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CestMoi posted:The Name of THe Rose by Umberto Eco is very good Actually yeah given your post this probably the best recommendation. Eco is right on the line between inaccessibly pomo and mass market appeal.
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Feb 22, 2015 19:19
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If you don't want an Eco book set in Mediaeval times then Foucault's Pendulum is also excellent.
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Feb 22, 2015 19:46
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What are some books that are about isolation/loneliness and sadness?
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Feb 22, 2015 19:54
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Kvlt! posted:What are some books that are about isolation/loneliness and sadness? Terror by Dan Simmons. It's basically 800 pages of people starving to death in the Arctic during the Franklin Expedition. Don't read the wiki page on that expedition or it will totally ruin it for you. 
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Feb 22, 2015 22:05
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martinlutherbling posted:I'm looking for some well written suspense and/or mystery to read on the beach. I'm reading Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon now, which I love. I don't necessarily want something as weird and postmodern as that, but I want to avoid airport fiction. Don Winslow's Savages, Josh Bazell's Beat the Reaper, Owen Laukkanen's The Professionals, Joe Lansdale's Savage Season
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Feb 23, 2015 03:13
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DrankSinatra posted:What's a good book on the history of ancient Rome? I realize that's a very broad swath of history, but I'm just looking for a good starting point. It's a total blind spot in my history knowledge (Years ago, I switched high school history teachers at semester, because of schedule issues, and I completely missed learning anything about it,) but I've been playing Rome: Total War, and now I'm curious about the actual history. Theres a ton of good ones out there. I like Mike Duncan's History of Rome podcast. You were asking for a book I like The Rise of Rome by Antony Everett and Ancient Rome by Simon Baker. I Claudius is fantastic, but it's historical fiction, (very well done historical fiction well researched and well written but historical fiction nonetheless).
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Feb 23, 2015 04:28
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It would be very nice if somebody could recommend something like Frankenstein. Something with the main character being a scientist or having a focus on Science, and with some sort of great discovery preferably. Frankenstein actually motivated me to start studying more (although I suppose the message is rather the opposite), so if possible I'd like something along the lines of a scientist's' journey through life.
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Feb 23, 2015 07:43
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martinlutherbling posted:I'm looking for some well written suspense and/or mystery to read on the beach. I'm reading Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon now, which I love. I don't necessarily want something as weird and postmodern as that, but I want to avoid airport fiction. Have you read any Carl Hiaasen? Crime novels, colorful characters, offbeat humor, but not so much that you'd characterize it in general as weird. In particular, I like Skin Tight and Stormy Weather.
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Feb 23, 2015 15:42
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Two contemporary crime authors I really like are Fred Vargas and Tana French. It's nowhere near the level of Pynchon or eco, but they're definitely a cut above airport fiction, Vargas for her (yup) whimsy characters, French for her powerful setting descriptions, and both are thoroughly enjoyable reads.
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Feb 23, 2015 16:06
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DrankSinatra posted:What's a good book on the history of ancient Rome? I realize that's a very broad swath of history, but I'm just looking for a good starting point. It's a total blind spot in my history knowledge (Years ago, I switched high school history teachers at semester, because of schedule issues, and I completely missed learning anything about it,) but I've been playing Rome: Total War, and now I'm curious about the actual history. Rubicon by Tom Holland.
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Feb 23, 2015 18:24
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rumtherapy posted:It would be very nice if somebody could recommend something like Frankenstein. Something with the main character being a scientist or having a focus on Science, and with some sort of great discovery preferably. Frankenstein actually motivated me to start studying more (although I suppose the message is rather the opposite), so if possible I'd like something along the lines of a scientist's' journey through life. It's not really like Frankenstein at all but you might enjoy Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. Otherwise you might try Lovecraft's fiction, a lot of his protagonists are scientists driven mad by the horrors they uncover.
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Feb 23, 2015 18:27
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rumtherapy posted:It would be very nice if somebody could recommend something like Frankenstein. Something with the main character being a scientist or having a focus on Science, and with some sort of great discovery preferably. Frankenstein actually motivated me to start studying more (although I suppose the message is rather the opposite), so if possible I'd like something along the lines of a scientist's' journey through life. Connie Willis does pretty good scientist protagonists. Check out Doomsday Book, Passage, or Bellwether.
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Feb 23, 2015 18:40
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rumtherapy posted:It would be very nice if somebody could recommend something like Frankenstein. Something with the main character being a scientist or having a focus on Science, and with some sort of great discovery preferably. Frankenstein actually motivated me to start studying more (although I suppose the message is rather the opposite), so if possible I'd like something along the lines of a scientist's' journey through life. The main characters are scientists and there's a lot of discussion about physics/astrophysics/theoretical mathematics. I'm an idiot and don't understand most of it, but it's still interesting.
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Feb 23, 2015 19:07
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martinlutherbling posted:I'm looking for some well written suspense and/or mystery to read on the beach. I'm reading Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon now, which I love. I don't necessarily want something as weird and postmodern as that, but I want to avoid airport fiction. Inherent Vice is one of my all-time favorite books. The Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett recommendation is great, because they're fun quick reads, very well written, and you'll see a lot of tropes that Pynchon plays with in IV. I enjoy "Unusual" detective novels, where the detective has some type of weird mystery or weird handicap. Here's a list of books that I've bought and/or read that were recommended to me. The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story by Leonie Swann The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde Crashed by Timothy Hallinan Savage Season by Joe R. Lansdale The Bayou Trilogy by Daniel Woodrell A Cool Breeze on the Underground by Don Winslow Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster Carl Hiaasen is fun, but I would consider him airport fiction, and I prefer his peer Tim Dorsey for being much funnier, outrageous, more violent, and weirder. I'm sure one of those will scratch your itch.
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Feb 23, 2015 19:20
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rumtherapy posted:It would be very nice if somebody could recommend something like Frankenstein. Something with the main character being a scientist or having a focus on Science, and with some sort of great discovery preferably. Frankenstein actually motivated me to start studying more (although I suppose the message is rather the opposite), so if possible I'd like something along the lines of a scientist's' journey through life. Solar by McEwan, for sure. tuyop fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Feb 24, 2015 |
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Feb 24, 2015 03:45
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So I'm almost finished with the second season of Hannibal, and I've seen Silence of the Lambs. Love both of the titles a lot, and I've been thinking about whether or not to embrace the source material. Are the Hannibal books (Red Dragon, Silence of The Lambs, etc.) any good? I don't want a popcorn book - I have the movies/show for that. I say that because I get the feeling the books are made mainly to be adapted into movies, in which case I'll save lots of time by just watching the movies. If the books offer something unique that the movies don't, then I'm interested.
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Feb 24, 2015 09:44
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modestmusashi posted:So I'm almost finished with the second season of Hannibal, and I've seen Silence of the Lambs. Love both of the titles a lot, and I've been thinking about whether or not to embrace the source material. Are the Hannibal books (Red Dragon, Silence of The Lambs, etc.) any good? I don't want a popcorn book - I have the movies/show for that. I say that because I get the feeling the books are made mainly to be adapted into movies, in which case I'll save lots of time by just watching the movies. If the books offer something unique that the movies don't, then I'm interested. For my money, they're just airport thrillers. Still, if you want to try them out, I'd stick to just Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs -- those were the ones Harris wrote before Hannibal Lecter became a multimillion-dollar franchise. In Hannibal and later books, he's trying to write Anthony Hopkins doing Hannibal Lecter instead of his original conception of the character, and I feel the result is much weaker.
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Feb 24, 2015 15:15
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I'm looking for some good SF or fantasy short story collections.
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Feb 25, 2015 22:56
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Huskalator posted:I'm looking for some good SF or fantasy short story collections. The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Gordon Van Gelder (two volumes) Modern Classics of Fantasy and Modern Classics of Science Fiction, both edited by Gardner Dozois The Secret History of Fantasy, edited by Peter S. Beagle (there's also a Secret History of Science Fiction but I haven't read it yet) There are also these, which I haven't read yet but seem pretty cool:  There are a whole bunch of annual anthologies, spanning from the '60s or '70s to the present, put together by all sorts of different editors. I'm working my way haphazardly through some of them, and have enough under my belt to say that, while there are some amazing stories in them, the quality is all over the place. Plus there are anthologies of different subgenres out there, like steampunk or weird western or sword and sorcery, or whatever, none of which I've read except for Queen Victoria's Book of Spells, which is also wildly uneven in quality. I think that's going to come up a lot with any anthology or collection you might find. Frequent anthologists you might look for are Datlow and Wilding, Dozois, Van Gelder, Hartwell, and Rich Horton. Edit: I put some more recs above. Time Cowboy fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Feb 25, 2015 |
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Feb 25, 2015 23:27
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Time Cowboy posted:The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Gordon Van Gelder (two volumes) I'd also point to The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, edited Robert Silverberg. Start with Volume I.
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Feb 25, 2015 23:31
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I would love an over the top cheesy fantasy epic, please. I've read and enjoyed The Abhorsen series, The Drizzt Series and The Icewind Dale series. I want something with wizards and knights and dragons and melodramatic speeches. Failing that, something like the Dresden Files, Harry Potter, The Hobbit/LotR or the like would also be appreciated. Series are preferred. I do need to ask that any sexual violence be kept to a minimum, so something like Game of Thrones wouldn't work well for me.
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Feb 26, 2015 07:56
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Sociopastry posted:I would love an over the top cheesy fantasy epic, please. I've read and enjoyed The Abhorsen series, The Drizzt Series and The Icewind Dale series. I want something with wizards and knights and dragons and melodramatic speeches.
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Feb 26, 2015 08:33
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bowmore posted:The Iron Druid Chronicles sound like a good fit perfect, thanks!
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Feb 26, 2015 14:23
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Sociopastry posted:I would love an over the top cheesy fantasy epic, please. I've read and enjoyed The Abhorsen series, The Drizzt Series and The Icewind Dale series. I want something with wizards and knights and dragons and melodramatic speeches. The Belgariad. David Eddings gets mocked for writing the same plot over and over again, but the Belgariad is still a good solid block of fantasy cheese.
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Feb 26, 2015 18:11
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I've been looking for a frontiersman/pioneer style story, preferably historical fiction. I'm assuming I'm most like to find what I'm looking for in a western, but the only one I've ever read was True Grit. I want something about hunting for food and eating bacon and fried bread in the wilderness. I'm more interested in a book that includes the minutiae of daily life than a history lesson.
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Feb 27, 2015 04:14
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Akula Raskolnikova posted:I've been looking for a frontiersman/pioneer style story, preferably historical fiction. I'm assuming I'm most like to find what I'm looking for in a western, but the only one I've ever read was True Grit. I want something about hunting for food and eating bacon and fried bread in the wilderness. I'm more interested in a book that includes the minutiae of daily life than a history lesson. The Son by Philip Meyer is great for this. It's a sweeping historical epic that goes into the modern day but most of it takes place in frontier times in Texas and Mexico. It has a lot of the minutiae type stuff you're looking for from a bunch of different viewpoints, including pioneer settlers, cowboys, Texas Rangers and Comanches. It's a real good story too.
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Feb 27, 2015 04:26
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Secret Agent X23 posted:Have you read any Carl Hiaasen? Crime novels, colorful characters, offbeat humor, but not so much that you'd characterize it in general as weird. In particular, I like Skin Tight and Stormy Weather. I've always thought of Hiaasen as the kind of pop/easy/airport/beach/pulp version of Pynchon.
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Feb 27, 2015 19:44
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Kvlt! posted:What are some books that are about isolation/loneliness and sadness? http://www.amazon.com/Hunger-A-Novel-Knut-Hamsun/dp/0374531102
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Feb 27, 2015 19:46
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Transistor Rhythm posted:I've always thought of Hiaasen as the kind of pop/easy/airport/beach/pulp version of Pynchon. Well, I'll be honest. On the one hand, I would never suggest putting him on the shelf next to Dostoyevsky. But on the other hand, it wouldn't have occurred to me to think of him as "airport" or "beach." But then again, on yet the other hand, I don't think I'd argue the point.
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Feb 27, 2015 20:06
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Sociopastry posted:I would love an over the top cheesy fantasy epic, please. I've read and enjoyed The Abhorsen series, The Drizzt Series and The Icewind Dale series. I want something with wizards and knights and dragons and melodramatic speeches.
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Feb 27, 2015 21:26
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Can someone recommend some books they really liked? I am in kind of a rut and not able to find anything I want to read. I am open to any genre besides fantasy and sci-fi unless it is really good. Sorry for the vague request, but I always tend to find good books when people just talk about their favorites.
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Feb 28, 2015 04:42
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I'm looking for something to read with one of my best friends, whose birthday is coming up. I want something that will really speak to her. Here are some important things about her, some mix of which I'm hoping to find in a story: -She's turning 28 -She works many hours a week as a personal assistant and more so as a nanny; it's not very satisfying -She's been in a relationship for about a year with a guy who lives across town; the relationship is maybe not 100% satisfying -She spends a lot of time driving because of the two previous things -She's got a history of mental illness -She's very sexual (with men and women) -Her late mother had a history of mental illness and drug abuse; the relationship was strained -She lives with her dad So I'm looking for something that I'll call "implicitly feminist" because she's strong and smart and independent but thinks explicit feminism is bullshit  I'm looking preferably for a novella or short story (collection) as she's so busy. Also, it's preferably written by a woman, but it at least has to center on a woman (or women). The top contenders so far, from Wikipedia-type summaries, include The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Bonjour Tristesse, Dancing Girls, and Lives of Girls and Women, but they all feel to me as though they're missing something. I'm pretty unfamiliar with women's literature, unfortunately, and I'm weary of reading much until then because our reading it together is supposed to be part of the gift. Can anyone vouch for any of those works? Can anyone recommend something sort of in this vein?
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Feb 28, 2015 20:56
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Rusty posted:Can someone recommend some books they really liked? I am in kind of a rut and not able to find anything I want to read. I am open to any genre besides fantasy and sci-fi unless it is really good. Sorry for the vague request, but I always tend to find good books when people just talk about their favorites. Uh, let's see: Tinkers The Truth About Stories The Cider House Rules Beloved Slaughterhouse-Five Russka Pillars of the Earth The Road Blood Meridian Born to Run Lolita Cosmos The Human Stain Quite a few genres there. I hope this helps.
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Feb 28, 2015 21:01
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tuyop posted:Uh, let's see:
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Feb 28, 2015 21:24
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Rusty posted:Can someone recommend some books they really liked? I am in kind of a rut and not able to find anything I want to read. I am open to any genre besides fantasy and sci-fi unless it is really good. Sorry for the vague request, but I always tend to find good books when people just talk about their favorites. My overall favorite books are very dark and well-written crime novels, with the two best authors for this I've come across so far being James Ellroy and David Peace. The best book I read last year was probably Ellroy's latest, Perfidia. I like Ellroy's Underworld USA books the best out of his stuff though. They're focused on all the fuckery the CIA and mafia got up to in the 1960s and cover all the high profile assassinations of those times, along with all the terrible poo poo the US got up to in third world countries to counter communism. My favorite stuff from Peace are his Red Riding books. They're similar in style and subject matter to Ellroy but have a smaller scope on corruption, crime and violence in Yorkshire during the 70s and early 80s all tied together by the Yorkshire Ripper case.
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Feb 28, 2015 21:32
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David Peace is amazing but holy god his books are bleak. This is not a bad thing but something just to keep in mind.
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Feb 28, 2015 21:51
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savinhill posted:My overall favorite books are very dark and well-written crime novels, with the two best authors for this I've come across so far being James Ellroy and David Peace. The best book I read last year was probably Ellroy's latest, Perfidia. I like Ellroy's Underworld USA books the best out of his stuff though. They're focused on all the fuckery the CIA and mafia got up to in the 1960s and cover all the high profile assassinations of those times, along with all the terrible poo poo the US got up to in third world countries to counter communism. My favorite stuff from Peace are his Red Riding books. They're similar in style and subject matter to Ellroy but have a smaller scope on corruption, crime and violence in Yorkshire during the 70s and early 80s all tied together by the Yorkshire Ripper case.
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Mar 1, 2015 00:35
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I'm looking for any kind of book that will help me not give a gently caress about what others think of me. Even if the book isn't about that specifically, I'm just struggling with that so if there's any book, novel or self-help or whatever that's helped you with that, please let me know 
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Mar 2, 2015 02:03
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trigonsareNOThomo posted:I'm looking for any kind of book that will help me not give a gently caress about what others think of me. Even if the book isn't about that specifically, I'm just struggling with that so if there's any book, novel or self-help or whatever that's helped you with that, please let me know A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. If you're an analytical, philosophically-minded sort. It's less a self-help book than a review of Classical Western life philosophies for laymen. Really changed my life. That fear of judgement is explicitly one of the issues that Stoicism helps people manage.
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Mar 2, 2015 02:14
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trigonsareNOThomo posted:I'm looking for any kind of book that will help me not give a gently caress about what others think of me. Even if the book isn't about that specifically, I'm just struggling with that so if there's any book, novel or self-help or whatever that's helped you with that, please let me know Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl or, for something lighter, Yes Man by Danny Wallace Thich Nhat Hahn inspires me a lot. And there's always Brian Tracy? Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Mar 2, 2015 |
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Mar 2, 2015 02:16
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