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Posted: 13-02-2004 01:07 Post subject: Suggestions for a good read.

I would like you guys to make some suggestions.

Favorite series, authors, books anything. I like just about any genre and have explored alot, but last few trips to the bookstore I just couldn't find anything that peaked my interest. Usually my favorite stuff comes as suggestions from someone else.

Also serious as well as pure entertainment.

Posted: 13-02-2004 01:17 Post subject:

all the pretty horses - cormac mccarthy. really gritty, depressing and spiritual book about the last of the cowboys - kids who ride into mexico and into hell.

anything by bret easton ellis. great commentary on consumerist life in the 80'2 early 90's. some of his books are quite demanding. great underlying sense of menace in some.

hells angels - hunter s thompson. just funny. this guy is a laugh.

heart of darkness - joseph conrad. in my top 5. the challenge of moral purity and righteous hypocrisy. fantastic.

rocket boys - homer h hickam. easy to read, and good for a laugh. reminds you of the stupid stuff you tried to build as a kid. plus it's got stuff blowing up, which is always good.

junky - william s burroughs. very very interesting. liked it a lot.

simon schamas history of britain books. easy to read and not dull at all. has the knack of a real story teller.

Posted: 13-02-2004 03:09 Post subject:

IN fantasy, Charles DeLint, Neal Gaiman.

In sceince ficiton, Larry Nive, Jerry Pournelle, Charles Sheffield, Carol Willis "To Say Nothing of the Dog." Harry Harrison's "Stars & Stripes" trilogy

Mystery (more or less) Janet Evanovich, Ellis Peter's Brother Cadfael books, Lindsey Davis' Marcus Didius Falco books, the McNelly books by Lawrence Sanders, the first 5 Kay Scarpetta books by Patricia Cornwell, Tess Gerritsen. Jonathon Kellerman.

non-fiction, anything by Reay Tannahill or Barbara Tuchman, or Antonia Fraser. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (and you thought Chef starring Lenny Henry was fiction). Brave Companions by David McCullough. Anything by PJ O'Rourke.

Who'd I miss...Dean Ing, Spider Robinson, Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. Jeffery Archer may be a scumbag to some people, but he's a talented writer. Or at least entertaining. Nicholas Dodman's books on cats and dogs. I do reenacting, and read a lot of American history, as well as period cookbooks. Madge Lorwin's Dining with William Shakespeare is filled with interesting essays as well as good recipes. The Book of Buckskinning series gives a lot of insight into daily life in North America in the 18th Cnetury, as does Beth Gilgun's Tiding From The 18th Century.

Oh yes, Louis L'Amour's books, especially Bendigo Shafter and the Sackett chronicles. AB Guthrie's Big Sky.

Posted: 13-02-2004 04:00 Post subject: RIF

Anything by Robert E. Howard or Chuck Palahniuk.

Posted: 13-02-2004 05:24 Post subject:

I'm a horror fan. I'd recommend Tanith Lee, in particular her scary dark fantasy Kill The Dead. The back of the book reads:

Kill the dead? How can you slay that which is already slain? Yet ... sometimes the dead refuse to stay quiet. For there are times when the dead have a duty that must be fulfilled. There are times when those must walk who defy God and Nature to do so; those are times of horror and haunting. Then one must call the exorcist. There is work for the slayer of ghosts in the backlands of the world. There is work for Parl Dro, Ghost-Killer.

This is the story of two sisters who defied him. One did not belong on this earth, one did. But which was the one he must kill? Which was the one he must silence? Tanith Lee has written in KILL THE DEAD a marvelous novel of dark shadows and strange evils ... a novel to place alongside THE EXORCIST and THE STAND, a weird companion to SABELLA and THE BIRTHGRAVE.

Also, I really enjoyed Bentley Little's Dominion. Here is a quoted bit from an Amazon review:

A true master of the macabre., February 9, 2001
Reviewer: Jane Osnovich (see more about me) from Brooklyn, NY USA
Bentley Little is a genius. He manages to weave the mythology of ancient Greece into a gripping horror tale. Little catches the reader's attention instantly with a gruesome prologue that opens this captivating novel.

Dion Semele moves to Napa Valley after his mother is fired from her job in Arizona. He meets Penelope Daneam at his new high school and the two are instantly drawn to each other. Unlike the synopsis on this site, Penelope has not been raised by nuns, but by a group of women who run a winery. She does not know which one of them is actually her mother. Dion and Penelope do not realize that their meeting has been fated. Each has felt a force within them. Their union will bring about an evil that will forever change the world.

This is a disturbing book. Little does not flinch in his writing. The scenes are extremely graphic. When the town is gripped by the insanity that follows the rebirth of the god Dionysus, no one is safe. The violence is constant and brutal. The book is filled with drunken celebrants, satyrs, and Maenads who turn Napa Valley into a hell on earth under the rule of their new god.

Posted: 13-02-2004 05:27 Post subject:

Thanks a lot. Really great suggestions.

Posted: 13-02-2004 05:32 Post subject:

Hedgewizard read the Kay Scarpetta books in the patricia cornwell series. liked The Body Farm. The whole thing was set right down the road from where I used to live. FYI where Cornwell grew up. Have you read the Alienist by Caleb Carr? I found that to be pretty good. I like just about genre really, except True Crime and that is because it was all I read for about two years and I found myself getting REALLY paranoid. If you think of anything else let me know.

Posted: 13-02-2004 15:56 Post subject:

General recommendation, probably doubling stuff I've said many times elsewhere but Phil Rickman and Mark Chadbourn are both brilliant - Phil Rickman's stuff is kind of detective story with a supernatural edge and Mark Chadbourn is in the midst of a "What if the age of reason suddenly ended" modern fantasy sequence that is probably my favourite reading matter at the moment.

Posted: 13-02-2004 16:13 Post subject:

I've met Chadbourn. Lovely bloke, don't like his fantasy though. His best novel is called Scissor Man and the conclusion is absolutley beautiful.
Graham Joyce is a writer worth looking at. I can highly recccoment two of his books, The Tooth Fairy and Indigo.
My favourite writer is a guy called Ramsey Campbell. Unfortunatley most of his books are out of print. However if you can get second hand copies of The Doll Who Ate His Mother and The Count of Eleven that is a good place to start. Check out Abebooks.com.
Fantasy wise, any of Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar stuff is wonderful. Sword and Sorcery full of humour and adventure. Philip Pullman's Dark Material's trilogy is also essential reading. Throw in some Storm Constantine (Sign for the Sacred, or Hermetech) and you have a nice brew.
Science fictio wise. I recommend Report on Probability A by Brian Aldiss, anything by Philip K. Dick but particularly Now Wait For Last Year, Dr. Bloodmoney or Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep. If you can get hold of James Tipree Jr's stuff, check that out too.

Anyway, happy reading.

All The Best

Jon

Posted: 13-02-2004 16:13 Post subject:

Life of Pi - Yann Martel
WINNER OF THE 2002 BOOKER PRIZE After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan, a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger and Pi -- a 16-year-old Indian boy. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary pieces of literary fiction of recent years.

Interestingly different book (that has nothing to do with Maths!). Some beautifully engaging descriptions...

Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
Teenager Vernon Gregory Little's life has been changed by the Columbine-style slaughter of a group of students at his high school. Soon his hole-in-the-wall town is blanketed under a media siege, and Vernon finds himself blamed for the killing (rather than the real culprit, a friend of Vernon's). Eulalio Ledesma is his particular nemesis, manipulating things so that Vernon becomes the fulcrum for the bizarre and vengeful impulses of the townspeople of Martirio. After a truly surrealistic set of events, Vernon finds himself heading for a fateful assignation in Mexico with the delectable Taylor Figueros (everyone in the book has names as odd as the author's).

Hugely entertaining with an interesting undercurrent of themes. Enjoy the paradigm Shift.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Christopher is an intelligent youth who lives in the functional hinterland of autism--every day is an investigation for him because of all the aspects of human life that he does not quite get. When the dog next door is killed with a garden fork, Christopher becomes quietly persistent in his desire to find out what has happened and tugs away at the world around him until a lot of secrets unravel messily.

Haven't finished yet but a real insight into a completely different functioning mind. Very intrigueing.

All the above are booker prize nominees/winners - a phase I've just been going through. If you have to read only one go for Vernon God Little.

Posted: 14-02-2004 01:47 Post subject: Re: Suggestions for a good read.

Posted: 14-02-2004 03:10 Post subject:

More suggestions:

The late Brian Daley (the Coramonde books, the Alactrity Fitzhugh & Hobart Floyt books)

Under RE Howard, look for the Breckenridge Elkins stories.

Mark Twain's short stories, especially the Million Pound Note.

Back to American History for a sec: McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom and Shelby Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative. These can pretty much give you a complete view of that conflict that still raises turmoil here in the USA. Also, Allen Eckert's Narratives of American History; these cover the French and Indian War (aka the 7 years war) and the AWI in fair detail.

For sheer heroics, Winfred Blevins' Give Your Heart to the Hawks, about the men who opened the American West as trappers and traders. The saga of Hugh Glass is amazing.

Robert A. Heinlein, Roger Zelazny (especially the Amber books and Jack of Shadows.), Steven Barnes, C.S. Forester's Hornblower series, Bernard Cornwell, Linda Barnes, Randy Wayne White, John D. MacDonald, Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry, Stuart M. Kaminsky (has 4 mystery series,one each set in 1940's Hollywood, Chicago, 1990's Moscow, and Sarasota Florida),
Mack Reynolds, Ben Bova, Piers Anthony (especially Firefly, Tatham Mound, The Shade of the Tree), V.I. Warshawsky.

Fair warning, I used to live in Chicago and now reside in Florida, and I tend to like to read about places I know.

Check out Spider Robinson's The Free Lunch. In it he mentions a number of excellent fantasy writers, none of whom I can recall right now. And it's a good book besides.

Non-fiction selections besides the history above would be Hunting Humans by Michael Newton, anything at all by Peter Hathaway Capstick.

There, that should keep you busy for a day or two.

Posted: 14-02-2004 03:36 Post subject:

I read little fiction besides detective novels. Two of the best are Sarah Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski series and Walter Mosely's Easy Rawlins. They're both good reads, but also have a bit of a social awareness underpinning the stories. Highly recomended.

Posted: 14-02-2004 05:51 Post subject:

my faves are James Ellroy, John Irving, Cormac McCarthy, Jeanette Winterson, and Chuck Palahniuk.....i have read everything by these authors and absolutely love their stuff

some of my other faves are:
-Robert E Howard(Conan books was the first books i ever read, having graduated from the comics)
-Orson Scott Card(Ender/Bean series)
-Laura Joh Rowland(Sano Ichiro mysteries: luv these, murder mysteries set in ancient japan)
-Eric van Lustbader(ive read all of his stuff, but luv the Nicholas Linnear novels the best)
-Ken Follett's 'Eye of the Needle' and "The Key to Rebecca'
-Joseph Heywood's 'The Berkut'(probably my all time fave WWII novel!)
-Jean M Auel's Earth's Children's series(been reading this since i was a teen, ugh, the last one was a turd, though)
-Tim O'Brien 'Going after Cacciato'(fave vietnam war book)
-Charles Bukowski 'Women'
-'The Story of O' (read this when i was like 13, i havent been able to undo the damage yet.... )
-Richard Adams 'Watership Down' (just recently read this one, loved it)
-Dragonlance series, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman(favorite fantasy series!)
-Louis L'amour 'Last of the Breed'
-Stephen Hunter 'Dirty White Boys' (loved the characters in this book, if u like Ed Lee's redneck horror, u should read this book!)
-Dalton Trumbo 'Johnny got his Gun' (scared the hell out of me as a teen)
-Marguerite Duras 'The Lover' and 'The North China Lover' (amazing true love story, kinda like an east asian Lolita)
-Jerzy Kozinski 'The Painted Bird'
-Kenji Miyazawa 'Night of the Milky Way Railway' (great book for kids and adults alike, check out the anime 'Night on the Galactic Railroad')
-Laura Antoniou's 'The Marketplace' series, good smut
-'Battle Royale' by Koushun Takami
-Stephen King, any of his early work, 'It', 'The Dark Tower' series
-early Peter Straub

whew! i was gonna put graphic novels on here as well but thats another thread entirely.....

Cool

Posted: 14-02-2004 12:59 Post subject:

House of Leaves.

Guaranteed to leave you feeling confused, bemused and just a little bit shivery.