Here is where you can reccomend books for people to read. I strongly reccomend the book "The Giver". It's a nice Sci-Fi Drama, and the ending is the most unique ending I've ever seen.

LOTF is awesome. SO much symbolisim, so little time. And it was funny that kid's name was piggy!

Or, you could try Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series.

Caution: These books are not for a light reader. That is to say, if you are easily offended by language or other such things, you probably shouldn't read.

If you don't mind those, however, it is a wonderful series well worth the time spent reading.

I suggest "Rise Of The Ogre"... wha har har harrr...

Is this a joke? Because if it isn´t you didn´t get it. The fact that 42 is the answer to *the* question can´t possible be true. It is a symbol. It is not a fact. The hundred years old computer told so. It is the statement for the fact, that the answer of the sence and meaning of the universe and life is retorical. Everybody has to answer it for themselfe. And if you DO belive the answer is 42, than not because you found that out for yourselfe. I think you just laughting about a joke you don´t get. ;-)

Yes. What I always took from the ending of Hitchhikers guide is that the ultimate answer is meaningless unless you understand how its been derived. The ultimate question, when revealed, was similarly meaningless and left you asking "why is that the ultimate question?" and so on add infintium in an infinite recursion... in other words, if you start from the ending and try working your way back, you end up getting just as stuck as if you tried to derive it from the beginning forwards, thereby rendering the solution to life the universe and everything (as opposed to the mere answer) forever outside the grasp of a mind unable to comprehend infinities. But thats just my take on it, it's years since I've thought about it, and I'm sure there's a hole in it that someone knowledgeable about the series could pick in it.

As far as books go, I'd go for 'The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon' and 'IT' by Stephen King (@ George Harrison: Long days and pleasant nights to you, wordslinger ), 'The Lovely Bones' by Alice Sebold, and 'His Dark Materials' by Philip Pullman.

CargoOfDarkness, OF COURSE it isn't a joke!;-) Of course I truly and faithfully believe that the Answer to the Question is 42;-D And the Question is... Nah... I don't want to spoil the pleasure for those who haven't read the book yet.
In my opinion, the point of the book is that the world is a bloody chaotic and meaningless place. The very Great Answer there is completely useless rubbish - and why should the Great Answer be useful? The world isn't anthropocentric, it's entirely for itself, it's humans that seek for some purpose of reason or idea in it... for some reason. But all we really can do is to take it as it is. Ford and Zaphod managed to do it and they seemed quite fine. Arthur, as an Earthling, always craved to find some logic and reason in what was going on around him and was constantly left unhappy, confused and tealess.

So my point is this. The world is a helluva place, only most people get worried too much about whys and hows of it... Er... I guess, there must be another sentence to conclude everything I've written above, but I'm terribly bad at finishing things. So if anyone asks why my post ends like this, say 42;-)

The Eragon series by Christopher Paolini is an excellent read!
( though you must read the book before seeing the movie )

The movie itself was a total bust, though. Mostly because they never stayed true to the book at most parts, by cutting 3/4 of it out. o-o;

SimpReal
Stephen King is a great writer, indeed The stand is a great read, but as Marco mentioned, it's very long. His short stories are also nice reads, "Night Shift", "Skeleton Crew", "Nightmares and Dreamscapes", and "Everything's Eventual" are the four that I myself have read, and they were all very good. I've already posted his Dark Tower series, so no need to repeat myself there

A recent read for me was American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which was extremely enjoyable

*THUD*



Just finished reading 'Strike Back' by Chris Ryan, and it is a very impressive read.
About the author:
Chris Ryan was a member of the British special forces unit dubbed the SAS ('Special Air Service', though these days, like the 'Para' regiments, the air part is just a name and parachute jumps are rarely made).
His service is mostly confidential, as the SAS are largely covert in operation. But his most famous operation is code named 'Bravo Two Zero'. He was part of a reletively small eight man group which was dropped by helicopter behind enemy lines in Iraq (during the first Gulf War). The mission was to collect information about the possitions of SCUD launchers, possibly destroy them, and cut a fibre optic information wire than ran along the desert. Unfortunatly, things went wrong.
He was the only member of his group to escape, without getting captured, by walking 200miles over an eight day period. Which has been claimed "longest escape and evasion by an SAS trooper or any other soldier".

About the book:
The action is quite slow if I be honest. It takes a while to get to the thick of it, but there is a very touching aspect to the story that makes it worth while. The attention to detail is very accurate and portrays the grim 'realities' of the situations incredibly well.
The story:
John Porter was a promising young SAS soldier, on a hostage rescue mission deep in Lebanon. After he was blamed for the deaths of three of his colleages, is living in the gutter of London. Peregrine Collinson on the other hand, was commended for his efforts on the same raid, and is seen as a millitary hero.
Now, 17 years later, a new hostage crisis unfolds, and the two men once again cross paths.
(The synopsis on google is pretty much the same thing)

Overall, a very good book. I recomend it to those fans of millitary espionage and war fare. However, it is biased towards the British nationality in terms of humour and speach.

(Sorry for the long post)

Read Stephen King´s novels like The Mist, 1408 etc. I also recommend the Dark tower series, It, and the Girl who loved Tom Gordon.

I recommend some books by one of my favorite writers, Howard Phillips Lovecraft ... The gender of these books is "Terror" ...

1: "The Crawling Chaos" (1920)
2: "Herbert West, Reanimator" (1922)
3: "The Lurking Fear" (1922)
4: "The Unnamable" (1923)
5: "The Loved Dead" (1923)
6: "The call of Cthulhu" (1926)
7: "The shadow over Inssmouth" (1931)
8: "The Thing on the Doorstep" (1933)

These are some of the stories that I liked more ...

I also recommend the books of Tolkien, are very good...

A can recommend "the Arthur Trilogy" of Kevin Crossley-Holland, especially for those who's native language isn't English. By reading you can really smell the old Middle Ages, and in my opinion it's a very interesting story about a guy who desire to become a knight and his adventure to Jerusalem and all the happenings befall him.
I just get my "Gatty's Tale" also from Crossley-Holland and I can't stop thinking that Gatty has some parallels with .