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Fatty Patty posted:trying to find a good book for my SO for a present. He loves nautical fiction, and has read all the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey series and C.S. Forester's Hornblower series. I'm looking for something similar. Definitely nautical fiction, and preferably something I can find in my local B&N. I looked at Alexander Kent stuff, but the first book isn't at my local B&N (sold out). I also looked at Julian Stockwin, his stuff is sold out too. The only nautical fiction book that I could find was Dudley Pope's Ramage, but I don't know anything about it. Does it relate to the O'Brian or Forester books at all? Any suggestions would be very helpful. You might want to try nautical nonfiction. There are a number of good books out there about Nelson, etc. Cochrane wrote an autobiography though I haven't read it. Two Years Before the Mast is a contemporary (1834) account of a voyage in a whaling ship (written by a Harvard student who decides to go to work at sea for two years for his health).
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Nov 5, 2010 14:37
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gos_jim posted:So tell me. gos_jim posted:Also, I'm looking for some good horror novels and short story anthologies. I prefer horror that is more psychological and disturbing, fear of the unknown, rather than like... "oh no there's a monster and it's chasing us!" Think Silent Hill/Lovecraft instead of Freddy/Jason. Though I sometimes find Lovecraft's tendency to go on and on about mundane details before getting to the "good stuff" kind of tiring (see: Call of Cthulhu), "The Statement of Randolph Carter" is probably one of the scariest things I've ever read. I am probably going to pick up Skeleton Crew tonight, but other recommendations would be great. Edgar Allan Poe. He is free.
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Nov 6, 2010 22:15
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gos_jim posted:Also, I'm looking for some good horror novels and short story anthologies. I prefer horror that is more psychological and disturbing, fear of the unknown, rather than like... "oh no there's a monster and it's chasing us!" Think Silent Hill/Lovecraft instead of Freddy/Jason. Though I sometimes find Lovecraft's tendency to go on and on about mundane details before getting to the "good stuff" kind of tiring (see: Call of Cthulhu), "The Statement of Randolph Carter" is probably one of the scariest things I've ever read. I am probably going to pick up Skeleton Crew tonight, but other recommendations would be great. Stephen Jones' Mammoth Book of Best New Horror and Ellen Datlow's The Best Horror of the Year, both annual anthologies, are fine places to start and will help you tune in on authors you really like. Some of my personal favorites are Simon Strantzas (his first collection has been reprinted by Dark Regions Press in an affordable trade paperback edition), Richard Gavin (ditto), and Mark Samuels (The White Hands and Other Tales is readily available in TPB from Tartarus from either their website or their eBay store). Since you seem to like Stephen King, check out Night Shift, his first collection of short stories. I think it's better than Skeleton Crew.
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Nov 7, 2010 01:39
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What are recommended books written by goons? Available as download, if possible.
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Nov 7, 2010 22:46
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Grawl posted:What are recommended books written by goons? Available as download, if possible. I'm reading The Dead Don't Cry by this dude, i'm 20% through on my Kindle and it's pretty entertaining so far. It's space opera-y sci-fi so far.
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Nov 8, 2010 05:50
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Anyone have any recommendations for books like Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar? I liked the old time feel of her writing and the poetic rhythm of it.
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Nov 8, 2010 06:22
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Lackadaisical posted:Anyone have any recommendations for books like Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar? I liked the old time feel of her writing and the poetic rhythm of it. Virginia Woolf (though she was a much better writer and a cooler lady with more interesting ideas, I think) is often read along with Plath. Maybe start with Mrs. Dalloway. Btw, does it bother you that it's impossible for "to not give a poo poo" to be the definition for an adjective?
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Nov 8, 2010 19:38
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Facial Fracture posted:Virginia Woolf (though she was a much better writer and a cooler lady with more interesting ideas, I think) is often read along with Plath. Maybe start with Mrs. Dalloway. I realized my mistake about 2 minutes after buying the avatar but figured it wasn't worth $10 to fix it. And why would I care?  I'm lackadaisical.
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Nov 8, 2010 20:11
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Lackadaisical posted:I realized my mistake about 2 minutes after buying the avatar but figured it wasn't worth $10 to fix it. And why would I care? Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper is probably the archetypal "woman suffers psychological breakdown thanks to patriarchal medical authority" narrative.
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Nov 8, 2010 21:18
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ONE TWO THREE TIMES TWO TO THE SIX/JONESING FOR YOUR FIX OF THAT LIMP BIZKIT MIX
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I'm looking for some good urban fantasy. My favorite series is the Night Watch series, although books 2 and 4 kinda suck. I've been reading the Dresden Files lately. I've read a lot of Gaiman's stuff like American Gods, Sandman, Neverwhere, Anansi Boys, and the like. I've read some of Simon Green's Nightside, but I think it pretty much sucks outside of the three books about his mom. I've read Orson Scott Card's Magic Street. Tim Power's Last Call was fantastic, The Stress of Her Regard was awful in my opinion. Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim was really good. I like a lot of A. Lee Martinez's work, especially Monster and Divine Misfortune. Jonathan Howe's Johannes Cabal the Necromancer was all right. I think I've read a lot of the mainstays of urban fantasy, but there's got to be some more great stuff out there. Anyone have any ideas?
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Nov 9, 2010 02:49
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Lackadaisical posted:Anyone have any recommendations for books like Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar? I liked the old time feel of her writing and the poetic rhythm of it. Look into Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion. It's pretty similar thematically.
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Nov 9, 2010 04:21
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I'm looking for some 'classics' which are also short. My reading habit is to read a shorter book in between two larger, more dense texts, and right now I'm reading way more academic monographs than I should be, so I'm looking for some lighter relief. Examples I can think of are: The Great Gatsby, The Crying of Lot 49, The Trial (and pretty much all of Kafka's short stories), Fahrenheit 451, The Stranger, Catcher in the Rye and Of Mice and Men. I'm not particularly looking for short stories, but full novels instead. I'd say 250 pages or less. Thanks!
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Nov 9, 2010 11:48
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Cyrai posted:I think I've read a lot of the mainstays of urban fantasy, but there's got to be some more great stuff out there. Anyone have any ideas? Check out China Mieville.
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Nov 9, 2010 14:51
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I'm looking for inspiring, existential books that take you away. Something similar to Carl Sagan's works. Does anyone have some suggestions along those lines?
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Nov 9, 2010 18:34
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oceanside posted:I'm looking for some 'classics' which are also short. My reading habit is to read a shorter book in between two larger, more dense texts, and right now I'm reading way more academic monographs than I should be, so I'm looking for some lighter relief. It seems we read the same novels so I'll just throw some titles. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness fits the frame. Also, some Italo Calvino could do it (Invisible Cities, If on a WInter's Night a Traveler). On the lighter side I enjoyed Andrey Kurkov's Death and the Penguin, Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines and Martin Amis' Time's Arrow. Or how about James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or Dubliners (this one is short stories though).
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Nov 9, 2010 20:24
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oceanside posted:I'm looking for some 'classics' which are also short. My reading habit is to read a shorter book in between two larger, more dense texts, and right now I'm reading way more academic monographs than I should be, so I'm looking for some lighter relief. The Sun Also Rises The Old Man and the Sea A Moveable Feast
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Nov 9, 2010 21:52
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oceanside posted:I'm looking for some 'classics' which are also short. Here's a couple more that I read and enjoyed this year. Hunger - Knut Hamsun Notes From Underground - Dostoevsky The Awakening - Kate Chopin
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Nov 10, 2010 18:52
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I'm looking for nonfiction books to help me learn more about the history of Christianity and the history of the Bible/Jesus/God, etc. I've read Marcus Borg and Karen Armstrong and really enjoyed those. I guess just general scholarly theology nonfiction would be great.
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Nov 10, 2010 23:13
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Ms. Happiness posted:I'm looking for nonfiction books to help me learn more about the history of Christianity and the history of the Bible/Jesus/God, etc. I've read Marcus Borg and Karen Armstrong and really enjoyed those. I guess just general scholarly theology nonfiction would be great. I asked sort of the same thing months ago and someone suggested Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition; it's a series, not a single book. I didn't have the time/money for it, but it looks great. I did read Pelikan's Mary Through The Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture, and it was really good. Paul Johnson's (short, single-volume) History of Christianity is alright; it's totally entertaining--there are so many dirty details about everyone from Jerome to way less important dudes like Zacharias Werner--but the author's English Catholic bias is evident and a lot of basic info is weirdly skipped over. Diarmid McCullough's Christianity: The First 3000 Years is a better catch-all. Linda Woodhead's An Introduction to Christianity is also okay; it's more a textbook intro to Christian ideology(/ies) than a history book, and as an intro textbook it's a bit plodding and a bit dry, but it's got decent info and I think it's got a bibliography that might be useful. I've really had no great luck with any single-volume generalized histories of The Church or The Bible or The Faith. As a general rule, if there's something specific--an era, a movement, etc.--that piques your interest, the Cambridge Companions to Religion are great--at least the ones I've read have been. They're books of essays by notable people in the field, so they're good starting points for getting to know scholars-who-have-written-books (so you can avoid weird religious books by weird people with weird agendas). Since you like Borg, there's also a Jesus Seminar Series that has books that break down the gospels, etc., along their lines.
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Nov 11, 2010 00:50
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Ms. Happiness posted:I'm looking for nonfiction books to help me learn more about the history of Christianity and the history of the Bible/Jesus/God, etc. I've read Marcus Borg and Karen Armstrong and really enjoyed those. I guess just general scholarly theology nonfiction would be great. As far as a history of Christian theological thought goes, maybe try Robert Louis Wilken's Spirit of Early Christian Thought? It's pretty basic but very readable overview of major theological tenets covering up to around Augustine or so. For history as far as events, Pagans and Christians by Robin Lane Fox would probably be good to check out. It doesn't cover really early Christianity, just from around the third century, but again is a readable and pretty comprehensive look at historical events within Christianity, though not so much theology. For overall history of Christianity, I really can't recommend reading the primary sources enough. Look into the early Church fathers to get a look at what Christian theology was really like and how it interacted with Greek philosophy. Definitely read John Chyrsostom though; he's hilarious. Eusebius also wrote a Church history in the third century, which is understandably a pretty biased account of things but interesting nonetheless. L. Michael White just released a book called Scripting Jesus with details how the canonical and apocryphal Gospels relate to and play off one another (and the Q source) to create images of Jesus tailored to suit specific religious/community needs at the time of writing. It doesn't deal with the whole Bible, but it's an interesting read. Depending on your background, it might be a mix of basic information you already know and stuff you didn't, but in my opinion the non-basic source analysis is completely worth reading the whole thing for. Sorry if you were looking for anything having to do with later periods- I really only deal with early Christianity, so that's all I can recommend for the most part.
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Nov 11, 2010 00:57
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The BBC actually broadcast a TV series last year called "A History of Christianity" and theres a fairly huge book released along side it. I've heard nothing but good things about both.
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Nov 11, 2010 13:48
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Anyone have any recommendations for quality historical fiction? Something along the lines of Shogun or The Lions of Al-Rassan would be preferred, since authors/books like Bernard Cornwell and Pillars of Earth I can't stand. I don't get why historical fiction seems to attract such terrible writing.
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Nov 11, 2010 17:10
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Admiral101 posted:Anyone have any recommendations for quality historical fiction? Something along the lines of Shogun or The Lions of Al-Rassan would be preferred, since authors/books like Bernard Cornwell and Pillars of Earth I can't stand. I don't get why historical fiction seems to attract such terrible writing. These may be too obvious, but Mary Renault's Last of the Wine, Fire from Heaven, and The King Must Die are pretty much the gold standard for Classical-Era historical fiction. Along similar lines, Robert Graves' I, Claudius. For Napoleonic/Regency era, try Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series. If you want something more fantasy-oriented in the same era, try Susannah Clarke's "Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norell". Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Nov 11, 2010 |
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Nov 11, 2010 17:20
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Would anyone be able to recommend me a good survival guide book? The most thorough and diverse is what I'm looking for; outdoors, alternative energy solutions, disaster preparations, etc.
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Nov 13, 2010 20:58
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I'm looking for horror/thrillers with a more literary bent, preferably in a psychological/intellectual vein rather than supernatural, although I don't mind supernatural stuff if it's dealt with in an interesting way. I'd rather see modern authors since I already have a ton Poe, Lovecraft, Machen etc. I've just finished reading Lehane's Shutter Island and having read about him in another thread I've ordered a couple of Thomas Ligotti's books. I'm only a few pages into the thread so I'll keep reading in the meantime. Also interested in the history of psychiatric treatment and asylums, fiction or non-fiction.
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Nov 14, 2010 02:14
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Discomedusae posted:I'm looking for horror/thrillers with a more literary bent, preferably in a psychological/intellectual vein rather than supernatural, although I don't mind supernatural stuff if it's dealt with in an interesting way. I'd rather see modern authors since I already have a ton Poe, Lovecraft, Machen etc. I've just finished reading Lehane's Shutter Island and having read about him in another thread I've ordered a couple of Thomas Ligotti's books. I'm only a few pages into the thread so I'll keep reading in the meantime. Laird Barron, Mark Samuels, and Simon Strantzas spring immediately to mind. Their stories often have a supernatural bent, but it's always handled in an interesting way.
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Nov 14, 2010 03:05
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Two small requests: First, I recently read Slaughterhouse Five and absolutely loved it, and though I thought it was a tad schizophrenic at times, I realize that was more or less the intended style. I wouldn't be opposed to more Vonnegut, but is there anything that's in a similar fashion that isn't quite so...out there? Secondly, I'm a big Crichton fan, and I was wondering if anyone could recommend an author with a similar style, since he unfortunately passed away a couple years ago.
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Nov 14, 2010 03:53
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I finished Blindness and I really enjoyed it. Which Saramago books are also incredibly awesome? I also just finish Were you Born on the Wrong Continent?, I'm pretty interested in reading more about post-war German economic development, or really just post-war Germany in general.
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Nov 14, 2010 06:07
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Artix74 posted:Secondly, I'm a big Crichton fan, and I was wondering if anyone could recommend an author with a similar style, since he unfortunately passed away a couple years ago. You'll probably like Robin Cook. Also David Morrell wrote a bunch of technologically-based thrillers, although he concentrates more on the action part than Crichton did. Finally, I recently read Greg Bear's Quantico, which seemed to me to be the book Crichton would have written if a) he could write good dialogue with believable characters and b) had less abhorrent political views. Not a Crichton fan
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Nov 14, 2010 06:28
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appropriatemetaphor posted:I finished Blindness and I really enjoyed it. Which Saramago books are also incredibly awesome? I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but Seeing would probably be the next thing to read, logically speaking. The only other one I've read is Death With Interruptions, which was fun, but you really have to like his rambling, stream of consciousness type stuff to get through it. I'm looking for some good genre-straddling sci-fi/literature type stuff. I hesitate to use the term "speculative fiction," but something like Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, McCarthy's The Road, etc would really hit the spot. Basically I'm after well-written contemporary fiction novels whose sci-fi aspects don't require an absurd suspension of disbelief. It definitely doesn't have to be set in a dystopia like the novels I listed (something with a space setting would be really cool). I've been checking out a lot of stuff on various "best sci-fi books ever" lists, but most of it just strikes me as too cheesy/obvious/formulaic/whatever. Modal Auxiliary fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Nov 14, 2010 |
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Nov 14, 2010 21:47
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Modal Auxiliary posted:I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but Seeing would probably be the next thing to read, logically speaking. The only other one I've read is Death With Interruptions, which was fun, but you really have to like his rambling, stream of consciousness type stuff to get through it. Maybe try Flowers for Algernon.
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Nov 14, 2010 22:34
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Ornamented Death posted:Laird Barron, Mark Samuels, and Simon Strantzas spring immediately to mind. Their stories often have a supernatural bent, but it's always handled in an interesting way. Cool, these guys look pretty good, thanks!
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Nov 15, 2010 00:56
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Maybe try Flowers for Algernon. Read it and loved it. This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. Any more where this came from?
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Nov 15, 2010 02:41
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Modal Auxiliary posted:Read it and loved it. This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. Any more where this came from? Hrm. Anything by Rad Bradbury should be good. You could also try The Cold Equations. Maybe A Rose for Ecclesiastes by Roger Zelazny or The Nine Billion Names of God by Clarke. If you like that kind of Golden Age sci-fi, try this collection: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_Fiction_Hall_of_Fame,_Volume_One,_1929%E2%80%931964
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Nov 15, 2010 02:58
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Looking for a good book or two about the ins and outs of the Cuban Missile Crisis. As in, what happened, day-by-day accounts with as much information as possible, but also an accessible read. Okay, that's kind of specific. Really I'm just looking to know more about that two-week period because I find it utterly fascinating. Anybody know of anything? CelestialScribe fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Nov 15, 2010 |
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Nov 15, 2010 04:55
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Fatty Patty posted:trying to find a good book for my SO for a present. He loves nautical fiction, and has read all the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey series and C.S. Forester's Hornblower series. I'm looking for something similar. Definitely nautical fiction, and preferably something I can find in my local B&N. I looked at Alexander Kent stuff, but the first book isn't at my local B&N (sold out). I also looked at Julian Stockwin, his stuff is sold out too. The only nautical fiction book that I could find was Dudley Pope's Ramage, but I don't know anything about it. Does it relate to the O'Brian or Forester books at all? Any suggestions would be very helpful. Try the works of Raphael Sabatini: The Sea Hawk, Captain Blood, The Black Swan All nautical fiction and right up your SO's alley. These books are sometimes referred to as "Pirate stories written by Dickens".
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Nov 15, 2010 11:18
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delicious beef posted:Looking for books about what 'the good life' is or how to find meaning in life, in the guise of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or The Really Hard Problem. I'm looking for a good non-textbook math book. I really liked A History of ð by Petr Beckman, Infinity and the Mind by Rudy Rucker, and The Shape of Space by Jeffrey Weeks. I'd prefer something that isn't ultra technical because I sometimes get bogged down/frustrated trying to understand proofs, but if it's well-written, I'll give it a shot.
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Nov 15, 2010 20:43
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Who were/are some good Central/Eastern-European writers I probably haven't heard of? (I've read the Big Russians; leaving them aside, you can assume a fair degree of ignorance on my part.) I'd particularly like to read some Polish stuff.
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Nov 17, 2010 05:13
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I'm trying to get into the Cthulhu mythos. Where should I start? There's a ton of H.P. Lovecraft anthologies and volumes, and different versions of Call of Cthulhu. What should I pick up? (amazon.ca links would be awesome)
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Nov 17, 2010 05:35
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Read At the Mountains of Madness... stop.
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Nov 17, 2010 07:13
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