• Broken_Monitor@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    You want some adult books that arent full of negative crap go read some Terry Pratchett. All my life these are some of the only ones that make me laugh out loud consistently while still having a great plot, characters, and just overall excellent writing in so many ways.

    • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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      6 months ago

      I scoffed at the idea of a comedy book until I my friend lent me one of Terry’s books. It was so funny, great jokes and great characters.

        • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          I love Good Omens. A friend recommended it to me as a comedy to read. I was skeptical having never read a comedy before, but it was hilarious and entertaining all the way through. The show on Amazon does a pretty good job of capturing the spirit of the book I think too.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Terry Pratchett.

      I always get Pratchett and Brooks confused. Too many Terrys.

      All my life these are some of the only ones that make me laugh out loud consistently while still having a great plot, characters, and just overall excellent writing in so many ways.

      He does a great job of writing a series that can be read piecemeal but pays off if you go through the whole things.

      I’m also a big fan of the Myth Adventure series by Robert Aspirin. It’s more comedic, but has a similar vibe.

    • zephorah@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      I purchased Going Postal in an airport. I ended up laughing out loud on a plane.

    • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Read his “children’s” book Maurice And His Amazing Rodents and try not to sob. But also laugh, and fume, and learn.

    • gjoel@programming.dev
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      6 months ago

      Just don’t read the biography. I just finished it, and while it’s amazing it will leave you devastated.

      • LazerFX@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        GNU PTerry. Just got both biographical books for fathers day. I entirely expect to be crushed, given how big a part of growing up his books were to me, and how devastated I was to watch his decline and eventual passing…

        I’ve hardly been able to read his books since, which is awful.

        • CheeryLBottom@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          My husband got both of those books and I hope to read them. A part of me feels that, if I read them, it will make everything more definite (if you know what I mean). Heck, I haven’t even read the Shepard’s Crown.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Myth, Phule, and Thieve’s World. Though I will concede that Aahzimandius, no relation, was quite possibly the best character he ever created.

        I personally call people coffee zombies because of the book where Skeeve has to clear his name at the interdimentional mall.

  • banazir@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on the sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, ‘To die will be an awfully big adventure.’

    Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. Kids’ books are rad.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I still maintain the best adaptation of that story was Hook.

      Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams absolutely Nailed their roles, shout-outs to Julia Roberts and Bob Hoskins, they also nailed their roles, but got upstaged by the former two thespians.

      • Azuth@lemmy.today
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        6 months ago

        Don’t forget about my boy Dante Basco. Dude nailed playing the insecure antagonist who later becomes friends with the main character years before Zuko.

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I didn’t mention Rufio because I fell victim to a urban legend that Dante Basco died somewhere around 2010. I wasn’t aware of his legacy, since I have never seen Avatar: TLAB, or probably anything else he has been involved in.

          Edit: looking it up, I have actually seen the entirety of The Boondocks, and Final Fantasy XIII. I didn’t recognize Rufio as Jigme, or the Cocoon Inhabitants. Not surprising since both of those were like two decades after he played Rufio as a teenager. He would have been 15 or 16 when he played Rufio.

          As far as Goofy Movie, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Touched by an Angel, and Johnny Bravo are concerned, while I saw all of those, I never heard him speak. I can only assume his adult register came into full force after he left the set of Hook.

          I’ve literally can’t remember seeing anything else he was in. I’m sure I saw some episodes of Highway to Heaven since I remember the show vaguely, and also The Wonder Years, but I wouldn’t have known that he was going to be Rufio at that point as I am not clairvoyant.

  • zaknenou@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 months ago

    I’m an adult and proud that I don’t read this nonsense anymore. But what is the book where there is a magic tree house ? just so that I don’t read it mistakenly

  • NaoPb@eviltoast.org
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    6 months ago

    You are reading the wrong adult books if that is your take away from it.

    • Muscar@discuss.online
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      6 months ago

      This is the problem with so much complaining. “There aren’t any good games anymore” says the people who only buy the yearly CoD and Fifa releases and don’t even think about thinking about lifting a finger to find all the easily available great games being released constantly. Same with music and everything else. People just complain and somehow don’t realise the only thing they do is show everyone else how dumb they are by not even trying to find the good stuff. Also the constant “I hate ads so much” idiocy and then they just ignore anyone who tells them to install an adblocker.

  • WhippetBowie@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I recently read Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea books, really interesting in that first half are kids lit and the second half were written 30 years later for a grown audience.

    Best of both worlds! Though I did find the kids books way more fun.

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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      6 months ago

      Whoaaaaa! No way! I just finished the first one and loved it. Can’t wait to keep going. That’s so cool!

      • WhippetBowie@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        If you haven’t already check out the “shelved by genre” podcast. They just did the entire Earthsea series (over multi episodes) and the podcast is seriously hilarious and insightful.

          • WhippetBowie@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Don’t want to push it too hard, but they do two episodes per book. Best enjoyed by listening after you finish each book.

  • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    High school English classes kind of beat the habit of reading out of me. I mean first of all there was this sense of new = not valid; To Kill A Mockingbird was the newest work of literature I studied in high school, written in the 60’s about the 30’s, everything else was 19th century or older. The Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare, Poe, the goddamn Bronte’s.

    I stopped going to book stores. I stopped going to the library. Adult reading is like rubbing wood chips in your eyes. It’s dry and awful.

    My grandmother handed me a book. A paperback novel called Utopia by Lincoln Child. It’s a kind of whodunit mystery thriller set in a futuristic theme park, and the main character has a teenage daughter who has an mp3 player. And that caught me off guard. Because I was a teenager with an mp3 player. This book was new. It was written by someone who was still alive, about characters who were my age and my generation. And the book was kinda okay.

    I miss my gramma.

    • Ibuthyr@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 months ago

      Man, same here. In Germany, all we did was read scripts for drama plays. There’s nothing more boring. We read only one enjoyable book, which was Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

      Only recently have I started enjoying books again and it started with the Hyperion Cantos. I also read a shit ton of books with my little daughter, ranging from Toto the Ninja cat, over Stitch head and Amelia Fang to Harry Potter and Roald Dahl classics. It’s a lot of fun, especially since I get to do all of the voices. Sometimes we laugh so hard, it’s difficult for her to fall asleep :)

      • LwL@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I recall two enjoyable books, both by Morton Rhue, being boot camp and the wave (and one that I liked but most people didn’t, kafka’s metamorphosis. Sure didn’t like having to interpret that though).

        At least early on they tried making us read enjoyable books, as in modern books aimed at teenagers, they just… weren’t very good.

        I think the peak of unenjoyment for me was Das Parfüm, which is technically somewhat modern. I tried reading it and was so bored I just couldn’t continue, ended up reading a synopsis somewhere and pretended to know what i was talking about.

        At least it never killed reading for me because by the time school made me read books I was already reading fantasy novels in my free time anyway.

  • TIN@feddit.uk
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    6 months ago

    This is why I read genre fiction rather than literary fiction. Sure, you and your book club can look down on me but until you’re reading a book that isn’t a variation on a theme of “unsuccessful professional moves back to coastal small town to look after their mother who has dementia”, yous can all get to fuck.

  • uis@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    I read mostly three things: fanfics mostly on My Little Pony, literature for degree and scientific papers(mostly unrelated to degree).

  • xantoxis@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Stop shaming people about reading kids’ books.

    The kids can have those books back when you’re done and not one minute sooner.

  • Donkter@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I like the take that science fiction and fantasy is just a better form of fiction because you could take literally any fiction story about a mopey 30 year old who has to take care of their sick parent and a science fiction story has the potential to write an equally compelling story except this time there’s a killer robot on the loose or they’re on Mars or something.

    All good stories are human stories, even science fiction. There’s nothing inherently better about setting your story in the “real world”.

    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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      6 months ago

      “Human stories” are depressing and boring as fuck. I’ve already dealt enough with people dying of illnesses and being in shitty relationships and all that bullshit in my own life. I don’t need to be reminded of it by reading or watching a dramatized version. Put that shit in a metaphor the characters can solve their problems by blowing up.

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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        6 months ago

        Interesting concept. It’s going to take me a while to get through this, but I look forward to trying. Thanks for sharing

        • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          Apparent tl;dr:

          Soulism, also known as anarcho-antirealism, is a branch of anarchist thought that views reality and natural laws as unjust hierarchies needing justification through good work and the ability to be dismantled. Soulists extend this principle to reality itself, believing that our experiences, or consensus reality, are sculpted by society and cultural biases, rather than objective truth. By rejecting the objective existence of reality, soulists argue that we can reshape our perceptions to align with kindness, empathy, and respect for marginalized identities. This extends to supporting mental, racial, gender, and other diversities, while using the concept of “magic” as a means of influencing and understanding our perceptions of the world. In doing so, soulists aim to destroy the concept of an objectively true reality, promoting a more empathetic and inclusive societal framework.

          • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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            6 months ago

            Fascinating! Sounds like something I’d read about in Disco Elysium, honestly

  • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
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    6 months ago

    This is basically the “everybody secretly likes pop music” reverse snobbery angle. It’s so difficult to imagine that other people have different tastes from you.

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      it’s not saying everybody likes kids books. it’s just saying you shouldn’t shame people who do.

  • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    You want a sad book? Mr. Frumble, from that same worm driving an apple book, is a tragic character. In a single day the poor guy has tragedy after tragedy, probably costing him millions, and making him hated by his entire community. There’s no relief. There’s no mercy. His life is chaos.