This Ask-the-Staff question is from Mythstae:

Do you like to read? If so, what type of books interest you the most? (For example, Fantasy is my favorite...) And do you have any specific books to recommend?

I used to read a fair bit, but I tend not to fing the time to now.

However, when I do, I guess I like to read fantasy stuff. my favourite book is the Lord of the Rings. I read it a couple of times though and I really do like it. The Chronicles of Narnia is one of my childhood memories and I still have a set that I had when I was younger. The hitchhickers guide to the Galaxy is also one of the funniest books I have ever read.
I always loved Roald Dahl books. I read lots of them when I was younger, I loved The Twits, that was one of my favourite books.

If I was to start reading again, I don't know what I would go for, though one book that I do want to read is The Wizard of Oz. i like to se how different movies are based on the book that it came from. And I hear that this one is very different.

I prefer fantasy. My current author is Diana Wynne Jones. This summer I read 9 books, 5 of which were hers. Her style of writing is very witty and humorous. She takes an everyday person or situation, adds just a small bit of magic or fantasy, and then you have a great book. A few books by her that I really like are Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Air, The Homeward Bounders, Dogsbody and The Game.

I've also been reading some realistic fiction. One book that I really liked is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. It's kind of a mature book because it deals with autism, so some people who don't understand people with autism will think this book is stupid or won't get anything out of it. It also has some adult language.

To be honest, I really don't care much for reading (a little ironic since I'm reading stuff online all the time). Basically, the only books I ever seem to read are those assigned in school. I guess if I had to pick a favorite genre of book, I'd have to go with fiction.

Well, I like fantasy books quite a bit. When the Harry Potter series still had future releases, I was reading them over and over quite frequently.

I really like reading books that I've seen movies of. Last year in French, we watched The Count of Monte Cristo, which I loved, and my English teacher had copies of the book, so a borrowed one, and I look forward to reading it.

I like to read. I live really close to the public library here, so whenever I feel like getting a new book, I can!
I like fiction and historical fiction.
My favorite book series are The Chronicles of Narnia and Left Behind: The Kids. Some of my other favorite books are The Giver, Milkweed and Hattie Big Sky.

I guess my preferred genre would be fantasy. I'm a big fan of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (that's more sci-fi, isn't it?). I'm also really into manga; I like collecting my favorite series. My favorite book of all time would have to be The Hobbit.

I love to read. My favourite regular books are those that pull you into the story & let me use my imagination. Some of the series that I like include Doctor Who, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dune, & Harry Potter. I'm also a big fan of manga & comic books. Some favourites there include Hunter x Hunter, Ravemaster, Fruits Basket & Initial D.

The only drawback to working in the corporate office of an American book store chain is that I have lots of books that I haven't had time to read yet because they come faster that I usually have time to read them. My stack of unread manga is about 4 feet high & the stack of books is much higher than that (and stretched out onto a few bookshelves). Included in those stacks are some of the latest Dune books, the Series of Unfortunate Events (all 13 books), and about 6 months worth of Shonen Jump & Shojo Beat magazines.

I'm currently reading "About Time 4" which covers the plots of the stories & the history of what was happening during Doctor Who's 12th - 17th Seasons (1974-1979). While the history of the UK & other world events may not sound like an interesting subject, put into the context of what the writers & producers at the BBC were thinking when they made this TV show does make it much more interesting. The critiques & comparisons to the stories from 2005 & 2006 (done in the first two books which were written after books 3 - 5) are also interesting from a compare/contrast standpoint as there are some things that were done in 1963 that can't be done today & some things that make no sense to do today or are done today that could never have been done before (like the CGI).

Do I like to read? Does a fish like to swim? Ask almost anyone out here that has gotten to know me and they can tell you my most supreme favorite author and the book I'm currently reading. *nods*

If I ever met my favorite author of all time, Stephen King, I think that I would pass out from sheer excitement and awe. I'd probably have to ask someone else to collect his autograph for me, I'd be that tongue tied. I'd give almost anything to meet him and shake his hand (though it'd be hard, I admit, from my position on the floor).

But I don't read Sir King exclusively. I have several "series authors" that I enjoy. And lately, I've been reading the Harry Potter series (for a second time). I'm almost finished with The Half Blood Prince. The last book sits eagerly on my dresser waiting to be cracked open.

I also enjoyed the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well. And if you think you know the story through the movies, I HIGHLY recommend reading the books. A friend lent them to me a couple years ago and I can hardly wait to purchase my own set. The difference from book to movie will simply ASTOUND you!!

The genre's I guess I'm drawn to are horror (surprisingly enough), fantasy, crime drama. Some of my favorite authors are:

Crichton, Michael
Grisham, John
King, Stephen
Koontz, Dean R.
LaFaye, Tim
Maupin, Armistead

Some of my other favorite books (beginning with the book that began my reading career) include:

Summer of Fear by Duncan, Lois
A Time to Hurt, A Time to Heal by Miklowitz, Gloria D.
The Chocolate War by Cormier, Robert
Beyond the Chocolate War by Cormier, Robert
Celebrity by Thompson, Thomas
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Lord of the Flies, Golding, William
Moon by Herbert, James
Watership Down by Adams, Richard

Finally, as I didn't see it on my list of 100+ books (an incomplete list mind you), I remember a book called I Am the Cheese. It was about a kidnapped boy who is later released and meets his captors by chance when he recognizes their voices. Another book (whose title escapes me) is of an early teen who is diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. It's a very touching "quick read" and I hope to find it again for my collection one day.

I like to read. The problem is I've got nothing new to read. Since I have a photographic memory, once I read the book, that's pretty much it. I like fiction and some fantasy.

I'm going to second the recommendation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time to mature readers. I found it very inspiring, although there are some "older" things in it.

I love fantasy and science fiction, but not the typical everyday slay the dragon in the castle whatnot, I love stuff that's fresh and invigorating...and I'll probably get a lot of angry PTs about this...but I don't think Lord of the Rings is that great. We don't need ten pages describing a tree!

Some favourites of mine have always been:

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
The City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau
The Time Quartet by Madeleine L'Engle
1984 by George Orwell
Candide by Voltaire

And lots more, I'm a pretty open/voracious reader.

Before I left home for the military life, I was a heavy reader of all things fantasy. I really loved reading anything from Piers Anthony (the Xanth series was a fun & funny read), Stephen R. Donaldson (I must have read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever over a dozen times), the Dragonlance series & numerous others. I also read the Myth-Inc. series by Robert Asprin, as well as Phule's Company & Phule's Paradise. I have a soft spot for humerous fantasy, & read those many times too.

Now that I have a family of my own, I don't get anywhere near as much time as I used to get to read. And buying anything new is out of the question for now. But if I get in the mood to re-read one of my favorites, all I have to do is go into my closet & grab a book. Why the closet? I have had to move several times over the years, & a large part of the packing process involved books. My collection is big enough to fill the closet they're currently stored in.

I like to read as well. I go from Harry Potter novels to Great Expectations and enjoy every single one of them.

Mostly, my favorite genre of novels would have to be fiction. I really enjoyed Romeo and Juliet (although I'm not a big fan of plays), Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (I loved this one), Jane Eyre and Emma, although I did not enjoy Pride and Prejudice.

But, I also like more teen-oriented girly books. To anyone over 13 or so, I reccomend Breakfast with Tiffany by Edwin Wintle. It has some mature content, but it has very good morals too.
A series I liked was the "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" series. I seriously under-estimated that one, but once I read them all, I really enjoyed them. I also very much reccomend the "Peaches" series by Jody Lynn Anderson.

To wrap it up, I like to read a bit of everything, although I really am not into sci-fi novels (the farthest I have gone was Fahrenheit 451 but that's pretty much it for me.

P.S.: Just as a small fact, I read 4 out of 7 HP novels in Italian.

As an English major, it's kind of my job to do a lot of reading, and it's odd that I still like to do it in my leisure time.

When I was in elementary school, my favorite genre was historical fiction. While I still enjoy it, that was just about all I read in those days. My favorite author was Scott O'Dell. He wrote a lot of books focusing on America in its early days, from the perspective of Native Americans, Spanish Conquistadors, pilgrims, and slaves. I really recommend all of his books should that be your cup of tea.

After that, I delved into Science Fiction, but then realized that Fantasy was so much better. The quote that best sums up my views on both genres was written by another one of my favorite authors, David Eddings, in his book The Rivan Codex:

"SF writers are technology freaks who blithely ignore that footnote in Einstein's theory of relativity which clearly states that when an object approaches the speed of light, its mass becomes infinite. (So much for warp-drive.) If old Buck Rogers hits the gas pedal a little too hard, he'll suddenly become the universe. Fantasists are magic and shining armor freaks who possess equally absurd notions with incantationism 'the Will and the Word', or other mumbo-jumbo. They want to build a better screwdriver, and we want to come up with a better incantation. They want to go into the future, and we want to go into the past. We write better stories than they do, though. They get all bogged down in telling you how the watch works; we just tell you what time it is and go on with the story. SF and fantasy shouldn't even speak to each other, but try explaining that to a book-store manager. Try explaining it to a publisher. Forget it."

I'm still into Fantasy, but I've progressed to more historical fantasy, mingling my two main interests.

For those that care, here is a list of my recommended books:

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
Drenai, series by David Gemmell
Banned and the Banished, series by James Clemens
Richard III, by William Shakespeare
The Sunne in Splendour, by Sharon Kay Penman
Ethshar, series by Lawrence Watt-Evans
Belgariad, series by David and Leigh Eddings
Tales of the Timuras, series by Allan Cole
The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Incarnations of Immortality, series by Piers Anthony
Wizard in Rhyme, series by Christopher Stasheff
Children of the Changeling, series by Greg Keyes
America (The Book), by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show
Braindroppings, Napalm & Silly Putty, and When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, by George Carlin
The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, series by Douglas Adams
Big Trouble and Shifty Business, by Dave Barry
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
Song of Ice and Fire, series by George R.R. Martin

If you've read any of those books, please PT me to discuss them.

The only thing I've really read outside of a school assignment was the Harry Potter series. I sometimes pick up a book here and there, but not much.

I've never been much into reading anything other than technical and books on computer programming but I do have the first two Harry Potter books and I do plan to read them as time permits.

I do like to read. I really like the Harry Potter Series although most fantasy type books don't really do it for me.

My favorite types of books are fiction with a lot of dark or dry humor.

Kurt Vonnegut, Roald Dahl, and Jack Palaniuk are my favorite purveyors of this type of fiction.

I also like modern fiction by female writers from North-America who focus a lot on women's interests but not in that "chick-lit" way. By this I mean people like Margaret Atwood, Bobby Ann Mason, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, and J. California Cooper who create wonderful, strong female protagonists who defy stereo types without sacrificing their femininity.

I also collect old books, particularly music textbooks or other music related non-fiction books.

In school I couldn't stand reading. I don't think I ever finished an assigned book!

But now I love to read. I like anything having to do with criminal justice. Or have some real history intertwined in the story.

Any of Dee Henderson's books are good. I'm reading The Witness(by Dee Henderson) right now and have the very last book of the Left Behind(by LaHaye and Jenkins) series ready to be finished.

If you like John Grisham books (I've read a few of his) you will like Robert Whitlow.

And Francine Rivers has a great trilogy (Mark of the Lion) about the Roman years and gladiator fighting. When I picked up the first book I thought I wasn't going to like it because of the gore but this is how they really lived and I got so involved in the books I wanted more (not the gore! LOL)

Frank Peretti writes good "horror" books. I just finished reading House in which he co-writes with Ted Dekker (who's movie Th3re was out a few months ago).

I'm not an avid reader. It's been years since I've actually sat down and read a book. I like fiction and have been known to read Anne Rice and her ilk. I enjoyed most of the books I had to read in highschool interestingly enough. Just don't read for my own leisure. I also enjoy various books of African-American interest/authors but that's about it. I mostly read comic books, but even that has wanned. Mostly I read regularly the soap opera digest, EGM and Wizard magazines Anything else I read is probably techinal for my job and even that I'm not that interested in.

For someone that worked at a bookstore for nine years, I read surpisingly little. I'm usually drawn to science fiction and after that fantasy. In recent years I've moved away from those, a little bit anyway. I think my attention span is getting smaller. I have many books of which I have only read one quarter or one half. Some of which are,
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks
The Everlasting Story of Nory by Nicholson Baker
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

Some day I will teach myself to love reading again.

There were times I was obsessed with anything in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe, all of the Omen books and anything to do with baseball. Some of my favorite books include,
On My Way to Paradise (Mass Market Paperback) by Dave Wolverton
Footfall by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Da Vinci Code and Digital Fortress by Dan brown
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R.Tolkien

I highly recommend these,
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
The Hobbit by J.R.R.Tolkien
The Foundation Trilogy and I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Even though I love to read online stuff, such as Wikipedia, I don't actually like reading many books. I do however love Fantasy setting, and Harry Potter was my most loved series.

I think I also liked reading Ronald Dael's books, they always seem to bring joy to me when I was reading them at school. Used to like Goosebumps but I thought it was rather chessy and didn't interest me anymore.

Reading is one of my passions!!!

Seriously though, reading has been fun for me, especially when you start reading one you can't put down. Unfortunately, I haven't had as much time to devote to reading as I would like, and most of the books I read now are for school. I usually read fiction though. Some of my favorites are:

Harry Potter series
The Seventh Tower series
Series of Unfortunate Events
Artemis Fowl series
Nintendo Power

I've also enjoyed:
The Giver
A Wrinkle in Time
Speak

and I'm sure a bunch of others whose titles I cannot recall.

I'm finally getting around to responding here and this is the reason, . I LOVE To read, but my problem is I get lost into a book and don't want to come out - so if I start reading, I won't stop until I feel like I'm starving, about to go on myself if I don't make it to the bathroom within 5 seconds, or I get so tired I fall asleep with the book on my chest.

I love fantasy stories - expecially ones that are medieval fantasy. I'm not much into the sci-fi/fantasy stuff although I do enjoy Peirs Anthony's Apprentice Adept series that combined sci-fi and what I call pure fantasy. I consider pure fantasy that type of fantasy that has absolute no connection or is any way shape or form to the real world. In the Apprentice Adept series, there is the sci-fi world with a north and south pole and everything is science based, then through a special doorway you enter the fantasy world with east and west poles and everything is magic based.

Other author's I enjoy are David Eddings, Robert Jordan, JR Tolkien, Anne McCaffrey, and Lilian Jackson Braun.

Lilian Jackson Braun wrote "The Cat Who.... " series and even though they are mystery and I'm not a big mystery reader, I am still really enjoying "The Cat Who...." series.

Other books I really enjoy are the Dragonology books, Piratology, Mythology, math related books, and logic puzzle books such as My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles - yes I have that book and I have solved every puzzle in it - took me about a month. But I still like to go back and solve them again

I'm usually in the middle of 3 or 4 books at any given moment . These are the ones I'm currently reading:

The Cat Who Went Underground
The History of Pi
Learning to Think Things Through
Asking the Right Questions

The last two I have to read for my critical thinking class, but the first two I am reading just for fun

I love to read. Anyways, my favorite has to be To Kill a Mockingbird. I love the storyline and Lee has some great writing skills. It is a shame she only wrote one novel, but it was fantastic.

I also like the Series of Unfortunate Events.


Zachary

I used to read a ton, but with all the junk we've had to read for school this year , I haven't been reading that much.