Recommended reading.

[Androidpk]

I'm always looking to read new books and i'm sure you guys can name some good ones I haven't heard of before. I'm open to pretty much any type though I tend to read a lot more fiction then non fiction and my favorite type of books are dystopian novels.

[Gallows Thief]

I'm a huge fan of historical fiction. If you like it try Bernard Cornwell's work. The Sharpe series is excellent. Starbuck series is a good read as well.

[Allereli]

Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
What is the What? - Dave Eggers

http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?t=18047&highlight=recommended+books

[Keller]

I'm a huge fan of historical fiction. If you like it try Bernard Cornwell's work. The Sharpe series is excellent. Starbuck series is a good read as well.

Read The Lost City of Z.

[Androidpk]

Read The Lost City of Z.


Sounds pretty interesting, i've been somewhat fascinated about british explorers in the 1800's and early 1900's after reading Maneaters of Tsavo

[Keller]

Also, recognizing most people who like books will have already read it -- check out Pillars of the Earth.

[Gallows Thief]

Read The Lost City of Z.

Will do. Need a new book. Thnx.

[Euler]

Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud.... or Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close.... I can never remember the order...

So beautiful, sad, and hopeful.

[iJin]

Personally I happen to love psychological books about disorders and whatnot. There is this memoir called Bloodletting by Victoria Leatham, that I read when I was 15 and have re-read about 15 times. It's pretty much my favorite book.

Also, Sophie's World by Jastein Gaarder is a Alice takes on Philosophy sort of deal. Another one of my favorites. Asylum by Patrick McGrath is another good one.

Edit: Oh, and if you like a good war story, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. His writing style is very interesting.

[Skeeter]

The Killer Angels - if you like Civil War stuff

[Bhuryn]

I just finished the Otherland series. It's 4 substantial (think the smallest is 700 pages) book set but I loved it. Written by Tad Williams.

[thefarmer]

Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud.... or Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close.... I can never remember the order...

So beautiful, sad, and hopeful.

http://www.amazon.com/Extremely-Incredibly-Close-Jonathan-Safran/dp/0618329706

[Ker_Thwap]

Little, Big by Crowley

[EasternBrand]

Second on "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger. I thought it was going to be a corny, Oprah-style chick book, but I was glad to be very wrong. I flipped through her illustrated book that looked like a kids' story -- the name escapes me -- and was shocked (pleasantly) by how dark it was. Her second novel comes out in the fall, and I'm looking forward to it.

"Motherless Brooklyn" by Jonathan Lethem is one of my all-time favorites: a slow-witted thug turns detective. The way he works with words is just incredible.

I also highly recommend "Jesus' Son" by Denis Johnson. It's a short story collection, thematically linked by his bleak worldview. I've read two of his novels (the first, an early one called "Fiskadoro" was a dystopic novel I found almost unreadable -- though you might want to flip through it given your subject matter preference -- although the second, "Tree of Smoke", which just won the Nat'l Book Award, was much, much better), but the short story collection is, I think, the best thing he's written and deserves to be in the canon.

[BriarFox]

Off the top of my head:

American Shaolin
What is the What - seconded
Isaac Newton - James Gleick
Medieval Lives - Terry Pratchett (a bit fanciful, but fun)
The Summer Tree trilogy
The Name of the Wind
The Name of the Rose
The Autumn of the Middle Ages - John Huizinga

[MrTastyHead]

Knowledge of Angels - Jill Paton Walsh

[Skeeter]

I just started Wicked. Interesting so far.

[Drisco]

Off the top of my head:

American Shaolin
What is the What - seconded
Isaac Newton - James Gleick
Medieval Lives - Terry Pratchett (a bit fanciful, but fun)
The Summer Tree trilogy
The Name of the Wind
The Name of the Rose
The Autumn of the Middle Ages - John Huizinga

I want the second book to come out but he is taking all his good time getting to it..

He does have a pretty good sob story... I'm just pissed because it's sooo justifiable for him to delay it. But still:(... Gimme my god damn book!!

[Mighty Nikkisaurus]

Medieval Lives - Terry Pratchett (a bit fanciful, but fun)


Make this ANYTHING by Terry Pratchett.

[BriarFox]

Make this ANYTHING by Terry Pratchett.

Bother. I actually meant to say Terry Jones.

However, I SHOULD have mentioned Terry Pratchett, because he's fricking awesome.

Add in Alexander Scott McCall, too.

Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffery aren't half bad either. Loved them when I was a teenager.

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, and Ender's Shadow (don't really bother with the other ones in the series). Ignore his Alvin Maker series, too.

S.M. Stirling's Across the Tide of Years/Over the Ocean of Eternity/etc series is great.

George Duby has some very readable scholarly stuff (translated from French)

Alexandre Dumas is always good for a classic read

More later.

[Belnia]

For historical fiction, I can not recommend Jack Whyte's "Camulod Chronicles" enough. It's currently a 7 novel series, some of them are pretty hefty, it's set in Britian around the time of the Roman withdrawl and spans a hundred years or so laying the groundwork for the Arthurian legend.

The first book in the series is The Skystone, and worth the read.

[Tisket]

For historical fiction, I can not recommend Jack Whyte's "Camulod Chronicles" enough. It's currently a 7 novel series, some of them are pretty hefty, it's set in Britian around the time of the Roman withdrawl and spans a hundred years or so laying the groundwork for the Arthurian legend.

The first book in the series is The Skystone, and worth the read.

Thank you so much for the reminder. The Skystone was the best pre-Arthurian story I've ever read . It was awesome. I'm going to have to re-read it and pick up the rest in the series.

edit: B, I actually went to order it from Amazon and it's currently at nine novels in the series. So two more for you to read if you haven't already.

[Stanley Burrell]

Anne Rice's vampire novels.

What?

[Allereli]

Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang

This is coming out May 19. There were a few articles about it today and it could have a major impact in China. I may break my free book streak and go out and buy it.

[thefarmer]

Neil Gaimen

Simon Green

edit: Dan Simmons, Hyperion series

[Gan]

Make this ANYTHING by Terry Pratchett.


However, I SHOULD have mentioned Terry Pratchett, because he's fricking awesome.



Yes and yes.

[Gan]

The ultimate dystopian novel.

The Stand - Stephen King


*I hear The Immortals by Tracy Hickman is good.


Another Dystopian fantasy series thats an excellent read from Terry Brooks is the Shannara series (all of these are in my hardback library).
Here's a template of the order of the story line (not the order of the books as they were published).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Shannara_books

[HSB]

Took me a while to find this thread...

The Power of One, by Bryce Courtenay, is my favorite of all time. Pretty hairy at parts, but a fantastic overall storyline.

Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Absolutely hysterical, and well-written to boot.

James Patterson's Cross books are great page-turners, but they're a bit like chinese food. You get done, and it tasted good, but an hour later it's faded away.

John Sandford (the author of the Prey novels, which are decent in their own right) wrote four books referred to as the Kidd novels which are great for people with some understanding of computers and hacking. Outdated, but a good thrill-ride.

The Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher, are my latest addiction after I was given the first one as a gift. Great storytelling, and I plow through the books like a billionaire through supermodels.

Also, Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels are a great testosterone-fest. Sort of Rambo meets Dirty Harry.

And finally, if you've only seen the movies, then get your butt out and read the original Bourne Trilogy by Robert Ludlum. The movies butchered, dissected, ingested, defenestrated, and castrated the original storyline, then burnt it, pissed on the ashes, and salted the earth on their way out. The books are tremendous.

[Allereli]

The movies butchered, dissected, ingested, defenestrated, and castrated the original storyline, then burnt it, pissed on the ashes, and salted the earth on their way out. The books are tremendous.

so? it's called adaptation. Both can be good in their own right. Sometimes the movies aren't made just to imagine the book on screen word for word.

on topic, I just finished the Joe Torre book. as a Yankee fan it was painful, and I wanted to throw the book across the room whenever it mentioned Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano and Jeff Weaver. But it's an interesting take on modern baseball economics and a good read in general.

[HSB]

so? it's called adaptation. Both can be good in their own right. Sometimes the movies aren't made just to imagine the book on screen word for word.

Agreed. And in a lot of cases I've seen movies where they didn't even try. They took the characters and the loose storyline, and took it in a new direction. These movies in particular made me grind my teeth, though. They took about 85% of the storyline and seemed like they were attempting to follow it, except they ruined the suspense of the main plot twist in the first ten minutes, then killed off a key character, and eliminated the main villain. It just seemed a bit extreme even given the normal adaptation practices.

[Androidpk]

The Stand is one of my all time favorite King books. Right behind The Talisman and Salems Lot.

[TheWitch]

Vonnegut - anything, espeically Galapagos and Mother Night
Douglas Adams - cracks me up every single time
Morgan Llywelyn - awesome (mostly) Celtic historical fiction
Marion Zimmer Bradley - Mist of Avalon, and etc. Authurian legend, retold.

I'm just about to start the Time Travelers Wife. The consensus in my book club is thumbs down, which usually means I'll like it.

Also read the Tad Williams Otherworld series and agree, wow, very good.

[Methais]

Read this:
http://marklevinfan.com/Images/LibertyAndTyranny.jpg

[Allereli]

I'm just about to start the Time Travelers Wife. The consensus in my book club is thumbs down, which usually means I'll like it.

2 other people in my office have read it besides me and we all loved it

[droit]

I liked The Time Traveler's Wife, though I thought there were some slow parts.

[TheWitch]

Read this:
http://marklevinfan.com/Images/LibertyAndTyranny.jpg

Okay.

[Asha]

I read Coupland, Palanhuick, Coelho and Murakami and can recommend them all, any book.
But right now I'm going to say you HAVE to read Ann Rice's Vampire novels starting with The Vampire Lestat.
They're f-f-fresh.
And if you want to piss your pants laughing read Fear and Loathing. It's better than the movie.

[droit]

For anyone interested in things like high art, classical music, philosophy, literature and theology (I'm lookin' at you, Briar Fox), I couldn't recommend the fiction of Roberston Davies more. He's a fantastic writer that covers all those subjects and more in a very insightful and accessible way. He manages to write about this stuff so that you feel like you're learning about it, not like you're being talked down to. I'd start with his Deptford Trilogy; the first book is called Fifth Business.

[Allereli]

And if you want to piss your pants laughing read Fear and Loathing. It's better than the movie.

definitely. I could never make it through the movie without freaking out, but I never tried to watch it sober. I've read the book probably five or six times

[Khariz]

Read this:
http://marklevinfan.com/Images/LibertyAndTyranny.jpg

It's actually a very good book. Some of real life illustrations he uses are downright anger inducing (which I'm sure was the point).

Can't possibly say that he isn't a little "radical right" though, hehe. Not "Michael Savage" radical, but certainly more than "Sean Hannity" radical.