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The BOOK Thread

I'm reading "The lonely polygamist" by Brady Udall. I most recently finished "The enlightened commuter" which was fun.

I love Terry pratchett. Two turkish authors I like are elif shafak and orhan pamuk. "Mehmet, my hawk" and "salman the solitary" are two other fantastic books but I can't recall the author's name.

I have a special love for Richard brautigan poetry.
 
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Beauregard said:
Making my way through Reamde by Neal Stephenson right now. It's good, but not stellar.
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Hm. It's on my to-read list, but maybe it shouldn't be. I didn't particularly care for Snow Crash, but I was thinking of giving Stephenson another shot. Sounds like I shouldn't.

I'm about 80% through Shantaram right now--it's good. The prose can a bit hokey at times, but the story is extremely compelling.

You should join Goodreads, Beau, and if you're down with the electronic readers, I have quite a collection of ebooks online that I share with a dozen or so friends. :)
 
wackyiraqi said:
Hm. It's on my to-read list, but maybe it shouldn't be. I didn't particularly care for Snow Crash, but I was thinking of giving Stephenson another shot. Sounds like I shouldn't.
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I liked Snow Crash, but FWIW, I believe his best reads are Snow Crash, Diamond Age, The Big U, and Cryptonomicon. The newer stuff evokes a tl;dr response from me.
 
Marlowe said:
I liked Snow Crash, but FWIW, I believe his best reads are Snow Crash, Diamond Age, The Big U, and Cryptonomicon. The newer stuff evokes a tl;dr response from me.
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I have yet to read Diamond Age, but +1 on everything else
 
i remember this thread and thought i chimed in. i guess not.

OP killed it with Snow Crash. i love books where the Protagonist is a Hiro. :laughing just an awesome play on words. i find that stuff absurdly amusing.

agree on Heinlein. specifically Starship Troopers. the book is nothing like the garbage movie.

SciFi - my favorite author, David Brin He's most well known for The Postman and the Uplift Series. I also liked Earth. He's a pretty interesting guy to follow, too.

not too serious fiction - Matthew Reilly wrote Contest at age 19. i like his writing style because it's fast paced and easy to put down / pick up. great camping trip books. they're like cheesy romance novels, but for dudes. lots of crazy, over the top military shit. gratuitous, even. haters would call it low-brow reading but it's like the WWF when you were a kid. it's just fun. especially Contest.

bio-cyber punk future check out The Windup Girl. a few splicing companies control the worlds food supplies and command governments. the Thai people have avoided the gene companies manipulations through innovation and a secret stash of seed stock, until now. top notch writing style.

serious, allegorical reading - The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho.
 
if you're a biker in California and have not read this:

hells-angels1.jpg


You should be ashamed of yourself.

If you want some fun pulp to read, this is my favorite piece of Dragon-Punk.

 
Marlowe said:
I liked Snow Crash, but FWIW, I believe his best reads are Snow Crash, Diamond Age, The Big U, and Cryptonomicon.
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Perhaps because I read it in my 30s (and not my 20s or teens), I thought it was dated and kind of silly.

It was also sold to me by numerous friends as an "amazing" book, so I was likely expecting too much out of it. Don't get me wrong, it was an entertaining read, but put it in the same room with anything by Bradbury, Asimov, Vonnegut, or Douglas Adams and it seems pretty far from amazing.

For those of you who like spy novels, guns, motorcycles and dry British humor, I would highly recommend The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie.

Also, since I don't believe anyone's mentioned it yet, I always recommend my favorite book: The World According to Garp.
 

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wackyiraqi said:
Hm. It's on my to-read list, but maybe it shouldn't be. I didn't particularly care for Snow Crash, but I was thinking of giving Stephenson another shot. Sounds like I shouldn't.
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Cryptonomicon. Read it. I've read it four times and still love it.

Currently reading "Orthodoxy" by GK Chesterton, "Free Will" by some jerkoff, and "The Power of Habit" by another dude. "Dune" is on deck.

God, I wasted so much of my life on Tom Clancy.
 
wackyiraqi said:
Hm. It's on my to-read list, but maybe it shouldn't be. I didn't particularly care for Snow Crash, but I was thinking of giving Stephenson another shot. Sounds like I shouldn't.
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Eh, I wouldn't judge Stephenson on Snow Crash alone. It's my least favorite book of his, and while it has a few great moments and some neat ideas, it didn't really come to much.

... Which I guess you could say of Reamde as well. The story goes in a ton of unexpected directions, and there's a great cast of characters, but he doesn't spend much time doing what he does best, which is pontificating on ideas behind technology and intellect through the eyes of his characters. But Reamde is a great thrill ride all the way through. I really enjoyed it, even though I wouldn't at all call it his best.

If you want to find out if you like Stephenson or not, check out Cryptonomicon if you haven't already. Its broadly recommended as his best work.
 
Jim Butcher writes great fantasy fiction. He's got two amazing series - one modern-day magic, the other a take on medieval/Roman war. Check out the Dresden Files and Codex Alera books.

:ninjaryde

stigeon said:
serious, allegorical reading - The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho.
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That's a good read. Along the same lines would be Way of the Peaceful Warrior (Dan Millman).
 
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Marlowe said:
I liked Snow Crash, but FWIW, I believe his best reads are Snow Crash, Diamond Age, The Big U, and Cryptonomicon. The newer stuff evokes a tl;dr response from me.
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This.

"Snow Crash" and "Diamond Age" were pretty fucking brilliant, and I'm not a Sci-Fi reader. "Cryptonomicon" was a good story for all 1200 pages because it was really three good stories that all end up together. By the time I finished "Anethem" I pretty much swore off Neil Stephenson; his style having become to circuitous to keep me engaged.

With that said, a very early work of his "Zodiac" is a really fun read and inspired in me some water born hi-jinx using my own Zode.

Ziad, I have yet to enter the domain of the E-Reader, but considering I'm a fool and bought my wife both the new Kindle thing and an iPad last Christmas I do have a dusty Kindle I can pretty much have.
 
Re shadow run: striper assassin was ok

Just read Seventh Son by OSC in two sittings

Legend by David Gemmel has some of the best dialog and characters that I've read.
 
wackyiraqi said:
Hm. It's on my to-read list, but maybe it shouldn't be. I didn't particularly care for Snow Crash, but I was thinking of giving Stephenson another shot. Sounds like I shouldn't.

I'm about 80% through Shantaram right now--it's good. The prose can a bit hokey at times, but the story is extremely compelling.

You should join Goodreads, Beau, and if you're down with the electronic readers, I have quite a collection of ebooks online that I share with a dozen or so friends. :)
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I just joined. :)

So how do we "share"?
 
Beauregard said:
Ziad, I have yet to enter the domain of the E-Reader, but considering I'm a fool and bought my wife both the new Kindle thing and an iPad last Christmas I do have a dusty Kindle I can pretty much have.
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As long as it's an e-ink Kindle (i.e. any kindle but the Fire), steal that fucker back and use it. I am totally queer for my Kindle--I carry it everywhere and read every day.

I have a Kindle Fire as well, but just for watching TV/movies. The LCD screen is great for video, but nothing beats the non-backlit e-ink screen for reading.
 
The Constant Gardner by John LeCarre

Lord of the Barnyard by Tristan Egolf (RIP)

Almost everything by Elmore Leonard
 
wackyiraqi said:
As long as it's an e-ink Kindle (i.e. any kindle but the Fire), steal that fucker back and use it. I am totally queer for my Kindle--I carry it everywhere and read every day.
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Sweet. It's not a Fire, it's just a reader. I got your invite and will roger-up on it this evening, assuming I'm not in jail for beating the panhandling tweaker in front of my business.
 
Currently reading "The Girl that Played with Fire"
Second book in the Dragon Tatoo series.
I am desperately hoping when they make this book in the American version, it is rated very R as the sex scenese with Mimmi sound delicious.
 
I'm a John Irving fan too - beware of the Under Toad! :laughing

Also:

Sara Paretsky (the truly badass V.I. Warshawski mysteries)

Elizabeth George (Inspector Lynley mysteries)

Patricia Cornwell (Kay Scarpetta mysteries)

Mary Roach ("Stiff" and "Packing for Mars," among others)

Barbara Ehrenreich (especially "Nickel and Dimed")

Bill Bryson

Kevin Starr (California history)

For pulp, it's "Peyton Place," "Valley of the Dolls," or GTFO.

Y'all should check out "Alive in Necropolis" (I can't remember the author's name), which was SF's "One City One Book" selection a couple of years ago. It's about a Colma policeman who is haunted by the ghosts of famous people who are buried there.
 
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