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Looking for a good book about werewolves. I have never read any before but the idea is something I've become attracted to recently. What are the classics of the genre? Or contemporary classics.
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Aug 30, 2014 14:12
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Soulcleaver posted:You should check out The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. Hieronymous Alloy posted:Also Lud in the Mist by Hope Mirrlees. Selachian posted:I'd throw in John Bellairs' The Face in the Frost.
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Aug 30, 2014 14:26
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Gushing Granny posted:Looking for a good book about werewolves. I have never read any before but the idea is something I've become attracted to recently. What are the classics of the genre? Or contemporary classics. Dunno about the classics, but I really like Toby Barlow's Sharp Teeth. I'm sure someone else will recommend/mention them, but I hated Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf and Ben Percy's Red Moon.
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Aug 30, 2014 14:43
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DirtyRobot posted:Thanks! Going with these two first up. Good luck! All three of those are good choices. Another good place to look would be stuff by Lord Dunsany (start with Idle Days on the Yann) and then maybe Gaiman's Stardust. Gushing Granny posted:Looking for a good book about werewolves. I have never read any before but the idea is something I've become attracted to recently. What are the classics of the genre? Or contemporary classics. There's always Sabine-Gould's The Book of Werewolves, which I never see people mention around here for some reason. http://www.sacred-texts.com/goth/bow/
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Aug 30, 2014 14:58
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DirtyRobot posted:Looking for something along the lines of Harry Potter, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and T.H. White Once and Future King. Something where magic is fun and imaginative, and based off folk and fairy tales. Help? John Crowley's Little, Big is my go-to recommendation for this.
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Aug 31, 2014 05:41
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I have bit of a... weird request. I read a lot of stuff but for personal reasons don't handle sex scenes very well; unless the rest of the book really make up for it they're a no-no. I don't really mind more complex stuff - my favorite book is Foucault's Pendulum but I'm having a hard time with contemporary literature due to the above - I've been mostly "reduced" to genre fiction on this account and while there's some really solid stuff in there (I love, for example, the Malazan Book of the Fallen I think I'm running out. I've, with different results, read through Gaiman, Martin ('s earlier stuff, ASoIaF bores the hell out of me), Reynolds (love him), Blindsight (loved it), Wolfe (love/hate relationship from book to book), Miéville (ditto)... Basically most of what's considered good in SF. Not averse to lighter stuff as long as it's intelligent - I enjoyed almost all of Discworld as well as Bridge of Birds and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, latter two thanks to this thread. I'm looking for something thought-provoking that requires a bit of solving on the reader's part; given the above it's probably easier to go for genre fiction but I don't mind it being literary - the issue is with explicit sex that seems to be a hallmark of modern literature. As a sort of a side-request, also looking for some good modern Lovecraftiana along the lines of That Which Should Not Be. It doesn't need to be serious, things similar to Stross' Laundry Chronicles are fine too. It'd be also nice if there was a Kindle adition available.
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Aug 31, 2014 12:17
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anilEhilated posted:I have bit of a... weird request. I read a lot of stuff but for personal reasons don't handle sex scenes very well; unless the rest of the book really make up for it they're a no-no. I don't really mind more complex stuff - my favorite book is Foucault's Pendulum but I'm having a hard time with contemporary literature due to the above - I've been mostly "reduced" to genre fiction on this account and while there's some really solid stuff in there (I love, for example, the Malazan Book of the Fallen I think I'm running out. I've, with different results, read through Gaiman, Martin ('s earlier stuff, ASoIaF bores the hell out of me), Reynolds (love him), Blindsight (loved it), Wolfe (love/hate relationship from book to book), Miéville (ditto)... Basically most of what's considered good in SF. Not averse to lighter stuff as long as it's intelligent - I enjoyed almost all of Discworld as well as Bridge of Birds and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, latter two thanks to this thread. The Name of the Rose, since you like Foucault's Pendulum. The Count of Monte Cristo, for one of the most purely entertaining romps ever put to page. (And I suppose there's a bit of "solving" involved insofar as figuring out how the plan is going to be executed) The Westing Game. YA book that is a really fun read with some mystery bits to solve that you'll have to be on your toes to figure out ahead of the book's reveal.
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Aug 31, 2014 17:46
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regulargonzalez posted:The Name of the Rose, since you like Foucault's Pendulum. Probably should've mentioned that I've already read all of Eco's novels. I remember reading the Count of Monte Christo as a kid, let's see about a reread. The Westing game sounds pretty interesting, gonna give it a try; thanks!
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Aug 31, 2014 18:11
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Here's a shot in the dark: I am trying to remember the name of a book I want to read but all I can remember is that it has to do with a woman (a witch maybe?) in a mask that tricks the protagonist. It might have a title like "The Gift of the Magi" but it's obviously not that. edit: Am I thinking of His Dark Materials? Also if I can plow through the ASOIAF books, is there any reason why I shouldn't be able to handle War and Peace? rivid fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 00:35
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I read War and Peace when I was 17. It took me three weeks, but it was (from what I remember) pretty drat good.
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Sep 1, 2014 00:40
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Okay, I'm jumping on it for my fix once I'm finished with A Dance of Dragons. Thanks!
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Sep 1, 2014 00:45
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Does anyone remember the name of a book that was mentioned earlier in this thread (I can't for the life of me find it again, and I could be confusing it with the What Did You Just Finish thread) -- this non-fiction book that explores this phenomenon that occurred a decade or so ago where there was a dramatic decrease in violent crime?
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Sep 1, 2014 01:50
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Can anyone here recommend me some Latin American literature, that isn't by Marquez, Borges, or Paz? It's not that I don't like them, but I see them suggested often enough that I feel like there must be other really great spanish language writers that get overlooked. I'd also take author recommendations in general, since I don't really have much knowledge of what the good writers and books are in spanish.
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Sep 1, 2014 02:06
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I see Isabel Allende get talked up a lot but have yet to try one of her books. The House of the Spirits is on my list.
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Sep 1, 2014 02:17
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anilEhilated posted:I have bit of a... weird request. I read a lot of stuff but for personal reasons don't handle sex scenes very well; unless the rest of the book really make up for it they're a no-no. I don't really mind more complex stuff - my favorite book is Foucault's Pendulum but I'm having a hard time with contemporary literature due to the above - I've been mostly "reduced" to genre fiction on this account and while there's some really solid stuff in there (I love, for example, the Malazan Book of the Fallen I think I'm running out. I've, with different results, read through Gaiman, Martin ('s earlier stuff, ASoIaF bores the hell out of me), Reynolds (love him), Blindsight (loved it), Wolfe (love/hate relationship from book to book), Miéville (ditto)... Basically most of what's considered good in SF. Not averse to lighter stuff as long as it's intelligent - I enjoyed almost all of Discworld as well as Bridge of Birds and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, latter two thanks to this thread. You ever try Ian Pears' Instance of the Fingerpost? You'd probably like Neal Stephenson's Anathem and Baroque Cycle too.
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Sep 1, 2014 02:44
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Cercadelmar posted:Can anyone here recommend me some Latin American literature, that isn't by Marquez, Borges, or Paz? It's not that I don't like them, but I see them suggested often enough that I feel like there must be other really great spanish language writers that get overlooked. I'd also take author recommendations in general, since I don't really have much knowledge of what the good writers and books are in spanish. I usually see Bolano's name tossed around for Latin American lit, though I have only recently started on The Savage Detectives so I can't say much about specific recommendations.
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Sep 1, 2014 04:35
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anilEhilated posted:I'm looking for something thought-provoking that requires a bit of solving on the reader's part; given the above it's probably easier to go for genre fiction but I don't mind it being literary - the issue is with explicit sex that seems to be a hallmark of modern literature. Have you looked into 'clean reads' forums and sites? They're usually run by religious folks (in case that's not your thing) but it could be a great way to look for books that are definitely free of sexual content. You'll probably have to dig through all the Mormon romance, but even googling for "science fiction clean reads" brings up a few good discussions: http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?31300-What-are-some-clean-science-fiction-books http://bencrowder.net/blog/2012/03/clean-science-fiction-and-fantasy/ I really want to recommend The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón - gothic mystery set in Barcelona in the 1940s; there are a couple of reviews comparing it (favourably) to Foucault's Pendulum. But there are a couple of short sex scenes - they're not raunchy or perverted, but they might be more explicit than what you're looking for. And the theme of wanting to have sex/having sex/dealing with the consequences of sex kind of runs through the whole book.  On the less explicit side, I just finished The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi, after the guy who runs my local SF/F bookshop raved about it. It explores a lot of interesting and weird concepts like 'privacy contracts', where you explicitly decide beforehand how much personal information you want to share with someone, or how long they can keep the memory of your conversation. The main character is a thief trying to restore his lost memories and figure out why he got rid of them in the first place. Hard scifi is often sex-free. The main character of Greg Egan's Diaspora is a genderless computer simulation; I'm pretty sure there's nothing even resembling sex in the book. It's very dense, but if you're into astrophysics, definitely check it out!
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Sep 1, 2014 05:19
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gatz posted:Sounds good. Coincidentally, I found this book today at a local thrift store. Thanks, both of you. Also Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities.
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Sep 1, 2014 06:08
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Mira posted:Does anyone remember the name of a book that was mentioned earlier in this thread (I can't for the life of me find it again, and I could be confusing it with the What Did You Just Finish thread) -- this non-fiction book that explores this phenomenon that occurred a decade or so ago where there was a dramatic decrease in violent crime?
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Sep 1, 2014 06:19
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Pork Pie Hat posted:I tried reading The Ancestor's Tale recently, but couldn't get past all the Dawkins smugness. I'm really interested in the subject matter though, so I was hoping there is a similar book (or books) that I could enjoy without all the r/atheism Dawkins bollocks. Can anyone suggest anything? Evolution by Carl Zimmer comes to mind. Wonderful Life by SJ Gould but it only deals with a limited subset of life's history on Earth, but it is simply a fantastic book (can't always say that about Gould, he tends to oscillate between science history and fairly technical evolutionary theory). Same for Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin.
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Sep 1, 2014 06:20
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Cercadelmar posted:Can anyone here recommend me some Latin American literature, that isn't by Marquez, Borges, or Paz? It's not that I don't like them, but I see them suggested often enough that I feel like there must be other really great spanish language writers that get overlooked. I'd also take author recommendations in general, since I don't really have much knowledge of what the good writers and books are in spanish. Mario Vargas Llosa is a cool guy. My favorites of his are The War of the End of the World, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, and The Feast of the Goat. The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vasquez is also quite good, if you want something a little more modern set in Colombia.
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Sep 1, 2014 07:08
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naptalan posted:Have you looked into 'clean reads' forums and sites? They're usually run by religious folks (in case that's not your thing) but it could be a great way to look for books that are definitely free of sexual content. You'll probably have to dig through all the Mormon romance, but even googling for "science fiction clean reads" brings up a few good discussions: Thanks for those! I already read Shadow of the Wind and Angel's Game, both were pretty hard on me. Ordered Quantum Thief, that sounds interesting; I'm sadly not too much into hard SF unless it's extremely engaging. I am, however, thankful for the religious lists recommendation, that's really something I should've tried earlier. edit: What probably got lost was my other request - any good modern Lovecraftian books? Well, "good" may be overstating it given the source material - and by "modern" I pretty much mean "later than the man himself and his contemporaries". anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 11:34 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 11:31
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Soulcleaver posted:Freakonomics? Nah, it definitely wasn't that. The book went entirely into that one trend and instead of trying to understand why it happened, it went into all the reasons why it couldn't be this or that reason.
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Sep 1, 2014 13:34
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Mira posted:Does anyone remember the name of a book that was mentioned earlier in this thread (I can't for the life of me find it again, and I could be confusing it with the What Did You Just Finish thread) -- this non-fiction book that explores this phenomenon that occurred a decade or so ago where there was a dramatic decrease in violent crime? There's this article: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
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Sep 1, 2014 15:04
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Mira posted:Nah, it definitely wasn't that. The book went entirely into that one trend and instead of trying to understand why it happened, it went into all the reasons why it couldn't be this or that reason. Totally unfamiliar with a specific book/it being mentioned in this thread but I'm pretty sure the basic concept you're thinking of is the "broken windows policing" idea, which was written about in The Atlantic back in the early 80s and is somewhat revisited by the Stop and Frisk debate (also written about in The Atlantic here). I don't know if those two articles will lead you in the right direction, or just the name, or if I'm even right, but it's a very controversial tactic that has a lot of supporters and naysayers so I feel like I'm pretty close.
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Sep 2, 2014 04:47
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Just finished David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks. The book follows a teenage runaway and various people she encounters in her life. I really liked the writing style and the characterization, but the supernatural stuff (esp. in the last 150p) was a bit much. If you liked Cloud Atlas, I'd recommend it even if the magic stuff gets silly.
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Sep 2, 2014 04:53
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Last time I asked for this I was recommended The Fatherland which was perfect.quote:Can anyone recommend me crime, mystery or thrillers where the enemy is political or widespread corruption. I know I'm going to explain it badly, but essentially think something that starts as a classic murder mystery but quickly escalates so that the protagonist is taking on politicians/organised crime/international targets rather than the victim's friends or family.
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Sep 2, 2014 12:05
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^^^^ Tom Rob Smith's Child 44 fits what you're looking for pretty well.
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Sep 2, 2014 18:52
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I finally got around to reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and enjoyed it. I'll read more Le Carre at some point, but can anyone recommend other spy novels that are similarly character-focused and emphasize dialogue over action?
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Sep 3, 2014 03:20
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yoctoontologist posted:I finally got around to reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and enjoyed it. I'll read more Le Carre at some point, but can anyone recommend other spy novels that are similarly character-focused and emphasize dialogue over action? what other spy fiction have you read? Len Deighton was a pretty big cold war spy fiction author, who focused on plot over action. Alistair MacLean is another big cold war fictiona author, his stories tend to be more actiony.
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Sep 3, 2014 05:13
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yoctoontologist posted:I finally got around to reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and enjoyed it. I'll read more Le Carre at some point, but can anyone recommend other spy novels that are similarly character-focused and emphasize dialogue over action? I'm fond of Alan Furst, whose novels are all about European espionage in the run-up to World War II. He's very much in the Le Carre talky/cerebral vein. I haven't read all his books yet, but so far the ones I've enjoyed the most have been The World at Night and Dark Star. Although honestly, both Furst and Le Carre (and a lot of other spy writers) owe a huge debt to Eric Ambler. If you like the genre you should really try his A Coffin for Dimitrios at least.
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Sep 3, 2014 05:35
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Heeeelp. I'm trying to wade the bog that is Urban Fantasy and not get my shoes filled with poo poo. So I'm hoping some goons will have a couple of ideas. Things I've read and liked: Dresden Files Alex Verus series Matthew Swift series (I'm deliberately avoiding Magicals Anonymous) other stuff I read and didn't mind: Felix Castor series Rivers of London series Sandman Slim (some of it was ok) Stuff I've tried but didn't like, or otherwise didn't appeal and haven't read; Iron Druid series. The Laundry Files Greywalker So is there anything left that doesn't suck or have I pumped that well dry? Time to nut up and get on with Stormlight Archive part 2?
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Sep 3, 2014 12:13
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darth cookie posted:Heeeelp. Not sure if it's too obvious, but have you tried Neil Gaiman? He's usually considered one of the classics of the genre. Another choice would be China Miéville - sometimes gets carried away with big words and his cityscapes tend to be on the fantasy side, but he's a pretty great writer nonetheless. I'd suggest Kraken or City & City as starting points. e: If you don't mind something a bit more alien and difficult, I can't recommend M. John Harrison's Viriconium enough. Best to try to find it in a collection that'd include all three novels and the short stories, because it's pretty fascinating to watch the themes evolve. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Sep 3, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2014 13:08
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darth cookie posted:
Maybe Jeff Vandermeer's Ambergris stories?
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Sep 3, 2014 13:37
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darth cookie posted:Heeeelp. How about Charles de Lint?
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Sep 3, 2014 20:13
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anilEhilated posted:Not sure if it's too obvious, but have you tried Neil Gaiman? He's usually considered one of the classics of the genre. Another choice would be China Miéville - sometimes gets carried away with big words and his cityscapes tend to be on the fantasy side, but he's a pretty great writer nonetheless. I'd suggest Kraken or City & City as starting points. I haven't tried Neil Gaiman and I'm struggling to think of why. I didn't mind the plot of the movie stardust even if the actual acting was hit and miss. I didn't mind Good Omens, so maybe I'll start with Neil and neverwhere. Thanks.
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Sep 4, 2014 00:28
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darth cookie posted:I haven't tried Neil Gaiman and I'm struggling to think of why. I didn't mind the plot of the movie stardust even if the actual acting was hit and miss. I didn't mind Good Omens, so maybe I'll start with Neil and neverwhere. Thanks. Warren Ellis' Gun Machine might be up your alley too. Edit: some UF recs from a thread over yonder: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3554972&perpage=40&pagenumber=6#post417161141 Subjunctive fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Sep 4, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2014 01:48
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I have been enjoying David Mitchell a lot recently. I'm currently devouring The Bone Clocks and will soon be done with it. Does anyone know of any writers akin to Mitchell that I might like to read next whilst I'm in this mood?
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Sep 5, 2014 17:09
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Rat Flavoured Rats posted:I have been enjoying David Mitchell a lot recently. I'm currently devouring The Bone Clocks and will soon be done with it. Does anyone know of any writers akin to Mitchell that I might like to read next whilst I'm in this mood? The obvious one is Haruki Murakami - number9dream in particular is basically Mitchell doing an impression of a Murakami novel - have you tried his stuff?
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Sep 5, 2014 17:13
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Eau de MacGowan posted:The obvious one is Haruki Murakami - number9dream in particular is basically Mitchell doing an impression of a Murakami novel - have you tried his stuff? I read Norwegian Wood quite a long time ago but didn't feel particularly compelled to go any deeper. What would you recommend besides that one?
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Sep 5, 2014 18:25
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