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anilEhilated posted:Have you read Gaiman's first collection, Smoke and Mirrors? I think it's better. Oh yeah, I have the two Dreamsongs books and those are incredible. ""A Song for Lya", "Guardians", "Shell Games", "Sandkings", and "The Hedge Knight" are all ridiculously good. Especially Sandkings. Lawen posted:Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others is absolutely amazing scifi short stories but it's more hard scifi with kind of a philosophical bent. I love pretty much everything he's ever written. Cool thanks for the recommend, I will check out Ted Chiang and Roald Dahl.
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May 11, 2015 14:12
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Levitate posted:I'm really enjoying The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, anyone know of other types of books and stories in a similar vein? I would take a look at the wuxia genre. There are any number of wuxia authors but for real two-fisted adventure stories in semi-historical China you can't beat Louis Cha aka Jin Yong. There are a few English translations of his books out there--"The Book and the Sword" translated by Graham Earnshaw is a good read, and I want to read John Minford's translation of "The Deer and the Cauldron". As far as I can tell, for some hosed-in-the-head reason* there is no official English translation of Jin's masterpiece, "Legend of the Condor Heroes". There are fan translations floating around but the translation quality is, to put it charitably, wildly inconsistent. *(maybe they think it wouldn't sell, I mean it only sold like a hundred million copies in Chinese, jfc)
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May 11, 2015 22:41
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Viriconium is a trip and a half, I have to say. I enjoyed it but goddamn the storm of wings story is nuts as I recall.
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May 12, 2015 14:45
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I just finished "Foxglove Summer" and as much as I enjoy urban fantasy, I'd like to broaden my horizons a bit. I enjoyed "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman and I would very much like to return to Magical Realism--are there any titles anyone can reccomend? Specifically titles written by Hispanic/Spanish-speaking authors.
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May 14, 2015 05:06
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Benny the Snake posted:I just finished "Foxglove Summer" and as much as I enjoy urban fantasy, I'd like to broaden my horizons a bit. I enjoyed "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman and I would very much like to return to Magical Realism--are there any titles anyone can reccomend? Specifically titles written by Hispanic/Spanish-speaking authors. I haven't personally read his books yet, but I suspect Carlos Ruiz Zafon is who you're looking for.
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May 14, 2015 12:29
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Can anyone recommend a good book in the vein of "Seven Samurai" or "The Magnificent Seven" ? I'm interested in seeing various 'genre takes' on the core idea (a ragtag band of misfits coming together to defend a group of noncombatants / civilians against overwhelming odds), so I'm preferably looking for something in speculative fiction, but I'm game for anything. Any nonfictional accounts of similar real-life events would be welcome as well, regardless of specific time or place.
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May 17, 2015 20:02
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Just finished Dead Wake by Erik Larsen, also read his The Devil in the White City need some more stuff like it! Recommendations please!
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May 18, 2015 00:54
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Beef Hardcheese posted:Can anyone recommend a good book in the vein of "Seven Samurai" or "The Magnificent Seven" ? I'm interested in seeing various 'genre takes' on the core idea (a ragtag band of misfits coming together to defend a group of noncombatants / civilians against overwhelming odds), so I'm preferably looking for something in speculative fiction, but I'm game for anything. Any nonfictional accounts of similar real-life events would be welcome as well, regardless of specific time or place. Frederick Forsyth's Dogs of War is about a mercenary assembling a team of specialists to liberate a fictional African country. It's pretty much an involved speculation into how you'd stage a coup. I think it's his second best thriller after Day of the Jackal and has a similar researched attention to detail.
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May 18, 2015 03:30
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Flaggy posted:Just finished Dead Wake by Erik Larsen, also read his The Devil in the White City need some more stuff like it! Recommendations please! I'm going to assume/pretend you mean 'pop history books about cool and/or exciting things that aren't wars' or maybe a little 'true crime' and go from there! My Thoughts Be Bloody is one of my very favorite pop-history books; it looks at the lives of the famous actor Edwin Booth and his uhhh differently famous brother John Wilkes Booth and how their upbringing and rivalry led pretty much directly to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. You could also try Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris by David King. (Loose ends ahoy, though, so if you like things that wrap up neatly, maybe not.) It reminded me a fair bit of Devil when I read it.
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May 18, 2015 07:02
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Flaggy posted:Just finished Dead Wake by Erik Larsen, also read his The Devil in the White City need some more stuff like it! Recommendations please! Read Going Clear by Pulitzer Prize winning nonfiction writer Lawrence Wright
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May 18, 2015 07:44
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Is there a biography of Shostakovich that's considered definitive? Failing that, can anyone recommend a good one?
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May 18, 2015 11:11
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Clipperton posted:As far as I can tell, for some hosed-in-the-head reason* there is no official English translation of Jin's masterpiece, "Legend of the Condor Heroes". There are fan translations floating around but the translation quality is, to put it charitably, wildly inconsistent. I've seen this in comic form from AsiaPac Publishing but I don't know if they are still selling it.
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May 18, 2015 20:57
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Picayune posted:I'm going to assume/pretend you mean 'pop history books about cool and/or exciting things that aren't wars' or maybe a little 'true crime' and go from there! Awesome, thank you. blue squares posted:Read Going Clear by Pulitzer Prize winning nonfiction writer Lawrence Wright I have it is excellent and I recommend it to everyone.
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May 19, 2015 00:20
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Flaggy posted:Just finished Dead Wake by Erik Larsen, also read his The Devil in the White City need some more stuff like it! Recommendations please! You might like Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 by Stephen Puleo. It's written in a similar way to the Larsens and it's the same sort of pop-history nonfiction. It's also really interesting. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/559887.Dark_Tide?ac=1
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May 19, 2015 13:50
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Any good books out there about ghost towns? Looking more for reads that explore the history of the site and what led to abandonment than just photographic documentation.
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May 19, 2015 20:39
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hope and vaseline posted:Any good books out there about ghost towns? Looking more for reads that explore the history of the site and what led to abandonment than just photographic documentation. There is an excellent chapter in Bill Bryson's A Walk In The Woods about the town of Centralia, PA, the people who live there, and it's history. It's only a small section, and not a whole book, but it was a great stand-out from an already entertaining and funny book (that is incredibly cheap and easy to find).
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May 19, 2015 22:53
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I quite enjoyed Andy Weir - The Martian and Laura Hillenbrand - Unbroken. Any book recommendations about Survival/Castaway?
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May 20, 2015 22:21
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Ryoji posted:I quite enjoyed Andy Weir - The Martian and Laura Hillenbrand - Unbroken. Here are some suggestions. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson The Hatchet Books by Gary Paulsen Life of Pi by Yann Martel The Road by Cormac McCarthy The Call of the Wild by Jack London Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe Tunnel in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein The Flight of the Phoenix by Elleston Trevor The Cay by Theodore Taylor My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George The Wall by Marlen Haushofer Walkabout by James Vance Marshall A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer LateToTheParty fucked around with this message at 04:37 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 04:07
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LateToTheParty posted:Here are some suggestions. Thanks a lot!
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May 21, 2015 16:46
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I'm in the mood to read some classic literature. Which is better, Don Quixote or Crime and Punishment?
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May 21, 2015 16:49
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They're wildly different in tone, theme, genre, subject, pretty much everything. Do some research and see which one appeals to you more.
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May 21, 2015 17:12
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thehomemaster posted:Ok, this isn't necessarily a book rec, but bear with me. - Jeff Vandermeer's "Ambergris" stuff (City of Saints and Madmen, etc.) - M. John Harrison's Viriconium books - Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books - Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind stories -
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May 21, 2015 17:33
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If we're going to bend the request that far, why not Dictionary of the Khazars. It's 3 encyclopedias which reference and contradict each other, hiding a story within them.
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May 21, 2015 19:37
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Hey I just finally got around to reading Crichton's Sphere and was wondering if anyone has any other similar book recommendations for books with similar motifs about first contact and interdimensional/weirdly out there scifi? I've read most of Clarke's stuff, and I heard Leviathan Wakes might be up my alley too. If you don't want to give me specific books or something, can you tell me the name of this specific genre? I'm having a hard time finding anything other than the huge umbrella that is scifi. Much appreciated, I've kinda fallen in love with this genre in the past few weeks.
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May 23, 2015 08:47
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It's aliens as opposed to time travel but how about Blindsight by Peter Watts? Really good book. If you want for more standard first contact fare, there's always Contact by Carl Sagan. Or the Three-body Problem.
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May 23, 2015 10:10
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Contact is not a good book, though
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May 23, 2015 15:55
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Dodecalypse posted:Hey I just finally got around to reading Crichton's Sphere and was wondering if anyone has any other similar book recommendations for books with similar motifs about first contact and interdimensional/weirdly out there scifi? The Deep by Nick Cutter fits exactly what you're looking for, although he does take it into some very dark and disturbing psychological horror directions
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May 23, 2015 18:18
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Thanks for the Recs, I'll check those out.
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May 24, 2015 01:27
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blue squares posted:Contact is not a good book, though I don't regret reading it overall. It's fiction written by a non-fiction writer and it reads like it though. Gets the point across better than the movie did.
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May 25, 2015 00:28
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Hello It has come to my attention that I adore a good love story, but walking into my local romance section uninitiated doesn't seem like the best idea. I'd be much appreciative if y'all could just toss out some favorites, something off the top of your head
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May 25, 2015 03:34
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Wuthering Heights?
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May 25, 2015 03:38
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A good love story
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May 25, 2015 03:47
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Looper posted:A good love story Haha fair enough. I liked it when I had to read it....poo poo, almost 20 years ago, but then I was that weird kid that tended to like all the books everyone else hated (this, Dickens) but hated the books everyone else loved (Hemingway). Ah well  .
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May 25, 2015 03:52
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Looper posted:A good love story Pride and Prejudice. This thread will get you started: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3662001&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1
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May 25, 2015 04:15
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Funny story, I read Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice almost simultaneously, hated the former and loved the latter. I should've probably mentioned that in the first place
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May 25, 2015 04:45
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I'm looking for some good horror books to read. I tend to prefer horror stories that deal with a supernatural entity, but I am open to horror books that are a little more groudned. For a frame of reference, I have read pretty much every Stephen King book and have tried to read Koontz on several occasions but I just can't get through his books.
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May 25, 2015 09:51
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Food Guy posted:I'm looking for some good horror books to read. I tend to prefer horror stories that deal with a supernatural entity, but I am open to horror books that are a little more groudned. For a frame of reference, I have read pretty much every Stephen King book and have tried to read Koontz on several occasions but I just can't get through his books.
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May 25, 2015 11:31
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Looper posted:Hello Tess of the d'Urbervilles
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May 25, 2015 16:57
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Food Guy posted:I'm looking for some good horror books to read. I tend to prefer horror stories that deal with a supernatural entity, but I am open to horror books that are a little more groudned. For a frame of reference, I have read pretty much every Stephen King book and have tried to read Koontz on several occasions but I just can't get through his books. I recently enjoyed The Troop by Nick Cutter and The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue. The former is gorier and the second is more unexplained supernatural.
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May 25, 2015 17:08
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Food Guy posted:I'm looking for some good horror books to read. I tend to prefer horror stories that deal with a supernatural entity, but I am open to horror books that are a little more groudned. For a frame of reference, I have read pretty much every Stephen King book and have tried to read Koontz on several occasions but I just can't get through his books. Yo, check out some Clive Barker. Books of Blood v1-3 are pretty much my favorite horror short stories ever. His longer works veer more towards dark fantasy than horror though. The Great and Secret Show is probably his best fusion of the two.
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May 25, 2015 20:17
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