Now is the time on Sprockets when I talk about them.
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George Friedman - America's Secret War. From the Stratfor guy. Most of his analysis seemed fundamentally sound to me. Worth a read.
Philip K Dick - The Man in the High Castle
Philip K Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Philip K Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Philip K Dick - Martian Time-Slip
Philip K Dick - Dr. Bloodmoney. Read those all in a row. Barely sane afterward, not recommended.
Eric Schlosser - Command and Control. Really fact-heavy book although it tempts one to draw the wrong conclusions about the future of nuclear power. About 200 pages too long.
George RR Martin - The Tales of Dunk and Egg. The Hobbit to Martin's Lord of the Rings.
George RR Martin - The Princess and the Queen. The Silmarillion to Martin's Lord of the Rings.
Hunter S. Thompson - The Great Shark Hunt. Long, hilarious, quite worth it.
JRR Tolkien - The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun. Still haven't read his translation of Beowulf but it will be hard to top these verses.
Stephen Kinzer - The Brothers. Excellent biography of JF and Allen Dulles. Must-read.
Roger Zelazny - The Chronicles of Amber 1-5. Thanks _refugee_ and kleinbl00. Burned out on the writing style so I skipped the second story arc. Might go back.
Gerald Davis - Managed by the Markets. Dry but necessary. Really dry.
Richard Dawkins - The Ancestor's Tale. Loaded with neat information. Periodic 15-page detours into diagrams and terminology only understood by PhDs in evolutionary biology.
Michael Lewis - The Big Short. Famous. Must-read. Won't take more than three hours.
Paul Roberts - The End of Food. Thanks b_b. Excellent book.
Sam Hughes - Quantum of Ra. Online story find of the summer. Great scifi clouded by murky moralistic friendly AI stuff.
Paul Williams - Divine Invasions. Biography of PKD.
Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose. Wonderful historical fiction.
Alan Lightman - Einstein's Dreams
Honore de Balzac - Droll Stories. Repetitive but extremely droll.
Stendhal - Le Rouge et le Noir
Scott Lynch - The Lies of Locke Lamora
Scott Lynch - Red Seas Under Red Skies
Scott Lynch - The Republic of Thieves. A concession to modern fantasy. I like to keep a finger on the pulse. Beats per minute steadily declining, but anyway...
Greg Schroen - First In. Not worth the time.
Paul Lockhart - A Mathematician's Lament
George Orwell - The Road to Wigan Pier. Such an odd book. I read it periodically.
China Mieville - The City & the City
Bill Bryson - Notes from a Small Island
Thomas Pynchon - Bleeding Edge
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Edward O Wilson - The Future of Life. Extremely important.
John Updike - Gertrude and Claudius. Not as interesting as I thought it would be. Some great prose.
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So yeah that's the list, if anyone cares. Probably missed a couple. Best of the bunch were PKD's Stigmata, Le Rouge et le Noir, Brothers, The Name of the Rose, Einstein's Dreams. Only one or two really bad ones -- good summer overall.
Right now I'm in the midst of Bill Bryson's One Summer America 1927, Marquez' Autumn of the Patriarch, Reading Chekhov by Janet Malcolm, and of course Godel, Escher, Bach, god help me.
What are y'all reading? I need to replenish my list. And I can guarantee that if I say I'll read a book you recommend, I'll actually read it.
Sheeeeit, this is making me feel uncultured.
Re. Chabon: Telegraph Avenue. Started it, never had time to get into it, regret having dropped it. Probably worth picking up, I've heard it said that it's even better than Cavalier and Clay. Got this for my birthday, making my way through it. Beautiful. But. I feel like a hallmark of the modern cartoonist I mean Graphic Novelist is to make sure that everybody knows the work is SERIOUS by way of making all characters very very sad and conflicted. Would it kill you to put a dude slipping on a banana peel every few pages? No, as long as he's very contemplative about the results afterward. There's plenty of good modern fantasy, just gotta know where to look. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one of my favorite books ever. Read it maybe five times now, get something new out of it every time. The Magician series by Lev Grossman is great, very tongue-in-cheek, a must-read for anybody just out of school. Added perk, the final one in the trilogy just came out. The Name of the Wind series is only two books in right now, but it's great. Not as heavy as Jonathan Strange, not as smart as Grossman, but good clean fun. Oh, and speaking of magicians, Gene Wolfe's "Wizard Knight" duo is great. Dense, hallucinatory. Also not really a fantasy, I don't think. Making my way through The Fatal Shore right now, which should count as two or three books. Keep meaning to quote it on the quote thread, but I could easily quote the whole thing, which would take a while. Kudos, this is an impressive list.
If I had to push one of those not previously read on you, I'd say the two Wizard Knight books, aptly titled The Knight and The Wizard. Wizard in question being the knight of the first book. See how he did that? Caveat being I haven't read it in about eight years, so what I thought was, like, deep man, might be kind of... not. Seem to remember some heavy-handed biblical/mythological references. But the gist stuck with me, very pretty, very heartbreaking. Maybe I should go back, re-read, see if it's worth anything. I give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt though, since his other stuff is pretty out there in a good way. What'd you think about the two Kingkiller books?
Yeah, originality is difficult. Esp. in the fantasy genre- feel like there are two, maybe three fantasy frameworks, and not much deviates from that. Ultimately, a fantasy novel better have something going for it in terms of style, tone, narrative structure, etc or it's gonna feel like LOTR 8.0. Trying to think of an original contemporary fantasy, coming up goose eggs- maybe Curse of Chalion? That was pretty good. I liked the two Kingkiller books the way I like, say, Star Trek TNG- total comfort food. Feel shitty in any way, there are certain things you can hang out with on the couch and they'll just take your mind off for a while- that's how I approach those two books. That's plenty for me when it comes to fantasy these days.
There's plenty of good modern fantasy, just gotta know where to look. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one of my favorite books ever.
-Me too. What an enjoyable read. I hope they turn it in to a film and treat it with the respect it deserves.
I heard something somewhere about it being optioned to BBC or ??? But who knows if it'll ever go through. I trust BBC to do a good job with it.
From wikipedia Exciting: Even more exciting: I trust BBC to do a good job with it.
-Me too and it appears to be real. On 15 October 2004, New Line Cinema announced that it had bought a three-year option on the film rights to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.[60] Clarke received an unknown "seven-figure sum", making the deal "one of the biggest acquisitions of film rights for a book in recent years".[61] New Line chose Christopher Hampton, whose adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons won an Academy Award, to write it; New Line executives Mark Ordesky and Ileen Maisel were overseeing the production.[62] On 7 November 2005, The Daily Telegraph reported that Hampton had finished the first draft: "As you can imagine, it took a fair amount of time to work out some way to encapsulate that enormous book in a film of sensible length ... [b]ut it was lots of fun – and very unlike anything I have ever done before."[63] At that time, no director or cast had yet been chosen.[63] As of June 2006, Hampton was still working on the screenplay.[64] Julian Fellowes then took over writing duties before the collapse of New Line Cinema.
On 30 November 2012, it was announced that a six-part adaptation of the book was to made by the BBC for broadcast on BBC One. The book will be adapted by Peter Harness and directed by Toby Haynes, and produced by Cuba Pictures and Feel Films.[65][66] In April 2013, various sites reported that a number of co-producers have joined the project, including BBC America, Screen Yorkshire, Bell Media's Space and Far Moor, and that it is to be distributed by Endemol Worldwide Distribution. Pre-production is due to begin in April 2013, and filming later in the year, including locations in Yorkshire and Canada. The number of episodes has also grown to seven.[67]
Clarke is currently working on a book that begins a few years after Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell ends. It will centre on characters such as Childermass and Vinculus who, as Clarke says, are "a bit lower down the social scale"
I thought the title was "How" you reached you 30 book goal, and I was keen on the trick. I only managed Anna Karenina, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (highly recommend), and a book short stories. How'd you manage 30? Some great picks in here, thanks :)
Have you read One Hundred Years of Solitude? It is one of my favorite books, and is a book that profits from multiple readings. How is One Summer, America 1927? I've never read anything by Bill Bryson, but that one certainly looks interesting.
Second tng. Bryson's career has evolved and he's written lots of styles. Early in his career he wrote memoir-ish things. Then he began some investigative reporting style stuff. I'm incredibly pressed for time but let me just recommend the book he wrote on Shakespeare--
I don't really have a top 10 books of all time, but if I did One hundred years of solitude would most certainly be in it.
Since April: Flash Boys, Michael Lewis. It's great, like all things Michael Lewis, but not the best. The Everything Store, Brad Stone. insomniasexx's recommendation. Beat the dead corpse of my wonder for tech companies. Amazon isn't the best, they're just the first, and they kick everyone else when they're down. American Gods, Neil Gaiman. and that's about all I have to say about that. Our Mathematical Universe, Max Tegmark. Considering the amount of navel-gazing and armchair mathematics done on this site, I'm amazed no one has mentioned it before. The Martian, Andy Weir. Best new sci fi I've read since Bacigalupi's Clockwork Girl. College Unbound, Jeffrey Selingo. The kids are all right, college is a scam and it can't continue. Gives you numbers and statistics to back up your suspicions. Age of Context, Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. Pure shit. Nerds fellating themselves and arguing that Google is important because everybody knows google is important shut up peon. Fucking hated that book. Capital in the 21st Century, Thomas Piketty. A grind, but an important one. You don't read this for fun. Escape from Camp 14, Blaine Harden. Life in a North Korean prison camp. Spoilers: it's a drag. Daemon, Daniel Suarez. Purer shit than Age of Context, except it's fiction so it has no excuse. One of the worst-crafted novels I have ever read. Eye of the Needle, Ken Follett. Spectacularly good WWII Nazi spy thriller. Nexus, Ramez Naam. Fucking terrible. The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown (in process). Surprisingly, better than Nexus or Daemon. __________________ I've been meaning to try some Eco. You are, of course, aware that Sean Connery and Christian Slater starred opposite each other in the adaptation?
Wow, it genuinely didn't occur to me that Follett could still be alive, since he captured that era so well. He was actually born post-war. Now that I think about it I believe I read something about a relatively recent book of his the other day.
Ah, right right. I figured it was one of those but was on phone cooking dinner. When I once again get the chance to read for fun, I shall check it out. For you - September 2014
Dunno if you're joking here or what, but - you had plenty to say about that :-)American Gods, Neil Gaiman. and that's about all I have to say about that.
Thanks for reminding me how much trailers have changed. Seems like a textbook case of a novel with a lot of symbolism and history and complexity scaled right down into a darker Poirot BBC special. Piketty I start next week. Looking forward to it while I can. PS: I renew my suggestion that you read Quantum of Ra, mostly out of curiosity about what you say on it afterward.
God help you flag. I, on the other hand, have completely lost the ability to concentrate on a book. Loved Umberto Eco though, Focault's Pendulum was over-bashed by critics.Godel, Escher, Bach, god help me.
Flag, have you read PKD's Valis Trilogy? Because if we're talking about a complete lack of sanity, god help me it's not even on the same plane of existence levels of madness. How is Godel, Escher, Bach? It's been at the top of my list for a while now and I still haven't bought it. I think thenewgreen originally recommended it to me? Or kb?
I'm going to start it here in a few weeks or months. I need a long break from PKD, I've read about ten of his books total and that's way too many. GEB is going. I'm not far. I think parts of it are so interesting but I have a feeling it will ultimately suffer from being unfocused and far too long. We'll see.
It must have been kleinbl00, because I have not read it.
I've read the first two Locke Lamora books and did enjoy them for what they were. I wasn't aware there was a third, I'll have to check it out. I'm reading Elizabeth Warren's autobiography right now, which is interesting enough but especially interesting to me because she talks a lot about financial regulations and her time working with congress to make improvements occur after the financial crisis. I don't know what's next on the list. I usually read for my book club each month but they're reading wicked and I dislike that book so much I've donated it to goodwill twice. I bailed with impunity. I did tell wasoxygen I would read Thinking Fast and Slow, so maybe that.
GEB took me two years, but if your interest is only passing, you can read a dialog a day and just let those stew instead of letting Hofstadter explain them for you. Name of the Rose: I've only seen the movie, but my girlfriend's left the comment that it didn't feel historically accurate. I give her shit to this day about that! My friend read the book though, and when we went through the movie (again) together, he said it dropped a lot of the political intricacies in favor of focus on the narrator's experience. Also, I share this with every reader / watcher of that story
It's a painted portrait of words! In the movie, that scene is a confused character surrounded by strange sculpted arcs. In the book, it's a spiritual experience. There's also a section from the Silmarillon, but it's not quite as central focus for that one.
http://www.ae-lib.org.ua/texts-c/tolkien__the_silmarillion__en.htm#01In that time the Valar brought order to the seas and the lands and the mountains, and Yavanna planted at last the seeds that she had long devised. And since, when the fires were subdued or buried beneath the primeval hills, there was need of light, Aulë at the prayer of Yavanna wrought two mighty lamps for the lighting of the Middle-earth which he had built amid the encircling seas. Then Varda filled the lamps and Manwë hallowed them, and the Valar set them upon high pillars, more lofty far than are any mountains of the later days.
Currently, Mona Lisa Overdrive, but I can't figure out why I'm sticking with it. I loved Neuromancer, and Count Zero was a great follow-up, but I am in the teens of the chapters and I just can't make it more than 15 minutes in without falling asleep. Maybe there's action and fascination to come, but right now I'm watching the days tick down on Audible till I get my next two credits. Previously: Stay, CashewGuy's recommendation. I don't agree with the author's philosphy 100%, but the I would recommend the first chapter to most everyone, and what follows is a nice bit of history and culture. Pre-previously: Couldn't put it down, would recommend.
Would you read a graphic novel? They are pretty expensive, but if you can find it at your local library I would recommend "Jerusalem" by Guy Deslisle. It's his subjective experience of his trip to Israel but he also gives historic background on the conflict and underlines the present social issues. I like how it shows the diversity of opinions WITHIN the two groups cause the media portrays it all as "the jews" vs "the palestinians" but reading that book makes you realize it's even more complicated than you expected. I love all his graphic novels. He also wrote one on Myanmar and South Korea but the most recent is the Jerusalem one.
It seems like 1Q84 elicits two very distinct responses, one being your aunt's and one being mine, which is to say I think it's a goddam masterpiece. From the reviews I've read it seems like the critics basically divide the same way. No one is lukewarm about it; we all either love it or hate it. I happen to love it. 1Q84 is my favorite Murakami by a mile (which says a lot, because I like all his writing that I've read). 1000 pages is a lot to push through for a book you don't like. And I'm honestly not sure if I would've enjoyed it had I not read some of his others book previously. He uses a sort of surrealism in his writing that takes a bit of getting used to. If you're already familiar with the universe in which his characters live from his other writings, then I don't think 1Q84 is so out there. If, on the other hand, you're unprepared, then I could imagine not knowing or caring what you're reading. Either way, I wouldn't judge Murakami wholly by that book. He has a lot of amazing stories, and many people who are fans of his hated 1Q84.
I take the Aunt camp's opinion further. 1Q84 is among the worst pieces of fiction I've read. The three books in the trilogy were my first reading of Murakami and remain the only books of his that I've read. I've looked around for opinions on his magnum opus and everyone seems to give different opinions. I bought Norwegian Wood and will sit down and read it eventually, but 1Q84 left a very bad taste in my mouth and I can't really encourage anyone to read it. I don't know how far elizabeth is, but Book 1 was better than the two sequels. My first concern was probably the flatness of the writing. This was particularly obvious in the internal monologues of Tengo and Aomame which were so detached that they distanced themselves from any form of psychology or characterisation and instead bordered on stripped point-of-view narrative on the plot. This turned out to be a major issue as the main plot focus was on the separation of Aomame and Tengo, who seemed passionless, rigid, robotic, etc. I might even be able to see the appeal of it as some kind of Tolstoyan statement on the meaningless of individuals in the march of history if Aomame and Tengo actually did something worth talking about in their time. Particularly in Book 3, and this is very meta-, the book just becomes a discussion of these two reading the newspaper, Proust, Dostovesky, Chekhov... When I finished the series, this ubiquitous intertextuality served as a grand list of authors I'd really rather have put time towards in lieu of Murakami.
I'm at the beginning of book 2 and I'm not too sure how I feel about it yet. I don t hate it but I don t really love it either. It's more like I don t care too much about the character and I feel the story really takes a bit too long to advance sometimes. (Maybe it's just that I haven t been reading much lately and i'm not really used to slow-paced books? I found The song of ice and fire advanced too slow for my liking too and I stopped reading after I finished the first book). For sure I'll have to read other Murakami books after that because 1Q84 seems not very representative of his work either way.
As I say, I preferred Book 1 to the other two. I think if you find the plot overwritten and the characters uninteresting, Book 2 will exacerbate that. Book 1 served as a decent exposition for a plot -- a foundation -- but as I said in my original post, the plot winds up assuming a very bland focus in the sequels. For me it was less an issue of a slow pace and more that it was completely meandering. It went from scene to scene and event to event but there was no implication that it had any real destination in mind. By Book 3 I was skipping entire passages of filler. Can't really comment on Murakami's other work and I too stopped ASOIAF after the first book. I've had that enormous series taunting me from my shelves for maybe two years now and it's still not over.
The Mechanical Mind in History I couldn't make it through GEB myself, and I have a more than casual interest in logic and AI. I enjoyed Metamagical Themas and The Mind's I though.
I Am a Strange Loop might be more up your alley--it's sort of like GEB, but more condensed and to-the-point. GEB is great for people down for all of Hofstadter's word games and silly tangents, but IIASL gets the core message across without all the bells and whistles. It also has a lot more of a human element to it, since it delves into Hofstadter's personal life a bit.