TBB Book Recommendation Superstation !!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > TBB Book Recommendation Superstation !!

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

Lehugo posted:

I'm looking for books about slavery focused more on the owners rather than the slaves or the system itself. It could be a biography or more academic, I'll take pretty much anything whethers it's based on the US or the modern world or ancient history. I'm trying to dig deeper into is how slavers viewed their 'property' and how they thought and talked about them.

Dwelling Place by Erskine Clarke is a great semi-academic history of a specific plantation in coastal Georgia. The white owners left nice diaries and letters, with the patriarch being fairly well known at the time as a religious leader, so there's lots of narrative from that side. It's especially interesting since the white family started off as (relatively!) well-inclined to their slaves, viewing the slaves as humans with souls who deserved religious attention and some respect for their personhood. Of course, that only lasted until the system was tested, and as the years progressed towards the Civil War, the family became more reactionary and explicitly pro-status quo, which is interesting to see evolve. At the same time, the author narrates the lives of the slaves on the plantation, at least as well as he can given the relative lack of documentation on that side. It really gives the readers a chance to see what parallel lives were lived over the course of decades and generations. Highly recommended!

# ¿ Sep 17, 2019 00:51

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 07:17

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

MockingQuantum posted:

Looking for a book on Gnosticism, preferably something that isn't extremely academic. If there are any books on how Gnosticism has influenced various media (e.g. Blood Meridian, Silent Hill, probably a bucket of other books and movies that I'm unaware of) I would love to hear about them as well.

I enjoyed Gnosis by Kurt Rudolph. It isn't what I would call extremely academic, though it does help to come into it with some knowledge of basic Christian theology and early mainstream Christian history, to contrast with development of Gnosticism. It doesn't touch at all on impacts on modern media, but learning more about the practice itself will probably make the influences more obvious to you.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2019 00:53

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

Syncopated posted:

I'm looking for some well written detective or ispy novels for an upcoming vacation. I've read and liked John le Carr�, Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy and Graham Greene. The Man Who Was Thursday was good but not really what I'm looking for atm.

Another one not mentioned so far is The Miernik Dossier by Charles McCarry. I didn't know anything about the author until I saw his obituary as "The American le Carre." He's like le Carre in that he was an actual operative who wrote well-informed and realistic fiction about the Cold War. This work was his first fiction, I believe, and takes the form of a series of reports that concern a possible Polish defector who might be a double agent who might be a triple agent. I enjoyed it, and apparently he wrote more novels about one of the characters from the book, although I have not read those yet and can't comment.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2019 00:56

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

chernobyl kinsman posted:

id like a book about the bible that doesnt actually touch on any of that icky biblical stuff

This was a pretty lovely snipe, even for you. Asking for fiction set in a Biblical setting that isn't explicitly Christian fiction is a reasonable request.

This isn't a perfect response to what OP is asking for, but King Jesus by Robert Graves is at least non-Judeochristian in its viewpoint. It basically argues for the historical Jesus as a type of Graves' sacrifical king motif. It's an interesting read, even if you don't buy what Graves is selling.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2019 19:54

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Patrick O Brian.

This. If you're in a fantasy mood, take all of the nautical jargon that sometimes throws people off and just consider it the "magic system."

# ¿ Jan 10, 2020 04:53

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

Captain Mediocre posted:

Can anyone recommend what I would loosely call 'settler fiction'? I'm mostly hoping for historical fiction about the Viking settlement of Iceland, Greenland, the Hebrides, Vinland etc. or even fantasy equivalents. I'm not really looking for combat action although a bit of that is probably inevitable (I did really enjoy Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Tales series). Mostly I want books about what it was like for a group of people to establish themselves somewhere new. I've read some of the Icelandic sagas but a more accessible modern narrative novel for a dummy like me would be great.

Norse stuff is preferred but I've struggled to find much through Google, so recommendations from other settings are welcome too - other parts of history like new world colonies, or scifi/fantasy. On the scifi front I did really like Kim Stanley Robinson's books for example. Fantasy suggestions might look something like a dwarf fortress novelization maybe as ridiculous as that sounds?

I hope that makes some kind of sense and that there's other people who want to read and write about that sort of thing.

A few good ones taking off on your interest in Norse/Scandinavian settlements:

Jane Smiley's The Greenlanders - From an author who mostly writes contemporary fiction, but well researched and enjoyable.
Sigrid Unsset's Kristin Lavransdatter - An oldie (1922) but very good and not particularly dated. Female author and female main character.
Ole Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth - Actually about Scandinavian settlers in the northern US, but shares a lot of themes and cultural affinity with the other works. There are sequels that are less well known but actually quite enjoyable, and take the theme from settlement to assimilation

Edit: Also, if you've never read them, Laura Ingalls Wilder's series is fantastic. They are focused towards children at a narrative level, but they're very well written, and I've enjoyed re-reading them as an adult with my child. They're not strictly Norse or Scandinavian, but Laura's family is really living on the edge of European-American settlement, particularly in the chronlogically earlier books.

Lewd Mangabey fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Aug 18, 2020

# ¿ Aug 18, 2020 23:09

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

FPyat posted:

I am frustrated by the fact that what seems to be the most technical book on the Apollo program is written by Charles loving Murray. Is there any alternative if I'm curious about the rocketry and computing and engineering?

There's tons of fairly-to-very technical stuff on Apollo and the early space program.

Chariots for Apollo is the official NASA history of Apollo. Narrative and not fully technical, but gets into some interesting details of testing and organization, and has a super extensive bibliography.
How Apollo flew to the moon by Woods is another narrative that goes into a fair bit of detail on the systems engineering of testing.
The Apollo guidance computer: Architecture and operation by O'Brien is super technical -- basically a "fan"-made operating manual and system architecture guide for the on-board Apollo guidance computer. Cool both for Apollo geeks and for old computing geeks.
Gateway to the moon and Moon launch! is a two part official history of the Cape Canaveral/Kennedy launch site construction and operation by Benson and Faherty. Gets into the engineering and system design challenges of the support infrastructure for the launches, and also touches on the national and local politics behind building a big-rear end launch center in the middle of a swamp.

There's probably more on the actual rocket engineering side of things, but those are the parts I know less about.

# ¿ May 31, 2021 20:44

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

John F Bennett posted:

Are there any books out there where the story lasts for hundreds or thousands of years, following the evolution of a person (maybe immortal?), a tribe, a people, an empire etc....

Where it's about an ever evolving story and history.

Dune and its sequels. It literally checks each of those boxes.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2021 04:16

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

A human heart posted:

it's wild that your dad hasn't heard of the french resistance or charles de gaulle

Actually, having heard of Charles de Gaulle is an extremely popular reason to hate the French.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2021 07:19

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

Good-Natured Filth posted:

I recently read Redemption's Blade which scratched an itch I didn't know I had. I've read lots of fantasy books and experienced many Hero(ine)'s Journeys that end the book in success (or a messy version of success). This book explored what happens after the journey is over and the Big Bad is vanquished. Things don't immediately get better, and the world is still hosed up. I really dug that premise and enjoyed the exploration of the complexities of a world re-building after the ultimate evil was removed.

I'm sure this exists in many novels, but I'm not sure where to start. Any recommendations?

This is explicitly the theme of the second book in the Dune series, Dune Messiah. The first book is a classic Hero's Journey, and a lot of people get really turned off by Messiah, which is about (without any explicit spoilers) the character(s) from the first book being essentially demoralized while grappling with the political and philosophical ramifications of what they've achieved. Books 3 and 4 are about implementing the progressively grander scale political and philosophical solutions to what is learned in book 2. This is why, while everyone has their own personal recommendations, my recommendation is to either read book 1 (for the classic Hero's Journey experience) or books 1-4 (for the full thematic cycle). Books 5+ and other associated semi-sequels are trash.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2022 14:47

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

Doom Mathematic posted:

I am looking for a book I could give to a six-year-old (reads at the level of an eight-year-old) son of a friend of mine for his birthday. His parents say "genre of your choice" and I'm veering toward science fiction but I don't have any idea what's out there. I also know children's books can be all over the place in quality. So, just like a fistful of recommendations I can peruse would be good? Thank you in advance.

D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. A timeless classic, and will set the child up later to read everything from Percy Jackson to the Iliad once he's ready. For younger kids, they can mostly look at the cool pictures and read the shorter stories, and older kids can start getting more of the symbolism and themes out of it. There's also a Norse Myths version that is very good as well.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2022 03:49

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

Selachian posted:

Have you tried Alan Furst? His specialty is spy stuff in pre-World War II Europe. Maybe not as high-level as you want, but it's more cerebral stuff in the line of Eric Ambler or John Le Carre than Bourne, Bond, or Ryan.

Following up on this, Le Carre is technically "spy stuff" but it is not schlocky spy stuff. The way I describe it to people is, "The tensest parts of the books are when the protagonist has to meet with his boss to justify his budget," and I mean that in a good way. Lots of diplomacy, handlers, etc. The "Smiley trilogy" is probably the best place to start.

Edit: The other place people recommend starting with him is "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold," but it is actually somewhat more directly related to spy tradecraft than some of his other stuff, so might not be the best place to start with your specific interests.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2022 04:04

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

Selachian posted:

I can put in a good word for Richard Rhodes's The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

Seconding this. And the first half of his follow-up, Dark Sun, is about Soviet espionage of the Manhattan Project (the rest is about the US and Soviet hydrogen bomb programs). For someone who watched Oppenheimer, Dark Sun will have a lot of the bits where Oppenheimer gets back-stabbed.

e: And I presume you know that the movie is technically based on American Prometheus, which is also a very good book, though focused more on Oppenheimer than the entire atomic program per se.

Lewd Mangabey fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Aug 2, 2023

# ¿ Aug 2, 2023 02:18

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

Seconding The Long Ships.

John Williams' Augustus is very good (I assume that's the Williams novel you had in mind) and will be well-received by someone who liked Renault. In the same vein, try Memoirs of Hadrian by Yourcenar.

You don't mention Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy -- I've only read the first one, but it was very good.

Colleen McCullough, in my opinion, is a step below some of the other authors listed but is still good. Penman writes interesting, evocative fiction without much bodice ripping, but not super literary.

A little out of the time period of the others, but Le Carre's best novels are absolutely fantastic. Try The Spy Who Came in from the Cold first, and if you like it, work forward in publication order from there. They are definitively not airport-quality spy fiction. In my opinion, they are as much superior to normal spy novels as the Aubrey/Maturin books are superior to normal adventure novels.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2023 20:26

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

Chronological order makes more sense.

However, the secret to the Asian Saga is this: there's actually a third order, which is "Is the book any good order?" In descending order, Shogun is a fascinating historical novel that is not as "White Savior" focused as you would think, King Rat is a great WW2 story based on the author's own experiences, Noble House is kind of a cool near-modern (for the time it was written) heist novel, Taipan is a fun "how much poo poo can some pirates steal" novel, Gaijin is pretty much just porn, and Whirlwind is super boring.

So I would suggest reading them in that third order, and stopping when they get too bad to enjoy.

# ¿ Feb 29, 2024 05:04

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

Opopanax posted:

Oh no I've read all these

To clarify though I listed those examples as they're closer to what I'm looking for; not so much where Language plays a role (like in Shogun) but more about the concept of language and how its structure affects people

The obvious one here is "Stories of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. It was the basis for the movie Arrival.

Edit: Sorry, just saw that you cited it in your original post.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2024 01:57

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 07:17

Lewd Mangabey: Jun 2, 2011; "What sort of ape?" asked Stephen.
"A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbington."

Picayune posted:

I've never read any of Charles Dickens's books and I feel like I ought to try some. Where's a good place to start?

I actually recommend starting with Pickwick Papers. It's his first book and is pretty long, but it's one of his funniest and helps people get over the idea that Dickens is stodgy and preachy (as he sometimes is, to be honest).

However, Pickwick definitely just reads like a series of episodes rather than a novel in the structure we're familiar with today. If you want to read more of a traditional narrative, David Copperfield is probably his best overall novel, and Great Expectations has the best narrative arc, and has the benefit for modern readers of being critical of the class system. Bleak House also gets recommended sometimes, but I would personally put it more mid-tier.

Dombey and Son is my dark horse favorite, but wouldn't necessarily be the first one to read. Oliver Twist is fine but in my opinion is not as good as David Copperfield. Christmas Carol and the other Christmas tales are fine, and have the benefit of being somewhat shorter if that's an issue for you.

On the flip side, he wrote so much that some of his stuff just pales in comparison. Tale of Two Cities has some of his most famous lines, but in my opinion has aged very poorly with what seems now like very shallow characterization. Old Curiosity Shop was made fun of at the time for its sentimentality (but also massively popular for the same) and is tough to read now.

# ¿ May 1, 2024 14:56

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