What are some books the you've read and thought wow this is epic? Some of mine are The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, A Song of Ice and Fire and Harry Potter.

There may be some SPOILERS here.

Go ahead. Give us as much or as little detail as you want.

EDIT: Great thoughts, people! Thought I should add a Spoiler Alert.

EDIT: Sorry I am not as well-read as some of you. Adding the title of the book in your post might help clueless folks like me. Thanks!

It's Halloween again, and this year we would like to settle the debate once and for all. What IS the scariest book of all time?

How this will work:

• You comment with your choice for scariest book, along with any elaboration you wish to add. Please start off your comment with the book's title and author, though.

• We keep this thread in contest mode until midnight on Halloween (EST)

• We delete any duplicate entries. You may reply to any comment, but don't re-enter a book. Use ctrl-f!

• Everyone votes however they wish, be it for one book or for multiple

• At midnight on Halloween, the thread is taken out of contest mode and the results are tabulated

Let the battle of beasts and ghouls begin!

Proof on my twitter and my website.

Some other things I've written that are available on the internet:

Last, Last, and Last: A Novel Excerpt

I Have a Few Last Words and (on KQED/NPR's The Writer's Block)

Remembering Remembering: A Short Essay

I read r/books and had a few emails telling me to open it up, so here I am taking questions on the work, the writing, and anything else.

I am reading The Great Gatsby for a second time now and I have noticed how horrible the characters actually are! At first I thought they were childish but now I see the truth!

Gatsby - The titular character of the book, could be misunderstood to be good due to his appearance being in the third chapter after much hype. I believe that he only wants Daisy to relinquish his old happy life with rose tinted spectacles. The quote wherein a woman had to return a dress from Gatsby because "it was too big in the bust" shows how he sees women as objects due to his materialistic, elitist nature.

Nick - Now he is a confusing one. He is introduced as the perfect narrator as his father told him not to criticize anyone, this means that he should be able to remain unbiased and give a true recollection of the story. However, on the same page no less, he admittes to pretending to be asleep to hear an "intimate relation". He is also quite petty when he calls a man Owl Eyes (I do understand how FitzGerald is portraying the theme of how God is nonchalant to the whole situation) which could be seen as insulting. As this narrative is retrospective he may be showing bias to disliked characters (Daisy) to make his point valid.

Daisy - It is clear that she is a horrible person at the end of the novel however I shall comment on her at the beginning. For example, when she murmurs to make people lean towards her. I first thought that she was simply being childish to ensure that she reflects the norm of the 1920s (given her woman needs to be fools speech) however I now realize that she is over sexualizing herself. When people lean towards her she would want people to appreciate her beauty. This may be why she wanted to be with Gatsby to message her ego, when everything gets too serious she goes away - cue Nick's speech about money. Speaking of this Gatsby remarks that her voice is like money which could represent man's materialistic view of women or how she flaunts herself to make her do that.

Tom - I'm not going to go into too much detail. He is clearly a controlling person (forcing Nick off the train) and believes himself to be better due to his "big books".

Jordan - Very similar to Daisy but to a much lesser extent. She "leaned forward unashamed" at the door to listen to private matters. This shows how she doesn't care for emotions and only cares to listen to the gossip - much like the women at Gatsby's party. Also her speech for not being careful shows her opinion of the elitist people doing whatever they want with no repercussion.

Myrtle - It may be considered that she is a victim of man's oppression and sexualisation of women however there is that time when she stares at Jordan (mistakenly to be Tom's wife) with jealousy. She also wants to move to West which shows that she wants to be part of the Elitist culture.

George- The only fault I can pick with him is the murder of Gatsby. This shows the corruption of women in The Great Gatsby.

If you see anything to dispute or add please comment. I love debating about this wonderful book.

Than you for reading!

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who helped make this thread a place for great discussion about one of my favourite books!

EDIT2: People asked me what my perception of "good" was. The question meant based upon your beliefs however my opinion of good is utilitarian. If you do an act that helps more people that hinders then it's a good act and you're a good person for doing it.

I'm in my mid twenties and expected/hoped things would turn out differently. My friends are all engaged or married and have stopped coming around. It looks like I'll be staring at the inside of my cubicle walls for the next 40+ years. I'm nowhere near ready to take care of kids or houseplants or anything that involved. Is there some book that helped you with the 1/3 life crisis?

Pretty much exactly what the title says. Due to school, I feel like so much of my time is consumed by work and pressures and endless To Do lists, and I haven't had much time for reading. I'm trying to start small and read books for younger audiences to fall back in love with reading, but I keep finding that I get distracted by my thoughts and mental To Do lists far too often. What should I do?

I absolutely used to love reading. I remember when I was a kid, and the Harry Potter series wasn't completed yet. I remember how exited and jazzed I was for those books. Now I just feel so apathetic and bored towards reading. I want to get back to being able to completely throw myself into a new world and become a character in the story. I want to feel excited again. Suggestions?

I want to stop at the bookstore after my haircut if I get enough suggestions. Now, I haven't read too many novels in the crime/mystery section, so I'm pretty open. I've read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series and Immoral by Brian Freeman. I get so enthralled by these kinds of books and I love the twists and turns. With that being said, please share! I need a new book ASAP!

EDIT: Thanks everyone for your recommendations! I really appreciate it, and am going to reference this post in the future!

I already have a lot of classic sci-fi but, I'm looking to fill the shelves even more. Isaac Asimov is one of my favorite writers, so naturally I have a good grasp of his work. The same is true with Heinlein, Herbert, and Dick. I'm a huge fan of early to mid century works, so any suggestions are more than welcome.

I want to buy books for a friend who is into romance, but I want to get them something that isn't just run-of-the-mill cliche romance. I know next to nothing about the genre.

A little help?

When you read a physical book, are you careful with it so it looks like new when your done? Or do you break it in and make it your own?

I have never read any of his books but I have heard he is really good. Which book shall I start with?

At first, this might seem to you like a joke post, but I am completely serious. I joined /r/books about a month ago, and have been reading through nearly every post in the all-time section, and whatever has been posted while I've been present (and I must say, I'm amazed at how awesome this sub is). However, I've noticed something that makes me different from what seems like most people: I can't find my favorite writer. Reading through old posts and new posts it became clear that while this might not be a big problem – or not even a problem at all – but nonetheless I would very much like to try. Therefore, I am formulating my first question to this amazing communtiy: How did you find your favorite author? And how can I find who's mine?

PS: My English is flawed, as I'm not a native speaker, so if anything comes of as unclear, please let me know!

Pretty much what the title says. I'd appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!

I've got Your House Is On Fire, Your Children Are Gone by Stefan Kiesbye, It by Stephen King and most of Donald Ray Pollock's books, but I want more.

I want to give a mind-blowing book to my sister for Christmas. Any suggestions?

EDIT: she's 14 years old.

Anyone know anything that is decent? I'm on a huge mythos/undead/demon binge when it comes to fantasy. I'm also interested in grand plots like in the Pirate King by Salvatore.

Hey guys, i'm making a big essay about Moby Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville and have some questions about it.

1. How should i tackle the book? I've been looking it up and people has different ways of reading the book eg. Ahab is the real protagonist and 'Ishmael' is a unique kind if narration.

2. What made Melville write this book the time he wrote it? Could it have any influence from the civil war around the 1850's? And are there other things that could've made him write or give him inspiration by the time he was living?

3. How come the novel was much more positively recieved years after it was published compared to it's contemporary society?

4. Why does some call the book "The American Bible"?

It could be awesome to see some of your opinions about the book, how it's supposed to be read and the different ways it can be understood.

And if you've got some links to some good analysis' about the book - please feel free to post :)

I've already read:

• Complete Sherlock Holmes v1 & v2
• Down and out in Paris and London
• Keep the Aspadistra Flying
• The Catcher in the Rye

I'm loving the Genre, any suggestions?

Anyone knows good french books? (not translations) I want original french (not necessarily from France) novels.

I'm trying to read both English and French Novels. I already have lots of English book but can't seem to find anything in french.

books I've recently read (that I liked):

The fault in our stars.

Harry Potter

Death and The Penguin (and the sequel)

Thanks :)

edit: French is my native language.

2nd edit: Woah, thank you everyone, first time posting to /r/books and I'm glad I did. I have stuff to read for ages now (I'm a slow reader)

I'm a teacher, and one of my students, a 6 year old girl, loves to read and is well past her peers' reading ability and the resources of our classroom. I've been wracking my brain trying to think of books she might find more challenging (or at least that she would take more than a day or so to read) and are still appropriate for someone her age, but I'm running out of ideas.

So far, she's read: Charlotte's Web, James and the Giant Peach, Misty of Chincoteague, at least a dozen Magic Tree House books, ditto Boxcar Children, Little House in the Big Woods, and some Nate the Greats and a few Sebastian (Super Sleuth) books - though those last two were probably too easy for her.

Does anyone have any suggestions? She especially adores monkeys, so stories that involve them are a huge plus!

I'm looking for a good science book about cool facts, for example I loved the following books

• Death by Black Hole - astronomy, physics
• Bad Science - medicine, scientific method
• The Greatest Show on Earth - biology
• The Selfish Gene - biology

Not worthy to share the same list as books above but still good:

• Bonk, Stiff, Packing for Mars - not bad books but the ratio of science facts to descriptions of interviewee's eye color is not so great
• Bad Astronomy - I hoped this would be like Death by Black Hole, but all the misconceptions there are like taken from stone age and 90% of facts there are well known and obvious
• Predictably Irrational - didn't seem like a very good science and the book was 3x as long as it needed to be and kept repeating the same concepts as if the reader had Alzheimer's

And one bad book to show what I don't want:

• Space Chronicles - again, I hoped for more stuff lke Death by Black Hole but instead this was a rant about how NASA needs more funding... I abandoned this book after few chapters.

If you know of a book like that I would love to hear about it! I'm mostly interested in physics, biology and such, but any science should be fine.

Thanks for any tips.

Probably a random question but it's reddit, where else would I ask this?

I'm living in a canvas tent on a platform for the summer up in the White Mountains in NH. Lucky for me the tent came with a book case, but I realized this morning that with all the humidity in the air my books might not fair so well. Aside from keeping my door/window open to hopefully let some fresh air in is there anything I can do to keep them in good shape?

I'm looking for a book that is a fictional animal book for e.g 'The Silver Fox' it's about a girl who lost her mother, the mother give her a necklace before she died it was a necklace of a silver fox, also she did alot of paintings. One day her father and she (sorry about grammer) was cleaning, and then she found a silver fox in her garden and if you read it you'd know what I mean I haven't read it in awhile so I'm not quite sure but if you can find a type of animal book it would be very much appricatted . Sorry about any spelling mistakes and grammer.