Please recommend me some books

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auspiciousqueue

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I'll add several that I don't think were mentioned for science fiction (that I own): Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, Orphans of the Sky by Robert Heinlein and Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut. I have a long list of classical books that I could recommend but I guess it depends on your mood.

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egg

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#52  Edited By egg

@carryboy said:

@egg said:

The Heretics/Unpersuadables

by Will Storr

Huh, they look pretty interesting thank you.

I think they are the same book with different names. I own The Heretics which came out first.

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Phyrlord

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#53  Edited By Phyrlord

@alwaysbebombing said:

How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes

by Peter D. Schiff

This book is a pretty easy read, it's only one sentence long. "North American Auto Manufacturers Unions."

On a serious note, I tend to enjoy the long personal journey an SK novel can provide, I just finished 'IT' for the first time and it was quite good, but something like 'Pet Sematary' or 'Carrie' might be a good start to test the waters.

(When I say long personal journey, I mean the relationship you build with the characters, trust me, you come out of a good SK book knowing the characters sometimes better then you ever thought imaginable with a fictional character.)

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forkboy

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#54  Edited By forkboy

Do you like sport? More specifically, do you like soccer? In which case, read Inverting The Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson, which is all about the history of tactics in the sport, & it's really great.

Politics? I think every human alive should read Demanding The Impossible: A History of Anarchism by Peter Marshall. It's a very lively book, covering from the very earliest ideas on liberty all the way to enlightenment figures important to liberalism such as John Locke to the actual anarchist writers, starting with William Godwin (father of Mary Shelley, she who wrote Frankenstein). It's just stunningly comprehensive, & my copy is quite worn & battered from me taking it everywhere with me & reading it a lot. It's a book that fills me with hope about the human race for a change. Although if you're a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist/objectivist type you'll probably whine about how the book dismisses such thought, but then anarcho-capitalism is about as much anarchism as anarchism is communism.

After that I'd recommend something a bit deflating about our species, either The Spanish Civil War by Anthony Beevor, which covers the conflict in Spain between the 2nd Spanish Republic & it's supporters and the military & conservative Catholics between 1936 & 1939, all in the shadow of World War 2 & the clash of Communism & Fascism. If that topic interests you then I'd also say that George Orwell's Homage To Catalonia is a must read, a book about his time in the POUM militia on the Republican side before being forced to flee Spain after the Stalinist supported government had them outlawed. Which was just one of many examples of infighting among the Republican side. Or for a slightly different sense of awful doom from the same time period there is Robert Conquest's classic work The Great Terror, originally written in the 60s but updated in the 90s after the Soviet archives were opened. It's about the purges within the USSR, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union & the Red Army. It's pretty horrifying really, but these sort of things shouldn't be forgotten.

Less history? Philip K Dick is your go-to guy for science fiction. Everybody starts with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the book that Bladerunner was based on, but after that I'd recommend The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch which is just a hellishly trippy book. And after that, I'd recommend Ubik, & Man In The High Castle which is set in an America where the Axis won World War 2. And from there, just go with it, his stuff can be pretty out there at times, do read A Scanner Darkly at some point though, that's a particularly poignant book. And you should probably hit the VALIS trilogy of VALIS, The Divine Invasion & The Transmigration of TImothy Archer which were all written at the end of Dick's life where maybe all the years of psychedelic use had caught up to him. But it's fascinating.

Also, there's a British sci-fi/fantasy author called Robert Rankin I'd really recommend, he describes his books as "far-fetched fiction" & they are all generally humorous books but often filled with interesting ideas. I'd start with The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies & the sequel The Toyminator, both are set in Toy City & follow the adventures of young lad Jack & his friend Eddie. Who happens to be a stuffed bear. It's a murder mystery, & funny too. If you like them then maybe hit either The Brentford Trilogy or The Armageddon Trilogy because once Barry The Sprout & Elvis are in your life you'll be a better person.

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Carryboy

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#55  Edited By Carryboy

@forkboy: I like soccer so much I call it Football, thanks for the recommendations.

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forkboy

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#56  Edited By forkboy

@carryboy said:

@forkboy: I like soccer so much I call it Football, thanks for the recommendations.

Good man! I call it football myself but it is an American focused message board so I guess I'm willing to grant them that helmetball is a form of football too.

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Broomhitches

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The Dresden Files

Soon I Will Be Invincible

The Hobbit

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tariqari

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You should read the Qur'an.

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forkboy

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@tariqari said:

You should read the Qur'an.

I want to do that some day. The problem being that religious texts can be a real drag. I kept trying to read the bible for a while & just...Genesis, Exodus & Leviticus are not rad to read. There's only so many X begat Y's I could take before tapping out. I hope the Quran isn't like that. It's also the issue of finding a good, reliable translation that doesn't warp the original text any.

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hermes

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#60  Edited By hermes

@capum15 said:

Also, World War Z is my favorite zombie book. I haven't seen the movie but it seems that they took out enough of what I liked about the book to make me not interested.

I subscribe to that suggestion. World War Z is a great book. Also, avoid the movie. Other than the title, it has nothing of the book. NOTHING... I mean, they didn't even keep the zombies.

Other than that, someone already mentioned House of Leaves... Awesome book. Highly experimental, the kind of book that can mess with your head...

In Science Fiction, I would like to add Childhood's End, of Clarke. In Fantasy, the Song of Ice and Fire series is popular at the moment, and they are pretty good books on their own right.

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forkboy

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#61  Edited By forkboy

I've been reminded of another book I can't recommend enough: A Life Too Short by Ronald Reng, it's biography of the German national team goalkeeper Robert Enke, who tragically killed himself while still in his prime. They were working together on helping Robert put together his autobiography before his suicide so he has access to his diaries so there are some intensely personal moments in the book.

Obviously soccer isn't for everybody but I'd say it's a really powerful book that I'd recommend to anyone interested in depression and how it effects even the most successful of people.

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ShadowSkill11

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Frank Herbert's Dune.

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Hamst3r

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#63  Edited By Hamst3r

I'm in the process of reading A Fault In Our Stars by John Green. I'm 13 chapters in and have enjoyed it thus far, it's pretty funny and certainly an engaging read. In essence it's a love story involving teenagers with cancer, yet it still manages to be funny.

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tsutohiro

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Anyone else enjoy reading "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell"?

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Sinusoidal

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I can also recommend War and Peace. It really does start to pick up after the five hundred page rambling introduction to late 18th century Russian aristocracy...

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jerseyscum

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The audiobook for Ready Player One is fantastic.

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circlenine

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#67  Edited By circlenine

Look To Windward and Use Of Weapons by Iain M Banks.

As for Stephen King stuff that people are recommending, stop after he stopped being a coke addict.

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AndrewBeardsley

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Anything by Haruki Murakami

Personally I recommend 1Q84,After Dark, Sputnik Sweetheart, Norwegian Wood.

If you want a really great Canadian non fiction (Weird genre I know) you should check out The Dogs are Eating Them Now by Graeme Smith.

And then as always, John Steinbeck,Hemmingway,Faulkner.

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mike28212

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@carryboy:

@carryboy said:

@forkboy: I like soccer so much I call it Football, thanks for the recommendations.

There are so many good choices already mentioned.

The best soccer/football book I have read is The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro: A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy by Joe McGinniss. The author spends a year with a Serie B club in Italy that was just promoted. It is a great read.

For sci fi try Old Man's War by John Scalzi.

And for a twisted thriller Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is cool.

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ShadyPingu

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#70  Edited By ShadyPingu

Finished Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay.

Kay sorta defies genre classification, but if I had to put him in a box, I'd say he writes historical fiction set in not-strictly-historical worlds. Under Heaven is set in fake-China, called Kitai, circa the Tang Dynasty. Comparable to something like to A Song of Ice and Fire, but without the magical fantasy stuff.

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PandaBear

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The Bible.

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ShadowSkill11

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#72  Edited By ShadowSkill11

The Bible.

Sure, it fits in with all of the other fictional book mentioned.

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egg

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#73  Edited By egg

@forkboy said:

@tariqari said:

You should read the Qur'an.

I want to do that some day. The problem being that religious texts can be a real drag. I kept trying to read the bible for a while & just...Genesis, Exodus & Leviticus are not rad to read. There's only so many X begat Y's I could take before tapping out. I hope the Quran isn't like that. It's also the issue of finding a good, reliable translation that doesn't warp the original text any.

I read Genesis.... :<

I keep meaning to continue but didn't get around to it yet.

Quran sounds like it would be way more entertaining since it is touted to be beautifully and eloquently written. We know the bible certainly is not! (not to mention Quran inspired more people to blow themselves up. Is that metal or what)