please tell me a really great book?

Question

i want to read a really good book. im looking for a book thats a bit different but not the self harm crap that some writers make up so they seem a bit edgy. my favourite book is the catcher in the rye so something along these lines. im open to new stuff so just tell me your favourite book if you like.

tell me a little something about the book please

i'm eighteen but also a writer myself so i dont believe you should read only the books aimed at your age group.

Answer 1

I love the noughts and crosses trilogy
NOUGHTS AND CROSSES
KNIFE EDGE
CHECKMATE
it's very very good!

Answer 2

To Kill a Mockingbird. It's about young people growing up and trying to figure out the world around them, kind of like Catcher in the Rye, but it shows more interaction with other people. The book is better than the great movie starring Gregory Peck that was made from it. Scanning the other answers, it looks like there are some good suggestions there. Keep a list and share it with your friends so you can get together and talk about the books you read.

Answer 3

The Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite books too, so hopefully you will like some other books I enjoyed.

- I'm sure someone else has already suggested this, since its very similar to The Catch in the Rye, but The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is another good coming of age story.
- 1984 by Orwell is my favorite book of all time, just amazing.
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is another classic that's very much worth reading.
- Pretty much anything by Chuck Palahniuk is very good, and very edgy [though not fakely so - I have that whole self-harm thing too]. My favorite book by him is probably Lullaby, but his most famous is Fight Club. Really, he doesn't have a bad book out.
- Party Monster by James St. James is a true crime novel that's actually very amusing, but you have to be open-minded to read it.


I'm a huge book fan, so hopefully these will get you started, but if you want anymore just ask!

Answer 4

This question is hard for me to answer based on the small information you have given us. Catcher in the Rye is a book typically required to read in high school so I am assuming that you are in 10th or 11th grade. It is a book written in the stream-of-conscious style which at that time was unusual, and from the view point of the adolescent main character. For me it seems a rather dark and depressing book, but it also shows the main character wrestling with his thoughts in life--as we all do.

I think you are ready for some more "adult" characters to study who also have issues. You might try:
1. Steinbeck's "The Pearl"
2. Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Toll's" or his "The Old Man and The Sea"
3. Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"
these are all considered "classics".
In the Science Fiction/Fantasy classification, try:
4. Piers Anthony's "Macroscope"
5. Frank Herbert's "Dune"
6. Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land".

Good Luck and Happy reading!

Answer 5

To go completely off track try Yann Martel's Life of Pi, it's highly original and slightly weird.

Its about a boy who is on a cargo ship that is also transporting animals for a zoo, it sinks and he is stranded in the middle of the Pacific ocean sharing a life raft with a 450-pound Bengal Tiger.

It takes a little while to get going but it is deep and funny at the same time, something not many authors manage.

It was shortlisted for the Governor General Award and the Commonwealth writers Prize and it won the Mann Booker Prize in 2002

Answer 6

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

This is not my favourite book, it would be The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, but this book you shoul read, because it could be something completely new to you. And it's a great book.

The novel is a multilayered critique of the Soviet society in general and its literary establishment specifically. It begins with Satan visiting Moscow in the 1920s, joining a conversation of a critic and a poet, busily debating the existence of Jesus Christ and the Devil. It then evolves into a whole scale indictment of the corruption, greed, narrow-mindedness, and widespread paranoia of Stalinist Russia. Banned but widely read, the novel firmly secured Bulgakov's place among the pantheon of the greatest of Russian writers.

I took the plot from Wikipedia

Answer 7

I thought I would have a go at the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood again when someone metioned her book 'The Handmaid's Tale' recently. It is rated very highly as a piece of modern fiction just as 'Catcher in the Rye' is and it would give you a look into the politics of women. Just like 'Catcher in the rye' it is narrated by the central charater and tells how they feel lost in their own identity. A real enigma.

Answer 8

Kellie P is right - The 5 People You Meet in Heaven is really good. But also try the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. I recommend them to everyone regardless of age. Also The Journal of Antonio Montoya by Rick Collignon is perfect. Good for you for trying out new books and authors. So many people don't take the "risk" - and how bad could it be? You can always stop reading if you don't like it! I hate it when people say "oh no I kept on reading it even though it wasn't great - I wouldn't let it beat me!" How mad is that? There are so many books out there that they are missing!

Answer 9

The Perks of being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
is alot like Catcher in The Rye-I think you would like it
Read anything by John Irving
A Widow for One Year
The Water Method Man
Until We Meet Again
all of his books are great
I love Chuck Pahlunick's novels he wrote Fight Club...if you liked the movie read the book...
Choke, Lullaby are two of my favorites..

Hope you find something interesting to read...

Answer 10

1984~
by George Orwell

""In a grim city and a terrifying country, where Big Brother is always Watching You and the Thought Police can practically read your mind, Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. He knows the Party's official image of the world is a fluid fiction. He knows the Party controls the people by feeding them lies and narrowing their imaginations through a process of bewilderment and brutalization that alienates each individual from his fellows and deprives him of every liberating human pursuit from reasoned inquiry to sexual passion. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.""

Answer 11

Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita", Joyce's "Ulysses", "The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man" (especially for you, as your favorite is "The Catcher in the Rye", which is aimed at youth), Wylde's "A Portrait of Dorian Gray"...

New stuff is usually not proved to be good. If you want real literature, read classics (classics can be modern, too, like "Trainspotting" or "Fight Club").