Sperm Wars. Every male should be required to read this book at age 15. Naive pedestalization of females and consequent white-knighting would be eliminated completely.
Pretty much all of Crichton's books are really entertaining, but Great Train Robbery and Pirate Latitudes I think are the only period pieces. They are both great. I never was interested in pirates, but that book is really a page-turner. Can't imagine why he never wanted to publish it.
Suttree is good. Set in 1950's Knoxville. All the Pretty Horses is also a good read. (The other 2 in the trilogy are also good .. I enjoyed ATPH the most) Blood Meridian is also great, but maybe not good for a quick read.
Another reco: The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath: this book is pretty haunting. It's a novel about a girl spiraling deeper and deeper into depression written by an author who was spiraling deeper and deeper into depression, and published after said author committed suicide.
I would stop short of calling Forrest Gump a really good movie. It won the Academy Award, but it shouldn't have. JMO.
I liked it, and it gets better in rememberance. I wouldn't put it in my top 20 list, but I don't have a problem calling it really good.
but it has tom hanks in it, you're supposed to love it!!!! if jenny had been played by julia roberts, people would have claimed it was gone with the wind. the book was better than the movie, jmo. if folks think the book is shit, that's cool, i can only surmise that some folks prefer their shit with top notch cinematography and tom hanks. lol
A Death In The Family by James Agee. Knoxville is as much a character in the book as some of the prevalent players. Great Book.
The book is shit, the movie is not. That is, of course, only my opinion, but I think it is a good one. It's ok to like crappy books; I've got a soft spot for Daniel Silva, especially when I'm riding on an airplane, and I've breezed through enough English murder mysteries to fill a library. I am pretty good, however, at recognizing quality when I see it. The book isn't. The movie is. Argument about degree is fine, but that's the way I see it.
Just bought the Great Gatsby and Paradise Lost from Amazon. Will definitely make my way back to this list if I finish them before break is over.
It isn't my biggest beef with the movie, but I do have a problem with the casting of Jenny. They didn't make her nearly hot enough. She needed to be smoking hot, and she wasn't. It bugs me when this happens. Another example is Kate Winslet in Titanic. Not even close to being hot enough. Kate Winslet gives me zero movement. The opposite doesn't bother me quite as much. In the Harry Potter books, Hermione is borderline homely, and they cast Emma Watson? Weird, but I can live with it.
