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If you've played Warcraft you will "get" Warhammer. We have a thread for Warhammer books generally. The "black library" one.
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Dec 26, 2017 20:29
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I have a gift card and I thought I'd lay out some options and let goons choose for me from a few books I'm interested in: 1) Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad 2) Typhoon and Collected Stories ("Typhoon", “The friend of the family of the ‘Narcissus'", “The Shadow-Line”), Joseph Conrad 3) Parade's End, Ford Madox Ford 4) Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
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Dec 29, 2017 17:35
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Of the three I've read, definitely Lord Jim. Though it's worth saying that both Conrad and FMF are out of copyright and therefore available for free on Gutenberg. I have no opinion on the Pasternak.
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Dec 30, 2017 11:39
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Yeah the best overall single book purchase you can make, if you're willing to read older stuff, is a kindle or other ereader, then download everything out of copyright and read it all. Dr. Zhivago's a great book but there may be other Russian authors to read first depending on where you are.
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Dec 30, 2017 17:56
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I really enjoyed the Laundry Files series by Charles Stross. I especially liked the passages where he would describe real-world military/espionage procedures and practices and was wondering if I would enjoy some Tom Clancy style stuff. The only problem is that I have a low tolerance for bad writing (which Stross is definitely guilty of at times). I'm looking for two separate recommendations I suppose: Good stuff that's similar to The Laundry Files (please not Dresden stuff) and perhaps something along the lines of a Clancy thriller, but well written. Edit: The concerns I have about Clancy writing quality is that everyone I know of that has read one always caveats any recommendation by saying something like: "It's okay but poorly written". Gunder fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Dec 31, 2017 |
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Dec 31, 2017 22:27
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Gunder posted:I really enjoyed the Laundry Files series by Charles Stross. I especially liked the passages where he would describe real-world military/espionage procedures and practices and was wondering if I would enjoy some Tom Clancy style stuff. The only problem is that I have a low tolerance for bad writing (which Stross is definitely guilty of at times). Have you read Stross' Halting State/Rule 34?
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Dec 31, 2017 22:28
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StrixNebulosa posted:Have you read Stross' Halting State/Rule 34? No, the synopsis doesn't really appeal though, at least not in the way that the Laundry Files did.
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Dec 31, 2017 22:33
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Gunder posted:No, the synopsis doesn't really appeal though, at least not in the way that the Laundry Files did. Fair 'nuff. I'm fresh outta recs, tho. Sorry!
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Dec 31, 2017 22:35
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Thanks for trying. I'm getting to the point where I realise that I might be asking for something that's so narrow, that Stross might be the only game in town.
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Dec 31, 2017 22:36
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I have good news my friend. Tim Powers’ Declare scratches the same itch as Stross. Go read it. If you want to read some well-crafted novels about espionage without the supernatural element, Le Carre is pretty much the golden standard. Len Deighton wrote some decent spy stuff and the rather good alternative history SS-GB.
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Dec 31, 2017 23:14
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Wow, The Goblin Emperor was fantastic, glad I saw it here. It's so refreshing reading something so optimistic/upbeat in SFF, especially after reading the incredibly down-trodden latest book in The Expanse series directly before it. Anyone have other recommendations for SFF where people aren't getting poo poo on the entire time?
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Jan 1, 2018 00:56
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:I have good news my friend. Tim Powers’ Declare scratches the same itch as Stross. Go read it. Thanks! I'll give Declare a go!
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Jan 1, 2018 01:11
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Gunder posted:Thanks! I'll give Declare a go! You are making a good choice, and you should celebrate it.
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Jan 1, 2018 03:42
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Loutre posted:Wow, The Goblin Emperor was fantastic, glad I saw it here. It's so refreshing reading something so optimistic/upbeat in SFF, especially after reading the incredibly down-trodden latest book in The Expanse series directly before it. Other options: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is pretty friendly as far as SF goes, nothing amazing though. To Say Nothing of the Dog is a British comedy of manners with time travel, very relaxing read too. Gunder posted:Thanks! I'll give Declare a go!
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Jan 1, 2018 11:27
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Someone recommended Becky Chambers to me here literally four months ago and I finally read it and it was great. Any other similar recommendations?
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Jan 1, 2018 17:52
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Looking for a book recommendation, I've been reading a fuckton of horrible 20th century history over the past year. I'd sort of like to branch out though, maybe get back to fiction. My recent tear has been through The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a biography of Hitler (I think Kershaw?), Mao: The Unknown History, Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, Stalin (Radzinsky) and enjoyed all of them quite a bit. I'm almost of a mind to read Churchill's WW2 retrospective, or read something about Japan pre-WW1->WW2, but like I said, I sort of want to branch out a little bit to not-20th-century-history. Fiction/philosophy I've read (and loved) in the past few years is of (most) Cormac McCarthy, (all) PKD, (all) Iain M Banks, Schopenhauer. Pretty much the only book I've ever hated is Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  ninjaedit: and yeah, eponysterical, I know
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Jan 2, 2018 02:35
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If you don't mind a bit of magic in your 20th century, Declare by Tim Powers has been recommended a couple posts ago and it's great - a spy novel based on the life of Kim Philby interpreted via supernatural phenomena.
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Jan 2, 2018 17:21
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I like schlocky-rear end action sci fi, so reccomend me books in the vein of Stars at War. Under that umbrella I've read things like Old Man's War, Honor Harrington, The Black Fleet/Expansion Wars, the Star Carrier series, Passage at Arms, The Lost Fleet and a good chunk of the Frontiers Sage. E: Oh and that series with Skippy the talking beer can.
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Jan 5, 2018 04:50
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I'm looking for three types of nonfiction. I have a background in microbiology/biochem (and history, but that's not really relevant to this) so academically heavy is fine. 1. Superfund sites books like Toms River. It can be about superfund cleanup in general, specific sites, whatever. 2. Nuclear disaster/criticality accident books like Command and Control, Atomic Accidents, etc. Again, general or specific event is fine. 3. Epidemiology/zoonotic diseases/virology/etc. books like Spillover. Pulpy/sensationalist books with questionable science like The Hot Zone I'd like to avoid.
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Jan 7, 2018 02:15
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13Pandora13 posted:I'm looking for three types of nonfiction. I have a background in microbiology/biochem (and history, but that's not really relevant to this) so academically heavy is fine. Biohazard: the chilling true story rules for #3
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Jan 7, 2018 04:31
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13Pandora13 posted:I'm looking for three types of nonfiction. I have a background in microbiology/biochem (and history, but that's not really relevant to this) so academically heavy is fine. Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster by David Lochbaum scared the gently caress out of me. I've read books on Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island, but this one really stands out for describing the sheer number of things that went haywire and why. I highly recommend it. EDIT: what's really nice about this book is that it places the accident in historical context with other critical incidents. So there's good discussions of the other accidents, why this one was different, but also how those accidents should have served to better inform the operators at Fukushima (but didn't). It also gets into some of the bureaucracy unique to Japan that made things more difficult than they should have been. AARP LARPer fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jan 8, 2018 06:35
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Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
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Jan 8, 2018 20:08
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster this is excellent but it focuses overwhelmingly on the human, rather than the scientific, aspect of the disaster, which may not be what pandora is looking for not that i have a dog in this fight, or anything
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Jan 8, 2018 20:23
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Dadbod Apocalypse posted:Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster by David Lochbaum scared the gently caress out of me. I've read books on Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island, but this one really stands out for describing the sheer number of things that went haywire and why. I highly recommend it. If it's any comfort, my Dad used to work in nuclear power up until a few years ago when he retired, and he reported that Fukushima basically made the US nuclear industry go bananas for safety, again. And this is an industry that's already completely paranoid for safety! (Not without reason!) So - the experts in those fields are all over Fukushima and preventing it from happening. Same with Three-Mile Island and the other disasters. (He worked in the Nine-Mile Nuclear Power Plant in New York, and was a procedures guy for years and years. Before that he was an inspector in...Arizona? Something with the government. So he's big into safety and regulations and stuff.)
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Jan 8, 2018 20:37
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chernobyl kinsman posted:this is excellent but it focuses overwhelmingly on the human, rather than the scientific, aspect of the disaster, which may not be what pandora is looking for Yes and no - Command and Control has a lot of human element/discussing the team at Damascus but it doesn't "dumb anything down" so to speak. I'm okay with a mixture of aspects to the book, or even a story like narrative, I just don't want anything sensationalist because it tends to sacrifice science for storytelling (like The Hot Zone, which is just straight up poor epidemiology and fear incitement). I do tend to find the heavier science stuff more interesting. Thanks everyone for the suggestions!
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Jan 9, 2018 02:11
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13Pandora13 posted:I'm looking for three types of nonfiction. I have a background in microbiology/biochem (and history, but that's not really relevant to this) so academically heavy is fine. Global Warming: the Greenpeace Report Edited by Jeremy Leggett, Oxford University Press, 1990 Let me know how depressing it is nearly 30 years later edit: also consider Waste Management Inc.: An Encyclopedia of Environmental Crimes and Other MIsdeeds A Greenpeace Report by Charlie Cray Mostly a documentation of decades of poo poo from across the US up until 1991. Its not really a narrative so much as a depressing timeline of how corrupt this company is Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Jan 9, 2018 |
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Jan 9, 2018 06:20
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My wife and I are trying to find a book we can enjoy together. Looking for a fiction book with humor that isn't a celebrity memoir. It has to be a work of pure fiction. Also, if it's more women driven that's a big plus. Something like Bridget Jones Diary but more contemporary. People on good reads recommended these but after reading reviews they seem not what I'm looking for. One for the Money By Janet Evanovich The Business By Iain Banks Eligible By Curtis Sittenfeld
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Jan 10, 2018 22:51
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sonatinas posted:My wife and I are trying to find a book we can enjoy together. Looking for a fiction book with humor that isn't a celebrity memoir. It has to be a work of pure fiction. Also, if it's more women driven that's a big plus. Something like Bridget Jones Diary but more contemporary. I asked my friend for recs and got Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan, and Something like Happy by Eva Woods. e: She's still going! Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here by by Anna Breslaw. (on the YA side) StrixNebulosa fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Jan 10, 2018 |
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Jan 10, 2018 23:14
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White Noise by Don DeLillosonatinas posted:My wife and I are trying to find a book we can enjoy together. Looking for a fiction book with humor that isn't a celebrity memoir. It has to be a work of pure fiction. Also, if it's more women driven that's a big plus. Something like Bridget Jones Diary but more contemporary. White Noise by Don DeLillo. It’s darkly funny and revolves around a husband and his wife (husband is the narrator).
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Jan 10, 2018 23:18
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sonatinas posted:My wife and I are trying to find a book we can enjoy together. Looking for a fiction book with humor that isn't a celebrity memoir. It has to be a work of pure fiction. Also, if it's more women driven that's a big plus. Something like Bridget Jones Diary but more contemporary. If you're just looking for fun reads, then get a Christopher Moore book. You'll probably like his vampire books (Bloodsucking Freaks, You Suck, Bite Me), since it's about a couple. For something a little more literary, look into Nicotine by Nell Zink, or maybe one of her other novels.
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Jan 10, 2018 23:25
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Franchescanado posted:If you're just looking for fun reads, then get a Christopher Moore book. You'll probably like his vampire books (Bloodsucking Freaks, You Suck, Bite Me), since it's about a couple. The Stupidest Angel is my favorite Christopher Moore, but the vampire books have a stronger female lead.
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Jan 11, 2018 07:20
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sonatinas posted:My wife and I are trying to find a book we can enjoy together. Looking for a fiction book with humor that isn't a celebrity memoir. It has to be a work of pure fiction. Also, if it's more women driven that's a big plus. Something like Bridget Jones Diary but more contemporary.
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Jan 11, 2018 12:51
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Thanks for all the suggestions!
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Jan 11, 2018 14:35
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Are the John Carter of Mars books still worth reading? I know that they have some problems, including sexism, racism, and general glorification of colonialism, but they do seem interesting, and there apparently still is a pretty sizable modern fan base.
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Jan 11, 2018 19:53
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Are the John Carter of Mars books still worth reading? I know that they have some problems, including sexism, racism, and general glorification of colonialism, but they do seem interesting, and there apparently still is a pretty sizable modern fan base. applying modern standards of wokeness to pulp fiction from the 1920s is a very stupid way to read. yes, they're still fun if you like pulp adventure stories from the 1920s. they are very firmly products of their genre and time period.
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Jan 11, 2018 23:53
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chernobyl kinsman posted:applying modern standards of wokeness to pulp fiction from the 1920s is a very stupid way to read. yes, they're still fun if you like pulp adventure stories from the 1920s. they are very firmly products of their genre and time period. I'll go further though: By the standards of 20's pulp, the John Carter books were progressive. I mean, they're amazingly racist, sexist, colonialist, etc., by modern standards, but so is almost everything else from that time period. John Carter is explicitly a Confederate soldier and Burroughs definitely breaks up his martians into Red Men of Mars and Green Men of Mars and Black Men of Mars and Blond Men of Mars and so forth, but he's careful to make the "Aryan"-ish Martians the bad guys, and he's careful to always have One Good One from each race who is John Carter's special friend and a Good Person Despite Everything. When you compare that with, say, Lovecraft, or Haggard, or Robert E. Howard -- all of whom were explicitly and profoundly racist -- Burroughs comes across like he's leading a Pride parade. The main thing to prep your head for, reading Burroughs, apart from the racism, is that he's inventing a lot of tropes that see a LOT of use in later fiction, so sometimes his stuff comes across now as boring and unimaginative because we've seen it before. (This was one of the big problems with the John Carter movie, which I'm actually a huge fan of -- but all its best scenes were already in Star Wars). Basically if you have a hard time with Tolkien because orcs are boring and (you feel) kinda racist, DO NOT bother with John Carter, you'll hate it. If you can suspend disbelief long enough to read Tolkien, and can appreciate solid B-movie cheese, give John Carter a try.
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Jan 12, 2018 00:07
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chernobyl kinsman posted:applying modern standards of wokeness to pulp fiction from the 1920s is a very stupid way to read. yes, they're still fun if you like pulp adventure stories from the 1920s. they are very firmly products of their genre and time period. Literature is interpreted in the era of the reader, not the writer There is no way to interpret a novel than through contemporary eyes
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Jan 12, 2018 00:12
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Literature is interpreted in the era of the reader, not the writer By this logic we would totally disregard a gargantuan amount of famous literature because it is racist/sexist etc. It is absolutely possible to read literature whilst taking into consideration the social/political climate of the times in which it was written. Even middle schoolers do it when they read Huckleberry Finn. To say otherwise is simply untrue.
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Jan 12, 2018 00:19
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Kvlt! posted:By this logic we would totally disregard a gargantuan amount of famous literature because it is racist/sexist etc. I'm fine with that. New books come out all the time, after all. And Lensman sucks.
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Jan 12, 2018 02:16
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Literature is interpreted in the era of the reader, not the writer condemning writers of the past for failing to live up to (a particular subset of) the ideals of the present is staggeringly dumb mel
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Jan 12, 2018 02:40
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