing... literally anytime he talked about someone making a decision his disagree with he said the world would come to an end if they did this (including people from his own party) and it could only be salvaged by listening to his advice.

    "Courage and Consequence" by Karl Rove... Getting into the mind of a true political operative is a thing of beauty, and having The Dark Lord of the Sith be humanized a little bit is very worth while.

    "The Progressive Revolution" by Michael Lux... A great history book of sorts that shows how so much of the good that we have in America has come from a certain perspective.

    "Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky... Outdated of course but still infinitely valuable for anyone doing any kind of organizing or activism... and probably the most misunderstood non religious book ever written.

    As you can see my taste slants a particular way, but it is very fascinating to me, and I recommend political biographies to anyone that has any interest in history or why things are the way they are.

    As for what I am reading right now... very little in terms of books, the time isn't there and I have found my patience grows shorter and my years increase in number, but I have had the itch to try something new so maybe I will crack open some of the unfinished/unread material I have at home sometime soon.

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  15. Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Seem to get better and better.

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  16. Way too many little changes that had big consequences for the rest of the story. I haven't watched this week's episode yet, and I'm debating whether I want to bother.


    Brian K. Vaughn adapted the book for television, and while he's a brilliant set-up man (especially with his comic book work), I always felt he needed some work on his endings. I loved both Y The Last Man and Ex Machina, right up until the last issues, which both just fell flat for me. And we won't bring up what happened with Lost...

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  17. Well I do love Scott's books. Seriously. :) but my other favorite author is Ian Fleming, the James Bond books are so good. Reading Live and Let Die for the second time now.

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  18. Jericho's first book, Foley's original one is close... It's kind pathetic that I only ever read wrestling biographies... and the Harry Potter series. Shame on me.

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  19. Favorite novels:

    That Hideous Strength, by CS Lewis. It was the third part of Lewis's "space trilogy," with a bit of Arthurian legend thrown in.

    The Brothers Karamozov, by Dostoevsky. I regard Dostoevsky as the greatest novelist who ever lived, and this is his masterpiece.

    Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh.

    Misery, by Stephen King. I have read this book repeatedly, and despite the subject matter (a writer named Paul being held prisoner), it's the book that made me want to be a writer.

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  20. The Silmarillion. The depth & complexity of it is fantastic, I read it once or twice a year and nearly always notice a wrinkle or piece of foreshadowing that i hadn't picked up on before.

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  21. The Hitchhiker's Trilogy*


    *in five parts

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  22. Your_Favourite_AssholeJuly 24, 2013 at 2:18 PM

    i read it and enjoyed it, despite the fact that it was cobbled together after his death


    and i wont lie - part of why i read it is cause i like the band marillion

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  23. Too bad this thread was dead on arrival.

    Anything written by Chuck Palahniuk is good to catch up on. Fight Club, Survivor, Lullaby... but personally, I believe Choke to be his masterpiece. And if they had gotten more mainstream actors for it, the corresponding movie would have been more widely known.

    Palahniuk's work is right up our alley, and I can't even begin to say how nice of a guy he is. I wrote him a long letter, telling him how my then-wife was a huge fan and going through a tough time. He sent a care package with a letter, signed book, handmade bead jewelry with her name in it, and for shits and giggles, a pack of magician's playing cards and a stuffed animal. She was floored.

    For wrestling, I have recently read Hardcore Holly's book, which was excellent. I also read Jimmy Korderas' book, and it was highly entertaining even if it is almost completely in a stream consciousness format.

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  24. The Ghost of Faffner HallJuly 24, 2013 at 4:19 PM

    Thanks for mentioning the MT book, I'm definitely going to be looking for it!

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  25. The Ghost of Faffner HallJuly 24, 2013 at 4:23 PM

    This is the type of QOTD that's right up my alley! (I have two bedrooms, and I sleep in one of them... guess what's in the other one?)

    My all-time favorite book is Boy's Life by Robert McCammon; I would also recommend his Speaks the Nightbird series. Other favorites include King's IT, The Stand, and Under the Dome, and The Death of WCW. Currently I'm reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

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  26. "Finding Everett Ruess" by Dave Roberts and "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer. I find the true stories of the young men in both books to be more fascinating than any work of fiction.

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  27. Watched the first ep and didn't like it at all. Love Breaking Bad, but Hank is completely wrong for Rennie who I pictured more as a Boss Hogg big loud mouth type.


    Also the subplot with Barbie seemed pointless. Almost like "We don't have enough plot from this giant dome, we need something else!"

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  28. Two I've read recently:


    "It's Superman!" Awesome take on the Superman origin that takes place in the 1930's.


    "Devil in the White City" Nice history lesson wrapped up with a serial killer story more batshit than Silence of the Lambs...and it's true.

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  29. Bullshit is a show with an agenda? WHY I NEVER!

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  30. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

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  31. I finally got around to reading the Thrawn Trilogy and I'm on book 2. So far, it's pretty good, but I think it's been hyped up so much that it couldn't have lived up to it. Maybe it'll get great before I'm done.


    As for all time, "IT" by Stephen King is simply awesome.

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  32. Your_Favourite_AssholeJuly 24, 2013 at 6:31 PM

    'I have two bedrooms, and I sleep in one of them... guess what's in the other one?'


    your victims?


    er... "collection pieces"?

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  33. My girlfriend is reading "Devil in the White City" right now, I'm waiting for her to finish it so I can pick it up.

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  34. One Second After is probably my all time favorite. It's about surviving in a small town after an EMP.

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  35. Just finished reading Brad Meltzer's latest book, "The Fifth Assassin." I swear, he's lost something from his first three or four books. He's fallen into a bit of a pattern with his stories where the swerves are no longer swerves, because he pulls the same thing in each story. Having said that, "The Fifth Assassin" was better than some of his more recent books.



    Off the top of my head, some of my favorite books include:


    "A Prayer For Owen Meany" by John Irving


    "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman - the book came before the movie and is almost as much fun.



    Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman


    Hitchhiker's Guide series



    Anything by Raymond Chandler


    Up next, I'm gonna pick up the new Neil Gaiman book, "The Ocean at the End of the Lane." I'm waiting until I finish dealing with this move to a new apartment, any spare money I have is going towards that.

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  36. Like non-fiction. Got into a ton of Hawking and Sagan stuff in med school about the design of the universe and how/if a created would fit into it.

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  37. BY any chance, have you read "Game Change," about the 2008 election? Really great read and they only touched on a small portion of it with the HBO movie.

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  38. I haven't... and I honestly didn't even know the movie (which was excellent) came from a book. Did Steve Schmidt (the guy played by Woody Harrelson in the movie) write it? I find him very interesting and would be interested in his perspective.

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  39. That is an incredible story!

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  40. No, it was written by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, a couple of political analysts for New York and Time magazines, respectively.



    The book was broken up into three parts - one for Obama, one for Clinton and one for McCain/Palin. The least amount of focus was placed on the McCain/Palin section, which is funny considering that's what they based the movie on, ignoring the other two.



    If you liked the movie, I would definitely give it a read.

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  41. I will for sure... I have worked in politics (and still would... but the money is not there and getting fired every November win or lose is a drag) and have a Master's Degree in Public Policy so I find stuff like this fascinating... particularly the thought process that go into making political decisions.

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  42. The Savage Detectives is really good, but 2666 is Bolano's masterpiece. Absolutely amazing.

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  43. You'll be like "HOW have I never heard about this??"

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  44. IT is great up until the end at which there is a head scratching disturbing plot point that ruined it for me.


    Loved all 1100+ pages of The Stand.

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  45. I prefer the Cuckoo's Nest novel to the movie, and the movie is amongst my faves. Completely changes perspective to realize you're seeing it from Chief's perspective.

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  46. The Ghost of Faffner HallJuly 25, 2013 at 2:20 AM

    No... books. Man, I thought I was clear on this. :)

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  47. Goddammit I love hearing stories like that. Really nothing better than a person who gives as much back as they can to their fans. If I ever have any, I'd be the same way.

    And yeah, I loved the question, but I knew this thread would get 1/100th the response of others. People just don't read anymore.

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  48. Have you been published yet?

    Misery is absolutely brilliant, and something I bet King has experienced to a degree many times.

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  49. You're British, man. Isn't it mandate for you to read Potter?


    And honestly, other than Keene, and a few sporadic books about pornstars, all I read is wrestling books and bodybuilding magazines.

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  50. I read Needful Things. Good stuff. The day I finished it I got the movie...holy shit, that has to be one of the worst book to movie quality ratios of all time.

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  51. Which book was it? The only book of his that I felt was around a C+ or B-, as opposed to his usual A+ was Ghost Walk. Literally every book of his I read was top shelf material.

    But if we're going best of the best, then it's Ghoul. Which happens to be my all time favorite book. It's one of those coming-of-age tales, sort of like Stand By Me, except this is one has a Ghoul. It's absolutely incredible. Also, Rising & City of the Dead.

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  52. Meh, doesn't matter what you read so long as you're reading. Anyone who says differently is an elitist prick.

    Have A Nice Day is obviously a classic, but I actually prefer A Lion's Tale. Heartbreak & Triumph was a real let down, as you're about to find out.

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  53. Yeah, Geragos is great, isn't he? I listen to the podcast every morning, although the last few weeks I've been saving them up, and the latest Geragos one is up either today or tomorrow. I'm very interested to hear what he has to say about Zimmerman.

    no choice but to get it on

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  54. I thought Under The Dome was decent. Actually, at around the same time Brian Keene came out with a novel called Darkness On The Edge Of Town [he's a big Springsteen fan] about a town that suddenly became enveloped in a living darkness. It had a similar theme to King's book, but I thought it blew it out of the water. Although I am partial...

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  55. I've always been interested in physics, time travel, and wormhole related stuff. I've tried to tackle stuff by Hawking, but I just don't have the base education to really grasp a lot of the literature. It's incredibly thick. Why can't he just explain it in gigawattz and fluxes?

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  56. Agreed. IT was a terrific read most of the way, and then the revelation. I hurt my eyes I rolled them so hard.

    The Stand and The Shining are probably my favorites, but really, those first dozen years or so have hardly a misstep (coughCUJOcough).

    IT to me marks the beginning of the downslide. Tommyknockers also started well and ended badly, Needful Things actually reused the ending of an earlier book, Dark Half was just godawful, Gerald's Game was another Cujo but even more tedious, and Insomnia actually had old people shooting energy beams out of their hands like Ultraman.


    He recovered a bit with Rose Madder, Green Mile, and the Desperation/Regulators tag-team (though honestly I couldn't tell you why I like that last twofer, but I do). I finally ended up giving up on him after that, though.


    It's such a loss, too, because King's style and writer's voice are aces, but I think his years of substance abuse have just left him incapable of reaching his former all-around greatness.

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  57. Agreed. It's sacrilegious to lots of people, but I've always preferred Silmarillion to LOTR. "Beren and Luthien" especially is perfection.

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  58. Steven Erickson-malazan tale of the fallen. 10 books worth the read for sure

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  59. Haven't heard of/read any Keene but as a big fan of small town stories and horror/thriller/mystery stories that sounds right up my alley! I'll definitely look into it.

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  60. I have to eventually check out both of Jericho's books.

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  61. Yea man. Hawking writes on a super advanced scientific level sometimes. I have taken a college level physics 1, 2, and particle physics (thought I wanted to be a physicist at first) and I can't even understand some of what he's saying.

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