What Book are You Obsessed with???

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It is always nice to read books that you like: over and over

St Augustine, Confessions -- I have 4 different translations and a copy by my bed. It's a work of art disguised as his life's story. The use of language is beautiful, and he weaves biblical and classical quotations seemlessly within the text. Brilliant as literature or philosophy, also many quotable lines.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions -- I identified with Rousseau years ago as a teenager, and I've never outgrown him.

Samuel Beckett -- Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable. IMHO, Sam was a serious aspie who wrote about fellow aspies and outcasts. How could I not be obsessed?

My current obession is Simone Weil's Factory Journal. I heartily recommend her for the title of patron saint of aspies! A totally brilliant woman (She knew Greek by 12 and later learned Sanskrit) who took a year off from teaching in order to work in a back-breaking factory. She's the only French leftist intellectual who cared enough about the working classes to actually work with them.

I pick it up to make me feel better after a bad day at work. My days can't compare to hers. Here's a piece at random:

"I came near to being broken. I almost was--my courage, the feeling that I had value as a person were nearly broken during a period I would be humiliated to remember, were it not that strictly speaking I have retained no memory of it. I got up in the mornings with anguish. I went to the factory with dread; I worked like a slave; the noon break was a wrenching experience...Dread -- outright fear -- of what was going to happen next only relaxed its grip on me Saturday afternoon. And what I dreaded was the orders."

"The feeling of self-respect, such as it has been built up by society, is destroyed. It is necessary to forge another one for oneself (although exhaustion wipes out consciousness of one's ability to think!). Try to hold on to this other kind. One finally gets a clear idea of one's importance." Weil, Formative Writings, Pg 225

I LOVE Laurie R King's "Mary Russell Holmes" Series, which has introduced me to the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle works of Sherlock Holmes. I love the way King makes her Sherlock EXACTLY like Art's original. And, duh, LOVE Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Also, I love "Jane Eyre", "Hamlet" (though I loathe Shakespeare), and "Memoirs of a Geisha" (I actually read this about 2 years before the movie).

My favorite stand alone novels are "The Time Traveler's Wife", "Stones from the River", and "Fahrenheit 451"

And, right now, I am reading "Beowulf", absolutley great.

I REALLY want to read the original "Canterbury Tales" but I have to get a copy of it from Amazon since my libraries stink.

Les Miserables.

Jean Valjean is the coolest guy ever

The Bas-Lag series by (my role model) China Mieville

Agreed.
I love that story!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I just started rereading them.

I guess this is an area where I stick out like a sore thumb in terms of just where I stand on the autistic spectrum, even on an Asperger site. When it comes to books I am obsessed with: apart from the Bible, the true Word of God - books I am obsessed with are pretty much limited to atlases and dictionaries, and little else. I have never been able to strike up any interest in fictional works.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.

In fact, that's my longest-lasting obsession so far. Usually it's around a week or two, a couple months TOPS. This has been going on for at least a year and a half!

F*ck, I love that f*cking book.

This is going to sound strange.

1: Your sig's last quote has been bugging me all day. I had to Google it. My degree is from the other one, Cambridge.

2: I had to turn your avatar upside down.

3: I got here by stalking you, I guess.

4: I've read all the books (they don't stop at the trilogy).

5: Never whistle while you're pissing.

6: I saw the Illuminatus! play at the Southbank in London 1977 (Chris Langham was in it). It was merely the 9 hour version. (Well, 8 hour, says the web, but we had an hour dinner break in there.) My ex-girlfriend claimed to have seen a 13 hour version in Amsterdam.

7: I also saw "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" play in the ICA in London 1979 (I've just noticed that Chris Langham was in this too - I'd forgotten). "Floating round the universe" was part of the blurb sheet. It was true. The audience were on a grandstand arrangement, on hoverpads, and we were rotated to face each scene.

8: I've just discovered that RAW died 11th January.

Yeah, everyone does. I insist that it looks better upside down, but they just won't take my word for it.





From where? Just on this site, right? Cuz if you're following me around the internet, that's creepy.



Yeah, I know, but I lost my ability to pay for things through the internet, and I haven't found any of the other ones in any bookstores I go to, so I haven't been able to read all of them. I've read Schroedinger's Cat, though, and Prometheus Rising.



Don't worry, I don't.



You have no idea the jealousy I feel.



I know. It's very sad for us. I'm sure HE'S havin' a ball, though.

... true, marginally. Certainly more interesting than my boring orientation.

only slightly. It went: interesting mind, avatar, sig, show all posts, gosh! Illumination.

Hmmm... I don't think I've read that one.



Have you read the Riverworld books?

Ah. So which of my supercool posts did you follow me from?



No, they good?

... sorry ... I don't recall ... they weren't that cool...



Yes. Anything Philip Jose Farmer writes is good. ("A Feast Unknown" has one of the most gruesome images I've ever come across, IIRC within the first few pages.) Riverworld has quite an interesting slant on what happens after you die. (RIP RAW is what prompted me to think of it).

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To get back on/off topic, I guess I don't have obsessive books, so much, but I do obsess about authors. I can't miss out on Iain M Banks, Terry Pratchett (I now live 4 miles down the road from Wincanton, which is twinned with Ankh-Morpork), Piers Antony, and rather a lot more. Almost exclusively SF, if fiction, but I started my third Oliver Sacks book today: "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat".

There are several books I have been obsessed with, mainly because they changed the way I viewed the world. They are:
Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Oath of Fealty (also by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle)
Inferno (also by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle)
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

I have always wanted to read the Illuminatus! trilogy but never managed to get my hands on a copy of it, and I have read 2001: A Space Odyssey 4 times, and seen the movie more than that.

I was just glad no one here said they were obsessed with Catcher in the Rye; I would have got real worried.

Hi Tanz. I've read all the books you mention, along with all the rest of the writing of each of the authors (well, maybe not all).

I haven't read any Orson Scott Card for a while, which was what caught my eye, so I looked him up on Wikipedia and... apparently they're trying to film it. Unfortunately, they're having just a few scripting problems! Don't hold your breath, as it's saying no earlier than 2008!

Try some Gene Wolfe - I started with "The Shadow of the Torturer".