Says you, I love my collection of books (that I have actually read).

Twesterm,

Thats great! A fellow reader among the ranks. I personally have too many books to show that I would end up showing ( multiple book cases ) the idea would get redundant.

Although I still stand by my statement as it statistically proves true.

Any personal favorite books and or authors?

I've had to keep my book collection down over the years because I generally move every year (apartments) so don't have the collection I would like to have, though I still have a few boxes of books I haven't unpacked just because I can't part with some of them. :P

Favorite author is a hard one (like asking what's my favorite game almost) it almost depends on my mood. Lately, I've been on Neal Stephenson kick, before that it was probably almost anything having to do with Arthurian legends, before that, I don't know, probably some fantasy author I can't remember off the top of my hea.

I think one of the biggest reasons that books aren't rated (besides there being so damn many of them) is that most people who are reading a book will stop reading if it is something they are uncomfortable with. For example, if any of you have read the "Clan of the cave bear" series, you'll know that it portrays sex in several places. My wife read the series when she was a pre-teen (with parental permission) and being uninterested in that sort of thing, she just skipped over those parts.

Reading takes work as opposed to a movie, so the majority of people that would actually encounter those books by accident are those people mature enough to stop reading if they were uncomfortable with it.

Another thing to consider, if you've never experienced some of this stuff, how would you picture it in your head? Movies portray the imagery that the director has come up with for a certain scene, essentially removing the need to know what the hell is going on yourself, since the director has done it for you. All you gotta do is watch. A book, if you read words (even if you know what they mean) doesn't mean you can understand what is going on. If some guy is describing a murder or rape or something in all its bloody and horrific details, if you don't know what that looks like, chances are you won't understand anyway.

edit: ps, I'm also an avid reader.  We have two shelves backed with enough books to fit on probably 5 shelves and I've read every one...wel saving a few I picked up used and still haven't read.  Anyway, I go through kicks of reading fits where I'll read a few dozen books in a couple weeks, then don't read for awhile, same as video games =)

I think z64dan gave us the reason why it is like that.

It's nice to see that there are some readers amongst the gamers, that should also lift our reputation a little!
I also like reading and I'm currently chosing my books for my graduation. I have to read five german and three french books. (I don't have to read english books because I could choose in which subject I want to take my exam, and I didn't chose english because my mark could only go down)

I already have chosen the five german books and two french ones, but I'm still looking for a third french book. Does someone know about french literature and could recommend something to me?

Quite frankly forget books, movies, and games, America in particular is a big fat phony in this regard, we regulate entertainment to the umph degree, and yet we allow the internet to stream into every home entirely unregulated. A kid isn't allowed to buy a mature game, watch a rated R film, or see anything bad on TV, and then he can go online and see wanton violence and sex with no proof of age. This is astounding.

The news will hype a shocking video of a store clerk selling GTA to a 10 year old. While the same news seems to overlook the fact that the same kid could watch vidoes of explicit sex and violence, and all kinds of other god-forsaken acts on the internet.

It'd be like the media getting mad at liquor stores for selling to minors when we all had vodka coming out of our sinks. It's like,"Why are we mad at the liqor stores these kids can get this at home for free."

@twestern

Don't you think Dragonlance Chronicles would make a great movie trilogy? (I think those were the dragonlance books on your shelf or maybe they were Legends).

Sadly, I'm not much of a reader. I'm not stupid, but all my life I've had difficulty keeping my attention throughout a book. I've certainly enjoyed plenty, and books I've been required to read in HS and college I've understood well. I'm going to pick up a few sci-fi books soon to read, but overall, I'm just not much of a reader. It takes me too long to read as well.

I'm much more of a movie person...I've probably seen thousands of movies, and I love all sorts...I'm pretty good at discovering the finer points and hidden themes in movies, and I enjoy it so much more. And of course I love games...but that's a given in this forum...

 Yeah I would!  My only worries though is that they would cast Raistlin wrong and that all the skipping around with all the different characters wouldn't transfer well to the screen.  Lord of the Rings kind of did that, but there were only really two groups while the Dragonlance group had, what, at least 3 things going on at any given time (after the beginning bit that is).

Legends > Chronicles. Of course, chronicles would be the better movie since legends would make no sense to a viewing audience. However...

Watch for that pebble Austinus.