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32 replies | 871 views | +43 rating | February 23, 2010 9:37pm | ||||
Book RecommendationsThis thread is for recommending any great reads anyone has had recently....or even not so recently. I don't read nearly as much as I should mostly because I hate starting a book and finding that I don't like it halfway through. With that said here are a few books that I've read in the last couple years that I absolutely loved cover to cover: - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon Post yours up! I need something good to read! EDIT: I can't stress enough how much I enjoyed Kavalier & Clay, a true modern masterpiece right there. |
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Link | February 23, 2010 11:00pm | ||||
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Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky The beginning may be considered dry by most readers, but it is thought provoking and a necessary read of existential literature. The second part is much faster, but it won't have as much meaning or impact without the first part. |
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Link | February 23, 2010 11:57pm | ||||
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Empire by Orson Scott Card. Empire is a brilliant look at a (frighteningly) possible future where America is literally divided into conservatives and liberals, and civil war breaks out. The Black Company is a great fantasy read. More so because the Company fights for the side of evil throughout the book. The characters are wonderfully real; they have issues with the masters they serve, even though they themselves are mostly of ill repute. Patriot Games is a downright classic. Clancy has a knack for elaborate schemes and only giving you just enough information while he keeps the characters one step ahead of where your brain is. Great topic by the way. |
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Link | February 24, 2010 12:24am | ||||
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Empire by Orson Scott Card was indeed a good read. I'm not sure I would go so far as to recommend it though. Ender's Game on the other hand is definitely worth recommending. Though Empire was fast paced, had strong characters, and a clever plot, some elements like the mechs, hover vehicles, and super armor felt painfully forced. |
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Link | February 24, 2010 12:43am | ||||
I definitely agree. Card said those elements were a result of his collaboration with Chair Entertainment as they made Shadow Complex, a Xbox Live Arcade game. I haven't read the Ender series yet. It's actually next on my list as soon as I finish the Chronicles of the Black Company. |
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Link | February 24, 2010 7:14pm | ||||
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Persepolis 1 and 2 were purdy good, if you're into Iranian graphic-autobiographies. |
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Link | February 25, 2010 4:30pm | ||||
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I thought we were video game people and were "above" literature. Ah well. Some of my favorite books are a contract with God by Will Eisner, and Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware. I seem to have a soft spot for graphic fiction that isn't sci/fantasy. I hear Dennis Lehane's novels are pretty good. All I know is that he wrote one of the season of The Wire. |
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Link | February 25, 2010 4:46pm | ||||
hmm, that could go either way, there was a season or two of The Wire that were a bit lackluster... |
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Link | February 25, 2010 4:46pm | ||||
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I'm a big Chris Ware fan. I can stare at his pages for days. I tend to pick up the latest Acme Novelty Library whenever its published. As far as recommendations....I personally haven't had any idea what to read lately either. Though I've been on a non-fiction kick lately. I'll just go to the library and grab something from New Nonfiction rack. Most recent was The American Future by Simon Schama. Its pretty interesting...talks about the current American cultural climate by examining our history. Schama's a historian and fun one at that...he had a show on PBS about art history and he would always mention how "sexy" the art work was. Read Roughing It by Mark Twain... love that one...though the final Hawaii chapters are kind of slow. |
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Link | February 25, 2010 7:21pm | ||||
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The Hunger Games by Susan Collins is one of the most suspensful books I've read. Same goes for any book in the Alex Rider series. Rainbow Six is the most suspensful book I've read. The situations in the game have nothing over the book. The Hunt for Red October is also a good Clancy book, despite all the military jargon peppered throughout. Into the Wild is a classic that anyone who has been through high school should've read. If you haven't read it, read it already. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is also a must-read classic. Any book by Ted Dekker is a real good read, especially Thr3e and Adam. Don't read them, though, if you don't like religion. - - - - - - Visit my blog at Wordpress. The name is Press X to Reload. |
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Link | March 01, 2010 5:39pm | ||||
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I'd read any and all books by Neal Asher. Brilliantly violent and in-your-face space opera, wall to wall high concept, wall to wall monsters and superpowered cybernetic agents doing ridiculously over the top shit. Millions die as a routine. If i could high five these books i would. "Gridlinked" is a great start, about an AI-employed agent networked through a brain implant taken offline to regain his humanity. Beyond that, I'm a huge Lovecraft fan, so any anthology with "At the Mountains of Madness", "The Shadow over Innsmouth" or "The Shadow out of Time" is totally baller (did I use that word right? I always wanted to use that word). My alltime favorite book is probably Maldoror by Comte de Lautreamont. It's a surrealist piece about the nature of evil, and is unrelentingly grim, but written (and translated) with such conviction it's hard not to want to keep watching, like a slow motion train crash or something like that. |
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Link | March 01, 2010 10:30pm | ||||
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Freakonomics is good if you like statistics and humor... that sounds nerdy, but I love the book :-] |
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Link | March 02, 2010 11:30pm | ||||
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Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell |
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Link | March 19, 2010 6:23pm | ||||
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Sara Douglass - The Axis Trilogy etc etc |
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Link | March 19, 2010 9:54pm | ||||
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Just ordered Jim Frederick’s “BLACK HEARTS: One Platoon’s Descent Into Madness in Iraq’s Triangle of Death,” NYT Review here: http://nyti.ms/9NPrJ9 That's the kind of material/reporting that turns into a movie like GREEN ZONE or HURT LOCKER - just wait. Not much time for novels these days. Pynchon's "iNHERENT VICE" was the last, and you have to be rather "old" to really enjoy it? I am. I did. @mclogenog i remember reading "Notes From Underground", a very long time ago. Forgot about that book (like with most books). |
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Link | April 01, 2010 12:15am | ||||
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The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks I've also enjoyed every Dan Brown book I've read so far. |
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Link | April 13, 2010 9:36am | ||||
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I have the same issue where I get really annoyed when I'm half way through a book and I'm like... wait a second... this is awful. Good books I've read recently are: Stranger Things Happen - Kelly Link |
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Link | April 14, 2010 3:05pm | ||||
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Just today bought "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy... Can't really recommend it, because...well, I've not yet read it. But it sure looks good! |
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Link | April 15, 2010 10:50pm | ||||
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All I do is read--so maybe I've reached Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to books--but I do have some suggestions. If you like memoir and want something with a little prose poetry feel then I would recommend Nick Flynn's "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City." If you want fiction and you're not turned off by the spiritual, then please read Robinson's Gilliad. If you're a fan of reading plays as literature (which I am--though I'm more connected to them as interactive and collaborative art) then rush out and pick up a collection called, "The America Plays," by Suzan-Lori Parks. Oh, and in honor of the fact that it's National Poetry Month, here's a link to one of the greatest books about writing of all time, Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" (some nice person on the internet typed up each letter with relatively few typos): http://www.carrothers.com/rilke_main.htm You might also check out the work of one of my mentors, Dr. Bruce Bond. His collection of poems called Blind Rain helped me get through my father's death in 2008. Here's a link to some of his works: http://www.versedaily.org/2008/aboutbrucebondcr.shtml He was also featured in the 2009 edition of "Best American Poems" for a poem called Ringtone. Good luck with the list. |
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Link | April 16, 2010 9:49pm | ||||
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Animal Farm - George Orwell. It's only 100 odd pages and it's a great read. |
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Link | April 16, 2010 11:44pm | ||||
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Update to my Recommendation: And I'll mention another book I read a couple years ago that was pretty good: |
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Link | April 16, 2010 11:49pm | ||||
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How was Metro 2033 in reference to the game? The game do it justice or was it not even loosely related? |
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Link | April 16, 2010 11:58pm | ||||
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Some of the basic story elements were the same. Same main character. Same main goal. Some other characters were in both, but sometimes their roles were slightly different. Not all the places in the book were in the game and some had their names changed although they seemed like the same place by description. The game is very action heavy (obviously so its not very boring), the book has less fighting and more dialogue and "philosophy" I guess you could call it. I'm guessing they said the game just loosely related to the book so that people who had read the book would not be angry at them for "ruining" it. |
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Link | April 17, 2010 2:18am | ||||
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world war Z. if you like zombies at all this book will be amazing to you. |
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Link | April 17, 2010 10:37am | ||||
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A while back, I set down Atlas Shrugged. Work has been slow, so I'm reading it again. It's really a boring read. Can anyone say that the Fountainhead is a better read? I'm reading the C.S. Lewis space trilogy. I just finished Out of a Silent Planet, good book. |
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Link | April 19, 2010 11:32am | ||||
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Atlas Shrugged does take a while to get through, but towards the end (about 2/3 in, when all the spit starts hitting the fan) is where it really picked up for me. I have not read the Fountainhead. |
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Link | April 19, 2010 4:20pm | ||||
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Any of Ayn Rand's novels are great. |
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Link | May 14, 2010 6:00pm | ||||
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I just polished off Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and and Outliers, both recommended reading for just about anybody. The first explores the power of snap judgments we all make even unconsciously throughout our day-to-day lives. The second explains the truth behind individual success, delineating why some folks are successful and why others are not: specifically, Gladwell makes a fine argument regarding how successful people are not grown from innate ability, but from when they are born and how they spend their time. |
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Link | May 16, 2010 7:52am | ||||
Outliers is an eye opening book for anyone who wonders why things just aren't coming together for them with their screenplay, garage band etc... if they spend the 10,000 hours on Call of Duty instead of their craft. It's also sobering if you do the math and realize you're only about 5,000 hours in--or just starting something new. |
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Link | May 18, 2010 4:38pm | ||||
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Just finished A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane. Badest dude around if your looking for hardboiled detective novels. |
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