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Darth Walrus posted:Cousin's fifteenth birthday is coming up, and he is a total petrolhead. Refs? Uh, chitty chitty bang bang? I have no loving idea.
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Mar 18, 2015 22:28
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Selachian posted:Jack Vance's Cugel the Clever books (The Eyes of the Overworld et al.) are also great examples of a scummy trickster hero, but the world is more preposterous than grimdark. This.All Vance Dying Earth stuff is great, but Cugel is a fun scumbag.
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Mar 18, 2015 22:44
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Darth Walrus posted:Cousin's fifteenth birthday is coming up, and he is a total petrolhead. Recs? I googled some Henry Ford biographies for you, and this was supposed to be good Watts, S. (2005). The People’s Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century. New York: A.A. Knopf
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Mar 18, 2015 22:51
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Darth Walrus posted:Cousin's fifteenth birthday is coming up, and he is a total petrolhead. Recs? It's probably a terrible idea to give this to a 15yo but since you said "petrolhead" instead of "gearhead" I'm going to assume it'll be a few years before he can drive so... Going Faster: Mastering the Art of Race Driving It's basically a textbook with some physics and math in it but if he reads it, he will get better at Forza/Gran Turismo.
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Mar 19, 2015 04:17
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Anything I can grab on kindle that would give me an overview of the Israel Palestinian conflict that at least attempts to be objective.
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Mar 19, 2015 16:22
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spacebrospiff posted:Anything I can grab on kindle that would give me an overview of the Israel Palestinian conflict that at least attempts to be objective. The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Very Short Introduction by Martin Bunton might be a good bet. The Very Short Introduction series as a whole is excellent and they tend to have authors who know their onions.
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Mar 19, 2015 17:26
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Lawen posted:It's probably a terrible idea to give this to a 15yo but since you said "petrolhead" instead of "gearhead" I'm going to assume it'll be a few years before he can drive so... He's an amateur kart racer with a couple of minor trophies who recently got his own vehicle. This'll be raw catnip, thanks.
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Mar 19, 2015 21:51
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I have a tricky one. I need some recommendations for book club reading but they've pretty much got to be either fairly new books or something kind of obscure to the US market. Personally I'm leaning towards sci-fi, but at this point I'll settle for pretty much anything that someone in the group hasn't already read or deliberately opted not to read. Station Eleven and Bone Clocks are already out.
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Mar 23, 2015 06:56
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there wolf posted:I have a tricky one. I need some recommendations for book club reading but they've pretty much got to be either fairly new books or something kind of obscure to the US market. Personally I'm leaning towards sci-fi, but at this point I'll settle for pretty much anything that someone in the group hasn't already read or deliberately opted not to read. Station Eleven and Bone Clocks are already out. Hooboy, I have the same problem with picking something for the book club I'm in too. How about The Martian by Andy Weir (American astronaut stranded on Mars, recent and still quite new), or The Three-Body-Problem by Cixin Liu (Cultural Revolution, as well as intense physics and alien contact)? There's always Roger Zelazny or Octavia Butler for some different flavors of sci-fi. You could always go for Mary Shelley's The Last Man, but it's both a long read and a difficult one...and probably more interesting if you go in with some background on the Romantic era. (I don't actually suggest picking this unless your book club is a patient bunch.)
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Mar 23, 2015 09:28
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Really enjoyed the Three Body Problem,so I'll second that suggestion. Looking forward to reading more of the series.
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Mar 23, 2015 09:45
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Lprsti99 posted:I'm looking for something fantasy/sci-fi. I've only got a vague idea of what I want, but I will say that most of the novels I've enjoyed have been funny and/or cynical/GRIMDARK/whatever. Bonus points if the protagonist is morally-questionable or an antihero, or gets by with mainly their wits (Guile Hero, I think the term is from TVTropes). Can't see that anyone has mentioned The Lies of Locke Lamora yet. (And the sequels, but especially the first book.) The adventures of a con-man in Fantasy Not-Venice. Got you covered both on the grimdark and the funny aspects. Also, have you read the Miles Vorkosigan series? Not quite so much grimdark (although bits and pieces of the setting are grim enough), the main character is basically a space opera version of Tyrion Lannister with way better parents and a stronger moral core (except the series has been around for a decade longer than Martin's fantasy opus so it's more the other way around). Best trickster-hero ever. It's been ongoing since the 1980s and there are like 15 books or something.
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Mar 23, 2015 16:37
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Groke posted:Can't see that anyone has mentioned The Lies of Locke Lamora yet. (And the sequels, but especially the first book.) The adventures of a con-man in Fantasy Not-Venice. Got you covered both on the grimdark and the funny aspects. Haven't read either of those, added to the list.
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Mar 23, 2015 17:26
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Selachian posted:Ed McBain's "87th Precinct" books are pretty good for this. There are a billion of them but they mostly stand on their own, plus they're quick reads, so you can grab whatever looks good. regulargonzalez posted:Richard Stark aka Donald Westlake's Parker novels might work. They're from the pov of the "bad guy", who is close to amoral but very competent. They maybe lack a bit of Michael Mann style flash, though. The Mel Gibson movie Payback is an adaptation of a Parker book, if that helps. Thanks for these. The used book store didn't have any Ed McBain books but I did grab one of the newer Parker's. I really liked it even though it's not what I was looking for. Basically Miami Vice (The Movie): The Book , but I guess that might not exist. Will definitely be on the lookout for more Parker, though.
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Mar 23, 2015 21:58
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After finishing The Three Body Problem I'm hungry for something about the Chinese cultural revolution. Something in the same vein as Red Plenty would be nice if it exists.
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Mar 23, 2015 21:59
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Can anyone recommend any good novels over 1000 pages long?
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Mar 23, 2015 23:48
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Boner Calhoun posted:Can anyone recommend any good novels over 1000 pages long? War and Peace and In Search of Lost Time maybe
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Mar 24, 2015 00:25
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Boner Calhoun posted:Can anyone recommend any good novels over 1000 pages long? Count of Monte Cristo, Dance to the Music of Time.
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Mar 24, 2015 03:01
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Boner Calhoun posted:Can anyone recommend any good novels over 1000 pages long? Like, literally a thousand+ pages, or just a doorstop-novel? Game of Thrones, Dune, Anathem, Les Miserables, East or Eden I think... you might be better off looking for word count. Around 400,000 usually gets you in the thousand page range.
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Mar 24, 2015 03:46
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Boner Calhoun posted:Can anyone recommend any good novels over 1000 pages long? A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth is a really good one about families in newly-independent India. As mentioned before, War and Peace is good, and if you like really epic scope, A Moment in the Sun by John Sayles is a great yarn about America at the turn of the century - the Spanish-American War, racial violence in the South, insurrections in the Philippines, the assassination of McKinley - as seen through a number of people from various walks of life. Those are pretty big historical epics, but I dig those. The Instructions by Adam Levin is something a little more off-the-wall - it's about a ten-year-old who believes he's the Messiah and starts a revolution at his strange school. It's bizarre, but I really enjoyed it. Those are the longest books I remember reading recently that didn't have dragons or wizards.
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Mar 24, 2015 06:16
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there wolf posted:Like, literally a thousand+ pages, or just a doorstop-novel? Game of Thrones, Dune, Anathem, Les Miserables, East or Eden I think... you might be better off looking for word count. Around 400,000 usually gets you in the thousand page range. Dune is like 300 pages maybe. Count of Monte Cristo is very good or Shogun is always a good choice
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Mar 24, 2015 06:27
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Boner Calhoun posted:Can anyone recommend any good novels over 1000 pages long? If you like historical drama in the style of Dumas, can handle names with too many consonants, and don't mind books that will break toes if you drop them, try Henryk Sienkiewicz's "The Trilogy" (With Fire and Sword, Deluge, Fire on the Steppe). All together, it's just north of 3,500 pages. Should keep you busy for a while.
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Mar 24, 2015 06:48
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Quandary posted:Dune is like 300 pages maybe. Count of Monte Cristo is very good or Shogun is always a good choice Really? I must have had some giant-margins monstrosity when I read it so many years ago. I was reading Les Miserables at the same time and the books were pretty much the same size. That's probably why word count would be a better metric; Dune clocks in at 188k while Les Miserables is well over 530k. And having now fallen down that hole, it looks like if you want really big books you should be reading mostly dead Russians and epic fantasy. Wheel of Time, Stormlight Archives, Malazan, Song of Ice and Fire, The Night's Down Trilogy, and the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn Trilogy all have book that approach/exceed a 400k word count.
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Mar 24, 2015 10:35
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Boner Calhoun posted:Can anyone recommend any good novels over 1000 pages long?
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Mar 24, 2015 12:10
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Hey guys! I have pretty bad ADHD and it's very, very difficult for me to read. I read as a little kid and then as I grew up I found I just could not do it anymore. I'm looking to start reading again for fun as I really want to be able to enjoy books but they are really hard for me to focus on. Can anyone reccomend the best books about the UFC/MMA fighting? Maybe more from an individual fighter's perspective rather than an overview of UFC/MMA. Trying to avoid really dry, dense books. As childish as it sounds, the more "casually" a book is written the easier it is for me to read. Thanks everyone!
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Mar 24, 2015 15:15
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Kvlt! posted:Hey guys! I enjoyed Big John McCarthy's autobio Let's Get It On, which isn't exactly the most difficult read, but not terribly written either. Full of great anecdotes by someone who's been around the sport forever.
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Mar 24, 2015 15:35
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there wolf posted:Really? I must have had some giant-margins monstrosity when I read it so many years ago. I was reading Les Miserables at the same time and the books were pretty much the same size. That's probably why word count would be a better metric; Dune clocks in at 188k while Les Miserables is well over 530k. Dune has one of the biggest in-book glossaries I've ever seen - so maybe that accounts for some of it? I read the first one way back in HS in the nascent internet days, and constantly flipping to the back, while interesting, was killing my progress. I don't recall it being that long.
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Mar 24, 2015 15:41
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Lprsti99 posted:Haven't read either of those, added to the list. Locke Lamora is definitely a good one. Even though the sequels weren't quite as good, imo still a fun 3 books to finish (and more planned). I'd also throw out Patrick Rothfuss Kingkiller Trilogy. Even though the 3rd one isnt going to be out for another decade. The protagonist is a bit of a goony Mary-Sue but it was a fun read as well. If you liked that (or at least parts of it), I'd also throw out Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy. It's another first-person retelling and quite enjoyable. And if you like Sanderson, I've just started reading Brian McClellan's Power Mage trilogy which the third book just came out. It's Sanderson-like and a fun fantasy read so far. A fair amount of twists, politics, and espionage as well. It fits right in with your want of Magic vs Technology as there's an (waning) collective/cabal of people who can use sorcery who support the royal monarchs and then an growing technology with the invention of more industrial-esque era and a growing collective of people who can injest and manipulate gunpowder to give them powers and gently caress the mages up. Xaris fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Mar 24, 2015 |
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Mar 24, 2015 19:54
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Lprsti99 posted:I'm looking for something fantasy/sci-fi. I've only got a vague idea of what I want, but I will say that most of the novels I've enjoyed have been funny and/or cynical/GRIMDARK/whatever. Bonus points if the protagonist is morally-questionable or an antihero, or gets by with mainly their wits (Guile Hero, I think the term is from TVTropes). I don't know if you play video games, so you may (or not) be familiar with the series, but the The Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski are supposed to be good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witcher wiki link if you've not played the games.
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Mar 24, 2015 20:51
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Boner Calhoun posted:Can anyone recommend any good novels over 1000 pages long? the man without qualities
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Mar 24, 2015 21:18
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Pork Pie Hat posted:I don't know if you play video games, so you may (or not) be familiar with the series, but the The Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski are supposed to be good.
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Mar 24, 2015 23:21
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saphron posted:Hooboy, I have the same problem with picking something for the book club I'm in too. How about The Martian by Andy Weir (American astronaut stranded on Mars, recent and still quite new), or The Three-Body-Problem by Cixin Liu (Cultural Revolution, as well as intense physics and alien contact)? There's always Roger Zelazny or Octavia Butler for some different flavors of sci-fi. The Three Body Problem won! Thanks for the recommendation.
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Mar 25, 2015 07:29
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there wolf posted:The Three Body Problem won! Thanks for the recommendation. Great book, just finished it myself! The second one in the series is coming out in july, can't wait. Anyway, I too am looking for decent sci fi books. I've read The Martian and loved it. Some old favorites include books like Neuromancer, Snow Crash, When Gravity Fails and the Forever War. Does anyone know of something decent and similar I might not have read? I dig post apocalyptic, dark and depressing "hard" sci fi stuff. Mystery and lots of technobabble is a plus
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Mar 25, 2015 14:22
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AMINAL posted:Anyway, I too am looking for decent sci fi books. I've read The Martian and loved it. Some old favorites include books like Neuromancer, Snow Crash, When Gravity Fails and the Forever War. Does anyone know of something decent and similar I might not have read? The Quantum Thief might suit your needs.
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Mar 25, 2015 14:30
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Subjunctive posted:The Quantum Thief might suit your needs. This looks.. great! Thank you so much, my weekend is saved. 
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Mar 25, 2015 14:40
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AMINAL posted:I dig post apocalyptic, dark and depressing "hard" sci fi stuff. Mystery and lots of technobabble is a plus You want to read Altered Carbon
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Mar 25, 2015 17:03
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AMINAL posted:Great book, just finished it myself! The second one in the series is coming out in july, can't wait. Charles Stross, Accelerando. You will have so much technobabble you won't even know where to put it.
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Mar 25, 2015 17:12
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Any recommendations for native american literature? I'm working on The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie right now and it owns. It's the first book in a while where I'll read a section and then want to go back and read it again to pick up on the subtext. I just read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Custer Died For Your Sins so I'd like to keep reading stuff in this vein for a bit. I'm pretty ignorant still though. Are there any highly regarded authors from any of the plains tribes?
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Mar 25, 2015 17:48
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AMINAL posted:I dig post apocalyptic, dark and depressing "hard" sci fi stuff. Mystery and lots of technobabble is a plus
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Mar 25, 2015 18:02
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ShakeyDog posted:Any recommendations for native american literature? I'm working on The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie right now and it owns. It's the first book in a while where I'll read a section and then want to go back and read it again to pick up on the subtext. The Education of Little Tree. Read it first, then listen to the This American Life (or Radiolab?) episode about it. Don't read anything on the internet about it beforehand.
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Mar 25, 2015 19:03
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ShakeyDog posted:Any recommendations for native american literature? I'm working on The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie right now and it owns. It's the first book in a while where I'll read a section and then want to go back and read it again to pick up on the subtext. It's fiction, but I really enjoyed Don Coldsmith's Spanish Bit Saga when I was younger. It's about the introduction of the horse to the Plains tribes by Spanish explorers, one of whom gets separated from his group and is adopted into a tribe. (The tribes are all fictional too). Novels are pretty short from what I remember, but there's like 30 of them. From what I can see the series is pretty well regarded, too, so it's not just my rose-colored glasses.
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Mar 25, 2015 19:42
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