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funkybottoms
Oct 28, 2010

Funky Bottoms is a land man

simosimo posted:

So here it is, I am in a reading slump.

Lincoln and Preston's Relic, Warren Fahey's Fragment, maybe Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry

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Sevalar
Jul 10, 2009

HEY RADICAL LARRY HOW ABOUT A HAIRCUT

****MIC TO THE WILLY***

funkybottoms posted:

Lincoln and Preston's Relic, Warren Fahey's Fragment, maybe Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry

Thanks, looking into these now, Relic jogged my memory. I am obessesed with tunnels/caves and catacombs, and anything to do with those will be kicking rad...

edit: also any 'forgotten lands' are cool too. Or making big space-based discoveries, only for them to be hostile. (See LIFE-FORCE or Event Horizon)

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

simosimo posted:

Thanks, looking into these now, Relic jogged my memory. I am obessesed with tunnels/caves and catacombs, and anything to do with those will be kicking rad...

edit: also any 'forgotten lands' are cool too. Or making big space-based discoveries, only for them to be hostile. (See LIFE-FORCE or Event Horizon)

Relic is really good, and I'd recommend basically anything its two authors wrote in tandem. Apparently there's an order to them, but I think aside from a few references to earlier books you should be alright. Just anything with Agent Pendergast playing a central role is guaranteed to be a good read.

dokmo
Aug 27, 2006

:stat:man

Twenty Pence Piece posted:

I'd like something which will introduce me to Sociology please. I'm not looking for textbook-style prose, but something easy(ish) to read which can get me into the topic :)

Most "Introduction To X" books are dry. You may want to read a book written by a sociologist where they look at specific topics written for general audiences as a way to get to know how sociologists think. Two fascinating books like this are

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh

quote:

Honest and entertaining, Columbia University professor Venkatesh vividly recounts his seven years following and befriending a Chicago crack-dealing gang in a fascinating look into the complex world of the Windy City's urban poor. As introduced in Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's bestseller, Freakonomics, Venkatesh became involved with the Black Kings—and their charismatic leader J.T.—as a first-year doctoral student at the University of Chicago. Sent to the projects with a multiple-choice test on poverty as his calling card, Venkatesh was, to his surprise, invited in to see how the drug dealers functioned in real life, from their corporate structure to the corporal punishment meted out to traitors and snitches. Venkatesh's narrative breaks down common misperceptions (such as all gang members are uneducated and cash rich, when the opposite is often true), the native of India also addresses his shame and subsequent emotional conflicts over collecting research on illegal activities and serving as the Black Kings' primary decision-maker for a day—hardly the actions of a detached sociological observer. But overinvolved or not, this graduate student turned gang-running rogue sociologist has an intimate and compelling tale to tell. (Jan.)


(not as freakonomicsy as they make it sound)

and

Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore's Eastern District by Peter Moskos

quote:

A Harvard-trained sociologist, Moskos set out to do a one-year study of police behavior. Challenged by Baltimore's acting police commissioner “to become a cop for real,” he accepted. During his six months in the police academy and 14 months on the street, he “happily worked midnights, generally the least desirable shift” in one of the city's least desirable precincts: the Eastern District (where HBO's The Wire is filmed). Moskos frankly records his experiences with poverty, violence, drugs and despair in the gritty ghetto. During “field training,” he first encountered “drug dealers, families broken apart, urban blight, rats, and trash-filled alleys. Inside homes, things are often worse.” Moskos's overview of policing problems covers everything from arrest quotas, corrupt cops and excess paperwork to the reliance on patrolling in cars, responding to a barrage of 911 calls, rather than patrolling on foot to prevent crimes. Moskos blends narrative and analysis, adding an authoritative tone to this adrenaline-accelerating night ride that reveals the stark realities of law enforcement while illuminating little-known aspects of police procedures

AARP LARPer
Feb 19, 2005

THE DARK SIDE OF SCIENCE BREEDS A WEAPON OF WAR

Buglord

AARP LARPer fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Jan 22, 2016

Insatiably Curious
Jun 10, 2011

simosimo posted:

Thanks, looking into these now, Relic jogged my memory. I am obessesed with tunnels/caves and catacombs, and anything to do with those will be kicking rad...

Have you read Reliquary? It's the sequel to Relic, and it also features lots of tunnels, etc.

DrGonzo90
Sep 13, 2010

simosimo posted:

footnote: If it helps, I like easy going reading, I normally fire up my Kindle when I want a screen break from the PC/Console, or literally if it's near bed time and need a good de-stimulant, or a break on my lunch hour.. If it gets too heady, i'll thing ugh and just dump it.

Silence of the Lambs was a good page-turner if you're into that kind of thing. Scared the living poo poo out of me, though.

TheShrike
Oct 30, 2010

You mechs may have copper wiring to re-route your fear of pain, but I've got nerves of steel.
Books that evoke the same feelings that this song does? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOnF3Q6G8rU

feedmyleg
Dec 25, 2004
I just finished Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer (the book that Pirates of Silicon Valley is based on) and want something that picks up where it left off, around the mid 80s. I'd be into either an objective Jobs/Woz/Gates account or, preferably, a general overview of how the computer industry got from the Macintosh to today. I've read iWoz and parts of the Steve Jobs book already but want something a bit more broad. I don't mind if it gets too technical (loved Racing the Beam) but the history and evolution of technology is mostly what I'm interested in. I'd also be interested in other books that cover the Fire in the Valley timeframe too, tangentially.

Phummus
Aug 4, 2006

If I get ten spare bucks, it's going for a 30-pack of Schlitz.
I need some very light reading. Sci-fi or Fantasy. I just finished 'seed' which was OK. I'm going to be sitting in a hospital waiting room for hours.

funkybottoms
Oct 28, 2010

Funky Bottoms is a land man

Phummus posted:

I need some very light reading. Sci-fi or Fantasy. I just finished 'seed' which was OK. I'm going to be sitting in a hospital waiting room for hours.

Scalzi's The Android's Dream. It has a nice mix of action and humor but is smart enough that it doesn't get too silly. Not an amazing book, but it's engaging without requiring a ton of effort, which sounds like what you need. Also, although it's heavily indebted to pretty much every other fantasy story, I was mildly surprised to find myself enjoying Michael Sullivan's Riyria Revelations, a self-published series that eventually got picked up by a "real" publisher. Imagine Lethal Weapon crossed with the original Shannara series- comfort reading, if you will.

Sevalar
Jul 10, 2009

HEY RADICAL LARRY HOW ABOUT A HAIRCUT

****MIC TO THE WILLY***
Just wanted to pop in and say thanks goons, Relic is turning out great so far. Pendergast is a real piece of work :swoon:. Glad to hear there is a sequel to this book.

ahobday
Apr 19, 2007

I'm nearly done with all of the Fletch books.

I'm on the 10th book now, and after the 11th book I'll be finished.

I worry that I'm going to be in sarcastic withdrawal mode once there are no more books to read.

Can anyone recommend some books where the main character is a sarcastic but loveable rear end in a top hat who gets things done?

Edit: On the off-chance that it's brought up: I've tried the Dresden Files. Couldn't get into it.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Centipeed posted:

I'm nearly done with all of the Fletch books.

I'm on the 10th book now, and after the 11th book I'll be finished.

I worry that I'm going to be in sarcastic withdrawal mode once there are no more books to read.

Can anyone recommend some books where the main character is a sarcastic but loveable rear end in a top hat who gets things done?

Edit: On the off-chance that it's brought up: I've tried the Dresden Files. Couldn't get into it.

The Travis McGee series by John D. McDonald and/or the Spenser series by Robert Parker. Spenser's more sarcastic rear end in a top hat who gets things done, Travis McGee is more the loveable rear end in a top hat who gets things done.

Why didn't you like Dresden Files? Many find it picks up dramatically with the third book.

ahobday
Apr 19, 2007

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Why didn't you like Dresden Files? Many find it picks up dramatically with the third book.

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll check out the first novel from each series.

I admittedly had the flu while I read the first Dresden Files book, and that tends to warp your perspective of books, but I distinctly remember thinking "I can't continue to read this, because of X". I just can't remember what "X" was :(

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Centipeed posted:

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll check out the first novel from each series.

I admittedly had the flu while I read the first Dresden Files book, and that tends to warp your perspective of books, but I distinctly remember thinking "I can't continue to read this, because of X". I just can't remember what "X" was :(

Yeah, you might want to give them another try then. Keep in mind that the first one was literally written as a student project for a writing class -- the first two especially are on about the same level as something like Simon R. Green's Nightside series, mildly entertaining pulp fantasy, but Butcher improves as a writer with every book.

Also, a couple of the major characters that annoy people in the first couple books (Murphy) go through character arcs and turn awesome as the series progresses, so that annoyance factor drops out also.

I think my favorite one-liner from Dresden so far is when a vampire burns his left hand to slag with a flamethrower, after the fight, one of his companions says "You're going to lose that hand." Dresden responds "That's ok, I was going to send it back anyway. I ordered it medium rare." .

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 18:33 on May 3, 2012

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

simosimo posted:

Just wanted to pop in and say thanks goons, Relic is turning out great so far. Pendergast is a real piece of work :swoon:. Glad to hear there is a sequel to this book.

Not only is there a sequel to Relic (which I've heard many people say they enjoyed more than the original, although I read both of them back in middle school so I can't remember well enough to pass my own judgement), there's a whole series of about a dozen books starring Pendergast and D'Agosta. I stopped reading after Brimstone (not because Brimstone wasn't good, they all are, as far as I've read, they just sadly fell out of my rotation and I forgot to keep up with them) but I loved all the ones I did read, not a stinker among them.

And yeah, Pendergast really is the best thriller character ever written. :swoon:

MariusLecter
Sep 5, 2009

NI MUERTE NI MIEDO
Can anyone recommend something that's comedy/satire. Last books I read that I really enjoyed were Tina Fey Bossy Pants, Nothing But The Truthiness and Custer Died For Your Sins.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

MariusLecter posted:

Can anyone recommend something that's comedy/satire. Last books I read that I really enjoyed were Tina Fey Bossy Pants, Nothing But The Truthiness and Custer Died For Your Sins.

I've heard a lot of people say that if you like Bossypants, you'll like Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?. I've never liked Tina Fey so I haven't read her book to directly compare the two, but Kaling is really funny and her book is too.

Insatiably Curious
Jun 10, 2011

MariusLecter posted:

Can anyone recommend something that's comedy/satire. Last books I read that I really enjoyed were Tina Fey Bossy Pants, Nothing But The Truthiness and Custer Died For Your Sins.

How about Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson? I laughed so hard I was crying.

If you want fiction, you can't go wrong with Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore.

Grim2k3
Sep 13, 2007
Real life fake Ninja
I'm hoping some of you fine folks can give me some good recommendations. I'm looking for something along the lines of a dark detective story (I've read and enjoyed most everything I've wanted to from Jonathan Lethem). I also just finished a Starfish and Blindsight from Peter Watts and really like those. So I guess what I'm looking for overall is some type of combination of the two, a dark futuristic mystery (maybe even post-apocalyptic). Hope that's not being too overly specific.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Grim2k3 posted:

I'm hoping some of you fine folks can give me some good recommendations. I'm looking for something along the lines of a dark detective story (I've read and enjoyed most everything I've wanted to from Jonathan Lethem). I also just finished a Starfish and Blindsight from Peter Watts and really like those. So I guess what I'm looking for overall is some type of combination of the two, a dark futuristic mystery (maybe even post-apocalyptic). Hope that's not being too overly specific.


Have you read Neuromancer? If not, read Neuromancer. If you've read everything that William Gibson has ever written and want something pulpier, read Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon.

Celot
Jan 14, 2007

I just read 2 novels for the first time in years. They were The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by Le Carre and The Ugly American by Burdick.

I liked them both a lot. What should I read next?

barkingclam
Jun 20, 2007

Celot posted:

I just read 2 novels for the first time in years. They were The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by Le Carre and The Ugly American by Burdick.

I liked them both a lot. What should I read next?

If you want more from La Carre, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a good read and if you want to branch out a little, Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana is pretty rad.

DominusDeus
Jul 20, 2008

simosimo posted:

Just wanted to pop in and say thanks goons, Relic is turning out great so far. Pendergast is a real piece of work :swoon:. Glad to hear there is a sequel to this book.

There is a whole SERIES of Pendergast books.

SgtSanity
Apr 25, 2005
Excuse me

Radio Talmudist posted:

What are some good books about Wall Street? For the past few months I've been educating myself on the 2008 financial crisis, but I find myself still unsure what certain concepts, financial mechanisms and Wall Street Jargon mean. Do you guys know of any good, comprehensive introductions to Wall Street and Investing? Something that explains how Derivatives, Hedge Funds and other aspects of the street work?

Diary of a Very Bad Year is an excellent way in to understanding more of how Wall Street works. Keith Gessen of N+1 interviews an anonymous Hedge Fund Manager who is just a brilliant and hilarious guy in his own right. They break down a lot of the factors leading into the crash, insightful in a way that you don't really see in more by-the-numbers accounts like the recent Frontline documentary (which is also pretty great).

SgtSanity fucked around with this message at 03:56 on May 6, 2012

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene
I recommend Fifty Shades of Gr--... I am not surprised, but I'm disappointed that this is the top-selling book at the moment and already has film rights secured.

Azure_Horizon fucked around with this message at 11:20 on May 6, 2012

Be Depressive
Jul 8, 2006
"The drawings of the girls are badly proportioned and borderline pedo material. But"
I would like to read a book that I've never heard of, by an author I've never heard of before.

Things I like: Haruki Murakami, Jeff Noon, true crime, Sarah Vowell (but not her voice), Chuck Klosterman.

I used to work in a bookstore and would dig through the galleys for anything that looked vaguely interesting - I stumbled across a lot of really cool books this way, like Civilwarland In Bad Decline by George Saunders, Down & Out In the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctrow, and Into the Great Wide Open by Kevin Canty. I would also hunt around the store for anything that looked interesting.

I can't do that anymore.. The nearest English-Language bookshop is an 18-hour train ride away. I have a Kindle and can read whatever they sell on there or I can find elsewhere on the internet. What should I read?

I'm not interested in genre fiction unless there's something especially novel about it (for example Jeff Noon or Neal Stephenson) but I do like sci-fi. I like international literature a lot. I'm not big on period pieces, can't stand Jane Austen, Dickens, or the Bronte Sisters. I like books on history, but in general am only interested in history from industrialism onwards. I am looking for something that is unique like The Virgin Suicides was in the 9 years or so that Eugendies didn't write another book. I've also been fairly out of touch with American culture for the last 6 years or so.

I want to read something new, but don't know what to look for.

simosimo posted:

Thanks, looking into these now, Relic jogged my memory. I am obessesed with tunnels/caves and catacombs, and anything to do with those will be kicking rad...

edit: also any 'forgotten lands' are cool too. Or making big space-based discoveries, only for them to be hostile. (See LIFE-FORCE or Event Horizon)

The Descent by Jeff Long is a fantastic book about caves/tunnels and the discovery of another civilization under the Earth. It has nothing to do with the movies of the same name even if they're mostly about the same thing. I've read this multiple times and it's really surprising how awesome it is. I originally read it in manuscript form when some lady who worked for Random House gave it to me. I loved it. They were planning for it to be this massive hit but it didn't sell as well as expected. Which sucks, because it's a really cool book.

Don't bother with the sequels, though, they were very bad. The first book tells a complete story, just pretend it ends there.

Be Depressive fucked around with this message at 12:42 on May 7, 2012

Woohoo
Apr 1, 2008
I'm doing a little reading project "Missed childhood", which consists of reading all the teen/young adult classics, such as Three musketeers, Ivanhoe, Treasure Island, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Sherlock Holmes and so on.

However, I don't know all the must-read classics, therefore I want to have more to add to the "and so on" here.

I highly enjoy adventure stories and historic (full of battles) stuff if it's written in easily digestible form. For example, I found it impossible to read Jules Verne - even though his books are also must-read-classics - the way he writes just loses my attention span by page three. Then again, I have read John Caldwell's "Desperate Voyage" like 5-6 times (true stroy about a man who crossed Pacific in a tiny yacht, starved, hit storm, got lost, lived among Fiji natives, etc) EVEN though every second word is very technical sailing term... so I love true survival stories too if they're awesome.

Can anyone help me make a list of must-reads that fit into project described above? It should be quite clear what I'm looking for, since the books I want are usually sold in "classic adventure" or something- collections and often made required-reading in school.

Thanks.

Woohoo fucked around with this message at 13:02 on May 6, 2012

elbow
Jun 7, 2006

Be Depressive posted:

I would like to read a book that I've never heard of, by an author I've never heard of before.

They're kind of vague requirements (totally in line with your rummaging around and finding treasure) so I apologize if this is not at all interesting to you, but have a look at The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. It's foreign, it's different, it's clever, and it's on kindle.

I recently read The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus, which I thought was unlike anything else I've read before.

Take the plunge! Okay!
Feb 24, 2007



Woohoo posted:

I'm doing a little reading project "Missed childhood", which consists of reading all the teen/young adult classics, such as Three musketeers, Ivanhoe, Treasure Island, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Sherlock Holmes and so on.

However, I don't know all the must-read classics, therefore I want to have more to add to the "and so on" here.


I did the same a couple of years ago. Make sure not to miss Wilkie Collins' Moonstone. J. Meade Falkner's Moonfleet is good if you want smugglers. Charles Kingsley's Westeard Ho! is a rather epic tale of Elizabethan era adventure.

e: Kipling's Kim!

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Woohoo posted:

I'm doing a little reading project "Missed childhood", which consists of reading all the teen/young adult classics, such as Three musketeers, Ivanhoe, Treasure Island, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Sherlock Holmes and so on.

However, I don't know all the must-read classics, therefore I want to have more to add to the "and so on" here.

I highly enjoy adventure stories and historic (full of battles) stuff if it's written in easily digestible form. For example, I found it impossible to read Jules Verne - even though his books are also must-read-classics - the way he writes just loses my attention span by page three. Then again, I have read John Caldwell's "Desperate Voyage" like 5-6 times (true stroy about a man who crossed Pacific in a tiny yacht, starved, hit storm, got lost, lived among Fiji natives, etc) EVEN though every second word is very technical sailing term... so I love true survival stories too if they're awesome.

Can anyone help me make a list of must-reads that fit into project described above? It should be quite clear what I'm looking for, since the books I want are usually sold in "classic adventure" or something- collections and often made required-reading in school.

Thanks.

Count of Monte Cristo (get a recent translation that includes the bits about recreational drug use etc), Swiss Family Robinson, She and King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard, The Man Who Would be King by Rudyard Kipling (and yes definitely also Kim).

Maybe also Tarzan of the Apes and/or A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.


Otherwise, not quite in the span of your project, but you might really like West with the Night by Beryl Markham. Autobiography of first woman (and first person!) to fly the Atlantic going from Ireland to America, against the prevailing winds.

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 13:33 on May 6, 2012

Sevalar
Jul 10, 2009

HEY RADICAL LARRY HOW ABOUT A HAIRCUT

****MIC TO THE WILLY***
So Relic was a great book. I watched the movie to follow up and watch what they missed/ 'got wrong' and wow, what a poo poo-arse film that was.

Following up with Reliquary, already glad to see returning characters :allears:

I pictured D'Agosta to look like the cop from Falling Down (1993). Funnily enough called Prendergast!.



And PENdergast to look like (special agent) Frank Lundy from Dexter.

Sevalar fucked around with this message at 14:55 on May 6, 2012

Day Man
Jul 30, 2007

Champion of the Sun!

Master of karate and friendship...
for everyone!


Grim2k3 posted:

I'm hoping some of you fine folks can give me some good recommendations. I'm looking for something along the lines of a dark detective story (I've read and enjoyed most everything I've wanted to from Jonathan Lethem). I also just finished a Starfish and Blindsight from Peter Watts and really like those. So I guess what I'm looking for overall is some type of combination of the two, a dark futuristic mystery (maybe even post-apocalyptic). Hope that's not being too overly specific.

I love those books, and Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space series feels similar to me. Hard sci-fi mixed with dark mysterious forces. I'm on the third book right now and loving it. The second book doesn't directly follow the first story, it's sort of a prequel. I'm not sure where the third book is going yet, but it seems like it's continuing the story from the first book.

The series feels sort of like a dark Mass Effect.

Grim2k3
Sep 13, 2007
Real life fake Ninja

Day Man posted:

I love those books, and Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space series feels similar to me. Hard sci-fi mixed with dark mysterious forces. I'm on the third book right now and loving it. The second book doesn't directly follow the first story, it's sort of a prequel. I'm not sure where the third book is going yet, but it seems like it's continuing the story from the first book.

The series feels sort of like a dark Mass Effect.

This sounds pretty interesting. With the recommendations from earlier I've got a nice list put together. Thank you!

Encryptic
May 3, 2007

I've been on a trend lately of reading stuff about Africa - looking for good recommendations (both fiction and non-fiction). Recently, I've read:

Diamonds, Gold and War - Good read about Cecil Rhodes in particular and the creation of South Africa.

King Leopold's Ghost - A very well-written but horrifying account of the exploitation of the Congo by King Leopold II in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Green Hills of Africa - Hemingway's account of a hunting trip he took in Africa in the 30s. Good but not great.

Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika - An engaging non-fiction account of an eccentric British commander who transported a pair of gunboats across Africa to fight the Germans on Lake Tanganyika during World War I. Also read The Last King of Scotland by the same author.

Couple others I read a while ago - The Poisonwood Bible and Blood River. I've read Roots several times as well.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Be Depressive posted:

I would like to read a book that I've never heard of, by an author I've never heard of before.

Things I like: Haruki Murakami, Jeff Noon, true crime, Sarah Vowell (but not her voice), Chuck Klosterman.. . . .

I'm not interested in genre fiction unless there's something especially novel about it (for example Jeff Noon or Neal Stephenson) but I do like sci-fi. I like international literature a lot. I'm not big on period pieces, can't stand Jane Austen, Dickens, or the Bronte Sisters. I like books on history, but in general am only interested in history from industrialism onwards. I am looking for something that is unique like The Virgin Suicides was in the 9 years or so that Eugendies didn't write another book. I've also been fairly out of touch with American culture for the last 6 years or so.

I want to read something new, but don't know what to look for.

Been thinking about this one for you and I don't have many answers, mostly because it's hard to know what you haven't heard of before!

My favorite (non-fantasy) book that relatively few people have heard of is actually fairly old -- ]The Secret of Santa Victoria; it was bestseller when written in the '60s but it's been a while since then. Vaguely similar to Catch-22, but less cynical. It doesn't have that experimental twist to it that you seem to want though.

If you want more experimental books, most of the authors I know of are fantasy; again, I don't know whether you've heard of them or not, but I imagine if you've read Vurt you've probably heard of, say, China Mieville, or Zelazny's weirder stuff. Jo Walton has a great little book called Tooth and Claw, loosely imagined as a rewrite of an Anthony Trollope novel where all the absurdly sexist and classist preconceptions of 18th century british parlor romances actually had biological imperatives, because everyone is a carnivorous, cannibalist fire-breathing Dragon, but that might not be your thing if you're not an Austen fan.

If you like Cory Doctorow, you might like Charles Stross: check out his Accellerando as a starting place, then look at his Laundry Files series.

Be Depressive
Jul 8, 2006
"The drawings of the girls are badly proportioned and borderline pedo material. But"

elbow posted:

They're kind of vague requirements (totally in line with your rummaging around and finding treasure) so I apologize if this is not at all interesting to you, but have a look at The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. It's foreign, it's different, it's clever, and it's on kindle.

I recently read The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus, which I thought was unlike anything else I've read before.

Well, I've never heard of either of these, so I will check them out. Thanks!

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Been thinking about this one for you and I don't have many answers, mostly because it's hard to know what you haven't heard of before!

I have heard of most authors that people who read books have heard about before. That is, if they've written more than a few books I probably know who they are. I was talking about The Virgin Suicides in the sense that for about 10 years it was the only work Eugendies had ever published so you had to specifically stumble across it rather than finding it by liking something else the author wrote or recognizing his name on the bookshelf. Anything that's an interesting first novel by someone from the last ten years would probably be something I've never heard of before.

Also compelling true crime or nonfiction about macabre things. David Simon's Homicide is one of my favorite books, and I'm reading The Devil In the White City right now which is very good.

My problem is that I've read a lot of books, but have grown tired of most of the authors I already know about. I want to pick up something that's very new and different.

I know it seems like a nebulous criteria but whenever I scour bestseller lists it's always the same people or genres and I don't know what to look for because that was always a tactile thing. In a bookstore you can judge a book by its cover - is it mass market or quality paperback? I'd eschew anything in mass market format. Does it have a detailed picture or painting on the cover, or some sort of designy artistic scheme? Go with the latter. Does the cover make interesting use of typography? If yes, then look at the picture of the author. If he/she seems like a reasonably cool dude/lady, pick it up. This is how I discovered both Sarah Vowell and Chuck Klosterman, now two of my favorite writers. This technique works especially well in Sci-Fi because anything that's reasonably literary will be released in this exact format because publishers want it to stand apart from all the mass-market SF series.

I discovered Jeff Noon by asking a bookstore clerk in Prague for something that's "like Neal Stephenson, but not like William Gibson" and he's also one of my favorites (shame about so many of his books being unavailable in the US). In a sense I am looking for something that's like Haruki Murakami but not Japanese, or like The Virgin Suicides or Into The Great Wide Open but a book I've never read before. Maybe something by a young person with an MFA in creative writing who just got published in the last few years.

Be Depressive fucked around with this message at 12:47 on May 7, 2012

Old Janx Spirit
Jun 26, 2010

an ode to the artisans of
luxury, a willed madness,
a fabulous dinosaur...

Encryptic posted:

I've been on a trend lately of reading stuff about Africa - looking for good recommendations (both fiction and non-fiction).

I can only recommend books on South Africa. These are three very good memoirs:

Pale Native by Max du Preez

A Fork in the Road by Andre Brink

The Bang Bang Club by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva

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Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Encryptic posted:

I've been on a trend lately of reading stuff about Africa - looking for good recommendations (both fiction and non-fiction). Recently, I've read:

I find myself recommending West With the Night by Beryl Markham over and over again; since I mentioned it up the page but didn't mention the Africa connection, I'll go into more detail.

It's a (possibly slightly fictionalized) autobiography of the first woman and first person to fly the Atlantic going from England to America non-stop, which is about two hours harder than what Lindberg did because of the counter-winds.

Most of the book, though, is about her life prior to that -- she grew up as a lone white girl on a large farming estate in Africa, learned to hunt with the tribesmen, etc., then spent a decade or two as one of the very first bush pilots in Africa in the 20's and 30's. She knew Karen Blixen (and shows up as the character Felicity in the film version of Out of Africa).

Anyway, it's really an excellent book, but don't believe me, believe Ernest Hemingway, who wrote this about it in a letter:

quote:

"Did you read Beryl Markham's book, West With The Night? ...She has written so well, and marvellously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade bitch, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers ... it really is a bloody wonderful book."


If you like that, there's also a biography of Bery Markham titled Straight on till Morning. It gets into a lot of issues that were left out of the autobiography, like Markham's alleged affair with the prince of wales, her child out of wedlock, the disputed authorship of West with the Night (concluding she probably did write it), and her later career as a champion horse breeder and racer.

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