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Rabbit Hill posted:Bumping this.... TL;DR: any books that feature evil priests/preachers a la Claude Frollo or Harry Powell in Night of the Hunter? Matthew Lewis's The Monk and Aldous Huxley's Devils of Loudon seem obvious choices. He wasn't quite "evil" or fictional, but you might find Savonarola interesting--apocalypse talk, book burning, Borgias, pope troubles, execution, good stuff.
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Mar 8, 2010 17:40
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Try Gass' Omensetter's Luck, which features an embittered seminary-trained priest trying to prescribe religion to a small rural town. On a slightly different tack, Shusaku Endo's Silence has earnest Portugese missionaries unwittingly bringing a wave of destruction in their wake in feudal Japan.
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Mar 8, 2010 17:57
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Rabbit Hill posted:Bumping this.... TL;DR: any books that feature evil priests/preachers a la Claude Frollo or Harry Powell in Night of the Hunter? J K Huysmans' La Bas features an intense portrait of Catholic Satanism in late 19th-century Paris. It also features a psychological/theological biography of Bluebeard, the infamous feudal child murderer. There's also some great aesthetic discussions, the sorts that Huysmans is famous for.
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Mar 8, 2010 18:41
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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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Facial Fracture posted:Matthew Lewis's The Monk and Aldous Huxley's Devils of Loudon seem obvious choices. He wasn't quite "evil" or fictional, but you might find Savonarola interesting--apocalypse talk, book burning, Borgias, pope troubles, execution, good stuff. 7 y.o. bitch posted:J K Huysmans' La Bas features an intense portrait of Catholic Satanism in late 19th-century Paris. It also features a psychological/theological biography of Bluebeard, the infamous feudal child murderer. There's also some great aesthetic discussions, the sorts that Huysmans is famous for. Awesome. I've read The Monk (and loved it  ), but none of the others -- thank you!
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Mar 8, 2010 21:53
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I'm having a hard time finding books that suck me in. I'm a very picky reader and spend hours in Barnes and Noble trying to find something that interests me. So I'm going to post some books that I loved, and hopefully you guys can help me out. Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins A Stir of Echos by Richard Matheson House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess I also love reading about how hosed up humanity is. Whether it be about government, conspiracies, mans inhumanity against man, genocide, or murder/mystery. Pretty much anything that would having me hating people and wishing I could change the world when I'm done reading it.
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Mar 9, 2010 09:59
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Don't read economic hitman. The guy is a desk clerk with delusions of grandeur and starts every other sentence with "During my time as an EHM ..." Edit: OOPS, maybe read post before replying.... I like "The Shield" and I like Sci-Fi. Are there any books that would be like "The Shield" in space? unleash the unicorn fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Mar 9, 2010 |
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Mar 9, 2010 13:18
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I just saw Shutter Island, and it renewed my interest in psychological story lines like that. Anyone have any good suggestions? I know Shutter Island is also a book, but I'd like a new story, might come back to SI later....
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Mar 10, 2010 23:36
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I'm looking for any books that focus on the Romanov grand duchesses. It can be fiction or non-fiction. I've already read the following: The Romanovs: The Final Chapter The Fate of the Romanovs The Kitchen Boy Nicholas and Alexandra The Royal Diaries: Anastasia The Tsarina's Daughter (ugh) Most of these books focus on the family as a whole, but I'm looking for something about just one or all of the daughters.
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Mar 11, 2010 03:43
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Lockback posted:I just saw Shutter Island, and it renewed my interest in psychological story lines like that. Anyone have any good suggestions? I know Shutter Island is also a book, but I'd like a new story, might come back to SI later.... If you haven't already, I'd recommend you read The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I don't know how literally you meant "psychological story lines" since Shutter Island takes place in an asylum but Jackson is really adept at getting into her characters' heads and, consequently, into her readers'.
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Mar 12, 2010 16:01
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Lockback posted:I just saw Shutter Island, and it renewed my interest in psychological story lines like that. Anyone have any good suggestions? I know Shutter Island is also a book, but I'd like a new story, might come back to SI later.... The Magus by John Fowles has a similar "what the gently caress is going on" psychological angle to it. Might be worth a look.
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Mar 12, 2010 16:51
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unleash the unicorn posted:I like "The Shield" and I like Sci-Fi. Are there any books that would be like "The Shield" in space? Check out Richard Morgan or Neal Asher. Both write pretty good action orientated sci-fi where the good guys aren't particularly good and everyone is always double crossing everyone else and loving them over.
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Mar 12, 2010 17:01
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I just finished The Lost City of Z and really enjoyed the parts about Victorian-era England, specifically some of the crazy inventors and other eccentric figures like Sir Francis Galton or Helena Blavatsky. Anyone have suggestions for further reading along those lines? Either biographies of specific people or more general books on Victorian life would be great.
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Mar 12, 2010 17:03
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Hello Pity posted:Check out Richard Morgan or Neal Asher. Both write pretty good action orientated sci-fi where the good guys aren't particularly good and everyone is always double crossing everyone else and loving them over. cool, thank you
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Mar 12, 2010 17:38
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unleash the unicorn posted:cool, thank you Altered Carbon (the first book in the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy) is a good place to start with Richard Morgan for the kind of read you are looking for.
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Mar 12, 2010 17:46
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Daveski posted:Anyone have suggestions for further reading along those lines? Either biographies of specific people or more general books on Victorian life would be great.
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Mar 12, 2010 19:34
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inktvis posted:Have you already come across Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians? It's a not particularly flattering reconsideration of four big public figures of the Victorian age, published at the end of WWI. That's perfect, thanks for the recommendation!
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Mar 12, 2010 21:41
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So, this is probably not within the scope of normal recommendation requests in TBB. I long ago finished all of Jane Austen. And then all of the Brontes (except for Anne Bronte's Wildfell Hall which I'm finishing). And then Vanity Fair, the Vicar of Wakefield, Mysteries of Udolpho, etc. Today I got Cecilia by Frances Burney and if I like it was considering moving on to Camilla. Does anybody have any other suggestions for late 18th/early 19th century romantic/courtship/realism fiction or gothic novels for me? All the ones I've named have been British, but if anyone could recommend English translations from other places I'd love that. Is Balzac someone I should look into? Where do I start with his works?!? And less well known authors would also be greatly appreciated. I also really enjoyed the Scarlet Pimpernel books by Baroness Orczy. I suppose some of what I'm really looking for is when the Victorian characters refer to the evils of "French novels." What are those? (And no, I'm not looking for Fanny Hill.)
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Mar 13, 2010 00:07
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Nione posted:I suppose some of what I'm really looking for is when the Victorian characters refer to the evils of "French novels." What are those? (And no, I'm not looking for Fanny Hill.) They're talking about libertine novels like Dangerous Liaisons and Justine. Later Victorians would also be talking about Flaubert and the Realists, in particular Madame Bovary. Super late Victorians would be talking about the Decadents like Joris-Karl Huysmans and Leopold Sacher-Masoch (and one of the better books of the period, Monsieur Venus by Rachilde) and their English proteges like Wilde. In terms of your first request, I really liked Burney's Evelina (especially when two aristocrats decide to make a bet on which of their elderly maids would win in a footrace), and her The Wanderer is considered by some to be her finest work. Helen Maria Williams' Julia is a fantastic response to The Sorrows of Young Werther, featuring a woman who is actually more intelligent than the man she drives crazy (! - a rare thing during that period, even in women's writing). Those works are very difficult to find online and expensive to boot, so you're better off going through a library. And you should probably read Shamela just so you don't get too caught up in the Romantic/Gothic domestic novel as Austen's Catherine Morland does.
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Mar 13, 2010 03:21
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What else did Hemingway write that's good besides Old Man and the Sea? I've read For Whom The Bell Tolls, A Farewell To Arms and The Sun Also Rises so far and liked them all to varying degrees, especially FWTBT.
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Mar 13, 2010 04:49
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Hello Pity posted:The Magus by John Fowles has a similar "what the gently caress is going on" psychological angle to it. Might be worth a look. Nice, looks exactly like what I am looking for, thanks!
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Mar 13, 2010 05:54
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Encryptic posted:What else did Hemingway write that's good besides Old Man and the Sea? I've read For Whom The Bell Tolls, A Farewell To Arms and The Sun Also Rises so far and liked them all to varying degrees, especially FWTBT. Those are his major novels. However, you didn't mention any short stories. A lot of people (although I am not one of them) feel that he was best as a short story writer. Grab the omnibus, read Hills, Snows, Killers. They're good, but I don't think they stack up to Sun Also Rises because they tend to sound more like For Whom the Bell Tolls. This is good for you!
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Mar 13, 2010 06:16
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unleash the unicorn posted:
Not sure if I'd call it sci-fi, but definitely a gritty police story. Takes place in a semi-industrial city where people exist alongside a sentient fungal species. edit: It does not take place in space, but I bet you'd still like it. Danger fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Mar 13, 2010 |
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Mar 13, 2010 06:19
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Encryptic posted:What else did Hemingway write that's good besides Old Man and the Sea? I've read For Whom The Bell Tolls, A Farewell To Arms and The Sun Also Rises so far and liked them all to varying degrees, especially FWTBT. Seconding the short story recommendation, I'm a big fan of A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. 3 pages of gold.
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Mar 13, 2010 07:30
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Nione posted:So, this is probably not within the scope of normal recommendation requests in TBB. I long ago finished all of Jane Austen. And then all of the Brontes (except for Anne Bronte's Wildfell Hall which I'm finishing). And then Vanity Fair, the Vicar of Wakefield, Mysteries of Udolpho, etc. Today I got Cecilia by Frances Burney and if I like it was considering moving on to Camilla. Does anybody have any other suggestions for late 18th/early 19th century romantic/courtship/realism fiction or gothic novels for me? All the ones I've named have been British, but if anyone could recommend English translations from other places I'd love that. Is Balzac someone I should look into? Where do I start with his works?!? And less well known authors would also be greatly appreciated. I also really enjoyed the Scarlet Pimpernel books by Baroness Orczy. If you're looking at 19th century, and you liked Bronte, you could do worse than take a peek at some of Elizabeth Gaskells' work (I'm particularly fond of North & South, and her collections of short stories). She can sometimes be a bit...moralising, but her social commentary is very good. If you like gothic, give Wilkie Collins a go (even though he's late 19th century). The Woman In White is astonishingly creepy, with one of the most fantastic supporting characters of the Victorian era in the shape of the dreadful, charismatic Count Fosco. Also in the heavily gothic strain of things, try some of Sheridan Le Fanu. He wrote "Camilla", the inspiration for Stokers' Dracula.
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Mar 13, 2010 15:00
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Danger posted:Finch by Jeff Vandermeer. Wow, getting way more than I expected from my rather specific request. Thank you very much.
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Mar 13, 2010 17:05
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Nione posted:So, this is probably not within the scope of normal recommendation requests in TBB. I long ago finished all of Jane Austen. And then all of the Brontes (except for Anne Bronte's Wildfell Hall which I'm finishing). And then Vanity Fair, the Vicar of Wakefield, Mysteries of Udolpho, etc. Today I got Cecilia by Frances Burney and if I like it was considering moving on to Camilla. Does anybody have any other suggestions for late 18th/early 19th century romantic/courtship/realism fiction or gothic novels for me? All the ones I've named have been British, but if anyone could recommend English translations from other places I'd love that. Is Balzac someone I should look into? Where do I start with his works?!? And less well known authors would also be greatly appreciated. I also really enjoyed the Scarlet Pimpernel books by Baroness Orczy. If you want to read French realism, and these are indeed the French novels the victorian novels typically deemed dangerous, I would recommend starting with Stendhal. He was not a 'realist' in the same way as e.g. Flaubert, but as the realists would say 'He was the father of us all', he was especially admired by Balzac. Of his main novels The Charterhouse of Parma and The red and the black (I omit Lucien Leeuwen because even if it is more or less complete, it was never completely finished and it shows in some aspects, still a good read though), the first one is probably the most 'romantic' of the two. One of the great things about his books is his, certainly for the time, straightforward style and his irony, which makes it a joy to read. Or to be more specific about dangerous French novels, in the picture of Dorian Gray the immoral book referenced was, as you may know, a rebours (against the grain) by Joris-Karl Huysmans from his 'decadent' period. It is a fascinating and important book, it would lead to or, more accuratly, finalize the break between Huysmans and the naturalists (Zola), but it is miles away from the 19e century romantic novel. Still I would recommend it to everyone, chapter seven about religion and the fear for the sudden conversion is still one of the best things I've ever read.
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Mar 13, 2010 17:39
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A few friends of mine suggested that I should look into Bukowski. What would be a good introduction into his writing for someone not familiar with his work?
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Mar 14, 2010 09:22
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Ballsworthy posted:Seconding the short story recommendation, I'm a big fan of A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. 3 pages of gold. Thirding the short stories. If you're looking for a novel I recommend Islands in the Stream. It was published posthumously and it's about an American painter living on Bimini and later about his time hunting German U-boats outside Cuba.
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Mar 14, 2010 15:34
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Big Centipede posted:A few friends of mine suggested that I should look into Bukowski. What would be a good introduction into his writing for someone not familiar with his work? Run With the Hunted is a good overview of his career, mixing his novels and columns with his poetry. You can't go wrong with Post Office, Women or Ham on Rye either.
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Mar 14, 2010 20:39
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Fodder Cannon posted:... about his time hunting German U-boats outside Cuba. With a half gallon of whiskey and a shotgun? This sums up all my prejudice of Hemingway, the bloated egomaniac. Anyway, if it's written by him it has the potential of being a great read.
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Mar 15, 2010 20:12
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Thanks everybody! I've taken some notes and will start looking. I know I can get pretty much anything through our library system, which is massive, so I've got enough to probably keep me busy through the summer.
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Mar 15, 2010 20:17
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Funyon posted:I'm having a hard time finding books that suck me in. I'm a very picky reader and spend hours in Barnes and Noble trying to find something that interests me. So I'm going to post some books that I loved, and hopefully you guys can help me out. Anyone? I feel neglected. 
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Mar 15, 2010 22:05
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Funyon posted:Anyone? I feel neglected. You listed a bunch of fairly different books, said you were a picky reader, then said you enjoyed books with themes as vague and based on half-heard high school English lessons as "man's inhumanity to man." I cannot imagine why you have been ignored. First, Anthony Burgess was a prolific author, so why not look up more of his books? Maybe you would like Martin Amis because he is also British and snarky and likes words and has opinions about SOCIETY; if that sounds good, maybe start with London Fields. If you liked House of Leaves, try Italo Calvino's Castle of Crossed Destinies. I don't really know what House of Leaves is besides a typographic mess, but if "experimental" and "nerd cred" are the important bits, the Calvino thing should work. Tristram Shandy also has idiosyncratic typography and a non-linear narrative and pretty much every cockknob that reads House of Leaves should rather read that. Jonathan Safran Foer's Incredibly Loud and Unbearably Close (the -ly words might be in wrong order) has typography weirdness and stuff too; it's kind of crap, but maybe you will like it. Someone is killed in 9/11--Man's inhumanity to man or what? Catch Me If You Can is about Leonardo DiCaprio pretending to be stuff he's not so you should read Miranda Carter's biography of Anthony Blunt who wasn't exactly a conman but a secret Commie spy and also a brilliant art critic and interesting man.
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Mar 16, 2010 00:33
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Can anyone recommend me some good old fashioned boy's own adventure novels? Something akin to King Solomon's Mines?
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Mar 16, 2010 12:02
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ProfessorClumsy posted:Can anyone recommend me some good old fashioned boy's own adventure novels? Something akin to King Solomon's Mines? If you're in the UK you can buy this "Boys' Adventure" novel set from Penguin, which has what most folk would consider all the classics of the genre: http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/penguin_sets/classic_boysadventures.html If you can't get the set, try and at least find "The 39 Steps" by Buchan, "The Lost World" by Conan Doyle and "She" by Rider Haggard. I'd also recommend "Kim" by Rudyard Kipling, which is inexplicably missing from that set.
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Mar 16, 2010 14:47
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Irisi posted:If you're in the UK you can buy this "Boys' Adventure" novel set from Penguin, which has what most folk would consider all the classics of the genre: http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/penguin_sets/classic_boysadventures.html That set is great. I'm not young or male and I want it... I wonder if Penguin sells one in the US. Anything at all by Verne, Haggard, or Stevenson would fit into what you're looking for. Of course there's also all of Mark Twain, Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss, The Call of the Wild by Jack London, Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott... More aimed at children would be things like The Lost Prince by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Horatio Alger stories, or the Hardy Boys.
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Mar 16, 2010 18:16
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rasser posted:With a half gallon of whiskey and a shotgun? This sums up all my prejudice of Hemingway, the bloated egomaniac. Anyway, if it's written by him it has the potential of being a great read. Pretty much, except replace whiskey with a whole lot of daiquiris.
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Mar 16, 2010 22:14
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I'd really like to get into another Fantasy series. I love ASOIF, I just finished all the "Blade Itself" books, the Night Angel Trilogy a few of the Malazon Books although I didn't really care for the series. I don't care if it's "realistic" ala ASOIF or crazy outlandish, I just want a good series that I can sink my teeth into.
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Mar 17, 2010 08:01
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I've never read a general overview of the WWII, and I am looking for recommendations of books that will give me a broader understanding of what caused the conflict, how it unfolded, and the aftermath. I would also be interested in learning about books considered to be outstanding introductions to or commentaries on specific topics (eg Antony Beevor's Stalingrad).
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Mar 17, 2010 20:39
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bitt3n posted:I've never read a general overview of the WWII, and I am looking for recommendations of books that will give me a broader understanding of what caused the conflict, how it unfolded, and the aftermath. I would also be interested in learning about books considered to be outstanding introductions to or commentaries on specific topics (eg Antony Beevor's Stalingrad). Mazower's acclaimed Hitler's Empire may be exactly what you're looking for. It's really long, but excellent. It covers 1925-45, entirely from the German perspective. It concentrates on the German reasons for the war, like grievances from Versailles, desire for a "Greater Germany" encompassing all ethnic Germans in Europe, ethnic hatred of Slavs. It is not a military history (like Stalingrad, which I liked a lot), and doesn't cover that aspect at all, and also gives short shrift to the Allied actions and reactions during the period. But at 800 pages it's pretty much all you'll ever need for the German side. Also recommended to me was William Shirer's classic The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Haven't read it but it seems to have maintained a high critical opinion despite being 50 years old.
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Mar 17, 2010 21:05
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man