Cool Book Recomendations

[Hippykitty]

I agree with you about Dr Zhigavo (sp?) and the various forms of the Russian names. My favourite part of it was the poems in the appendix. I haven't read Les Mis, though I've downloaded the ebook version from the Gutenberg Project. Must get round to reading it sometime. Been very busy lately and reading lots of cat novels.

Try Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, if you haven't already read it. Or a book which will wow you, if you are into something darkly amusing is: "A Fine and Private Place" by Peter Beagle.

[Dori]

Russian names get easier to remember once you get used to them. Typically, there are three parts: the first name, the patronymic, and the last name. For instance, take the main character's name from Dr. Zhivago:

Yurii Andreievich Zhivago

You have the first name, Yurii, the patronymic, Andreievich, and the last name, Zhivago. The patronymic is comprised of the father's first name (in this case, Andrei), with -evich or -ovich attached on the end. The nicknames are the hardest part, but they almost always are dervied from their first names. For example:

Innokentii = Nika
Larisa = Lara
Antonia =Tonia
Pavel = Pasha or Pashenka

et cetera . . .

Usually, I find in most books of Russian classics a "List of Principle Characters". My edition of Dr. Zhivago included one.

edit: I forgot about the patronymic for women. It's essentially the same thing except they end in -ovna.

[Kaabi]

Any foreign name is confusing to me, except Spanish names, since they are pretty close to English.

[Cee-Jay Aurinko]

Woa, the Golden Compass is meant to do that? Really? I wonder if I should Google this just to see if other people know of this and what their thoughts are. I haven't read GC yet, or the other books from this author. For interest's sake only, I'll take a at his work sometime in the future.

[Rabidwerewolfie]

I'm afraid it's only available as an ebook to the best of my knowledge, and not likely to be found in a library, but a surprisingly great book is Zompunk: Stem by Christopher Blankely. The book has a few typos here and there, I admit, but the story is refreshingly unique and grabbed me from the very first sentence. He has several novels and shorts out and I've loved the ones I've read so far. The rest are on my "To be read eventually" list.

A much more likely find in a library would be Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirstin Bakis. That book is not for everyone, of course, but it's become one of my personal favorites.

Unfortunately most of my recommendations are ebooks these days. Maybe I should take a trip to the library later.

[Londera]

I knew Phillip Pullman was an atheist, but I didnt know he said that about his books. I read the first two as a child and I just was thinking how great the story was. Alot of the concepts flew over my head until I looked back on the books. I recommend the Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket.

[Brandi Noelle]

"Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by Jamie Ford is an amazing book! It's about the Japanese internment during WWII, takes place in Seattle's Chinatown. I'm from the Seattle area and live 10 minutes from one of the internment camp locations, so this was especially interesting for me. But, it was a beautiful story, moved me to tears time and time again and left an imprint on my heart that will never fade.