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Casao posted:Looking for some good Noir/"hardboiled" detective stuff. The classic kinda thing, with gangsters and everything. I've not really read anything in the genre, but it interests me, so consider me a blank slate. Chandler and Hammett for where it all started, of course. James Ellroy's LA Quartet is a must-read as well. I just turned my brother onto Ellroy recently and he's plowed through almost all of the Ellroy books I loaned him.
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Sep 24, 2010 03:35
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Bobstar posted:I'm looking for any kind of fiction set in or around Aztec / other ancient South American culture, either set in the past or retrospective. I'm hoping that's vague enough to encompass a few things! I think I already suggested it in this thread for someone else but here you go: Aztec and the followup Aztec Autumn by Gary Jennings are both excellent.
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Oct 5, 2010 18:57
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schoenfelder posted:If fictionalized is okay, take a look at Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi. It's the story of Henry Hill, an affiliate of the Lucchese family in NYC in the 70s/80s(?). Scorsese's "Goodfellas" is also based on this. I read the book a few years ago and remember it as quite good. Casino (also by Pileggi and was the basis for the Scorsese movie of the same name) is a good read as well.
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Oct 10, 2010 15:56
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Tin Miss posted:Can someone recommend me a good fantasy book along the same lines as Garth Nix's "Sabriel"? The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells is pretty good from what I recall.
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Oct 26, 2010 18:47
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Izzy Mandelbaum posted:I'm after some new noir type stories along the lines of Dennis Lehane and the TV show Terriers. Stories about modern days private investigators. I love/have read most stories by James Ellroy, Lehane, Hammet, Chandler, Charlie Huston, Andrew Vachss, Ross MacDonald, Jim Thompson etc.. James Crumley - Same way with words that Chandler has, but with a certain countrified style. The Last Good Kiss is definitely one of his best, but anything by him I've read is generally a good read. Burning through one of the only books by him that I haven't read yet (Bordersnakes) right now. Ken Bruen - Love this guy ever since I checked him out a couple years ago. Irish crime writer who's written a shitload of stuff, most of which is excellent. I'd definitely recommend the Jack Taylor series - it's about an Irish ex-cop turned private detective in Galway, Ireland. Start with The Guards, then there's about 5-6 more books in the series to date.
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Dec 11, 2010 03:07
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Mr. Crow posted:So I've been guilty of not reading in years and I used to be a huge reader in middle/high school and it's kind of been depressing me lately so I've decided I'm going to start reading some H.P. Lovecraft (among one or two other things) as I've never touched it and I feel there is something wrong with me for having not, can anyone recommend a good starting point/book? The Colour Out of Space, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, etc. are good starting points for Lovecraft. Project Gutenberg has Lovecraft's entire catalog available online for free if you don't mind reading them on the computer.
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Feb 24, 2011 02:59
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:You could also try Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun; it takes place on an Earth so many millions of years in the future that they can't even count the number of apocalypses they've had. This a hundred times. There's also Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" series (big influence on Wolfe, too) Finally, the Viriconium novels and stories by M. John Harrison are highly recommended as well - they've been collected in a nice omnibus edition that came out several years ago.
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Feb 24, 2011 17:32
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Octopus posted:Yes! - definitely very similar with the whole dark carnival/taking souls - but again, Johannes Cabal is pretty humorous. I think I'd like to make a side request and ask if anyone has any traveling circus/carnival recommendations. I've read Water for Elephants, Geek Love, and Carter Beats the Devil, and both of the above mentioned books. Any other awesome ones out there? Spangle by Gary Jennings is excellent (though it seems to be out of print and hard to find - your local library may have it). It follows an American Civil War-era soldier who joins a traveling circus after the war and travels across Europe with it.
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Apr 4, 2011 14:07
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Octopus posted:I'm tickled to say, I was able to order it from a partner library this morning. YAY! Thanks for the recommendation. Very nice. Hope you like it. 
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Apr 4, 2011 16:22
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Evfedu posted:Anyone able to recommend a good book about love? Love in the Time of Cholera isn't exactly the equivalent of a good romantic comedy but it's a great book nonetheless.
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Apr 10, 2011 00:45
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Traxis posted:I'm looking for books that tell a story via a series of related short stories, like Dan Simmons' Hyperion. Genre isn't that important. I'm also looking for horror/suspense novels dealing with areas of extreme isolation (something set in Antarctica would be great). An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears is a murder mystery set in 16th-century England and examines the central murder from the viewpoints of 4 or so main characters telling their stories in succession, leaving the reader to piece together the truth from their ultimately unreliable viewpoints. The Terror by Dan Simmons would definitely fit the bill for your second request (fictionalized account of the failed Franklin Expedition to map the Northwest Passage in the 1800s with a fair bit of horror thrown in). Not the best thing Simmons has ever done but a decent read if you can stick with it.
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Apr 25, 2011 23:21
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DrGonzo90 posted:I'm interested in military non-fiction, specifically dealing with unconventional warfare and special forces groups. Really any small, highly trained military group (like Green Berets, snipers, etc.) that can affect a combat situation in an unconventional way is of interest to me. I'm also looking for good books on military strategy, both large-scale (tactics of the most successful military leaders) and small-scale. Rogue Warrior by Richard Marcinko. There's a whole series of books under the "Rogue Warrior" name that are fictional but the original book simply titled Rogue Warrior is Marcinko's autobiography that focuses mainly on his career with the Navy SEALs in Vietnam and afterwards.
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Apr 26, 2011 02:30
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TheJoker138 posted:I'm looking for true crime books, preferably available on the Nook store. I read The Cases that Haunt Us recently, and would like more like it. Stuff about unsolved cases, serial killers, etc. Ann Rule has written a shitload of true crime books (The I-5 Killer, The Want-Ad Killer, etc.) that are generally pretty good. She's also notable for having worked with Ted Bundy before he was exposed as a serial killer and wrote a book about it called The Stranger Beside Me (haven't read it though). Don't have a Nook myself so I can't speak to whether any of them are available, though.
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May 14, 2011 17:19
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Miranda posted:Are his thrillers any good? Its ok if they are mindless reading, I'm not studying for summer and need brain function good. I read a shitload of Ken Follett back in the day and honestly I couldn't recommend him that highly but if you're not looking for deep reads, knock yourself out. Eye of the Needle is a classic World War II spy novel and pretty good, nonetheless.
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Jun 6, 2011 02:54
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xcheopis posted:Mr. Charles de Lint has written quite a few such books. Was going to suggest this. I'd also recommend a great short story collection called In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss. A good number of the stories are set in the "real" world with some fantastic elements.
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Jun 7, 2011 22:52
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WeaponGradeSadness posted:For something a little more literary, Warlock by Oakley Hall is a good one (Thomas Pynchon listed it as one of his influences). Also, don't let the name throw you--"Warlock" is just the name of the town the novel's set in. I ignored that book in my Amazon recommendations for so long because I figured it was just something about wizards or some poo poo until someone talked about it in the Western thread here. This. Definitely this. I read it recently after seeing a recommendation quite a while back. Great book.
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Jul 28, 2011 05:02
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nWoCHRISnWo posted:Any good non-fiction books about adventures in Las Vegas? Are there any good autobiographies from big time gamblers/poker players? Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich (the book that 21 was very loosely based on) is an OK read about the MIT students who managed to win a shitload of money playing blackjack in Vegas. The general story is interesting enough but the writer kind of sucks IMHO - your mileage may vary. csidle posted:I'm working my way through Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian at the moment. How do his other works measure up to this in tone and prose? I'm considering putting the time into reading the entire Border trilogy, but I'm also interested in his other stuff. I've read all of his books and Blood Meridian is pretty much the pinnacle. Not to say that his other stuff isn't worth reading - Suttree in particular is excellent (prose and story-wise) and surprisingly funny for McCarthy. The Border trilogy is very good as well if you want more Western stuff from McCarthy, though it takes that in a different direction.
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Aug 1, 2011 15:11
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Snuffman posted:I read the first one and loved it! I just couldn't get into the Dune books after that though... Excellent choice. I love VanderMeer. 
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Aug 21, 2011 21:24
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Jewlian posted:Hey guys, I'm looking for some reading recommendations as I just ran out of reading material. I'm looking for books like ASOIAF -- cynical low fantasy with wry humor. You might dig The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman. I just finished it a couple days ago and it's a really interesting concept (a half-made world with a wild West and an ancient long-settled East, with two warring factions known as the Line and the Gun trying to recover a secret that may change the world) - basically a revisionist-style Western mixed with some fantasy. It reminds me a bit of Lynch and Abercrombie in tone - lots of gritty action and "fucks" dropped frequently, and some great characters (Creedmoor in particular).
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Sep 5, 2011 16:49
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Old Janx Spirit posted:Try Gun, With Occasional Music, by Jonathan Lethem. Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan would fit the bill as well.
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Sep 21, 2011 14:58
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Archer2338 posted:I really enjoyed Dan Simmons' The Terror - what other works by him or other authors is similar to the book? I am familiar with Poe and Lovecraft, but I do need some other horror recommendations. The Terror was one of the few pieces of literature that actually managed to creep me out, so... Drood (also by Simmons) was pretty good if a bit overlong like The Terror. I particularly liked the scarab - body horror is always intensely unsettling for me personally. Simmons is a frustrating writer for me - I like the ideas he comes up with but his endings just kind of wander off into  mode sometimes. He is a pretty versatile writer though - he's done sci-fi, horror, crime and historical stuff.Edit: His debut Song of Kali was pretty creepy as well. I dunno - I seem to have the same problem with not reading a lot of stuff that was particularly creepy, though the alzabo scene from Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe is one of the most skin-crawling things I've ever read in a non-horror work. Encryptic fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Sep 22, 2011 |
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Sep 22, 2011 14:40
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WeaponGradeSadness posted:Are there any good crime novels set in the Middle East, North Africa, or India? I've read Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games and loved it, but was disappointed by Rawi Hage's De Niro's Game because it abandoned the crime aspect incredibly early into the book in exchange for "main character fucks around and is an rear end in a top hat." I'd prefer it to be set in the Middle East and be contemporary, but any crime fiction in that general part of the world would be good. The Arabesk trilogy (Pashazade, Effendi, Felaheen) by Jon Courtenay Grimwood is pretty good - it takes place in an alternate version of North Africa where the Ottoman Empire never collapsed. It's not exactly a series of crime thrillers per se but the first book at least has the main character trying to solve the murder of a family member and unraveling a conspiracy. Might be worth checking out.
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Oct 5, 2011 14:57
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WeaponGradeSadness posted:Encryptic, could you elaborate a bit on what sci-fi elements are in the Arabesk trilogy? I really like the synopsis but all the reviews are talking about it being SF. Is that just because of the alternate history aspect or what? I like the sound of the story well enough to overcome my wariness of SF and get it anyway, I'd just like to know what to expect. I don't recall it being very heavily sci-fi - there's some futuristic elements but it's not like "The Ottoman Empire - IN SPACE" or something. Grimwood's written other stuff that's definitely SF (Stamping Butterflies), but not this. I checked the (spoilerific) Wiki entry on the trilogy to refresh my memory before I posted originally so hopefully you should be safe.  damage path posted:I just finished Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and enjoyed it. Since I liked this book is it reasonable to assume I may like his other works? From what I've read about them they are longer and more challenging to read. If you liked COL49 - you might like his other stuff - it definitely has the same tone but on a much larger scale that makes it difficult to follow (for me anyway). I love his stuff, but I understand probably about 75% of it on a good day. Gravity's Rainbow is of course his most famous book and probably the one thing anyone should read by Pynchon, I'd say - it's insane, funny and brilliant in one package. I'd also throw out Mason and Dixon - I loved it but the olde tyme style Pynchon wrote it in can take a while to parse sometimes. It is probably his most straight-forward book though, since it focuses on Mason and Dixon for the most part. Finally - Inherent Vice is pretty fun too if you're into detective fiction at all or just enjoy Pynchon's brand of humor. Edit: The Pynchon Wiki is a good resource for tracking down some of the more obscure references and the like. Encryptic fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Oct 6, 2011 |
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Oct 6, 2011 05:19
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damage path posted:Thanks for the reassurance. I pulled the trigger yesterday and bought V., Gravity's Rainbow, Vineland, and Mason and Dixon before posting my question. I will probably read GR last since I think it is the longest? I also did order the companion guide to it since I read reviews saying it is basically a must have, especially if you are younger than 40 since you won't get that many more references. Yeah, a companion will help with GR, definitely. I couldn't get into V. despite trying a few times - not trying to discourage you or anything - just my experience with that one. I've read everything else he's written except for Vineland and his short story collection Slow Learner - everything is good to one degree or another, though Against The Day wasn't my favorite, either.
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Oct 7, 2011 05:08
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escape artist posted:Does anyone know of any good short stories or novels that have ghost/horror/supernatural themes? I'm not big on King, but I've read his work. I enjoyed his son's short story collection, though. I want something interesting and unsettling. Dan Simmons has written a ton of mostly good horror (Carrion Comfort, Song of Kali, Fires of Eden, Drood, The Terror, etc.) If you haven't read it - join the BOTM and snag Something Wicked This Way Comes. Great book and very creepy.
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Oct 8, 2011 02:24
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Old Janx Spirit posted:Can anyone recommend a good bio on the Kennedys? I'm looking for something that is entertaining and well written above all, but with out sacrificing accuracy. Not exactly a bio, but a decent read if you want to know about JFK's womanizing and Joe Kennedy's dirty political dealings that put JFK in the White House, among other things - The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh is pretty good. It's definitely more of a gossipy read and old gossip at that, but it confirms everything you've probably heard, based on interviews with tons of people connected to the Kennedys.
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Oct 21, 2011 03:59
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squeee posted:I am interested in anything that is set in England. Having just recently finished reading The Queen Mother by William Shawcross I feel like I need something to satisfy the anglophile in me. I am open to any writing genre/style except for criminal/mystery. Anything with England as it's backdrop would be greatly appreciated! The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro is excellent and was made into an great movie with Anthony Hopkins as well. The Quincunx by Charles Palliser - This was recommended in TBB years ago. Rather good and incredibly detailed about the time period it takes place in (Victorian England). It does get a bit convoluted (the plot revolves around an inheritance connected to several different families) and I had trouble finishing it just because it gets pretty grim and depressing even for me - reading about Victorian-era poverty in the East End of London gets tough to take after a while. 
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Oct 27, 2011 13:54
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Jack Does Jihad posted:- The April Witch, a short story by Ray Bradbury, which is what I've enjoyed the most. I really like that lyrical style of writing, and I'd like to find more things like it. If you like Bradbury's style, he's written a ton of stuff. I've personally read his short story collections A Medicine For Melancholy and The Illustrated Man which both have some pretty stand-out stuff. His other well-known novel-length stuff like Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dandelion Wine and The Martian Chronicles is also excellent.
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Nov 14, 2011 14:48
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Hedrigall posted:Any recommendations for spy thrillers equivalent to James Bond, but in WW2 rather than the Cold War? I'm checking out John Le Carre... (edit: okay I don't think he's written any WW2-set books) Ken Follett's Eye of the Needle. I read it years ago and recall it being pretty good but the caveat is "read it years ago".
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Nov 17, 2011 06:15
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El Gallinero Gros posted:I really like non-fiction books; specifically, band histories, hidden histories of organzations (i.e. The Good Shepherd), and sociological exmainations of culture phenomenon. Suggestions? Stairway To Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored by Richard Cole is a really good "bio" of Led Zeppelin. Cole was their tour manager for years and was privy to a ton of shenanigans, so you really get a picture of both how/why they were successful as well as a lot of anecdotes about off-stage antics.
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Dec 7, 2011 14:37
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Spuckuk posted:Having read everything by China Meiville, I would love more of the same. Any suggestions TBB? Jeff VanderMeer, as was already suggested. I'd also suggest Jay Lake (Trial of Flowers and Madness of Flowers) and K.J. Bishop's The Etched City. Not to mention, check out the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake and the Viriconium sequence by M. John Harrison - both big influences on Mieville and great reads in general.
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Dec 14, 2011 04:45
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Pyroclastic posted:One of my mom's co-workers asked her to ask me to recommend some sci-fi authors for her son. He's 15/16 or so, and has become increasingly sheltered the last few years--the mom dove headfirst into religion and took the kids into it with her, and one of my first questions was sex. She said none whatsoever, which really limits my ideas. She says he reads Jim Butcher and Rick Riordan, neither of whom actually write sci-fi (I've never read either). Zahn's Thrawn trilogy is a good read too if the kid is into Star Wars at all (assuming his mom ever let him watch any of the movies, I suppose). It's pretty easy reading and definitely doesn't have any sex in it. Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is another good one as well. Encryptic fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Dec 16, 2011 |
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Dec 16, 2011 05:21
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I've been on a trend lately of reading stuff about Africa - looking for good recommendations (both fiction and non-fiction). Recently, I've read: Diamonds, Gold and War - Good read about Cecil Rhodes in particular and the creation of South Africa. King Leopold's Ghost - A very well-written but horrifying account of the exploitation of the Congo by King Leopold II in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Green Hills of Africa - Hemingway's account of a hunting trip he took in Africa in the 30s. Good but not great. Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika - An engaging non-fiction account of an eccentric British commander who transported a pair of gunboats across Africa to fight the Germans on Lake Tanganyika during World War I. Also read The Last King of Scotland by the same author. Couple others I read a while ago - The Poisonwood Bible and Blood River. I've read Roots several times as well.
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May 7, 2012 03:43
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MadcapLily posted:I don't know why I didn't think of Borges! My teacher mentionned him many times during classes. I have read about half of La Biblioteca de Babel and while I got stuck at some parts it's overall not too hard to read. I really like his writing style so far. You might also try Gabriel Garcia Marquez if you haven't already - he's written a number of short stories/novellas as well. Although like HA mentioned with Borges, I've only read them in English so I have no idea how difficult the original Spanish is. Edit: Not really a "recommendation" per se that I need, but more a reading advice question. Buddy from work recommended Bernard Cornwell and I've been enjoying one of his more recent books (Agincourt) recently. I know he's most famous for the Sharpe series - do those have to be read in chronological/publication order or are they able to stand alone without prior knowledge/spoilers? Encryptic fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jul 18, 2012 |
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Jul 18, 2012 03:09
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