# Reading > General Literature >  What were you inspired to read as a result of this forum?

## amuse

so, just out of curiosity, how many of you picked up a book that you mightn't have read before coming to this forum because - whew i forgot what lightning looks like - anyway, it's _really_ close (i digress), ok moving on:

1. how many of you have been struck by lighting or for that matter lightning,
2. what book/authors have you read because a blinding flash said read this you will love it, and
3. what poetry/poets have you checked out since coming here that you want to read more of?

i wouldn't have reopened _On The Road_ except that there was a discussion about it. somehow i've been inspired to give _W&P_ another chance too (if nothing else but to dislike it again) and i really liked the "Poems, Poets, Poetry" thread about Bei Dao's Chinese moden poem. http://www.online-literature.com/for...&threadid=1147
never been struck by light(n)ing.

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## Koa

L'étranger by Camus. I have always had a quite remote idea of reading it, but maybe I wouldnt have done it, or at least not now, if it wasnt for this forum.
Then...I always think 'i should read this' when I see people talking about it, but then I never do  :Biggrin:

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## Capnplank

1. how many of you have been struck by lighting or for that matter lightning,

I have. I've had a few light fixtures swing around and smack me on the head (as in a pool hall), though more accurately I've probably bashed into a fair amount of lights dangling here and there. I've also been blinded on at least one occasion -- that is, the window blinds came loose and cracked me on the forehead while I was in bed. Some years later I put a hole in a couple of them. Learned 'em good, I did.


2. what book/authors have you read because a blinding flash said read this you will love it, and

Elie Wiesel's _Night_, which led to reading _Dawn_ and _Zalmen, or the Madness of God_. In that vein also Chaim Potok's _The Chosen_, leading to its sequel and pretty soon _My Name is Asher Lev_, once I get a few other things in between to space 'em out. 
Also Alexander Solzhenitsyn's _ One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich_, sometime to be leading to others, though that one also had a little suggestive influence here and there before I actually got to it, though after I had bought it. 
And mebbe all the Vonnegut stuff, Joseph Heller's _Catch-22_, Huxley's _Brave New World_, and Richard Adams' _Watership Down_, Par Lagerkvist's _Barabbas_, Gunter Grass's _Cat and Mouse_ and _The Tin Drum_ and some other stuff. I sorta just seem to pick stuff off of shelves here or there for no apparent reason, and am most often pretty satisfied and wind up reading more of their stuff. Though uhm, haven't been here long enough for any of those flashes of light to have been voiced by any residents.

3. what poetry/poets have you checked out since coming here that you want to read more of?

See end of above. Plus I don't do much poetry.

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## Koa

Oh btw I am really curious about that catch 22, which i had never heard about before I came to this forum...

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## Diceman

I just finished Catcher In The Rye. Would never have bothered, were it not for the fact that it is highly spoken of on this board.

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## IWilKikU

This forum also led me to "Catcher" and The Stranger. Also Dracula, Heart of Darkness, Picture of Dorian Gray (eww). Those were all book club books that I mostly enjoyed (Dorian Excluded of course). Its put way more books than I'll ever be able to read on my reading list. This summer is W&P, Crime and Punishment, and Catch-22. I'll start on one of those as soon as I'm done with Hunchback. As for lighting and lightning, cant say as I've ever been struck by either  :Frown: . Oh well.

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## emily655321

Fortunately never been struck by lightning either. However one of my parents' friends had a house with some recessed mood lighting in the den which I found to be quite striking.  :Tongue: 

I haven't had the time to be overly inspired, much less to actually read anything, but it did get me around to reading Hunchback and I doubt that I would be as determined to stick it through till the end were it not for the book club. Counter to what I would have expected, though, I find it harder to actually pick up and get down to reading when there is something to be reading it for. Conditioned response to school, perhaps.

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## simon

The Stranger just since having viewed this thread a few days ago.

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## Kiwi Shelf

I read "Snow Falling on Cedars" thanks to someones reply to that thread on someone needing help on it. I also liked the title. Anyways, the book was fabulous.  :Smile:  

As for poetry, I don't read a lot of that, so I have no answer.

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## Sancho

All of the Canadians on this site got me interested in Douglas Coupland; so I went right out and read "Generation X" - What a hoot, what a find, I shall read more from Mr. Coupland. Thanks guys.

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## Kiwi Shelf

If you want to read more Coupland you should read "All Families are Pschotic" That is a great book!

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## Sancho

Thanks Kiwi, I'm always on the lookout for a good read. My local bookstore only had "Generation X" and "Miss Wyoming" but I'll keep my eyes peeled for "Families."

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## Kiwi Shelf

I have read "Miss Wynoming" and this is my opinion: I don't remember what happened in it... So, I don't recommend that one. lol

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## Sancho

Glad I skipped it then. This is sad but the main reason I selected "Generation X" from the shelf was because it had pictures. Hah!

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## Kiwi Shelf

Yeah, that caught my attention too when I read it. haha
"Families" caught my attention because of the odd covers it has...

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## subterranean

I read things from Kafka coz of this forum..and then some one wrote about Jane Eyre..i read that too (ehmm  :Frown:  )..catch 22...oscar wilde...dracula...the hobbit..etc

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## verybaddmom

Sub, i am sorry to hear that you put yourself through the torture of reading Jane Eyre because of this forum. that doesnt make this forum look very good!  :Rolleyes: 
May i suggest that you follow it up by reading "Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys? That book is the story of the crazy west indian woman, written from a totally new perspective.
because of this forum, i have read (or purchased to read) "Heart of Darkness", "The scarlet letter", "Notre Dame", "Frankenbeans", "Dracula" and a few others. i find that by reading through the old threads from the book club i get interested in the books just because i have to see what you'all were talking about, and judge the book for itself. while i have yet to actually read a book WITH the book club, im working on it.

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## amuse

i am not going to finish notre dame anytime soon...it just doesn't grab me. ah well.

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## Vronaqueen

I fell in love with the beat poets because of this forum. Aside from Keroac who i'm still attempting a second stab at, i really dig there style. But i also fell in love with Salman Rushdie--i highly recommend Midnight's Children

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## IWilKikU

Nooooooo, Asmuse! Don't give up!  :Bawling:   :Frown:

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## amuse

kik, did you HAVE to?!! i even read a page of w&p today.  :Biggrin: 
okay...i'll give it another go.  :Smile:  can't leave you to hugo alone. maybe i'll just skim the rest of "this will kill that." very stuck! there, lol.
i love these smilies!!! the fountain's way cool.

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## CBW

Because of this forum I read The Three Muskateers. I had bought it a while back and just never read it. I loved it. I went ahead and ordered the rest of the Muskateer books, and I am expecting them tomorrow. What sucks is that I finished the first one two days ago. Oh, well, The Count of Monte Cristo always fills in any empty time slots I may have. Even though it's not exactly a book I can carry around in my purse. Especially since I only have it in hard cover.

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## fayefaye

*GASPS* We led you to the three musketeers???!! Was it my thread??  :Smile:   :Biggrin:  that's pretty cool. I LURVE those books. *hugging copy of Dumas' Black Tulip.... [haven't had time to read  :Frown: ]* I think it was Jay who mentioned Catcher, then I read it, started the thread... and so the cycle goes on. I've read every book for the book club so far... except that I'd already read most of them which means I've only ACTUALLY read three for the forum, I liked em all though. uhm, ok, what else? Fool led me to cuckoo's nest... even though I got it for Christmas, I'd probably never bothered with Rimbaud if it weren't for abdo [even though I've hardly read any of it *blushing emoticon* ..... gonna re-learn French first.... Then I won't have to put up with butchered translations..... I'd love to read dumas in original.... but I digress]

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## fayefaye

re-learn..... learn for the first time.... I didn't really bother with it. same diff. *blushing emoticon*

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## fayefaye

GUYS, W&P? SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NOT worth it. SOOOOOHHHHUUUUUHHOOOOO not worth it.

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## verybaddmom

i hear you Faye, its propping up my webcam at the moment; its just the right height. i suppose i will eventually read it though, just so that i can say that i have.

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## CBW

I actually found a copy of W&P at a flea market for a dollar. I had to buy it since I didn't have a copy of it already. I guess I will read it when I have a little time (I'm looking for a job and my kids are out of school) and when I finish the Musketeers books.

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## Jay

Finished "Snow Faling On Cedars" about two weeks... a month already lol, ago. Loved it  :Biggrin: . I got that on my 'to read' list, but after looking for a book to read I chosed it because I saw people talking about it on the forum.

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## Sancho

Jay, I liked that book too.

OK, so Kiwi hooked me on these Douglas Coupland novels. What a hoot. I just read All Families are Psychotic, and Ive gotta say, I laughed out loud many times. Kiwi, if you liked that book, you may also like Jonathan Franzens, The Corrections, or Carl Hiaasens, Sick Puppy. So anyway, for what its worth, here are my impressions of Couplands book:

The story itself was a gas, and I thought that he injected some profound social commentary into this otherwise rollicking adventure story. The book may especially speak to someone who laments Florida as a paradise lost.

I thought he did an excellent job of speaking as a 65 year old Canadian woman (Janet). Of course, Im the wrong person to make this determination. Perhaps we need a divorced 60ish Toronto woman to judge for us.

Here are a couple of lines from the book that I enjoyed:

The first one is a somewhat existential quote from Wade as he looks at the moon late one night  If human beings had never happened, that same moon would still have been in that very same position, and nothing about it would be different than it is now.

Heres a great simile on Ted (youve gotta know Ted): Ted swore like an Army Platoon. - Aiy, aiy, aiy. Ted was a cartoon character but I think I may know this guy; one guy who can colorfully curse as an entire Army Platoon.

I liked this one too, Bryan [a putz] said, I dont think Ive ever been in a library. His voice was empty of any irony trace.

I loved the sentence structure on this one, Janet knew that this was the point at which weapons, if there were any to be used, would appear.

A potential detractor from this book is that there are a lot of unrealistic and random coincidences portrayed. I say its a potential detractor because Id like to make the argument that this is exactly the authors point. Most of the characters in the story are terminally ill from AIDS or liver cancer or drug addiction. There is not an Aristotelian tragic flaw that caused these maladies but rather a random set of lifes circumstances. What drives our lives (and deaths) is not a grand plan, or even fate, but rather a set of purely random and uncontrollable circumstances. Heres a quote from the book that I think sums it up nicely: Life is just so much easier if we simply wing it. Maybe if we wing it properly, we can trick ourselves into winging death, too. Or is that too simple a strategy?

There are a couple of things that I think did detract from an otherwise first rate novel. First, as a Canadian commentator on American culture (or lack there of) I think he pulled his punches some what. I enjoyed his metaphor of Disney World as a casino but none the less I think that he had a unique opportunity to make a real social statement and in the end he backed down (possibly to avoid alienating American readers). I could sense some truly biting commentary just below the surface. Market forces could be at play here; with 300 million Americans vs. 30 million Canadians he may have been slightly pandering to American readers. The other detractor might also be economically based. I thought there were a few too many scenes in this book that would stage well in Hollywood. The book would make a hilarious screen play, but at times I thought Coupland was writing it for Hollywood not for me, the humble reader. There were many, but one that comes to mind is the scene in the bleachers for the shuttle launch. The bruised and bandaged Drummond family is standing next to, and juxtaposed to, the spiffy shipshape well-groomed NASA family, the Brunswicks. 

Overall, Id recommend this book to anyone here. It was a lot of fun. And if they do make it into a movie, shucks Ill go see it.

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## Scheherazade

_A Christmas Carol_  by Dickens
_A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man_ by James Joyce
_Orlando_ by Woolf
some Dr Seuss books

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## kilted exile

I originally stumbled across this forum looking for Paradise Lost. However I have still not finished reading it 1yr later.

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## mono

I originally came here searching for works by Virginia Woolf, which, by now, I have read almost all of her works, most recently _Orlando_.
Besides, Woolf, I frequently came here, before joining the forum, reading much of the poetry.

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## shortysweetp

i found this wonderful forum in looking for a book of the month thing (like where the company sends you a book every month for you to buy) now i am quite content with reading the forums and all my books i have yet to read

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## SleepyWitch

i've only joined a couple of weeks ago but i've started reading _Love in the Time of Cholera_ coz Sheherazade keeps recommending it all over the place  :Smile:  it's a great book  :Smile:

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## Rachy

I have to admit Peter Pan. I read people talking about it how magical it was and so picked it up n didn't put it down and had it finished within a day!

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## i_rock_poems

The forums have not inspired me to read anything!?!

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## amuse

i'm frankly confused...hm. you came on strongly and abrasively, and i just wonder, what is it about the forums section that intrigues you? are you trying, somewhat caustically, to make friends?  :Wink:

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## subterranean

IMO, the person above you Ash, likes to throw not quite nice words about some things (or perhaps anything)..

I really want to read The Lord of The Flies, but can't find it anywhere here  :Frown: ...

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## amuse

i didn't realize it was so recent...golding was born in 1911. have been checking for an online text for like five minutes! but you might like this http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNot...les/lordflies/

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## Molko

I was inspired to read Brave New World, which is now one of my absolute favourite books

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## shortysweetp

so far i have been inspired to read Lord of the Flies, Villette, and reread Wuthering Heights. I really want to read Catch-22 and A Clockwork Orange because of what i have read on the forum

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