|
Darth Walrus posted:The Orphan's Tales, a duology by Catherynne Valente that serves as a wonderfully imaginative fantasy pastiche of A Thousand And One Nights. Most of the viewpoint characters are women, and whilst the story (well, stories) does/do go into some quite dark places, there's usually light at the end (and if there isn't, it's probably because the protagonist has it coming). This is a great recommendation. Besides meeting your criteria rather well, it's also extremely good and very well written. Either way, I usually recommend Pratchett to people who liked the Hitchhiker's Guide. The witches series also contains a lot of strong female characters, so I guess your best bet is to start with Equal Rites.
|
#
?
Aug 14, 2013 19:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 04:39 |
|
|
artichoke posted:The last several books I've read have been somewhere between mildly bleak and despair-inducing: Disgrace by Coetzee, Agota Kristof's three-book mindfuck The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie, and before that was Escape from Camp 14 which is about North Korea. I also recently plowed through the dystopian Wool series, which was interesting. All of these recent books were pretty good, (except Coetzee; gently caress that guy). Give The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway a look. Goodreads posted:A wildly entertaining debut novel, introducing a bold new voice that combines antic humor (think Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut) with a stunning futuristic vision ( A Clockwork Orange and 1984, with a little Mad Max thrown in) to give us an electrifyingly original tale of love, friendship, and the apocalypse.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2013 03:02
|
|
|
artichoke posted:
If you liked Housekeeping you will probably like another book by Robinson: Gilead. It's so beautifully written that i have several quotes from it in my writing journal. Also there is Elizabeth Berg's debut novel, Joy School and it's sequel, Durable Goods. Both are about a teenage girl, but I read them as an adult and loved them for the strong story and straightforward, spare telling. Seconding also Pratchett's Discworld. I ignored him until just recently, but started with the Nightwatch series and I'm already done with Guards, Guards, Men at Arms, and Feet of Clay. They're kind of silly but an enjoyable read after binging on dystopian novels as I've been lately. There is also a trilogy by Michael Sullivan that's a sort of sword and sorcerers epic, with several good strong females in it: Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire and The Heir of Novron. I think they may only be available as e-books though. Pheeets fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Aug 15, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2013 04:23
|
|
|
Darth Walrus posted:The Orphan's Tales, a duology by Catherynne Valente that serves as a wonderfully imaginative fantasy pastiche of A Thousand And One Nights. Most of the viewpoint characters are women, and whilst the story (well, stories) does/do go into some quite dark places, there's usually light at the end (and if there isn't, it's probably because the protagonist has it coming). Thanks - I've added it and found an e-book version already. a kitten posted:Give The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway a look. This was an excellent book. I recommended it to everyone that would listen. Pheeets posted:If you liked Housekeeping you will probably like another book by Robinson: Gilead. It's so beautifully written that i have several quotes from it in my writing journal. Gilead, while sweet, was a huge letdown after Housekeeping. I feel like Robinson saved up a decade's worth of gems for that one, so everything after it paled in comparison. Will pick up the Discworld series soon. I saw the handy flow chart a few pages back. The Sullivan books sound a little less up my alley. I usually don't enjoy most books that deal with straight-up magic. Here's a small list of books I've loved in the last few years that I've recommended to people: Cloud Atlas The Gone-Away World Olive Kitteridge The Invention of Morel Gone Girl Sharp Teeth The Human Stain Brief Interviews with Hideous Men After Dachau Nonfic: Nothing To Envy, Destiny Disrupted, Born to Run So if there's something similar to a book on that list, post away.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2013 08:13
|
|
|
artichoke posted:
Cloud Atlas was going to be my next suggestion.  Have you read Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin? Among other things, it's about the mythic idea of New York City, I'm re-reading it for the first time in about 10 years and it's been even better than my memory told me it was.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2013 05:00
|
|
|
tliil posted:I need some good books where the protagonist is an unapologetic murderer, scoundrel, and criminal. Anti-hero or pure villain, I'm not particular. I just wanna root for some bad guys. What about Patrick Suskind's Perfume?
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2013 13:22
|
|
|
What are some interesting and genuinely helpful business/management books? In my experience, most of the books I laid my hands on would fit into one of the following category: a) self-help, snake oil, you-can-do-it! crap (Rich dad poor dad) b) fanboyisms (Jobs) c) pop and "quirky" (Freakonomics) I'm not US-based and I'm of a technical background so I might have missed even the most basic college-level ones (although I have read parts of The Wealth of Nations). I'm in the ERP business so any industry can be of interest, i'm looking for success stories, resounding bankruptcies, case studies or any other form of economical literature that still has relevance. Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2013 16:27
|
|
|
cosmin posted:What are some interesting and genuinely helpful business/management books? Argali posted:What about Patrick Suskind's Perfume? So I'm nerding out and I need a book on how people actually fought with swords throughout history. I've seen movie swordfighting but I wanna know what it was really like. Does such a book exist?
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2013 19:27
|
|
|
Has anyone read the newer Norton Anthologies of World Literature? I have an older edition, from back when it was just two volumes, but I'm thinking about getting some of the newer editions, which are split over six or seven volumes. Is it worth the upgrade?
|
|
#
?
Aug 18, 2013 21:37
|
|
|
We used them in my world lit survey and I thought that the introductory essays were informative and the selections were good, albeit with a slight western slant. I haven't seen or read the older version, sorry. If you are curious about the difference, maybe go to a local university used book store and page through them?
|
|
#
?
Aug 19, 2013 04:28
|
|
|
Are non-fiction requests kosher here? I read Reza Aslan's No God But God last week, and I'm working my way through Zealot now, and I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for other non-fiction about the founding of religions/sects in a historical context. Early Christians, Muslims, Cathars, Baha'i, anything, as long as it's not coming from an "and that's why everything in ____ was literally true" or an "and that's why we should kill all the _____" standpoint.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2013 02:09
|
|
|
tliil posted:I need some good books where the protagonist is an unapologetic murderer, scoundrel, and criminal. Anti-hero or pure villain, I'm not particular. I just wanna root for some bad guys. Read James Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy. His protagonists are Bad Guys, they pimp, steal, peddle drugs, fix elections, murder, attempt coups, among many other awesome and disturbing things.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2013 07:00
|
|
|
tliil posted:
Seconding this, I'd be very interested in this topic. I'm sure there's something scholarly out there but I'd love it if there was something actually readable. Very surprised Perfume is not available for the Kindle. Just get the book out of the library, you won't regret it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2013 18:23
|
|
|
tliil posted:The Lean Startup is interesting. The ideas in it are not original (and the book gives credit where it's due), but it's presented in a very easy to understand manner and there are success and failure stories. This is a bigger topic than you'd think because there are multiple different sword traditions for different types of swords -- for example, vikings fought differently than knights who fought differently than duellists, and that's just the western european tradition. It's not like you can say "chinese people fought like this, but japanese people fought like this" or something. For example, my Tai Chi school teaches Dao and Jian forms, which are translated/described as "chinese saber and chinese longsword," but really only certain specific subtypes of Dao are analogous to the western fencing saber (others are closer to a machete) and the jian is used in a fashion closer to the rapier than the longsword without really being either (the rapier is almost wholly a piercing weapon, whereas attacks with the jian are primarly incisive cuts with the tip; traditionally only the third of the jian's blade closest to the tip is sharpened). Similarly, different types of swords were designed for different challenges. The Japanese katana was designed to be really, really loving good at slicing poo poo open because Japan had very little iron and metal armor was rare, so mostly what the katana had to do was slice open cloth/bamboo/enamel armor, flesh, and bone. Conversely, western weapons from the same time period were facing heavy armor so were designed to either break through such armor or pry through or pierce openings in armor. Some weapons were designed for infantry use and others were designed primarily for one on one fights or duels (i.e., a rapier is a great weapon for killing one dude but the minute you're facing two dudes you have to really worry about it getting stuck). A few links: http://www.thearma.org/reading_old.htm http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Swordsmanship-Family-Taiji-Tradition/dp/0974399949 Neal Stephenson's Mongoliad series is an attempt to write fantasy fiction with historically realistic swordplay: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mongoliad-Book-Foreworld-Saga/dp/1612182364 http://www.swordforum.com/forums/content.php Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Aug 23, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2013 18:34
|
|
|
tliil posted:So I'm nerding out and I need a book on how people actually fought with swords throughout history. I've seen movie swordfighting but I wanna know what it was really like. Does such a book exist? Hans Talhoffer was a medieval swordsman of note, who left behind a number of sword fighting manuals. These have been translated and published in various editions over the years. I have one by Jeffrey Hull, Knightly Dueling: The Fighting Arts of German Chivalry. He also has another book online called Fighting Earnestly (PDF 34mb), full of weird illustrations of weapons and fighting techniques. This is an area I don't know much about, but it seems like there are tons of good online sources for this kind of stuff. You may want to look at these sites: http://hemaalliance.com/?page_id=27 http://www.thortrains.com/getright/Medieval%20Combat.htm http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD818CAAA0AE273EA
|
|
#
?
Aug 23, 2013 18:58
|
|
man
|
Recently I became interested in Black literature from the civil rights era and immediately after. I read four great (and controversial) books in a row: The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X; Die, friend of the family, Die!, by H. Rap Brown; Soledad Brother, by George Jackson; and Soul on Ice, by Eldridge Cleaver. I think that Soul on Ice was the best from a literary standpoint, the Malcolm X book was my favorite read. Any ”must reads” before I move on to my next topic to binge on?
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2013 08:23
|
|
|
From an African perspective, Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth is worth a look. Very much a product of its time, but that doesn't seem to have taken too much of the wind out of Fanon's sails - Amazon still lists it as the #1 selling book in 'African politics'.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2013 09:42
|
|
|
tliil posted:The Lean Startup is interesting. The ideas in it are not original (and the book gives credit where it's due), but it's presented in a very easy to understand manner and there are success and failure stories. thanks for the recommendation, great read! Keep'em coming if you got any more ideas!
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2013 11:07
|
|
|
I'd like somebody to recommend me a good primer on victimology - that is, the study of crime victims, their nature, their difficulties and what kind of person becomes a repeat victim.
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2013 12:07
|
|
|
I would like to recommend "Primate Signal": http://www.amazon.com/Primate-Signal-ebook/dp/B00EQ578MS/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377346189&sr=1-6
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2013 13:24
|
|
|
nvm
Pheeets fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Aug 24, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2013 19:38
|
|
|
Recently finished Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide and the Criminal Mind and started reading The Anatomy of Motive by John Douglas. These books cover serial killers and rapists and arsonists, but are there books about contract killers and assassins? With contract killers I mean characters like what Tom Cruise played in the movie Collateral.
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2013 21:10
|
|
|
I've discovered that I seem to have a fascination with Noire crime drama set on the west coast. I read Zack Parson's Liminal States, and couldn't put it down during the second act, which took place in LA in 1951. I also loved the aesthetic of the game L.A. Noire, which took place in LA during the year 1947. Both feature a detective who served in WWII dealing with PTSD (Spoilers for both there, just to be safe.) I did a little research into Noire and it seems to also be classified as "hard-boiled". So are there any other hard-boiled or Noire-style novels set on the west coast? Or maybe even the really good ones that are set in NY or Chicago like most of them usually are? I know little about it but it seems really cool. And even though I'm posting this in the Book Barn, I'd also be interested to hear of any films or TV shows dealing in 40/50's LA crime.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2013 01:52
|
|
|
timpanihilistic posted:And even though I'm posting this in the Book Barn, I'd also be interested to hear of any films or TV shows dealing in 40/50's LA crime. L.A. Confidential springs immediately to mind  . You could also choose to read the book first.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2013 02:01
|
|
|
Ornamented Death posted:L.A. Confidential springs immediately to mind Ellroy's White Jazz, Black Dahlia, and LA Confidential are amazing. He lost me some after American Tabloid, but drat that he had an amazing run for awhile (I didn't even mention the Big Nowhere).
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2013 02:18
|
|
|
timpanihilistic posted:I did a little research into Noire and it seems to also be classified as "hard-boiled". So are there any other hard-boiled or Noire-style novels set on the west coast? Some of the very best noir (no final "e") was set on the west coast: Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe and Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer (Los Angeles) and Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op (San Francisco) books in particular are seminal classics. James Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, Jim Thompson's The Grifters, Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress, all classics in the genre, all set in and around LA.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2013 02:47
|
|
|
Yeah, read some Raymond Chandler. If you want something modern, I really enjoyed Timothy Hallinan's Junior Bender mysteries.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2013 02:58
|
|
|
Noir is definitely an LA thing. for films, watch The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, the Third Man (OK, this one's set in Vienna), Touch of Evil, and Chinatown. To start anyway.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2013 03:25
|
|
|
Awesome, thanks everybody. Looks like I've got some reading and viewing to do! 
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2013 03:29
|
|
|
I want to read something that'll scare the poo poo out of me. So far, my list of books that have actually unnerved me is woefully short; there's House of Leaves, The Exorcist, Hell House and The Haunting of Hill House. The short story The Yellow Wallpaper was also surprisingly haunting and scary. Kathe Koja's The Cipher was like reading a horrible migraine, but something about it other than the awful prose really struck a chord too. On my list on goodreads, I've got The Terror by Dan Simmons coming up, but that's the only book on my to-read list that's really horror that I expect to make me feel kinda nervous. I've read a lot of Lovecraft, he doesn't do much for me. King and Koontz, aka "the entire horror section of most bookshops" are just the worst. Thomas Ligotti and Laird Barron are fun to read, but I don't get scared reading them, just a kind of perverse thrill to see what'll happen. Haunted, by Palahnuik, just kind of fell flat too. I'm down for any kind of scary; be it monsters, ghosts, real world diseases, explorations of insanity, a really crummy shade of blue, anything to make me stay up at night feeling terrified.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2013 15:29
|
|
|
Whalley posted:I'm down for any kind of scary; be it monsters, ghosts, real world diseases, explorations of insanity, a really crummy shade of blue, anything to make me stay up at night feeling terrified. If you have any kind of anxiety about God/the afterlife/the meaning of life, David Eagleman's Sum could do a number on you.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2013 15:41
|
|
|
funkybottoms posted:If you have any kind of anxiety about God/the afterlife/the meaning of life, David Eagleman's Sum could do a number on you. In the same vein, Zack Parson's Liminal States has an extremely nihilistic feel to it throughout, and I would classify a few moments of the third act as downright horror. The ending chilled me to the core. I might also recommend The Seven Days of Peter Crumb by Jonny Glynn. It's been a while since I've read it, but it's pretty disturbing.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2013 15:58
|
|
|
I'm about to come to the end of the books I bought cheaply on Kindle, and I'm trying to decide what to read next. Here's a short list of recent stuff. I am Legend A Stir of Echoes The Day of the Triffids (will likely finish today or tomorrow) What Dreams May Come Heir to the Empire and Dark Force Rising (Star Wars, which were fine, but his prose bothers me) The Disappearing Spoon (got through like half of it before I got bored with it) I'm really at a loss of where to go from here. I'm definitely getting into Sci-Fi, but I'm unsure if I want to take a break and go in a different direction before coming back (I got a whole bunch of Sci-Fi recommendations from the Sci-Fi thread). I was thinking of Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief, but I'm waffling on it. Finally, at least for this next book, I'm trying to avoid something horribly depressing/bleak. It doesn't have to be happy or uplifting, but after a couple books about the end of the world, I feel like I'm due for something that isn't about how hosed we all are. So this is kind of an open request for recommendations. I'm just not sure in which direction to go. Edit: I was also thinking The Phantom Tollbooth, but again, I'm waffling. Fremry fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Aug 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2013 21:37
|
|
|
I don't know much sci-fi so I can't help there, but:Fremry posted:Edit: I was also thinking The Phantom Tollbooth, but again, I'm waffling. Stop waffling, that's one of my favorite books and you can't go wrong (unless you loathe kids' books for some reason, I guess). If you like the tone of that, Diana Wynne Jones writes in a similar vein of lighthearted fun; and Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard is almost an adult's Tollbooth in terms of witty writing and humor.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 02:54
|
|
|
Echo Cian posted:I don't know much sci-fi so I can't help there, but: I definitely don't have to go sci-fi, and I have plenty of those recommendations. I was thinking of branching out, but don't know really where to go. I read pretty much exclusively on my kindle, so would that affect the Tollbooth reading experience?
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 04:44
|
|
|
Fremry posted:I definitely don't have to go sci-fi, and I have plenty of those recommendations. I was thinking of branching out, but don't know really where to go. I read pretty much exclusively on my kindle, so would that affect the Tollbooth reading experience? Only if ebooks remove illustrations.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 05:06
|
|
|
For those interested in criminology, I am recommending Inside the Criminal Mind by Stanton Samenow. An elegant and very accessible primer into the criminal minds and its prospects for rehabilitation.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 10:22
|
|
|
Echo Cian posted:Only if ebooks remove illustrations. If you've got the latest Kindle software updates, you can read comic books on them now (for things like the old Kindle Keyboard model, etc.), so that shouldn't be a problem any more.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 12:44
|
|
|
Thanks, I went ahead and bought it. I figure I have a little bit of vacation coming up, some traveling for work and I'll breeze through it. Edit: I have last year's Kindle and I am pretty sure I have seen illustrations at some point in a book, so I figure I'll be okay. Fremry fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Aug 27, 2013 |
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2013 14:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 04:39 |
|
|
Whalley posted:I want to read something that'll scare the poo poo out of me. So far, my list of books that have actually unnerved me is woefully short You should try David Peace's Red Riding Quartet. They're noir crime fiction but are very, very bleak and dark and manage to be much more unsettling, disturbing and scary than most straight horror I've read recently.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2013 02:24
|
|