So, when I want to wind down, i like to read "lite" books.
Harry potter is a good example. The prose would never be compared to a serious master's work, but the story is fun, and you can read 700 pages of it in one night, or just playfully leaf through it at your leisure.
The problem is, most books in this vein are almost unreadably bad.
I tried to read a couple of star wars books and they were terrible, I could barely get through them, and this is from someone who wishes the jedi were real, so no.
I tried reading sherlock holmes, but honestly, those kind of sucked too.
I remember reading "xanth" books when i was a kid - they were great, but would I be able to get through them now? I don't know.

Please, please, please - refer me to some "lite" books that you have enjoyed, they needn't have been written exceptionally well, but at least to the level of literary value in Harry Potter - below that kind of ruins the experience.
Thank you.

any type of fiction is what I am talking about - "confederacy of dunces" and "life of pi" were ok too - but the lighter the better, as long as I can read it and enjoy it.

Do the classic adventure novels.
Robinson Crusoe.
Moby Dick.
Gulliver's Travels.

Then, pretty much anything by Dickens.


These books were written for the sheer enjoyment of reading, and in my experience, they deliver well. I've only recently discovered that. I had read these books in my teens, but that was a different kind of reading than now.

I am not sure exactly how to classify 'lite" but here are a couple that is easy on the brain.

Joseph Wambaugh - The Glitterdome (for example) Very funny, ex New York cop author
Steve Martini - whodunnits legal stuff
Mervyn Peake - Gormenghast (gothic fantasy in a series)
Terry Prachett - Discworld (very funny sci fi/fantasy)

I read nothing but "lite," I think, unless you don't want to call hard sf lite. I read pretty much only sci-fi and fantasy. If you like the Harry Potter books, which I do too, you might like:

Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time Series. (Fantasy) 10 or 11 thick books so far. Could keep you going for a while.

Joan D. Vinge's Psion and Catspaw (together as Alien Blood). My favorites of all time, so far. (Sci-fi) I hear there is a third one out now too.

Peter F. Hamilton's The Reality Dysfunction series. (Sci-fi) 6 books.

All the J.R.R. Tolkien books centered around Middle Earth, of which there are many beyond the original 4. (Fantasy)

Anne Rice's The Witching Hour.

L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth. (Sci-fi) The movie fucking sucked. The book is awesome.

David Feintuch's Voices of Hope. (Sci-fi) Great book.

Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance Chronicles. (Fantasy) There are many books beyond the original trilogy.

Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama series. (Sci-fi)

Roger Macbride Allen's Caliban. (Sci-fi)

Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov: Anything.

If you try some of these and like them, and want some more, let me know. I'm leaving out a shit-load of good books, but there are so many. :)

Do the classic adventure novels.
Robinson Crusoe. Moby Dick.Gulliver's Travels.
Then, pretty much anything by Dickens.

I don't know if moby dick qualifies as "lite" for what I am talking about doing with these books, i.e shutting down. i might get too involved in the philosophical aspects of that book, from what i have heard about it, I'm sure i will read it some time. Gulliver, and Robinson Crusoe might work.
The only dickens I've read was "great expectations", and that doesn't work - I don't want to cry, just relax. Maybe you know which books of his are "lite"?

cotton,
What are the tolkien books you are talking about, is the silmarillion one of them? The silmarillion was bit ponderous when i looked at it before. Maybe like William Blake lite, with a great story I'm sure, but william blake, even lightened up a bit, is still not "lite". That seems more serious than Lord of the rings stuff.
I basically want to read Lord of the rings, the chronicles of narnia, and harry potter, but have already done those. SCi-fi is good too.


Thanks all for the list, please give me more, as I probably have many years ahead to get to all of it, and am sure I will have many, many hours, where I will want to just zone out in a good (not too serious) book, and will keep this list. And there are about 20 libraries within easy driving distance from me here in LA, so I am pretty sure I can find just about anything.

cole grey, yeah, I was thinking of The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales I and II (the whole History of Middle Earth series -- about 12 parts/books in all), and The Tolkien Reader (which includes 4 separate stories).

Here's a link to a complete list of his work:http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/bibl2.html

When I was in 8th grade, I really got into all the history of middle earth books.

I also think you would really enjoy Robert Jordan.

You could try Terry Pratchett, but start with Soul Music or Maskerade, maybe even Mort. He's written so many that it's a bit hit-and-miss. His later books are a little more complex and harder to follow, but can be more satisfying if you're already a fan.

Washington Irving without a doubt.

So, when I want to wind down, i like to read "lite" books.
Harry potter is a good example. The prose would never be compared to a serious master's work, but the story is fun, and you can read 700 pages of it in one night, or just playfully leaf through it at your leisure.
The problem is, most books in this vein are almost unreadably bad.
I tried to read a couple of star wars books and they were terrible, I could barely get through them, and this is from someone who wishes the jedi were real, so no.
I tried reading sherlock holmes, but honestly, those kind of sucked too.
I remember reading "xanth" books when i was a kid - they were great, but would I be able to get through them now? I don't know.

Please, please, please - refer me to some "lite" books that you have enjoyed, they needn't have been written exceptionally well, but at least to the level of literary value in Harry Potter - below that kind of ruins the experience.
Thank you.

any type of fiction is what I am talking about - "confederacy of dunces" and "life of pi" were ok too - but the lighter the better, as long as I can read it and enjoy it.


It is indeed tricky to find books like 'harry potter'. people call me silly for reading them, but I have the same experience with them as you have. And I can reread them quite easily too.

And to be honest, I cannot think about anything else that is 'lite' and has the level of Harry Potter.

Heinlein was mentioned, but not all his stuff is lite. He has several books I cannot read beyond the first 3 pages. Starship troopers is fairly light, but it has a heavy message. "the moon is a harsh mistress' is lite in my eyes, but still heavy if you want it to be. Thin books. Easy to read.

My favourite history book is Berlin - the downfall -1945 (http://www.antonybeevor.com/Berlin/berlinmenu.htm). When i was in south america it was the only book I had on me. I read it about 5 times in a row. I forgot how many times exactly.

Charles Buckowski always writes in a very basic and simple manner.
'post office', 'Ham on Rye'. I can easily reread this particular books at least on a yearly basis.

I used to be a big fan of the 'Peter F. Hamilton's The Reality Dysfunction series. (Sci-fi) 3 books IN EUROPE' that cotton mentioned.

I have read it back to back for a half dozen times. Now I can't read it anymore though.

Maybe something else will come to my mind later.

Now that's something I like about the Harry Potter books. They're books for either an adult OR a kid. I still re-read them.

Now that's something I like about the Harry Potter books. They're books for either an adult OR a kid. I still re-read them.
I keep forgetting that there is supposed to be a difference between an adult and a kid.

There is. Taxable income. :)

Jules Verne
Douglas Adams
Michael Moorcock
Mark Chadbourn

I don't know if moby dick qualifies as "lite" for what I am talking about doing with these books, i.e shutting down. i might get too involved in the philosophical aspects of that book, from what i have heard about it, I'm sure i will read it some time. Gulliver, and Robinson Crusoe might work.

Well, myself, I fancy older literature, 19th century. Some of those books can be read as "lite", or not.
I esp. fancy novels like "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights", it is such a delightful read to me.
But they do have teary moments ...


The only dickens I've read was "great expectations", and that doesn't work - I don't want to cry, just relax. Maybe you know which books of his are "lite"?

As far as I know, they all have teary moments as well.



* * *

But Douglas Adams is fun too.

I always liked Wuthering Heights a lot too.

Hitchikers guide to the galaxy
Dune (sequels are more philosophical though)
Battlefield earth
I really liked the belgariad series when I was younger, but don't know anymore if its any good. 14 year olds aren't the best judges.

You should check out The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

life of pi

life of pi

life of pi

I thought it was pretty good.

You should check out The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Good book.


OK, it's embarrassing, but... Tom Clancy.

Lite reading, to me, is a volume that accommodates interrupted reading habits, something like Grothe's abysmal Oxymoronica, which would be just fine were it not for the insights provided by a psychologist with a fetish for motivational speaking. Felton's What Were They Thinking? proved somewhat hilarious, although it seemed that whatever enthusiasm the author has for "Claven" trivia ends when it comes to producing a book.

Mental Floss is another great book to read in snippets; it's a good "cigarette book", a volume to be read in the short passing of a smoke. It's compiled from various editions of a magazine by the same name, at least as far as I can tell.

Short stories are good lite reading; you can go on or not without worrying about the ongoing story of a novel. But I've been reading quite a bit lately, and the fare has gotten lighter as the time goes by. Felton, Streiber and Kunetka, and now Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Pop-culture is often good lite reading.

And, sometimes, it's not. Bradbury is usually good lite reading, or McKammon or Brust. On the other hand, Joyce Carol Oates requires some devotion. So does Jack Cady. Like the volume Ghosts of Yesterday: "The Lady With the Blind Dog" is heavy, but "Israel and Ernest" is hilarious and even revealing. And the essays on science fiction and ghost stories place an unfair burden on lite readers; a certain degree of thought is demanded of the reader that lite reading, at least as I see the term, does not.

To the other, stories aren't just for entertainment. Even some of the shallowest fluff out there has a thing or two to teach; it's just a matter of perspective. Calling it "lite" may be derogatory in a sense. Is it that it's not required reading? Or that it is selfish entertainment? Remember that most authors won't lose sleep over their readers wasting their lives in the pages of a well-told story. Don't ever feel guilty about the entertainment aspect of reading. It's not necessarily "lite", but, rather, an essential demand of that human aspect we call the soul.

(Someone has offered me a copy of Da Vinci Code. Who knows? Maybe I won't be ashamed or embarrassed to read a pop-culture phenomenon approaching a new height in its fame. Generally, I like to avoid those titles until a few years have passed and I've forgotten the hype. Fresh eyes always help.)

(Someone has offered me a copy of Da Vinci Code. Who knows? Maybe I won't be ashamed or embarrassed to read a pop-culture phenomenon approaching a new height in its fame. Generally, I like to avoid those titles until a few years have passed and I've forgotten the hype. Fresh eyes always help.)

Since when has the American majority ever picked a truly must-read book as the ongoing national favorite? I absolutely refuse to read The Da Vinci Code, and similarly, I have not touched the Harry Potter books yet, either. Am I missing something great? I am willing to wager that I am probably not. The closest I have come to reading a popular book in recent times is The Kite Runner, but its popularity is not comparable to that of The Da Vinci Code. Most people simply have poor tastes in books, music, movies, and everything else.

To the other, stories aren't just for entertainment. Even some of the shallowest fluff out there has a thing or two to teach; it's just a matter of perspective. Calling it "lite" may be derogatory in a sense. Is it that it's not required reading? Or that it is selfish entertainment? Remember that most authors won't lose sleep over their readers wasting their lives in the pages of a well-told story. Don't ever feel guilty about the entertainment aspect of reading. It's not necessarily "lite", but, rather, an essential demand of that human aspect we call the soul.

The problem is, when you ferret out (or create) deep meanings in everything, even down to playing a videogame, you need a story that just flies by easily, a book you could get through in a day or two, or drag out a chapter at a time, not one positively pre-loaded with meaning.

I see from the additions that we are still getting more good ideas for "not oppressive", or "easy", or "fun" reading.

davinci code is somewhat interesting as a story, but is terrible prose - if someone hadn't lent me the graphically amplified version (with pictures of the art and drawings and places they went in the story), I think I would have felt like i truly wasted my time reading it.

I seem to lack the brain lobe to comprehend "great literature." My wife has a master's degree in English and has lovingly turned me on to some of the books that she thinks are masterpieces of human civilization, and she might as well have asked our brightest dog to read them. "Huckleberry Finn," "One Hundred Years of Solitude," "The Magic Mountain," I got halfway through each of them (actually I couldn't get through ten pages of Thomas Mann), realized that I could not state a single coherent thought about them, and gave up in frustration.

This wasn't a complete failure, I did read "Lord Jim" and found it entertaining. But apparently I did not come close to understanding the book's point and we still argue about it. I thought the man was a dolt for sacrificing his life that way and that he should have moved on to another place, started over, and settled for the life he could have. We are all haunted by our sins and we all make a truce with them. "Get over it," as the kids say.

Finally she started turning me on to second-tier books by first-tier authors. "Henderson the Rain King" by Saul Bellow is considered fluff by the literati, but it was one of the greatest reads of my life. The best intentions can turn out badly. If you don't know what you're doing you have no idea what will happen. Thinking you can solve the problems of a people and region with which you're completely unfamiliar is pure hubris. That latter revelation should be tattooed on the inside of the eyelids of our current President.

So basically, with the occasional exception of that nature, all my reading is "lite." Yet I have profound experiences. I find James P. Hogan, a physicist who writes sci-fi with the emphasis on the "sci", so thought-provoking that one of his novels has more of my notes in it than any of my college textbooks. He postulated humans encountering a civilization of what we would call "machines," who had rather easily mastered the art of "engineering" using what we would call "organic" material. Naturally, they felt exactly the same way about us. Where were our creators? How did something as simple and delicate as organic tissue manage to survive without external maintenance and repair, much less evolve into sentient beings? Why did we build our technology out of bits of machinery instead of much more easily manipulated organic artifacts?

Robert L. Forward, who recently passed away, was another scientist turned author who produced some stunning speculative fiction that challenges our perspective on life and the universe. Larry Niven has done the same thing.

Alan Dean Foster, who writes SF and fantasy, is a lightweight and a fast read even by my standards, but highly entertaining. He is a master of the craft of storytelling and has the sense of humor that eludes many "serious" writers.

I also like historical epics that are rich and painstaking in the details and probably too wordy for most people. Jean Auel's "Clan of the Cave Bear" series is spellbinding, and helped me understand how we probably got to where we are. Ditto for James Michener and his books that go back into prehistory and early history like "Hawaii" and "The Source."

Yes, I read Harry Potter. Although I'm waiting for the--what, the fifth one?--to come out in paperback. The hardbound copies are simply too heavy to carry around on the subway, and if I try to read one in bed, when I fall asleep it smashes my nose. Again, these are thought-provoking. Waking up one morning and discovering that you are not who you thought you were is every kid's fantasy and in contemporary America we're all kids who wish someone would come rescue us and take us to our real home. But what if in the bargain you also learned that the world is not what it seems and that your new life comes with knowledge and power and responsibility that make your old one seem like an idyllic childhood?

"Winnie the Pooh." I discoverd that and "The House at Pooh Corner" when I was about 35. I cried when it ended. "Somewhere in the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing." Just typing those words makes me cry still. Why does childhood have to end so early? Why do we have to learn twice-times? Why is the universe so cruel? Why can't I always carry Piglet in my pocket? I actually have had a tiny Piglet on my keychain all this time as a gesture of defiance to the universe.

"Lord of the Rings"? People who say that is not "real" literature are just bloody elitists!

But my point is: Any piece of good writing can plant some valuable new ideas in your head. A "lite" read may not plant as many as a "great" read. But a "great" read may also go over the heads of many of us and thus be lost.

Gabriel García Márquez may have won a Nobel prize, but my life will never be enriched by his work because I am simply incapable of understanding it even with the help of my own private lifelong tutor. His existence and effort are meaningless to me. I cannot say that about Michener, Auel, Niven, Forward, Hogan, A. A, Milne, or J. K. Rowlings.

I really liked harry potter, although it wasn't/isn't great. It is fun just to read, and when you see what you feel is weak or flawed, it is okay anyways because you can associate more with the writer.

I prefer the dense jungle-like terrain of Lovecraftian prose...

"I would have given much, in view of my experience and of certain Bedouin whisperings discredited or unknown in Cairo, to know what has developed in connection with a certain well in a transverse gallery where statues of the Pharoah were found in curious juxtaposition to the statues of baboons."

-Imprisoned with the Pharoahs (1924)

Only the silent, sleepy, staring houses that dwell in the backwoods
Can tell all that has laid hidden since the early days
And they are not communicative
Being loath to shake off the drowsiness which helps them forget
Sometimes one thinks it would be merciful to tear them down
For they must often dream

-H.P.Lovecraft (The Picture in the House)