Thursday, August 23, 2012

Blog # 37: 15 Great Books

1 "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown: Easily the best book I have ever read. I couldn't put it down on the last 200 pages, I read for almost 6 hours straight, which is a world record for me!

2 "The Da Vinci Code" again by Dan Brown. Not as good as 'Angels and Demons' but still a hell of a read!

3 "Heir To The Empire" by Timothy Zahn. I am a Star Wars nerd and this was the first book that continued the adventures of Luke Skywalker and company. It is an awesome book and changed Star Wars forever. Zahn also created the best book villain I have ever read, Grand Admiral Thrawn, who was the only alien ever to have served the Emperor and the Galactic Empire. He had blue skin and glowing red eyes...really cool character.

4 "What Savage Beast" by Peter David. It is a novel about the comic book character "The Incredible Hulk" and it should have been made into a movie!!! David wrote the comic book for 12 years and made the character and supporting cast awesome and relevant. Awesome book.

5 "Too Fat To Fish" by Artie Lange. Artie is a comedian and part of the 'Howard Stern Show' and this book is his autobiography. It was a great read, he is both funny and a tragic guy, a lot of sadness in the book to plus a lot of laughs.

6 "3001: A Space Odyssey" by Arthur C.Clarke. The final and most interesting chapter of the 'Odyssey' books.

7 "Beam Me Up, Scotty: Star Trek's "Scotty" in his own words" by James Doohan with Peter David. I loved Scotty from Star Trek and had a blast reading his book. Did you know he is Canadian and fought for Canada overseas in World War II. He tells a lot of amazing stories from the war in his book. I actually met him once when I was 15 at a Star Trek convention in Edmonton which was cool and made reading his biography extra special to read.

8 "The Last Command" by Timothy Zahn. The second sequel to 'Heir to the Empire'.

9 "Vision Of The Future" by Timothy Zahn. Takes place 10 years after 'Last Command' and features the last battle between the New Republic and the Empire and their eventual peace...

10 "Star Trek Memories" by William Shatner. Shatner is a great actor and awesome person/personality. His first memoir about being on 'Star Trek' is both hilarious and interesting to read.

11 "Why We Suck" by Denis Leary. Leary is a hell of a comic and I am a fan of his show "Rescue Me" so reading his take on life, family and Hollywood is fascinating to read.

12 "Conquerors' Trilogy" by Timothy Zahn. This is actually 3 books but they must be read together, they are almost like 1 book divided into 3 separate parts. In a space opera setting, a botched first contact leads to an interstellar war between humanity (nicknamed by the aliens The Human-Conquerors) and an alien race, the Zhirrzh (nicknamed by humans The Conquerors). In the background, other alien races try to take advantage of the conflict between the two powers. (Novels: 'Conquerors' Pride', 'Conquerors' Heritage' and 'Conquerors' Legacy').

13 "Marvel (Comics) Encyclopedia" and "DC Comics Encyclopedia" published by DK. These are 2 books that are almost the same. They are the definitive reference to those two comic book company's and their characters. I am a total nerd and loved reading these books.

14 "Dark Force Rising" by Timothy Zahn. It is the second sequel to 'Heir To The Empire' and feature's Lukes first encounter with the insane Jedi clone Joruus C'Boath.

15 "Murder Most Foul" by Max Haines. He is the guy who writes the 'Murder' story in every Sunday Sun newspaper. He has written so many stories about true crime that the re-publish his stories in book form and I read 'Murder Most Foul' while vacationing in Germany in 2001. I bought at Pearson airport in Toronto while waiting for my connecting flight to Germany, I was hooked on his writing after the first page. I have bought and read many of his book of collected stories. I made the mistake of lending them to my mother-in-law so I'll probably never see them again. He is a great writer and his stories are all true stories!!! Humans really are sick and twisted, just read his book and you'll agree.

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