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PaulDirac posted:which one? quote:thought the gay subplot between Sam and Frodo was well done
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Sep 13, 2014 03:15
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Hmm, yeah maybe I kind of liked Legolas and Gimli's or Gandalf's bits more then Frodo and Sam's if that helps with recommendations, I'll consider Dune, but I've never been into sci-fi as much as I have been into Fantasy. (I like cyberpunk though, and The Sheriff of Yrnameer.)
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Sep 13, 2014 04:00
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gatz posted:Are there any writers who express disillusionment with American suburban living along the lines of Cheever and Yates? Try Richard Ford's Sportswriter trilogy. Can anyone recommend a good history of Reagan's presidency? All the options at My Local Library were either published in 1985 or are partisan garbage. I've been reading Caro's biographies of Lyndon Johnson and they've got me all revved up for more political histories.
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Sep 14, 2014 08:06
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Can anyone recommend me a good book on the East India Company (Preferably something not too dry)? There seem to be no shortage out there
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Sep 14, 2014 23:35
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QuasarIntheMist posted:Try Richard Ford's Sportswriter trilogy. Try Lou Cannon's President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime. It's very insidery, but doesn't sink into partisan hackwork.
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Sep 15, 2014 02:34
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Any good books about someone going undercover? Doesn't need to be a cop, just someone pretending to be something they're not. Only looking for fiction here, no true crime stuff.
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Sep 15, 2014 02:43
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Draxamus posted:Any good books about someone going undercover? Doesn't need to be a cop, just someone pretending to be something they're not. Only looking for fiction here, no true crime stuff. Ronald Malfi's Shamrock Alley is a good crime thriller about an undercover agent trying to take down some very violent Hells Kitchen gangsters. It's better written and more character focused than most crime thriller type novels. It's not really undercover type stuff but David Peace's Tokyo Year Zero is a very well written and engaging novel set in a post-war, American occupied Japan. People assuming new identities and pretending to be things they aren't is a huge part of it both plot-wise and thematically. Philip K Dick's A Scanner Darkly is a classic sci-fi novel with some undercover agent and identity stuff in it.
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Sep 15, 2014 07:07
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Draxamus posted:Any good books about someone going undercover? Doesn't need to be a cop, just someone pretending to be something they're not. Only looking for fiction here, no true crime stuff. I really liked The Likeness by Tana French. It's about a police officer trying to solve the murder of her body double, but the emphasis is on characterisation, not whodunit.
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Sep 15, 2014 12:12
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Selachian posted:Try Lou Cannon's President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime. It's very insidery, but doesn't sink into partisan hackwork. "...pulled off the remarkable feat of winning praise from both Reagan's admirers and detractors." Exactly what I was looking for, thanks!
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Sep 16, 2014 09:08
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QuasarIntheMist posted:"...pulled off the remarkable feat of winning praise from both Reagan's admirers and detractors." Please be a little bit more cynical, especially when it comes to marketing phrases intended to get you to buy a book.
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Sep 16, 2014 14:24
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Serak posted:Can anyone recommend me a good book on the East India Company (Preferably something not too dry)? There seem to be no shortage out there Dirk Jan Barreveld has written a number of books about the East India Company (or the VOC, Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagny, it's real name) but im not sure if there are any translations of his works,....you don't happen to ...read Dutch... maybe??? 
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Sep 16, 2014 14:57
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Serak posted:Can anyone recommend me a good book on the East India Company (Preferably something not too dry)? There seem to be no shortage out there John Keay's book is really good, although maybe too dry for you (I didn't find it dry, but I have a high tolerance for books that are).
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Sep 16, 2014 18:36
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dokmo posted:John Keay's book is really good, although maybe too dry for you (I didn't find it dry, but I have a high tolerance for books that are). Just had a read of an excerpt on Amazon - looks like it might fit the bill. Cheers
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Sep 17, 2014 22:25
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With the way my schedule is right now, I'm just having a hard time sticking with a novel. I can devote time on short stories, though. Are there any fantastic short story collections that I can look into? Here's a list of who I have read/already own/like: Etgar Keret (one of my all-time favorites) Thomas Pynchon's Slow Learner H.P. Lovecraft Stephen King Franz Kafka Jorge Luis Borges George Saunder's Tenth of December Joe R. Lansdale Richard Matheson Isaac Asimov's Foundation The Ballad of the Sad Cafe Dubliners The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology A Good Man is Hard to Find Clive Barker's Books of Blood Ray Bradbury Genre doesn't matter. October's close, so spooky/scary/horror or something weird would be fun. Literary or classics are also good. (edited for grammar) Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 18:55
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Franchescanado posted:With the way my schedule is right now, I'm just having a hard time sticking with a novel right now. I can do pretty good on short stories, though. Are there any fantastic short story collections that I can look into? Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, if you want weird and acclaimed. And if you liked Borges.
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Sep 18, 2014 19:08
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Franchescanado posted:With the way my schedule is right now, I'm just having a hard time sticking with a novel. I can devote time on short stories, though. Are there any fantastic short story collections that I can look into? Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow has gotten a lot of attention lately because of True Detective, and it's worth reading. You might also enjoy Lord Dunsany, whose works are on the border between fantasy and horror.
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Sep 18, 2014 20:11
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Franchescanado posted:With the way my schedule is right now, I'm just having a hard time sticking with a novel. I can devote time on short stories, though. Are there any fantastic short story collections that I can look into? I read Your House is on Fire Your Children All Gone by Stefan Kiesbye last year as part of my October spookathon and really enjoyed it. It's a bunch of interconnected short stories framed as a series of recollections of a group of 4 adults of their childhood days in a small German town called Hemmersmoor - it's very Grimm's fairy tales-esque - not the sanitized Disney versions but old style Grimm with chopped off body parts. Nasty but fun read.
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Sep 18, 2014 22:37
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Franchescanado posted:With the way my schedule is right now, I'm just having a hard time sticking with a novel. I can devote time on short stories, though. Are there any fantastic short story collections that I can look into? I love Etgar Keret, there's no one like him. That said, I'd recommend George Saunders's Pastoralia, anything by Raymond Carver (classic/literary), anything by Richard Yates (classic/literary), and Shirley Jackson's short stories (literary/scary).
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Sep 19, 2014 00:50
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Franchescanado posted:With the way my schedule is right now, I'm just having a hard time sticking with a novel. I can devote time on short stories, though. Are there any fantastic short story collections that I can look into? Stories of Your life and Others by Ted Chiang is fantastic. It's really too bad he hasn't written anything else.
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Sep 19, 2014 11:51
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I'm looking for some good (as opposed to bad I guess???) historical fiction. Preferably set in more obscure areas and/or times not covered by most other HF books? I enjoyed Gentlemen of the Road by Chabon, and sort of liked the The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin although I found it to be kind of dull (mostly I loved the setting). Also, I've never really read most of the "classic" novels, but I was thinking of starting with a Russian classic like Anna Karenina. What's considered to be the best translation? Farecoal fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Sep 20, 2014 |
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Sep 20, 2014 05:05
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Farecoal posted:I'm looking for some good (as opposed to bad I guess???) historical fiction. Preferably set in more obscure areas and/or times not covered by most other HF books? I enjoyed Gentlemen of the Road by Chabon, and sort of liked the The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin although I found it to be kind of dull (mostly I loved the setting). Considering you say you've read the classics, odds are you've allready read these but i'd suggest the Aubrey Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian
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Sep 20, 2014 06:50
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Farecoal posted:I'm looking for some good (as opposed to bad I guess???) historical fiction. Preferably set in more obscure areas and/or times not covered by most other HF books? I enjoyed Gentlemen of the Road by Chabon, and sort of liked the The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin although I found it to be kind of dull (mostly I loved the setting). Have you tried George MacDonald Fraser's "Flashman" books? The hero is a rotten liar, coward, and lecher who keeps getting involved in the worst fuckups of the late-19th-century British Empire. It's a far from untapped historical era, I know, but they're fun reads and Fraser did his research, with extensive footnotes.
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Sep 20, 2014 13:05
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I'm looking for some conspiracy fiction that is not Dan Brown. Also down for some non-fiction if it's not too 
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Sep 20, 2014 20:53
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Farecoal posted:Also, I've never really read most of the "classic" novels, but I was thinking of starting with a Russian classic like Anna Karenina. What's considered to be the best translation? You sound like me; I'm also trying to read more of the classic novels  It also just so happens that I just finished reading Anna Karenina about a month ago. I read the Constance Garnett translation (1901, the first into English), partly because it was the version available on Gutenberg—I'm a Kindle guy—and partly because I'm a fan of long sentences, Britishisms, and archaic sentence construction. If you don't like those things, you may want a more modern translation. While I've never read them and am thus not in a position to attest to their putative excellence, the Pevear and Volokhonsky translations are generally regarded as highly readable and skillfully done. You may find this excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Anna Karenina, specifically the section pertaining to the various translations of it, helpful: quote:Writing in the year 2000, academic Zoja Pavlovskis-Petit compares the different translations of Anna Karenina on the market. Commenting on Garnett's revised translation she says: "The revision (1965) ... by Kent & Berberova (the latter no mean stylist herself) succeeds in 'correcting errors ... tightening the prose, converting Briticisms, and casting light on areas Mrs Garnett did not explore'. Their edition shows an excellent understanding of the details of Tolstoi's world (for instance, the fact that the elaborate coiffure Kitty wears to the ball is not her own hair–a detail that eludes most other translators), and at the same time they use English imaginatively (Kitty's shoes 'delighted her feet' rather than 'seemed to make her feet lighter'–Maude; a paraphrase). ... the purist will be pleased to see Kent & Berberova give all the Russian names in full, as used by the author; any reader will be grateful for the footnotes that elucidate anything not immediately accessible to someone not well acquainted with imperial Russia. This emended Garnett should probably be a reader's first choice." Adib fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Sep 20, 2014 |
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Sep 20, 2014 21:05
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Farecoal posted:I'm looking for some good (as opposed to bad I guess???) historical fiction. Preferably set in more obscure areas and/or times not covered by most other HF books? I enjoyed Gentlemen of the Road by Chabon, and sort of liked the The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin although I found it to be kind of dull (mostly I loved the setting). Mika Waltari wrote some great historical fiction. Some of his stuff covers familiar territory but he has a few that cover people/places/times I hadn't come across anywhere else previously. Denise Giardina has some good historical fiction. There's Good King Harry about Henry V, and Storming Heaven about turn-of-the-century Virginia coal miners. The Son by Phillip Meyer is good and covers a Texas ranching and oil family from settler days all the way to modern times.
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Sep 20, 2014 21:38
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Shirtless Rob posted:I'm looking for some conspiracy fiction that is not Dan Brown. Also down for some non-fiction if it's not too Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco is so, so good. Also The Magus by John Fowles. Neither of these are precisely conspiracy stories per se, but in another way they totally are. They're both also fantastic.
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Sep 20, 2014 21:52
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Does a good English-language biography of the Korean admiral Yi Sun-sin exist?
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Sep 20, 2014 22:23
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Two requests: 1) I posted something similar in the Cinema Discusso film recommendation thread but I'm looking for some good dramatic fiction about the personal lives of super wealthy/powerful people. 2) Any good non-fiction (or fiction with many real elements) books about Quebec Separatism, the 1995 referendum, the Anglophone exodus, and the current status of the separatist movement?
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Sep 21, 2014 04:01
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I've listened to the World War Z audiobook several times and find myself needing more. World War Z, by Max Brooks, is an epistolary novel recounting the history of a zombie epidemic. I love it. The world, the format, the style, and the way it manages to ring true despite being about a plague of reanimated corpses really butters my biscuit. In a perfect world, it would turn out that there is a huge collection of other stories from the same universe I somehow had not noticed. I'll cross my fingers, but just in case, I'm looking for something with similar attributes. I'm mostly looking for a 'history' of some calamity or other similarly momentous and tumultuous period. It doesn't matter if it's fiction or non-fiction or somewhere in between. The main thing I'm looking for here is a reasonably detailed account of the catastrophe, the period of chaos and disorder during and immediately afterward, and (most importantly) how society is reformed afterward. Significant bonus points will be awarded to epistolary formats, quality audiobook versions, or other zombie/general plague situations. These are not strictly necessary, though. Other books that have scratched this particular itch are Lucifer's Hammer, Wool, and A Canticle for Liebowitz. I'm not really looking for something post-apocalyptic here as those are a dime a dozen. I'm more looking for something post-post-apocalyptic. The crux of the issue here is seeing humanity brought to the edge of extinction or at least civilization pushed to the breaking point and then society rebuilding itself over a period of many years. The only other story I've really seen that includes every part of the story; the catastrophe, chaos, and long-term rebuilding, is the Walking Dead comics. I'd love to find a book or series that tells the whole story and appreciate your recommendations. PS: Firefox says that I should correct 'Liebowitz' to 'Howitzer'. 
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Sep 21, 2014 05:35
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I'm looking for books that are about Japanese history and culture. I prefer books with an insider perspective but I'm willing to read outsiders books that are not orientalist, inaccurate bullshit.
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Sep 21, 2014 05:59
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Galick posted:Anyone have any recommendations for a good modern romance? Preferably something available on the Kindle store. Non-binary characters is a plus, though not sure how feasible it is to find a story that's decently written that explores that. Asking for this again. To help clarify what I want: Modern setting, with a romance at the core of the book - it can have other stuff on the side I guess, but the romance is what I'm after. No celebrities or anything of the sort, unless they're just mentioned in the background or something, and I'd like for one or both parties to be LBGT and actually explore that a bit instead of just using it for 'shock factor' for lack of a better word. I do not expect to get many results, but hey, I'd be happy if it exists.
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Sep 21, 2014 06:10
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PopetasticPerson posted:I've listened to the World War Z audiobook several times and find myself needing more. World War Z, by Max Brooks, is an epistolary novel recounting the history of a zombie epidemic. I love it. The world, the format, the style, and the way it manages to ring true despite being about a plague of reanimated corpses really butters my biscuit. In a perfect world, it would turn out that there is a huge collection of other stories from the same universe I somehow had not noticed. I'll cross my fingers, but just in case, I'm looking for something with similar attributes. You could try The Three by Sarah Lotz which follows the style of World War Z as a retelling of past events through a collection of interviews and news articles written by a fictitious author - in this case 4 planes crash within hours of each other on 4 different continents and only one child survives each of these crashes. I personally enjoyed it quite a bit but it seems to be fairly polarizing so YMMV. Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven is another recent release which follows a series of interconnected characters in their lives before, during, and then many years after a pandemic which has wiped out 99% of the world's population. The main point of the novel is less about the rebuilding of society and more about the threads that bind these people together but you may still find it interesting. SM Stirling has an alternate history series called 'Emberverse' that has a similar scenario to that tv show Revolution where one day all machines just stop working and there's no more electricity, and people have to rebuild from the ground up. I haven't read the last few books because I think it just started getting way too out there for me but the first few are definitely about people rebuilding, though it's admittedly cringe inducing and obviously marketed towards the renaissance faire crowd. Quite a few eye rolling moments but still fun if you like society rebuilding stuff.
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Sep 21, 2014 07:06
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PopetasticPerson posted:I've listened to the World War Z audiobook several times and find myself needing more. World War Z, by Max Brooks, is an epistolary novel recounting the history of a zombie epidemic. I love it. The world, the format, the style, and the way it manages to ring true despite being about a plague of reanimated corpses really butters my biscuit. In a perfect world, it would turn out that there is a huge collection of other stories from the same universe I somehow had not noticed. I'll cross my fingers, but just in case, I'm looking for something with similar attributes. Raising Stony Mayhall by Daryl Gregory Soft Apocalypse by Will McIntosh Oryx and Crake, Year of the Flood, Maddaddam by Margaret Atwood The Passage by Justin Cronin
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Sep 21, 2014 07:11
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Does anyone have some suggestions for non-fiction history about the Roman Empire? I'm looking for something by accessible, modern-day authors/historians, and I'm particularly interested in the late Republic and early Empire period. I've read 'The Fall of The Roman Empire' by Peter Heather and 'Cleopatra' by Stacy Schiff and really enjoyed them. If anyone's got suggestions for something similar, that'd be great thanks!
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Sep 21, 2014 16:34
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Cacotopic Stain posted:I'm looking for books that are about Japanese history and culture. I prefer books with an insider perspective but I'm willing to read outsiders books that are not orientalist, inaccurate bullshit. I've concentrated on the Heian period (with a tiny amount of reading on the Nara and Kamakura eras); would those be of interest to you or are you only looking for samurai stuff?
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Sep 21, 2014 20:52
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xcheopis posted:I've concentrated on the Heian period (with a tiny amount of reading on the Nara and Kamakura eras); would those be of interest to you or are you only looking for samurai stuff? I prefer books on modern Japan, but books from other periods also good as well.
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Sep 21, 2014 21:17
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Cacotopic Stain posted:I prefer books on modern Japan, but books from other periods also good as well. For the Heian period there's The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon, which is mainly her observations of court life and such. For the Meiji period, if you don't mind fiction, I have heard good things about I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki, a satire on Japanese society told from the point of view of a cat.
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Sep 21, 2014 23:27
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bowser posted:2) Any good non-fiction (or fiction with many real elements) books about Quebec Separatism, the 1995 referendum, the Anglophone exodus, and the current status of the separatist movement? Kobo keeps recommending Chantal Hébert’s The Morning After:The 1995 Quebec Referendum and the Day that Almost Was to me, which I haven't read but looks interesting and relevant.
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Sep 22, 2014 00:09
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Cacotopic Stain posted:I prefer books on modern Japan, but books from other periods also good as well. George Sansom and Ivan Morris are good places to start.
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Sep 22, 2014 00:18
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I'm looking for books (hopefully on Audio as well) that are like the TV Series Twin Peaks (hell, like most of David Lynch's work). I know that Stephen King is good at this, as I've enjoyed; It, The Dome, Needful Things and Salem's Lot. I'm looking for bizarre looks into the daily lives and petty nature of small town America. Supernatural is fine, as is wierd.
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Sep 22, 2014 16:05
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