March 23, 2004

• Fiction:At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien and The Charioteer by Mary Renault I think are the two I've most often given people who love reading. SF: C. J. Cherryh's The Cuckoo's Egg, LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness,and Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett.
• Bee Season
• *gulp*
• Pete: Excellent book. As for me, I've completely lost track of how many copies of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card I've given out. It's in my top five of favorite books and I read a lot. The whole "what would you loan out and not care about getting back" thing doesn't exactly apply to me though, because I have a very strong bond to my books and have a hard time parting with. Those copies of Ender's Game were specifically bought for handing out.
• For me it's American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It's got a little bit of everything in it (which is why it's won or been nominated for awards for just about every category imaginable. It's the first book I've wanted to annotate, so my first edition copy is riddled with marks all over it. I'll have to buy another copy for loaning out to friends and the like.
• Margaret Atwoods' 'Oryx and Crake'. But there's no way I'm giving my hardcover to anyone... /clutches book with 20 fingers, grins menacingly, flings poo with tail
• Cryptonomicon. Although I am currently reading The Eyre Affair and it is pretty interesting. Luckily I work six blocks from the best bookstore in the world and can browse new books daily.
• Nice choice, Sandspider, but I'd go for the Sandman graphic novels before that. Mostly so other people can understand my near-obsession, owning a Death t-shirt and the Dream collectable figurines. :) I'm missing one of the books in the series, though, and they're too expensive and hard to find in NZ. They also have a little of everything and are a fabulous representation of old mythological figures, gods, superstitions. The characters are quirky and mysterious and gloomy and even lovable, and Delirium is everybody's favourite secondary character, not least because Gaiman never explains the story of how Delight came to be Delirium.
• I love, love, love, love, love Flann O'Brien, Beeswacky (and I've been dying to read Bee Season; I've heard good things, and I'm kind of obsessed with The Decemberists right now and they have a song about Myla Goldberg and all). Right now my heart starts beating fast when I hear people mention Borges. And I'll never stop loving Catch-22. I saw "Yossarian Lives!" scrawled on a bathroom door a few weeks ago, and it made me happy all day. I'm a little pathetic.
• The Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin. I read all three volumes in three days after a friend lent them to me. Huxley's A Brave New World.
• Borges is forever great -- but Catch 22 is darkly funny -- like a knife slipping under your lower ribs.
• Thank you, tracicle. Yeah, the Sandman's are good, and it's what I make people read if I'm forcing comics on them, as well as Thieves and Kings, Bone, and Plenaetary. If I'm giving a lighter-hearted book along the same lines, I'd go with Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Gaiman and Pratchett. But at that point, I'm forcing who-knows-how-many books off on well-meaning friends and acquaintances. On a tangentially related note, this is a picture I have hanging up in the reading nook of my study.
• Scott, I just started reading Cryptonomicon. I have to say Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, or possibly Island of the Day Before. I keep hearing really excellent things about Life of Pi -- I bought it for my brother-in-law for Christmas it looked so good.
• i'd have to say poisonwood bible. it's a good "something for everyone" book. gorgeous writing, fascinating characters, interesting structure (told from three different viewpoints at once). mysterious, gripping, lovely.
• Tom Robbins Jitterbug Perfume...nothing lifts me out of depression like this book...I recommend it to everyone, any time books come up (or depression, or perfume, or bees....)
• f8xmulder I couldn't finish Island of the Day Before. One of the few books that I just kind of... put down... and never picked back up. (Loved The Name of the Rose) Is it worth a second effort? And since we're going all SF here... I just finished reading the 12-book "Sun" series by Gene Wolfe (Book of the New Sun, Book of the Long Sun, Book of the Short Sun) and my mind is permanently warped in a wonderful way.
• I didn't care for IotDB, either. If you want a second Eco, I'd recommend Focault's Pendulum. Didn't realize that Wolfe had finished the Sun series - thanks. Someday (when my library comes out of boxes) I'll complete and restart it.
• I'm another fan of Eco, and I used to love Gravity's Rainbow, but I'd have to go with "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami, because it's so good. But the book I probably gave away most often was Cod by Mark Kurlansky, because it's about the livelihood of many I know.
• scott - powell's does indeed rock. and they're online for those of us unlucky enough not to live nearby. picking a book is always hard for me; if i had to narrow it down i'd say it was somewhere between hemingway and steinbeck. for whom the bell tolls was a marvelous read; hemingway seems to find his groove when he's writing about spain. east of eden was also an amazing book; some of the turns of phrase steinbeck uses stick with me for days, the story as a whole follows me around still. but i also believe that you would have a hard time finding a way to go wrong with either author. one hemingway book i'd never willingly part with is the complete short stories. this edition has everything he ever wrote that you can't find elsewhere. it also has some excerpts of other novels, unfinished stuff or things that were eventually cut from the final version. i still have "cat in the rain" bookmarked. one of my favorite stories out of that book. now, what "childrens" book would you recommend? i personally feel that anyone who grew up without reading roald dahl or william steig as a young'un ought to go out right now, find a book, and read it.
• I have many books I love and revisit... I read a lot of books (and I'm currently blogging [self link] my book consumption; I'm two or three books behind), and am perpetually offering (and soliciting!) recommendations. There are a few books that I have bought multiple times for different people: Sailing Alone Around the Room (poetry by Billy Collins) Tao Te Ching (the Stephen Mitchell translation) Sonnets to Orpheus (Rilke, translated by David Young. Completely brilliant.) Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut) (certainsome1: great post!)
• Axiomatic by Greg Egan. His novels are tiring, but his short stories are superb. Also any short story by Borges (although I must admit I have read few works from him).
• Both Eco's 'Name of the Rose' and 'Foucault's Pendulum', as well as Cryptonomicon are big personal favorites of me... but people tend to look funny at me after recommending them. Somewhat dense for many, I'm afraid... In an ideal world, I'd hand out William Gibson's 'Neuromancer', 'Count Zero' and 'Pattern Recognition' to passerby on the street. By the dozen.
• kuujjuarapik! sexing cod! do they put that on their income tax forms? "occupation: cod sexer." how cool is that!
• Also by Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan. The end of that book gets better everytime I read it. Can't leave out Ishmael and The Story of B - both by Daniel Quinn.
• flagpole - my roommate, freshman year, was supposed to read neuromancer. he didn't, but as he'd already bought the book, i did. loved it. just finished pattern recognition a week ago. loved it. didja read the difference engine? gibson co-wrote it. steampunk novel. liked it quite a bit.
• Ok, Ok, we're all smart. Now tell us about your guilty pleasure book favorites too. I'll start: I like trashy romance novels and Stephen King.
• Perdido Street Station or The Scar by Mieville, Labyrinths, Darkness series by Turtledove, most anything by Pratchett, Riverworld by Gardner, and one of the few nonfictions I own, Elements of Moral Philosophy by Rachels. Transmetropolitan is a great comic series that can be picked up in trade paperback fairly cheaply.
• Fiction: Sewer Gas & Electric, the Public Works Trilogy - by Matt Rufff - a BRILLIANT satire/parody of Atlas Shrugged, race relations, conspiracy theorists, and god knows what else, there's nothing quite like a book that features the floating holographic head of Ayn Rand insisting that her bearer is not sufficiently selfish. Non-Fiction: No Logo by Naomi Klein - This is the book responsible for what I refer to my radacalization. This is the book that convinced me that the key is to be active. This book is the Bible of the new movement. Those who have not read it, are doomed to being Branded. Somewhere in between - Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig - This book will change your life. Read on a lazy summer before summers were occupied by things like work and heat and toil for me, this book made me really look back and reassess what on earth I was doing with myself and why. I still flip back to it from time to time, just to assure myself that I'm producing Quality.
• Ok, Ok, we're all smart. Now tell us about your guilty pleasure book favorites too. Not to fling poo, but maybe we should try and keep the discussion somewhat focussed? Next week we can do guilty pleasures, maybe? I'm just concerned that if we make it a free-for-all, that we'll lose the reason to do them every week... it'll just become: books one week, movies the next, music the next, etc... Or, is that too structured and unnecessary?
• Captain Psyko thanks for the "Sewer Gas & Electric" recommendation... anything that satirizes Rand goes on my Must Read list.
• OK, since nobody else said it, I'll have to say Lord of the Rings. I've read it probably 7 or 8 times since 5th grade. With the movies its lost some of its cult status, so is therefore regarded as less fashionable by some, but it still stands as probably the greatest influence over fantasy during the last half century.

  I'd also recommend anything by Michael Chabon, especially The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

• Kimberly! You pill! Are you the merrie prankster who put me on the Harlequin e-romances alias, and signed me up for a subscription to TEMPTATIONS, complete with two free introductory novels?? Book that I would hand out with evangelical passion if my last name was Rockefeller Hölldobler and Wilson's The Ants. Guilty pleasure: a comic book store.
• Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart. Hard to find in a brick and mortar. Impossible to put down.
• So many choices. I have recently been loaning out Diary by Chuck Palahniuk. It is usually attached with the story about going to a reading during his book tour. During one reading about a short story he wrote, people actually passed out because the content was so disturbing and raw. Medusa Great choice. Jitterbug Perfume is wonderful. certainsome1 here's a bunch o' bananas for you!
• I bought a copy of Sylvester and the Magic Pebble for myself the other day, caution. William Steig is awesome. And Shrek! was a million times better than the movie (which was fairly good), in my opinion. J. Otto Seibold's illustrations are lots of fun. I'd also recommend Cynthia Rylant's Poppleton series. They're sweet, smart, and funny stories; the kids I babysit are huge fans. I've mentioned James Thurber's The Wonderful O before, but it's worth repeating. Read it or I'll squck your thrug. What else? Mo Willems' Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus is a new one that's excellent for reading aloud. Art Speigelman's Little Lit collection is fantastic (kids' stories by the likes of Daniel Clowes, Neil Gaiman, and David Sedaris? Count me in). Maurice Sendak is a god, but I hope we all knew that already. As you can tell, I'm kind of a junkie for good kid lit (and I hope to contribute to the genre one day). I'll stop there.
• I don't mean what do you think is the Best Book Ever Written. I mean: What book do you most want to share? That would have to be The Book Of Mormon, which tops my list of books that made me look at life a different way. Steps back and awaits the smattering of flung poo now, what "childrens" book would you recommend? well caution live frogs, Holes is one of my favorites or The Giver or Oh the places you'll go by Dr. Seuss and once my little guy will sit still enough, and not eat the books, I intend to introduce him to the world of C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and Alexandre Dumas.
• I love love love historical fiction. Shogun by James Clavell is one of my all-time favorites, as is The Far Pavillions by MM Kaye. War & Remembrance by Herman Wouk was one I really enjoyed when I read it for the first time in high school. But when I recommend these books to friends, they look at how thick they are and politely decline.
• Spiegelman. Sorry (I should do better, considering the frustrating frequency with which people invert the i and e in my own last name, Oh well). Lois Lowry is fantastic, squeak.
• And my last name isn't Oh well. Change that comma to a period. I can't type today.
• RXR - thanks for the bananas... just in time for dinner. And they smell fantastic. kwyjibo - I've read LOTR each year for the past three years, but never attempt to recommend it to people. I figure it's the kind of thing that, if you're interested, you will find it. That said... my gfriend, not a fantasy reader, after seeing the first movie, read the entire series and I came home to find her crying on the sofa as she finished it "Sam and Frodo will never see each other again!" she cried. I pointed out that Sam goes to the Havens, of course, and she was almost as happy as I was that she loved the book. Anyone else ever read the Gormenghast books? Uh-may-zing (at least the first two).
• Yes! Shogun is good. My favorite historical novels are "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God" by Robert Graves, though. I've never given away copies, but I have forced many people to watch the old Masterpiece Theater series. "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones" is the one I make presents of.
• - caution live frogs: Erm, being a Gibson cultist, I'll just admit to find everything written by the guy to be enthralling. I presume you have visited this place? Plenty of interesting, obsessed wackos in there *cough*
• This is the book that I want to share. I found it to be an intellectually stimulating read.
• babywannasofa is bang-on for kid lit (although, add Maira Kalman's brilliant Max books to the list...). For me, the book I always push on people is David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, because of it's sheer volume, incomprehensibility, humour and brilliance.
• certainsome1: I guess my intention came from my thought process when I was figuring out how to answer. I was a Lit major so I have a huge long list of fancy smart books that I have read and that I love, but I was also hesitant to drop the names of the not so fancy or smart books that I love as well. The entire thread was turning into a list of fancy smart books (that I look forward to checking out!), and decided to say "What the hell" and be the first to open the door to books we love that are not necessarily on that level. I don't think I deviated from the topic at all. I passed The Pirate and the Pagan around to several friends as well as the Stand. Goetter: mwahahahahahahah >:) (seriously though, Harlequin romances are boring.)
• certainsome1, if I ever return to a place in my life where I can read fiction, I'll want a copy of your reading list. Loved both Winter's Tale and the Titus Groan books, even the third. b.w.sofa, if I posted a correction for every typo I make, I'd never get off of here.
• Personally, I'd hand out Ian McEwan's 'Amsterdam'.
• certainsome1, I'm trying to read Gormenghast at the moment (I got the trilogy from the library in one book). It's hard going, but that's mostly because it's the sort of book you really need to have a whole empty afternoon/evening for, where you can sit down and have no distractions. Not easy for a mother of a one-year-old. I'm enjoying the little I've read, though. There was a Gormenghast miniseries on TV recently that I didn't watch. Has anyone seen it and is it any good?
• And on the list of reads for the pure enjoyment of them I must place: Harry Potter, The Butterfly Jar by Jeff Moss or the "Macdonald Hall" series by Gordon Korman.
• Oh, Gordon Korman. That takes me back to my book-devouring jr high days in Alberta. As a young, naive, aspiring writer, I saw him speak at the local library, and it was soooooooo good. Wait, that was Eric Wilson...
• There was a Gormenghast miniseries on TV recently that I didn't watch. Has anyone seen it and is it any good? If it was the BBC one, it was alright - a bit hit and miss really. The last episode was very good, the middle episode was shit, and the first episode was alright. (I haven't read the books though - that, along with Little, Big, are sat on my bookshelf, waiting, waiting. The poor, lonely, neglected books)
• Bridge of Birds! Musing, I hadn't thought about that book in a couple of years, but it's beautiful! My recommendation would be The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery, one of the novels she wrote for adults. If you can stand the really horrible, horrible cover art (neither of the main characters look a thing like that), it's a very simple sweet novel about a woman who stops simply existing and learns how to live. It's also in the public domain now, for those who don't mind reading off the computer. Here it is in one big file, and here broken up by chapter. My secret shame? That would be how many Star Trek novels I have read, and still reread. :) But mostly I like the really good ones they were publishing in the 1980's, when there were great writers and little dictation from Paramount.
• As yet another afterthought Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary are great kids authors
• Squeak: I thought I was going to have to be the first to say Harry Potter. Hands down what I'd rec to others. And Gordon Korman - hee! You Canadian too? Other than that, this is an impossible task, as I read vast amounts of highly disparate literature that I like equally much at different times. Although I feel a bit like the anti-geek here: almost no SF and other than Harry Potter, zero fantasy. Just doesn't do it for me. To take a wild stab - Macbeth, which I know is ridiculous but I can't ever get enough of that play.
• livii: yes I am I dwell in hamfisted's home town, and to build on the Macbeth theme I recall a language arts teacher who enthralled me with "Anthony and Cleopatra" (perhaps it had something to do with him standing on a desk at the front of the class, passionatly reading aloud?)
• I'm in a good mood so here are the three funniest books I've read: 1) Catch 22 - Joseph Heller My candidate for the Great American Novel. 2) Neighbors - Thomas Berger Buy the book. Avoid renting the movie. Trust me. 3) A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole Walker Percy called this book a "gargantuan tumultuous human tragicomedy", and, for lack of a better description, I'll go along with him.
• Hey Goetter! Wilson and Holldobler's Ants is some of my favorite bedtime reading... I had to wait years until it was finally cheap enough to buy. Still $40 isn't cheap. I'm waiting for the pop-up version. And SideDish, only some of my pals sex the codfish. For the rest, it's catch 'em, kill 'em and sell 'em. Nothing so personal...
• Perfume. Patrick S
• Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco. That books really grabs my attention. Sure it's complicated and hard figure out. But damn, when you do it's pretty cool. I'm a sucker for history and stuff, but everyone I've turned onto it have pretty much thought the same way.
• hamfisted - loved Infinite Jest. I look forward to climbing that mountain again. Think he could use an editor sometimes, but I'll read just about anything he tries at this point (his collection of essays A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, besides being one of my all-time favorite titles, has some great pieces in it) Kimberly - no criticism was meant. I was merely, as the perpetrator of the thread, feebly attempting steerage that may or may not be necessary. It's all [banana]. gotter - you're on. I just couldn't get into the third book in the series... it was too skeletal. Plus it made me feel horribly bad for this poor, genius of a man, struck down so young. tracicle - I can normally tear through a book in a couple of days, but Ghormenghast took me MONTHS to get through, even without a child on my hip. I bought the series on DVD as soon as it came out, but didn't care for it much. The Steerpike they had was too evil from the get-go. He's so charismatic in the books (at first). Pardon me going on and on. Books are one of my favorite things to discuss and I'm as giddy as a boy in, well, a bookstore.
• One more thing. Nobody's mentioned His Dark Materials yet. Brilliant. And I can't wait to see the stage show next year in London.
• Re: Infinate Jest I got to the point with the tooth brush and haven't made it past that yet. *shudder*
• Put me down with all the other Borges-worshippers. Having already lent most of my Borges fiction collections out, I'd be very tempted to hand over a collection of his Non-Fiction - a wonderfully erudite and playful insight into the kind of well-stocked mind that was capable of creating and navigating all those labyrinths. Then there's Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin epic - one continuous story over twenty volumes - which is a perfection of descriptive writing and insight into human nature (but with big boats shooting at each other). If I had to pick one book out of the series, Desolation Island (the fourth in the series) is where it becomes a real masterwork; the Waakzaamheid's pursuit of the Leopard is possibly the most intense, sustained, and spooky piece of writing I've ever read. I also find myself lending people, variously, Ian McEwan, Phillip Pullman (can we take a moment to respect His Dark Materials? Can we? Thankyou), A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and Douglas Adams' Last Chance To See (on the grounds that while everybody's read HHGTTG, nowhere near enough people have read that). On preview: thankyou for taking that moment, certainsome1... I keep meaning to read something by Eco; haven't got round to it yet. I'm a somewhat lazier reader than strictly necessary...
• I'd suggest Baudolino from Eco as well. I'd say it's a bit of a lighter read. I found it really good because I'm really interested in German history and stuff. Eco seems a bit intimiding at first - but it's well worth it once you get into it.
• CRAP!!! What a great freakin thread and I missed most of it! Ah well. certainsome1: yes, try IotDB again. Captain Psyko, thank you so much for remembering ZAMM. Pirsig's writing in that is such a joy to read, and it all makes so much sense! I too, frequently do self-checks for Quality. Another book I'd recommend is Carl Watson's i>Under the Empire of the Birds. It's actually a bunch of short stories, but man, they are powerful and gripping. VERY smart, too. The Silmarillion is meatier and more fulfilling in some ways, than LotR, though don't get me wrong - I love that and the Hobbit like a fiend. I'm also currently trying to get through the Koran and i>Lives of the Popes.
• on not preview, bad f8x, for not making those tags stick!
• flashboy- I was going to comment on your "taking the Cacafuego" contribution to the WhachacallIT? thread, but got distracted by the rest of it. Patrick O'Brian! Yes! I am actually reading Desolation Island right now, and it's a marvel. And people always give me all sorts of weird looks when I tell them I that's what I'm reading, I must be reading against type or something. And I have found Dean King's A Sea of Words to be indispensable for explaining the marvels of plum duff, scotch coffee and drowned baby, not to mention the ins and outs of the various ships. I only have, um, fifteen books to go. For the folks who enjoy Umberto Eco, another good bet is An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears.
• Right now I tell everybody I meet to read the three 'His Dark Materials' books by Philip Pullman, but in a more universal sense the books I foist on others are: Gain by Richard Powers (the novel perfected) The War at the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa Everything by Raymond Carver Everything by Borges (go beeswacky!) Gain is a truly powerful book. It cuts between two stories, the first of a woman slowly dying of cancer; the second is the story of a DowJones like company. The second story traces the company's evolution from a late 18th century 'startup' (delivering soap around New York on a cart) to a 20th century megacorp. Powers adapts his language and style to reflect the changes in time and corporate structure. Where at first it is a personal story of one family's trials it later loses the personal and singular voice, becoming distant and bureaucratic. One friend of mine (who was responsible for getting me into it) later said that he started skipping over the cancer story as he progressed, and i agree that it is less compelling than the company side, but the cancer story is good and a useful way to contextualize the other side.
• certainsome1: His Dark Materials is a very good book(s), but I guess it hasn't been around long enough for it to become a favorite with me (A book needs a decade or two, so right now the majority are those I read when I was a kid. In fact, I just reread the Veleteen Rabbit to my niece - I had never gotten the adult jokes before :) Also, when I think "what book would I just have to lend to people", it's usually because it is a wonderful book that they wouldn't come across otherwise. With someone like Phillip Pullman, or Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaimen (all terrific), they tend to have enough of their own publicity. Of course, my recommendation was for an author who died in 1942, so I guess I'm not helping any authors pay the bills. (Which I feel more guilty about after this metafilter thread. If I knew the author's name, I would try her books, just because any small author deserves to sell more.)
• With someone like Phillip Pullman, or Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaimen (all terrific), they tend to have enough of their own publicity. Oddly, perhaps, Neil Gaiman is almost entirely unknown in Britain, outside of fantasy and comics fanboys (and girls).
• As many of my adult favorites have been snatched as low lying fruit, I shall have to effect a fruitbat's ability to clumsily rise higher for the as-yet-unmolested Silent to the Bone (E.L. Konigsberg), a children's book that appears to have a largely bimodal set of reviews on Amazon (the former being accurate): ranging from "wonderful" to overprotective mothers wanting to insult the intelligence of their children. I read it in college and I recommend it.
• Ooo, books. I'd definitely second everyone who mentioned Umberto Eco. ambrosia's mention of An Instance of the Fingerpost is good too. I'd like to add The Eight by Katherine Neville (apparently the plot is based around some famous chess game...). The only book which I've bought more than one copy is The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. I always try recommending that to everyone but no one ever listens to me.
• Well, Gaimen less so, he has not been publishing novels for very long. Pratchett is selling well in the US, but he doesn't seem to be as well known here as he seems to be in the UK - most people I know learned about him through SF&F connections. Or because he wrote a book with Neil Gaimen ;) That said, in the US they seem to be really trying to push Pratchett as a serious funny writer, rather than as genre. Contrast the current US and UK covers of Reaper Man. (I think there was a different cover a few years ago, at least in Canada, but it was more the cartoon style of the UK one than the trying to be sophisticated US. I'm not saying Pratchett isn't sophisticated, but the thing is that he is so subtly so - he slips in wisdom so quietly into his farce you don't know it until it is too late)
• That American Pratchett cover just looks wrong, somehow.
• As for books I push onto others, Paul Auster's New York Trilogy and Donna Tartt's The Secret History are the first choices. As for myself, I like The Dirt.
• Instance of the Fingerpost, yes... and A Conspiracy of Paper even more so. I enjoyed Eight when I read it in college, but when I recently tried to re-read it after picking it up on a street sale, I couldn't get into it. jb - I understand what you mean about books needing to ripen before the achieve Classic status. At this point I'm just shouting out books I love. And, whoever mentioned Ian McEwan... YES to Amsterdam and Atonement. I'm going to read everything he's ever written (Black Dogs was good as well, come to think of it).
• For those interested in architecture and/or gruesome serial killers, I can recommend The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
• ambrosia - I finished Blue At The Mizzen about a month ago; the series took me two years or so to read (not continuously, I hasten to point out). You'll be pleased to know that after Desolation Island, it's utterly fantastic for the next seven or so books, up to The Letter of Marque - just wonderful, wonderful stuff, masterful control of light and dark, action and character. The quality then drops to merely 'extremely good' for several books, due to them getting stuck on a long, unpleasant vaoyage that apparently frustrated O'Brian as much as it does the characters and the reader. Then it picks up again, and (although O'Brian does a couple of things near the end which are simply infuriating) it maintains it all the way to the finish. It's worth it. It's definitely worth it. Oh, and in addition to Dean King's book on the language used, his Harbours and High Seas is also a great resource for working out exactly where the hell Aubrey and Maturin are... Like you, I get some very puzzled expressions when I try to explain to people about O'Brian - I don't know if it's just that they're looking down on historical fiction in general, or just don't think that I'm the sort of person who should be reading it. But then, what is the stereotype of historical fiction readers? I just know I'm not it, and indeed apart from O'Brian, I've read very little Hi-Fi. Whatever, I'm just pleased that I can call someone "a god-damned slab-sided Dutch-built bugger" or a "mumping villain", and they will rarely have a clue what I mean. Ian McEwan's earlier stuff (The Child in Time, Black Dogs, etc.)is, I think, better than Amsterdam or Atonement - it's chilling in a way that's just, oooh, really fucked-up. But for anybody thinking about getting into McEwan, I'd say Enduring Love has to be the best starting point. Brilliant stuff. But it's all good. I really should read this, because I did comedy stuff with the author at university, and now he has a highly acclaimed book out. However, I am jealous of the bastard and his pissing book-deal. Could somebody else read it for me?
• well, flashboy, if it makes you feel any better, the cover sucks Although the reviews do make me want to read it. But just a little bit.
• I read (and re-read, and re-read) Pratchett (I have everything up to Monstrous Regiment) - would definitely give away copies to friends who are in any way interested. Small Gods would be my first choice to give away, and then Mort, then Wee Free Men. Nac Mac Feegle! Wa hae! When I wanna good cry, I read the Sandman series. Good Omens, American Gods were good. Went through Zen & .... by Pirsig, felt it was much better than Lila, even though Lila was more *ahem* profound. Animal Farm and 1984: read them before I turned 12, and I think my outlook on life was irrevocably warped by that fact. Passed the first one to a younger friend some years ago. Reading now: Bujold's Cordelia's Honor, from the Vorkosigan series. Quite good. I would probably buy a copy for a friend, as my tutor bought one for me to get me started. Just bought a copy of Pullman's Golden Compass. Nobody tell me what happens!
• I don't have a singular the book to share. But among recent books I've read(past year), two stand out... 1)Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game Thematically similar to Huxley's Brave New World, it explores one man's struggle (and ultimately, epiphany) to figure out meaning and society's focus. 2)Giles Fauconnier and Mark Turner's The Way We Think This is kinda an academic work. The authors, noted cognitive scientists, present their established theory of conceptual blending and explain its workings. Conceptual Blending, is basically the process by which creativity and most ordinary thinking (the figuring out kind, not perception) operates. They extensively illustrate the process and give the principles and details.
• Well, besides loaning out Catch 22 like a few other people, I find myself rereading and loaning out Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods quiet a bit. It's a fairly straight forward travel piece, but I find it more amusing and interesting than some of his others. Needless, to say I find his other writing good too, and would recommend them heartily. Also, if you got the time, Moby Dick was better than I thought it could be.
• The Fountainhead. Duh. Gas, Sewer, Electric. As referenced above! Another Ruff book: Fool On The Hill -- delightfully whimsical. And jeer and laugh if you must, but the first two (or maybe three) books of Piers Anthony's "Magic Of Xanth" series. Yes, yes, I know that the series devolved into nothing but punnery, but the first two (maybe three) were truly enchanting, simple, and creative.
• The first two were ok. By the time I got to about book eight or ten (and wading through the Phaze/Proton series as well), I was ready to chuck my entire Piers Anthony collection. And I did, after reading his autobiography. 'Twas the last straw.
• Yeah, I don't really have a singular book, although Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead had lasting effects on me when I read them in my early teens. My head is clouded from the titles running through my head, as well as a cramped had from writing all these down! I suppose I would add a couple that pop out in my mind: 'The Red Tent' by Anita Diamant and 'Memoirs of a Geisha, A Novel' by Arthur Golden. I thoroughly enjoyed both of these.
• Darshon, I read and loved both of those and if I owned them, I'd encourage others to read them too. The Red Tent, as I recall, is a little contrived -- but it's an attempt to retell a biblical story from a secondary point of view -- however Memoirs of a Geisha is really lovely, enlightening, and fun to read.
• ummm. Snow Crash. Poor Impulse Control, baby. and Master and Commander. so much better than the movie. and The Story About Ping. A networking primer.
• Sorry, obviously I meant 'cramped hand'. That is just how cramped it is.
• Oh, I remember one of my all time favorites, one that I've read probably ten times; Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. Easy reading for sure, but I love the story and the time.
• Darshon, I think we may be the same person. I read that book many years ago and learned a lot from it. Likewise London by Edward Rutherford.
• Haven't gotten to 'London' yet, although my father-in-law is quite forceful that I read it. I am looking forward to it.
• I have to give thanks to Kimberly for reminding me of Mr. King and his work. The Dark Tower series is perhaps my favorite series of books. I tend to re-read all the books at least once a year and the best news I heard recently was that books 6 and 7 were pushed up 2 months each due to popular demand.
• Thinking of Magritte by Kate Sterns. Or Was by Geoff Ryman.
• Day of the Triffids!
• Toujours Provence or A Year In Provence by Peter Mayle. Because he's an excellent writer and they make me feel good. Damnit, that's why!
• Certainsome1: I took Gormenghast on holiday with me about 15 years ago: I got as far as 50 pages from the end and then my bag got nicked with the book in it ... I've never had the strength to start again! Recommendations: Surprised no-one's mentioned Iain Banks - especially The Crow Road or Complicity or even the Wasp Factory ... though he has gone off the boil a bit recently, publishing a novel a year has taken his edge off ... Other than that I read 'Tender is the Night' again last year and firmly believe everyone should read it.
• Hmm. My favorite books changes too rapidly - each new find (A.J. Liebling! Stanley Bing!) adds names to the larger list. But of all time? The books I treasure and reread annually? Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut The Void Captain's Tale, Norman Spinrad The War Hound and the World's Pain, Michael Moorcock The Player of Games, Iain Banks (there you go, dickdotcom!) Best thing I've read lately? Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas. All 1250 pages of it. If you're edging toward reading that imcomprehensible brick Infinite Jest (which, in my opinion, ought to have "I am the product of a graduate school creative writing seminar" stamped on every tortuous page), opt for this instead. Either will have you reading for months, but Monte Cristo is a *story*. A big, glorious one. Last book I loaned to a friend? Richard Brautigan's "Trout Fishing in America"
• Peter Mayle annoys me because his name is a couple of letters away from mine, and he's a successful author and I will never be.
• goetter and kuujjuarapik - if you like the ants, try wilson on his own. sociobiology is the culmination of everything anticipated by the ants. the development and evolution of social behavior, especially to a social species such as ourselves, isa fascinating topic. on a similar biology note, i'd recommend ernst mayr's the growth of biological thought. an exhaustive but surprisingly easy to read book, explaining how our current views on evolutionary biology came to be. heck, even if you're a hard-core anti-evolutionist, you'll at least be able to gain an understanding of the opposition by reading these. and, um, hell if you're going to go that far, pick up a copy of darwin: origin of species is the better known, but don't neglect the descent of man, where darwin really pushes the idea of sexual selection in far more detail than was done in origin. which of course laid the groundwork for things such as sociobiology. (admittedly i've yet to lay my hands on the descent of man... but it didn't come up for my comprehensive exams, so...) treeboy - moby dick is a great book. liked it originally, loved it the second time through. (is that the defininition of a great book - you want to read it repeatedly?) i especially enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek humor evident in the chapter debating whether a whale was a fish or not. reading between the lines, melville was pretty secure in his belief that a whale was nothing like a fish - but it amused him to present the whaler's view, all evidence to the contrary included but politely ignored. and fes - picked up a copy of the count at a library book sale. read it, read it again just last year... the sheer overwhelming completeness of dantes' revenge was thrilling, despite the often difficult phrasing. it is definitely worth the read. (did you see the movie? read the book instead - more than half of the important stuff was left out, and half what was put in the movie was wrong to begin with. you'll still have ample time to be surprised at the ending.)
• oh - forgot to add - all you canucks with your macdonald hall series? a few of us in michigan had the pleasure to be entertained by those as well. i still occasionally worry about the great lakes - st. lawrence fault line...
• frogs: A good book is one that you want to read repeatedly. A great book is one that changes your life, and you want to read repeatedly.
• Anybody want to recommend a particular edition of Count of Monte Cristo, or Dumas in general? My start with Dumas was The Three Musketeers - great fun, but the several times I've read it, it's been in wildly different translations. The copy I have now insists on replacing "Milady" with "her ladyship" in all instances, which drives me bonkers.
• mixup: The Story About Ping. A networking primer. The story of a brave little IP packet recruited to perform ICMP ECHO for its master. Truly, a timeless classic.
• furiousdork - my copy of the count is ancient. published by the a.l. burt company, as best i can tell (absolutely no info inside the book itself) it was printed prior to 1937, as that's when the company went under. that said, it's not in the best condition (the paper is pretty clearly either not acid-free or hasn't been taken care of that well prior to my purchase of the book) but the translation is quite good. old enough that, as a "great book", changing the wording to the colloquial either wouldn't have occurred to the publisher, or the colloquial at the time just seems more formal to me now. quite a lot of Count --------- or Duke ---------- when inserting actual historical figures into the book, so as not to annoy them by naming them; kind of quaint to me. i'd just stay away from the mass-market paperbacks if you could; try a used bookstore or get a nice version from a reputable place. (worst cover ever for a dumas novel? the wal-mart unabridged paperback "three musketeers". they inserted the phrase "they fought for gold, flor glory -- and for girls!" in big letters. like it was a cheap harlequin-style adventure novel for partially braindead people. i'd guess that the average person who grabbed it because of the cover would likely drop it before they finished chapter one... ) given the importance of french revolutionary and bonapartist history to the novel, an annotated copy wouldn't be a bad thing either; i am afraid that i probably missed quite a few of the inside jokes and comments. come to think of it, i ought to take my copy to my local bookstore and see if it's worth anything...
• I think the thread is dead, so a quick post-mortem list for everyone who might be interested... I was going to type this up for myself anyway, and then saw the music list on Meta and so swiped that idea... So. Here's a hastily gathered list from the above comments. Asterisks were added for additional mentions. At the bottom is a brief list of authors mentioned, without books. I apologize if I missed anyone's suggestion (although I edited out a few that were along the lines of "this is kinda good") or misspelled anyone's favorite author.
• . . . . . Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay — Chabon American Gods — Gaiman *Amsterdam — McEwan *The Ants — Wilson At Swim-Two-Birds — O’Brien Atonement — McEwan Axiomatic — Egan Baudolino — Eco *Bee Season — Goldberg *Black Dogs — McEwan Blue Castle — Montgomery The Blue Sword — McKinley The Book of the New Sun — Wolfe The Book of Mormon Brave New World — Huxley *Bridge of Birds — Hughart Butterfly Jar — Moss Cat’s Cradle — Vonnegut ***Catch-22 — Heller The Charioteer — Mar Renault The Child in Time — McEwan Claudius books — Graves Cod — Kurlansky Complete Short Stories — Hemingway Complicity — Banks Confederacy of Dunces — Toole A Conspiracy of Paper — Liss Count of Monte Cristo — Dumas Count Zero — Gibson The Crow Road — Banks *Cryptonomicon — Stephenson The Cuckoo’s Egg — Cherryh The Dark Tower series — King Darkness series — Turtledove The Day of the Triffids — Wyndham *Desolation Island — O’Brian Diary — Palahniuk Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus — Willems The Eight — Neville Elements of Moral Philosophy — Rachels Ender’s Game — Scott Card Enduring Love — McEwan The Eyre Affair — Fforde The Far Pavilions — Kaye Fool on the Hill — Ruff *Foucault’s Pendulum — Eco Gain — Powers *Ghormenghast trilogy — Peake Glass Bead Game — Hesse Good Omens — Gaiman, Pratchett *Harry Potter books — Rowling A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius — Eggers **His Dark Materials — Pullman *Infinite Jest — Foster Wallace **An Instance of the Fingerpost — Pears Ishmael — Quinn Island of the Day Before — Eco *Jitterbug Perfume — Robbins Last Chance to See — Adams The Left Hand of Darkness — LeGuin Little, Big — Crowley Little Lit — Speigelman London — Rutherford *The Lord of the Rings — Tolkien Macbeth — Shakespeare Magic of Xanth (the first two or three)— Anthony Man’s Search for Meaning — Frankl Master and Commander — O’Brian McDonald Hall series — Korman *Memoirs of a Geisha — Golden *Moby Dick — Melville Mother Night — Vonnegut ***The Name of the Rose — Eco Neighbors — Berger *Neuromancer — Gibson New York Trilogy — Auster No Logo — Klein Or Was — Ryman Oryx and Crake — Atwood Pattern Recognition — Gibson Perdido Street Station — Mieville Perfume — Suskind *Pillars of the Earth — Follett The Player of Games — Banks Poisonwood Bible — Kingsolver Poppleton series — Rylant Reaper Man — Pratchett *The Red Tent — Diamanta Riverworld — Gardner Sailing Alone Around the Room (poetry)— Collins *Sandman — Gaiman The Scar — Mieville The Secret History — Tartt Sewer Gas & Electric, The Public Works Trilogy — Ruff *Shogun — Clavell Silent to the Bone — Konigsberg Silmarillion — Tolkien Sirens of Titan — Vonnegut Snow Crash — Stephenson Sonnets to Orpheus — Rilke (trans. by Young) The Song of Fire and Ice — Martin The Story About Ping — Flack The Story of B — Quinn Thinking of Magritte — Sterns Tao Te Ching — Mitchell translation Tender is the Night — Fitzgerald Toujours Provence — Mayle Under the Empire of the Birds — Watson Void Captain’s Tale — Spinrad A Walk in the Woods — Bryson The War at the End of the World — Vargas llosa The War Hound and the World’s Pain — Moorcock The Way We Think — Fauconnier and Turner Wind-up Bird Chronicle — Murakami *Winter’s Tale —Helprin The Wonderful O — Thurber A Year in Provence — Mayle *Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — Pirsig Zen Flesh, Zen Bones — Reps — ****Borges — King — Sendak — Patrick O’Brian — Raymond Carver — *Pratchett — *Eco ...and, btw, this has finally gotten me to read Catch-22, so thanks for that on top of everything else.
• dng applauds certainsome1. Nice work.
• And, finally, here's a link to the recent Fantasy Book Question from AskMe
• real nice work certainsome1. This thread was everything that I wished it would be. I love the Monkeyshelf idea, and I can't wait for the next one.
• For anybody interested in Patrick O'Brian - as reccommended several times in this thread - BBC Radio 4's Book At Bedtime is currently doing an abridged version of The Surgeon's Mate (the seventh in the series). It's not the best reading (although the reader is the spectacularly named Benedict Cumberbatch, who sounds like he should be a 74 taken 30 miles NW of Ushant in the year '04) and the abridgment hurts the quality of writing in the first episode, where exposition rules the day. However, it's still decent enough, and you can listen to it online here. (It just started on Monday, so the later days' links will be for last week's book right now...)