|
I really enjoyed Mason & Dixon by Pynchon and Anathem by Neal Stephenson, but I'm having trouble finding similiar stuff that I actually like or what genre I'm even looking for. Fake historical fiction, I guess? Any recommendations? So far I've started on the Baroque Cycle which looks good, but I'm having trouble getting into it for some reason. The local book store sent me home with Turtledove's Into The Darkness and Roberto Bolaño's 2666, but they both veered pretty sharply away from what I wanted. tl;dr Looking for historical fiction/fantasy that's educational but not slavishly factual. Similiar to Mason & Dixon and Anathem. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Dec 31, 2012 |
#
¿
Dec 31, 2012 21:57
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 21:33 |
|
|
Thanks! The Book of Madness and Cures looks really interesting and I'll give Wolf Hall a shot too as it comes so highly recommended. Parrot and Olivier as well. The Name of the Rose was great (Foucault's Pendulum too) and I've already read most of Pynchon's stuff, of which Mason & Dixon was my favourite. I have yet to read Against The Day. I love how passionate and knowledgeable Eco and Pynchon are about history while still treating it with a sense of humour. Some of those books are pretty arduous though. I don't want to give the impression that I'm only looking for giant tomes when suggestions for lighter reading are welcome as well. Azathoth posted:2) A non-fiction book about pre-historic sea-faring (bronze age or earlier). The spread of the Polynesians is absolutely fascinating, though I'm open to books about European/Mediterranean cultures as well. This might be relevant: Ibn Fadlan's Journey to Russia: A Tenth-Century Traveler from Baghad to the Volga River It's a first hand account by an Arab merchant who travels into the middle of Russia on a diplomatic mission. He writes a lot about the different ethnic groups he encounters with a rather pious Islamic slant. The part that might interest you is his encounters with a bunch of vikings who have somehow sailed up the Volga  He writes a lot about their day-to-day life including some entertaining details about hygiene and sex that don't turn up in the average history. Pretty interesting in that it's one of the earliest written records of viking culture by another party.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 1, 2013 19:04
|
|
|
Adib posted:What do you guys think of Orhan Pamuk? I don't know much about him, but My Name Is Red is really charming and somehow manages to juggle multiple narrators and a murder mystery without getting annoying. His descriptions of the miniaturist's work were a little too good, and left me wishing I could see what he was talking about. It might be worth looking up some artbooks to see what all the fuss was about. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Jan 2, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Jan 2, 2013 05:50
|
|
|
Starks posted:Anyone have some recommendations for some good horror novels? Not Stephen King or Clive Barker, and preferably not serial-killer/true crime type of stuff. Beyond that I'm pretty much open to anything as long as it's scary. Dan Simmons' Terror is pretty great, although only the last half could really be called horror.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2013 16:00
|
|
|
Any recommendations for fictional non-fiction books? Two examples are Motel of the Mysteries and The Atlas of Remote Islands.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2017 10:16
|
|
|
Thanks for the recommendations! None of them were what I expected, but I guess it was a strange request to begin with. anilEhilated posted:Not quite as pleasant as Remote Islands but I enjoyed Bolano's Nazi Literature in the Americas. This especially goes to a darker place than I would have guessed. I bounced off 2666, but I'll give it a try. Looking it up also led me to Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings which looks like it could work even though it gives away the conceit in the title. I also remembered/came across some other "non-fiction" books, in case anybody else wants to go down the same rabbit hole. The Voynich manuscript, of course. Stanislaw Lem apparently had a thing for publishing collections of reviews of non-existent books  Then I found a bunch of bunch of fantasy/sci-fi bestiaries and the like on Goodreads. They are less interesting to me, I guess because it's immediately apparent that they are fantasy.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 19, 2017 17:13
|
|
|
So, this is a bit of an odd request. I'm looking for a collection of short stories or non-fiction articles that are weird and interesting. Thing is, I read a bit to my girlfriend most nights before we go to sleep and we've burnt through most everything I had on the backburner in the past couple months of corona curfew. For some examples: This year, we've read the No Such Thing as a Fish Book of the Year 2019 Elise's old blog- http://www.endofshiftreport.com/2015/07/my-name-is-elise.html and the greatest hit is definitely The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Apr 30, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Apr 30, 2020 21:31
|
|
|
Thanks for the recommendations! We're starting with Bill Bryson. Selachian posted:You might enjoy Ricky Jay's Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, which is a history of various carnival sideshow acts. This looks fascinating, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be published as an ebook and isn't available for buying or borrowing in my country. Archive.org does seem to have a copy for borrowing, but something about their email registration system is borked. Arrgh
|
|
#
¿
May 2, 2020 17:40
|
|
|
buffalo all day posted:If you want other space-based sci-fi, Becky Chambers's A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is well-liked around here. It's often described as "cozy" and feels a bit like the TV show Firefly. Hey, I recently read this, as well as A Closed and Common Orbit and Record of a Spaceborn Few. Any recommendations for books with a similiar vibe? It was a nice change of pace to read some sci-fi that was good-natured and focused on the small things. Also, thanks to whoever recommended Bill Bryson's At Home earlier in the thread. It's super interesting and Mrs Beeton's insane 18th century housekeeping instructions have become a household joke.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 6, 2020 21:43
|
|
|
Dominoes posted:Hey dudes. I'm almost finished reading Neal Stephenson's books, and am looking for more hard scifi. In the vein of Stephenson, Weir, Sagan. Doesn't have to be as intense, but something grounded on the edge of reality. Something with clever ideas for tech, politics, or culture. Not sci-fi, but if you liked Stephenson’s Anathem you should check The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2020 13:52
|
|
|
Oh man, I forgot about Cryptonomicon. If you liked that, good chance you'll enjoy Gravity's Rainbow too.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2020 23:54
|
|
|
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk is set in the 16th century Ottoman empire. Starts off kinda like a crime novel then turns into something else.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2020 22:07
|
|
|
Stringent posted:Might wanna give Whitman a glimpse. And if you like Whitman, take a look at Fernando Pessoa!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 10, 2020 13:16
|
|
|
Bilirubin posted:I intend to read this at some point. I started it a few years ago but stopped as other books took priority at the time cherry13chumscum posted:Or for cooking, the Joy of Cooking. Stuff like that. Any field at all. The New Basics Cookbook is a pretty all-encompassing cookbook. Everything is covered, right down to what pots should be used, cuts of meat, how to debone a fish, blanch a tomato, boil an egg, etc. Some of the recipes are astonishingly good too.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2020 07:51
|
|
|
On that note, I would love some recommendations for perennial cooking bibles for other cultures! Like for Danish cooking (lmao), every family will have a dog-eared copy of Frøken Jensen's Kogebog and God Mad. Bonus points if they are translated to English, of course.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2020 07:55
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 21:33 |
|
|
TommyGun85 posted:Il Cucchiaio d'Argento Aww hell yeah. Thanks, I'm getting excited just thinking about this.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2020 14:12
|
|