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Radio Talmudist posted:I'm reposting this from a separate topic I made in the forum, not realizing that there was a topic already devoted to recommendations: There's a really good (and old) series of collections called The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes by Hugh Greene that should be dead easy to get hold of and collect detective stories from ACD's contemporaries - plenty of weird and gimmicky crimes and detectives in those. If you like conundrums go for John Dickson Carr (aka Carter Dickson)'s books, his Gideon Fell books are full of locked-room mysteries and how-did-he-do-that? stuff. Ditto GK Chesterton's Father Brown stories. More eccentric detectives: Edmund Crispin's Gervase Fen books - [b]The Glimpses of the Moon[b] is my favourite, and has a wonderfully lunatic supporting cast as well; and Gladys Mitchell has a wonderful mad-old-bat heroine in her Mrs Bradley mysteries - Mrs Bradley is an elderly, ugly and terrifying consulting psychiatrist who enjoys scaring the crap out of people. She's the kind of old lady I want to grow into. (These were filmed with Diana Rigg in the starring role, who is a terrific actress and looks amazing in 20s fashions but was terribly miscast.) Sarah Caudwell wrote 4 books about a firm of lawyers and their old tutor who keep getting themselves into ridiculous situations involving murders - eccentric, funny and recommended.
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Jul 2, 2009 14:40
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Timelord posted:This poster wants the exact kind of books I am looking for, I did not see a response to him. Are there any books/authors of this nature that we would enjoy? I think Arthur Machen was recommended earlier; him too. The White People and The Novel of the Black Seal are two of his best short stories - his short stories are best; his novels don't do much for me (except The Three Impostors, which is a sort of metafictional fix-up with embedded short stories). e: f, spelling. e2: vvvvv Enjoy! vvvvv Runcible Cat fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Jul 13, 2009 |
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Jul 13, 2009 11:43
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Skutter posted:If you want good urban fantasy, try China Mieville's books. His Bas Lag universe is a mix of that plus some steampunk. They're very good. The only really good ones I've found so far have been Philip Reeve's Larklight series, which are hilarious pseudo-Victorian space fantasy. Marketed at kids, but don't let that stop you - they're awesomely good fun. e: come to think of it you can read the first chapters of all 3 at http://www.larklight.com/larklight.htm and see if they're for you. Stephen Baxter's Anti-Ice and Colin Greenland's Harm's Way are decent too, and I'm just about to start George Mann's The Affinity Bridge, so I'll report back on that one. Runcible Cat fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Jul 21, 2009 |
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Jul 21, 2009 09:12
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markehed posted:Does anyone have any suggestions along the line of Blink, the Undercover economist, Freakonomics and Mumbo jumbo? Easily digested facts combined with some humour and a lot of interesting examples. A book perfect for a day in the sun and for those of us who doesn't really like fiction.
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Jul 21, 2009 19:12
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saigon_15 posted:I would like to hear about any and all books about time travel, specifically about travelling backwards, and preferbly ones that cover original or unexpected ideas on the subject. Replay by Ken Grimwood is a nice take on the "going back to when you're younger" trope. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis does the "historical researcher going back in time and getting trapped" thing really well, as does Howard Waldrop's Them Bones in a different way. I haven't read Kage Baker's Company stories or Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife, but other people think they're good.
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Aug 1, 2009 06:02
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ApplePirate posted:I'm looking for pop science books, preferably in the fields of medicine and biology in general. I've read a lot of Sagan, Dawkins, and the like, and several books I've loved have already been mentioned - A Short History of Nearly Everything, Stiff, and Mind Wide Open. I really loved both of Atul Gawande's books as well; sometimes it seems it can be difficult to find books by physicians that aren't a thinly veiled account of how great the author thinks he is. It would be nice to find authors dealing with the same sort of subject matter who write in a similar style, entertaining and informative without being condescending. Books by physicians: Oliver Sachs, if you haven't read his stuff (though he does sometimes seem to succumb to Look At How Clever I Am Syndrome). I like Harold Klawans' collections of essays on clinical neurology better; they're not as self-consciously "well-written" as Sachs' books.
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Aug 13, 2009 10:56
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