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And for a non-fiction look about the impact of love, I recommend Douglas Hofstadter's Le Ton Beau de Marot. It's ostensibly about the challenge of translating a french poem, but is equally a paean to the love he has for his wife and talks about their relationship in great and interesting detail.
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Feb 2, 2014 22:35
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I'm looking for books that deal with super soldiers and their implications. Trouble is I don't any books that do this other than the WH40K novels and those are not the best.
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Feb 2, 2014 22:42
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Cacotopic Stain posted:I'm looking for books that deal with super soldiers and their implications. Trouble is I don't any books that do this other than the WH40K novels and those are not the best. I think Scalzi's Old Man's War has a nice take on the idea.
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Feb 2, 2014 23:22
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Cacotopic Stain posted:I'm looking for books that deal with super soldiers and their implications. Trouble is I don't any books that do this other than the WH40K novels and those are not the best. T C McCarthy's Subterrene War trilogy's overarching plot is about genetically engineered clone soldiers being used by different superpowers and what happens when they start going rogue. It's a good, well-written series, I've recommended it before. Paul McCauley's Quiet War also has genetically engineered clone soldiers, although they play a smaller part in the overall plotline.
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Feb 3, 2014 02:12
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I'm looking for something fairly easy-reading, to ease me through post-oral-surgery pain. I am looking for something noir-ish, possibly fantastical. I recently read The Manual of Detection, by Jedediah Berry, and would love something along those lines. Other authors that I have enjoyed and fit the mood I'm in are Jasper Fforde, Haruki Murakami, Raymond Chandler, Neil Gaiman.
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Feb 4, 2014 03:00
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My Rhythmic Crotch posted:I'm looking for a book that focuses on love and trust in the face of adverse circumstances, instead of lust and romance. Something that has some depth and leaves things for you to figure out on your own, and isn't just a quick read/feel-good type of story. I'd like to learn something new about love and why it's valuable enough that we should make an effort to have it in our lives even though relationships can be really lovely. Thanks for any recommendations. It's fallen a bit out of fashion from its heyday in the eighties/nineties when it first came out but Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being sounds like exactly what you are looking for.
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Feb 4, 2014 06:03
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I like basically all of Murakami's stuff. But the problem is I've almost read it all. Anything similar?
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Feb 4, 2014 08:30
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appropriatemetaphor posted:I like basically all of Murakami's stuff. But the problem is I've almost read it all. Anything similar? I consider Murakami, Gabriel García Márquez, and Jose Saramago to be the "big 3" of magical realism, so either of those two would be good choices. Saramago's best imo is Blindness, but most all of his work is good. I've only read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Márquez but it's excellent. e: alternatively, much of Kurt Vonnegut's work might fit though I consider him a bit lighter weight, at least in his prose style, than the previous bunch. Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse 5, and The Sirens of Titan are likely choices.
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Feb 4, 2014 11:58
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lumbergill posted:I'm looking for something fairly easy-reading, to ease me through post-oral-surgery pain. I am looking for something noir-ish, possibly fantastical. I recently read The Manual of Detection, by Jedediah Berry, and would love something along those lines. Other authors that I have enjoyed and fit the mood I'm in are Jasper Fforde, Haruki Murakami, Raymond Chandler, Neil Gaiman. Right now I'm reading The Little Sleep. It's a modern hard-boiled detective novel, and the narrator is a detective with severe narcolepsy. This causes hypnogogic hallucinations, false memories, automatic behavior he can't remember, lost time, cataplexy, and he can fall asleep at any moment. So solving a case isn't that easy for him. He's also self-conscious, tries to be witty and suave like Bogart but fails miserably, and he's kinda delusional. It's not uncommon for the contents of one chapter to contradict the previous chapter, and it makes you question what's real and what's in the narrator's mind, but it's actually easy to follow and very enjoyable. And as the name implies, it takes a big inspiration from Raymond Chandler.
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Feb 4, 2014 16:12
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I'm kind of searching for a specific type/genre of book. There is a thread here that reads through books that seem be republican nightmare/dream come true. Government hellbent on total control taking guns away from everyday people until the hero leads a rebellion and overthrows the corrupt officials and puts in a free market solution where there are no people on the dole anymore. Or I think that those books are about that, I've never read them. I just keep hearing how there are books out that are basically right-wing power fantasy, uprising against evil communism countries pretending to be just a tad bit socialist. What I'm wondering if there is anything equivalent on the left-wing? Equally as nutty books that are basically left-wing power fantasies? I see someone else already asked a similar question, but asked for higher quality books than what I'm looking for. I guess I'm looking for a left-wing airport novel with its freakiness factor turned up all the way?
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Feb 4, 2014 16:29
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appropriatemetaphor posted:I like basically all of Murakami's stuff. But the problem is I've almost read it all. Anything similar?
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Feb 4, 2014 17:20
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appropriatemetaphor posted:I like basically all of Murakami's stuff. But the problem is I've almost read it all. Anything similar? As far as authors similar to Murakami, there are several of the big magical realists I would check out: Salman Rushdie, Isabelle Allende (especially The House of the Spirits), Jorge Luis Borges, maybe Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate.
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Feb 4, 2014 17:57
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appropriatemetaphor posted:I like basically all of Murakami's stuff. But the problem is I've almost read it all. Anything similar? I think you'd like "How to survive a science fictional universe" by Charles Yu. It's really good even though the title makes it sound stupid and formulaic.
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Feb 4, 2014 18:15
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Anybody know any well-researched books about The Nation of Islam that was not written by a member of the religion? I find it odd that I can't find anything out there especially when it was such a large part of Malcolm X's life and ultimately led to his assassination. There's plenty of stuff about Malcolm X, but not much on the religion itself. I'm interested after reading Going Clear by Lawrence Wright, because from what I've been able to gather, Scientology and The Nation of Islam seem to be alike in some crazy ways.
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Feb 4, 2014 22:26
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Fremry posted:Anybody know any well-researched books about The Nation of Islam that was not written by a member of the religion? I read and enjoyed The Nation of Islam: Understanding the Black Muslims by Steven Tsoukalas a long time ago, but a friend tells me that the standard is The Nation of Islam: An American Millenarian Movement by Martha Lee. Both of these are short-ish dispassionate historical surveys of the movement.
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Feb 4, 2014 22:38
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Franchescanado posted:Right now I'm reading The Little Sleep. It's a modern hard-boiled detective novel, and the narrator is a detective with severe narcolepsy. This causes hypnogogic hallucinations, false memories, automatic behavior he can't remember, lost time, cataplexy, and he can fall asleep at any moment. So solving a case isn't that easy for him. He's also self-conscious, tries to be witty and suave like Bogart but fails miserably, and he's kinda delusional. This sounds delightful and exactly the sort of thing I'm after. appropriatemetaphor posted:I like basically all of Murakami's stuff. But the problem is I've almost read it all. Anything similar? To add to all the great suggestions (read 100 Years of Solitude! It is superb), I find Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita has a similar feel to what you're after, and is also one of my favorite books ever. Magical realism meets political satire in Soviet Russia.
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Feb 5, 2014 04:34
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I'm looking for something that meets the following criteria: - Modern setting - A well written relationship, but not necessarily a romance book. I'm thinking of some recent movies like Drinking Buddies, Her or The Spectacular Now...Books about what it means to be in a relationship, not just characters falling in love - NOT genre-fiction. I'm just tired of sci-fi and fantasy. I don't mind if the story isn't 100% realistic (I'm reading A Confederacy of Dunces now and really enjoying the absurdist elements), but no magic or technobabble please.
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Feb 5, 2014 04:54
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bowser posted:I'm looking for something that meets the following criteria: This might be a bit of a wildcard but I recently read Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. It's a bit of a coming to age story. The protagonist is a fanfiction writer for a Harry Potter analog who goes to college and becomes less dependent on fanfiction as an emotional crutch as she meets new people etc.
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Feb 5, 2014 12:49
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dokmo posted:I read and enjoyed The Nation of Islam: Understanding the Black Muslims by Steven Tsoukalas a long time ago, but a friend tells me that the standard is The Nation of Islam: An American Millenarian Movement by Martha Lee. Both of these are short-ish dispassionate historical surveys of the movement. Thanks, I'll look into those.
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Feb 5, 2014 16:19
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bowser posted:I'm looking for something that meets the following criteria: Have you read The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach? It's about a lot more than Mike and Pella's relationship, but they're usually the first thing I remember when I think about the book.
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Feb 5, 2014 17:09
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bowser posted:I'm looking for something that meets the following criteria: It's not a modern setting, but it's a quick read: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers. Here is a good (but long) quote from it that I really like. quote:"First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons — but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which had lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world — a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring — this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth.
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Feb 5, 2014 17:32
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Paragon8 posted:This might be a bit of a wildcard but I recently read Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. It's a bit of a coming to age story. The protagonist is a fanfiction writer for a Harry Potter analog who goes to college and becomes less dependent on fanfiction as an emotional crutch as she meets new people etc. She was a columnist for the Omaha World Herald in the 80s and 90s and was simply terrible -- hired to (I assume) provide a "young person" perspective that was quite simply the most banal, populist stuff. Think of the poo poo your bad Facebook friends post and that was her columns. Maybe she's improved substantially but it'd be difficult for me to imagine reading one of her books.
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Feb 6, 2014 00:11
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silvercroc posted:Hi guys, The Punisher is often said to be inspired by the Executioner series. I've honestly never read any of them, though.
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Feb 6, 2014 00:20
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regulargonzalez posted:She was a columnist for the Omaha World Herald in the 80s and 90s and was simply terrible -- hired to (I assume) provide a "young person" perspective that was quite simply the most banal, populist stuff. Think of the poo poo your bad Facebook friends post and that was her columns. Maybe she's improved substantially but it'd be difficult for me to imagine reading one of her books. I haven't read any of that stuff (which sounds terrible, by the way), but I think she's picked up her game. While I enjoyed Fangirl, her previous book Eleanor and Park really blew me away. I haven't yet met anyone who didn't love it, though I'm sure it's not universally acclaimed.
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Feb 6, 2014 01:02
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elbow posted:I haven't read any of that stuff (which sounds terrible, by the way), but I think she's picked up her game. While I enjoyed Fangirl, her previous book Eleanor and Park really blew me away. I haven't yet met anyone who didn't love it, though I'm sure it's not universally acclaimed. I'll have to check that out. barkingclam posted:Have you read The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach? It's about a lot more than Mike and Pella's relationship, but they're usually the first thing I remember when I think about the book. +1 on this. Great read.
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Feb 6, 2014 02:15
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Hey, I was interested in getting into some new Fantasy, and I saw some decent ratings on GoodReads for the Broken Empire Trilogy by Mark Lawrence. Is there any consensus about its quality? If I am a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire and the works of Joe Abercrombie, would I like that trilogy (since I heard that it is rather gritty)? Thanks in advance. Oh, and I am sorry if this series has been previously discussed, I was just intimidated by the size of this thread to try searching.
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Feb 6, 2014 07:38
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regulargonzalez posted:I consider Murakami, Gabriel García Márquez, and Jose Saramago to be the "big 3" of magical realism, so either of those two would be good choices. Saramago's best imo is Blindness, but most all of his work is good. I've only read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Márquez but it's excellent. I really enjoyed Blindness and I've read most of Vonnegut; never read 100 years though and I've always meant to, looks like that'll be up next. Qwo posted:John Fowles (The Magus) is essentially a superior Murakami and Takashi Hiraide's (The Guest Cat) writing sounds a lot like Murakami's. Never heard of either of those, will toss them on my used book shop shop list. Enfys posted:As far as authors similar to Murakami, there are several of the big magical realists I would check out: Salman Rushdie, Isabelle Allende (especially The House of the Spirits), Jorge Luis Borges, maybe Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate. For Rushdie should I just read Satanic Verses? Or is there a "better" book? And Borges rocks, one of my favorites. No Longer Flaky posted:I think you'd like "How to survive a science fictional universe" by Charles Yu. It's really good even though the title makes it sound stupid and formulaic. It does sound dumb! But I'll check it out for sure. lumbergill posted:To add to all the great suggestions (read 100 Years of Solitude! It is superb), I find Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita has a similar feel to what you're after, and is also one of my favorite books ever. Magical realism meets political satire in Soviet Russia. Okay definitely reading 100 years next. bowser posted:(I'm reading A Confederacy of Dunces now and really enjoying the absurdist elements) I'm reading that one now too, it's got some serious ha has. You aren't in the echo park book club are you? I'm reading it for the aforementioned club.
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Feb 6, 2014 08:21
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Bertilak posted:Hey, I was interested in getting into some new Fantasy, and I saw some decent ratings on GoodReads for the Broken Empire Trilogy by Mark Lawrence. I finished it a couple of weeks ago. It starts a bit HARDCORE XXTREME, but gets progressively better. Book 2 is great, and book 3 is even better. They are definitely worth reading if you like that style. I'd probably read The Kingkiller Chronicles (by Pat Rothfuss) first. Same genre, but with much nicer writing. BrosephofArimathea fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Feb 6, 2014 |
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Feb 6, 2014 08:33
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appropriatemetaphor posted:It does sound dumb! But I'll check it out for sure. I sell it as being something like Futurama as written by Kurt Vonnegut- I laughed out loud a few times reading it, which is really unusual, but it's hella poignant, too.
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Feb 6, 2014 13:43
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BrosephofArimathea posted:I finished it a couple of weeks ago. It starts a bit HARDCORE XXTREME, but gets progressively better. Book 2 is great, and book 3 is even better. They are definitely worth reading if you like that style. For Super new fantasy try The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley. It has all the giant bird riding monk torture you could want and more.
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Feb 6, 2014 20:34
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For anyone that has both seen the movies and read the books, is the Bourne series different enough from the movies to be worth reading? I tend to have problems with reading a book after I see a movie if it's similar enough.
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Feb 7, 2014 07:49
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Sudbina posted:For anyone that has both seen the movies and read the books, is the Bourne series different enough from the movies to be worth reading? I tend to have problems with reading a book after I see a movie if it's similar enough. If you can get over the utter absurdity of the primary conceit, they're fine and entertaining reads, and moderately different from the movies from what I remember.
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Feb 7, 2014 14:03
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regulargonzalez posted:If you can get over the utter absurdity of the primary conceit, they're fine and entertaining reads, and moderately different from the movies from what I remember. The second book is completely different from the second movie. The third book takes place with Bourne being like 50 and an old geezer.
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Feb 7, 2014 14:53
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Cacotopic Stain posted:I'm looking for books that deal with super soldiers and their implications. Trouble is I don't any books that do this other than the WH40K novels and those are not the best. Late reply, but Richard K Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs series might fit the bill. Starts with (and arguably peaks at) "Altered Carbon".
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Feb 8, 2014 06:00
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My Rhythmic Crotch posted:I'm looking for a book that focuses on love and trust in the face of adverse circumstances, instead of lust and romance. Something that has some depth and leaves things for you to figure out on your own, and isn't just a quick read/feel-good type of story. I'd like to learn something new about love and why it's valuable enough that we should make an effort to have it in our lives even though relationships can be really lovely. Thanks for any recommendations. Someone already suggested The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (which I myself just started) and I would like to wholeheartedly add a suggestion for you to read Cloud Atlas, also by David Mitchell.
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Feb 8, 2014 18:51
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appropriatemetaphor posted:
My #1 Rushdie is Midnight's Children, though Satanic Verses is no slouch of a book either.
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Feb 9, 2014 04:51
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a kitten posted:Someone already suggested The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (which I myself just started) and I would like to wholeheartedly add a suggestion for you to read Cloud Atlas, also by David Mitchell. The other Cloud Atlas- by Liam Callanan- is really good, too.
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Feb 9, 2014 15:42
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regulargonzalez posted:If you can get over the utter absurdity of the primary conceit, they're fine and entertaining reads, and moderately different from the movies from what I remember. No Longer Flaky posted:The second book is completely different from the second movie. The third book takes place with Bourne being like 50 and an old geezer. Thanks for information.
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Feb 9, 2014 17:32
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I really enjoyed all of Charles Stross' Laundry books, but find some of his harder sci-fi stuff trickier to get into; can anyone recommend more of his closer to that than, say, Accelernado, or similar stuff (in terms of tone/genre if not content, imagine computational Cthulhu spy pastiches is a niche, even in the bloated Lovecraft section) by other writers?
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Feb 9, 2014 20:00
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tenniseveryone posted:I really enjoyed all of Charles Stross' Laundry books, but find some of his harder sci-fi stuff trickier to get into; can anyone recommend more of his closer to that than, say, Accelernado, or similar stuff (in terms of tone/genre if not content, imagine computational Cthulhu spy pastiches is a niche, even in the bloated Lovecraft section) by other writers? I'd say Halting State would be worth a look.
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Feb 9, 2014 23:53
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