what else do you do besides playing chess?

I liked Catch22 and Catch as Catch Can, but even I'll admit ol' Heller gets a litte repetitive.  I guess the same could be said for Vonnegut.

"I'm going to live forever or die in the attempt."  Yossarian

Catch 22 was a very unusual book.  It sort of reminded me of a cross between MASH, Hogan's Heros and I am American and So Can You.

 Here's some love for Mailer. The Executioner's Song was a very long but very good book written along the lines of Capote's In Cold Blood.

How about some historical stuff?  He's been tainted by a couple plagiarism/failure to credit incidents and has his share of critics alleging inaccuracies, but I still enjoy Stephen Ambrose's books.

And for historical/fiction mixes, I really enjoyed Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.

Someone earlier mentioned Micheal Crichton.  I enjoyed his earlier works a lot, before he got all preachy and self-righteous.  Quite a few of his later works made my "I'm really sorry I spent my time reading this" list.

--Cystem 

I mentioned Crichton and I agree that in his latest works the spark was gone. Next and Prey sucked bigtime. Timeline was OK.

I got duped into buying Celestine Prophecy.  I feel like I could throw a rock and hit a fifth grader who could have written that book with a little editing help.

That took no. 1 on my "If I could beat the author with his own book for the waste of my time" list.  And it's a little OCD but I have a hard time not finishing something if I start reading it so...it's really annoying when the book is bad.

Worst book ever - The Rule of Four by Caldwell and Thomason. A decent beginning, but unreadable beyond page 200 or so. A complete letdown.

Another author who got full of himself and it spilled into his books:  Tom Clancy.  For the techno/military thriller fans, some of his early books were great reads.  His later works got horrible-- way too long, incredible repetition and almost non-existent editing, and the entire novels were basically just political diatribes.  The Bear and the Dragon (2000) was the final straw for me.  I didn't read anything new from Clancy after that.  I've heard some radio show interviews with Clancy, and he's definitely one author I wouldn't bother crossing the street for the opportunity to meet.

Debate team, reading, hunting, fishing, and programming. and no, i will not hack anything 4 anyone.

I'm going to warn the fifth graders! 

I like Robert Ludlum for sheer escapist reading.

 I'm blessed to live near Muskegon, Michigan, home of the only easily accessible luge track in the United States.  It's nowhere near the size, or speed, of the olympic tracks on television, but it's still fun, and I have done the Lake Placid track, too.  Just not from the top. 

On the subject of the original question in the OP, I was suddenly reminded of the scene in Blazing Saddles.  I'm thinking of the scene where the Sheriff suggests, "Let's play Chess."

Do fifth graders heed warnings?

 No, they still think you're cool.

Did anyone get their grades back from this thread? I need a good one or oh man my dad's going to kill me.

I like to listen to music/sing.

I have a dog who eats his best work.