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Posted: 1/13/2008 6:27 PM
Post subject: Book recommendations thread.
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upthorn
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Simple, no-nonsense thread for people to recommend books to each other. Because "book club" has no meaning if we don't all read the books together, and "bargain bin" is needlessly limiting. Regardless, I'm going to start with Riverrun, by S.P. Somtow, a book that could easily have fit within the bounds of the "bargain bin". Riverrun is difficult to describe. The main characters are a normal American family whose mother is dying of cancer, and so are on their way from Virginia to the Laetrile clinic in Mexico. Along the way, the younger son, Theo Etchison is kidnapped by a vampire, in order to literally-and-figuratively navigate his ship along the river of time-and-space. It turns out that the vampire is one of three heirs to the throne of the universe, at war with his siblings after their father split the territories a'la King Lear, rather than choosing a single heir. The result is a book that has an fantasy-esque struggle of good versus evil and sci-fi elements as the remaining family back on Earth shifts between several alternate realities, but is at its core a story about a family coming to terms with their mother's illness.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Posted: 1/13/2008 8:00 PM
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dartht33bagger
Joined: 12/10/2007
Posts: 260
Location: Oregon
Sword of truth series or the wheel of time series. They are both great books, but they are long, intense fantasty books (none of the books are under 600 pages, and some of them push the 900 limit). There are 11 out in both series and are great reads, but only get them if you like fantasty (like elves and trolls and such).
Posted: 1/14/2008 1:18 AM
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theenglishman
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Nice thread Upthorn. The only reason I made the bargain-bin thread in the first place was because I wanted to get rid of the recommendations of milked-to-death classics and shine light on new material. This is a better idea. (ADMINS: lock the bargain thread) Let me throw in my own recommendation: The Brain that Changes Itself by Dr. Norman Doidge. It's selling well in Canada but not sure about the States. Similar to Oliver Sacks if you've ever read him. It's about the human brain and neuroplasticity - the brain's ability to change and adapt to anything well beyond childhood. There are some truly amazing case files in the story. For example: a woman who lost her sense of balance and later regained it by training a different part of her brain, a man who developed a bondage/pain fetish because he jerked off as a child to pass the time while he was painfully treated for a bone disorder and his pain and pleasure centres of the brain formed a connection, a doctor who discovered that monkeys could regain motor skills in their right arm when the movement nerve was severed and the other hand was put in a disabling cast, a man whose brain cells in the entire left half of the brain died and his son, through training, helped "teach" his right half to multitask and perform everything that the left once did. The list goes on, and I don't want to spoil any more of it. Please, if you find this book, buy it. You'll never look at your brain the same way again.
My current project: Something mysterious (oooooh!) My username is all lower-case letters. Please get it right :(
Posted: 1/14/2008 1:27 AM
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mr_roberts_z
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Joined: 7/21/2006
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Demon In the Freezer, by Richard Preston. It'll make you, uh, really scared of smallpox.
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Posted: 1/14/2008 1:33 AM
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dartht33bagger
Joined: 12/10/2007
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Location: Oregon
Good thing you can't get small pox anymore huh?
Posted: 1/15/2008 11:00 PM
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Xaphan
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Joined: 5/24/2005
Posts: 405
Location: France
Currently I'm reading : The Perfume by Patrick Süskind (it's a really nice novel so far and description part are top notch) Baudolino by Umberto Eco (I'm a big fan of Umberto Eco, The Foucault's pendulum was quite difficult to read but Baudolino is "simpler" and really nicely written...)
Not dead yet... still very busy... damn...
Posted: 1/16/2008 6:49 PM
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pirate_sephiroth
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The Mystery Method. The only book you need... I'm not kidding.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself. It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success." - Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Drama, too long, didn't read, lol.
Posted: 1/16/2008 8:33 PM
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Blublu
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Why people believe weird things, by Michael Shermer. It will make you smarter.
Posted: 1/16/2008 8:40 PM
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Sticky
Joined: 2/26/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: Minnesota
Das Reich - James Lucas about "The military role of the 2nd SS Division" Alexander the Great - (Murder in Babylon) <subtitle> Graham Phillips about who killed Alexander the Great and why (really good read) The Giant Book of Bad Guys - Edited by Ian Schott, Colin, Damon and Rowan Wilson about serial killers and gangsters and the jewish mafia. awesome.
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Forget party hats, Christmas tree hats all the way man.
Posted: 1/26/2008 1:14 AM
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theenglishman
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Anything by Mordecai Richler, especially The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Barney's Vision. Both great books but not sure how popular they are outside of Canada.
My current project: Something mysterious (oooooh!) My username is all lower-case letters. Please get it right :(
Posted: 1/26/2008 1:52 AM
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Wockes
Joined: 5/17/2007
Posts: 393
Location: Sweden
Hm the only books I have read, without anyone forcing me, was Bilbo, when I was 8, just because everyone said it was too hard, and those written by David Eddings.
"No love for the game gear"
Posted: 1/26/2008 10:43 AM
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Dromiceius
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville. I finished reading it yesterday, and highly recommend it to anyone. The symbolism is interesting without being laid too thick, or obtuse, or pretentious. The narration is clever, literate. The book shines most strongly through its characters. It's a classic for a reason.
Posted: 8/7/2008 3:27 AM
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Blublu
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I've been reading the book Influence; The psychology of persuasion, and it is simply astonishingly amazing. Every few pages, I go "a ha!" and understand more about how humans behave and why. It's an amazing book and I recommend it highly. It's full of knowledge that will change how you look at the community of humans. So. Awesome book. Read it. Now.
Posted: 8/7/2008 5:20 AM
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arflech
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Blublu wrote:
Why people believe weird things, by Michael Shermer. It will make you smarter.
seconded
i imgur com/QiCaaH8 png
Posted: 8/7/2008 4:48 PM
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Xepher
Joined: 7/10/2008
Posts: 56
dartht33bagger wrote:
Sword of truth series or the wheel of time series. They are both great books, but they are long, intense fantasty books (none of the books are under 600 pages, and some of them push the 900 limit). There are 11 out in both series and are great reads, but only get them if you like fantasty (like elves and trolls and such).
I was going to say the exact same thing. I highly recommend the Sword of Truth series! A good way to describe the books would be Harry Potter for adults. Terry Goodkind does not hold back in how graphic the descriptions of death, torture, and pain are.
i see...
Posted: 8/7/2008 9:01 PM
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Brushy
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Joined: 11/13/2005
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The last book I read was Dean R. Koontz's Watchers and damn it was good. So I recommend it to all of you :)
Posted: 8/8/2008 7:20 AM
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Tombad
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 380
Location: Finland
Anything published by Simon Singh. The man writes about science with astounding clarity and sense of humor. Anecdotes about the subject matter are also intertwined in his texts. The Code Book and Big Bang are among favorites of mine, but I haven't (yet) read his newest book about alternative medicine.
"Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home." ( Pratchett & Gaiman: Good Omens )
Posted: 8/8/2008 7:36 PM
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BigBoct
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Jeffrey Deaver's The Blue Nowhere is one of my favorites, as are Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series.
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Posted: 8/12/2008 12:52 AM
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SilentSlayers
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The DragonLance series is my personal favorite series. If you like Fantasy novels you might like these.
Posted: 8/12/2008 4:32 AM
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pirate_sephiroth
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Yeah, Brushy... Dean Koontz is pretty good.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself. It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success." - Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Drama, too long, didn't read, lol.
Posted: 8/12/2008 10:42 AM
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eternaljwh
Joined: 3/11/2008
Posts: 583
Location: USA
Terry Pratchett's Discworld series Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Posted: 8/15/2008 5:26 PM
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Chamale
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Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z by Max Brooks. Very entertaining books on zombies.
Posted: 7/14/2009 1:37 AM
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ZeXr0
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
It's been a while since there was activity in that thread. I just bought a couple of StarCraft book from amazon. It's very very nice. I never really followed the story but I did know most of the characters. The book that you to a known universe, with an unknown story and I find that pretty nice. I would recommend to any StarCraft fan.
Posted: 2/16/2010 2:12 AM
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Mukki
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This is a great thread that I'd like to dig up again to see what you guys have been reading over the last...2 years. A quick breakdown of the last five books that I have read (synopsis + opinions). I've mostly been catching up with classics and modern classics that I have so far missed so some of you may be familiar with many of these already: Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov This novel begins with a brief foreword and a 999 line poem by a fictional poet named John Shade. The remainder of the novel is a commentary by the editor Charles Kinbote. Through his interpretation of the poem Kinbote digresses into his own musings which form the plot. This results in a very non-linear narrative that can be difficult to follow. I did enjoy this, but not as much as I would've liked. A novel like this really benefits from multiple readings in order to piece together everything that is going on. I'm a fan of Nabokov's work, and did enjoy Lolita and so if you liked that then this is recommended. If you are not familiar with Nabokov I'd recommend that you start with Lolita before moving on to this as Pale Fire is much more abstract and generally less enjoyable on the initial reading. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Taking place almost entirely within the fictional village of Macondo, this novel follows the trials and difficulties of several generations of the Buendia family. This is probably my top recommendation. I loved this. The characters are all immediately likable, it is fantastically written and more than anything else the use of magical realism is exemplary. If I had to nitpick I'd say that the tempo kind of breaks around the middle and it seems as if the story is not really progressing (although, based on your interpretation, that is arguably the point) and the fact that more than half the characters in the novel have the same name is somewhat confusing (although, again, that is arguably the point). If you enjoy the work of more modern magical realist writers such as Haruki Murakami, or perhaps even the work of anime directors such as Hayao Miyazaki, I cannot recommend this highly enough. Generation X by Douglas Coupland Three characters; Dag, Claire and Andy pass the time by sharing stories with one another as the go about their typical 90s lifestyles. I'm not a huge fan of the waster-intellectual literature of the 90s, I generally find it overly preachy and pretentious and so I didn't find these characters particularly likable. However, many of the stories recounted between these unlikable characters were genuinely enjoyable. I read this in a day when I was bored and don't regret doing so. If you see this in a bargain bin for a couple of bucks I doubt you'll regret it either. If you generally enjoy Bret Easton Ellis / Chuck Palahniuk philosophy (rather than the gratuitous violence) then you may find something of interest here. The Road by Cormac McCarthy A man and his son, having survived Armageddon, make their way down the road to the coast in search of solace. I read this because I was interested in seeing the film. After I had read it I was no longer particularly interested in seeing the film. This novel is just so perfect. Everything here is so finely tuned. I highly recommend this, however it may not be for everyone. To say that it is dark is one thing, but what is really interesting here is how real it is in exploring visceral human instincts in desperate/hopeless situations. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon Joeseph Kavalier, a Jewish Czechoslovakian during the Nazi occupation, is able to escape to the USA to live with his cousin Sam Clay. Together they create a comic book hero to combat the Nazis. Joeseph uses this as a means of dealing with his helplessness at being unable to protect the family he was forced to leave in Czechoslovakia. Okay, I may have lied when I said that One Hundred Years of Solitude was my top recommendation. It may be this, but these two and The Road are all very close in brilliance. While reading this I was almost passively enjoying it and it is only with hindsight that I have appreciated how truly beautiful this novel was. There are many reasons for this and it is definitely worth a read and then some. Especially for those of you that are comic book enthusiasts as it is rare to see comics spoken of with such reverence as an art form, but Chabon expresses his love of the medium so brilliantly through his characters. I hope that some of you found these recommendations useful and I look forward to hearing what you have been getting into.
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Posted: 2/16/2010 2:18 AM
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funnyhair
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The fact that The post all crappy youtube videos here, has more posts than this really makes me depressed. any way, Im currently reading Good Omens. Dont let the title fool you, its a satire
[19:16] <scrimpy> silly portuguese [19:16] <scrimpy> it's like spanish, only less cool
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