Summer Reading

[KaiserJ]

its time for you all to suggest some good books that you've enjoyed to others, for the purpose of summer lurk-n-read. i grabbed a few recently after reading amazon reviews and was sorely disappointed, so hopefully you guys can hook me up.

genre / theme / bit of a plot summary are great, but no spoilers please!

i guess i'll kick it off...

Millenium Trilogy - Stieg Larsson
(the girl with the dragon tattoo / the girl who played with fire / the girl who kicked the hornets nest)

they just recently released the movie for the first installment (the girl with the dragon tattoo) in north america although all three books have movies for them already in europe.

the trilogys theme is misogyny (hatred of women) and follows magazine editor Mikael Blomkvist and leet haxor Lisbeth Salander over various adventures and shady dealings with criminals and the criminally insane. the trilogy is based in sweden, so everyone has a funky name. the plots are quite complex, and multiple storylines run parallel and often intersect, with interesting results. the stories are very suspenseful and will keep you reading until the wee hours of the morning.

normally i avoid bestsellers (oh lawd davinci code) but i really enjoyed these... after being urged to try the first book by my sister for a few weeks, i folded and picked it up, and was instantly hooked.

now your turn! gogogo!

[hoijui]

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1998

plot: man goes down and up a mountain a few times

[Gota]

I don't recommend this unless you are actively studying philosophy.

[bobthedinosaur]

Thus Spoke Zarathustra
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1998
plot: man goes down and up a mountain a few times

Nietzsche is great, and I love gutenberg.


Anyways:
Try some Herman Hesse. I recommend "Siddhartha" or "Narcissus and Goldmund"
Or try Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and the Margarita"

Right now I am reading Catch-22 (again), a Kurt Vonnegut Jr. short story book, and Tim O'Brian's "The Things They Carried"... so kind of depressing stuff.

[oksnoop2]

Book Starship Troopers
Author Robert A. Heinlein
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Science fiction, Philosophical novel
Publication date December 1959

Please don't think of the movie.

[HeavyLancer]

Starship Troopers

Hell yeah, SF. Along similar lines, I would recommend:

• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card(Don't bother with the sequels if you expect a similar plot, they are completely different)
• Armor by John Steakley

And on a different note, if you want some unrelated, much heavier reading, I would suggest reading some of Niall Ferguson's works. I will warn you though, he is an economic historian, so expect drooping eyelids if you can't stand either. 'The Ascent of Money' in particular is quite good.

[bobthedinosaur]

"Ender's Game" is good. Just don't expect the series to remain that good. "Starship Troopers" is also good, as well as most Heinlein, just beware some of his stuff can get kind of cheesy.

[pintle]

Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks. Epic space opera.

[Sucky_Lord]

• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card(Don't bother with the sequels if you expect a similar plot, they are completely different)

Absolute beast book, but i enjoyed all the sequels aswell, and the parallax series "The Shadow Series"(which focuses entirely on bean). Especially Ender's Shadow(a book about bean's childhood which was gripping.)

I would recommend Janissaries by Jerry Pournelle for some light reading, and there are 2 sequels if you like it. These books are about some marines from earth that get kidnapped by aliens and dropped on another planet to grow a drug called surinomaz. They work to gain power amongst the locals and therefore gain their help in growing the all-important drug.

[Caydr]

[post reserved for Bruce to recommend Mein Kamph]

[PicassoCT]

Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks. Epic space opera.

Read it,

but recomend
alastair reynolds: The Prefect
Charles Stross: Singularity Sky
Peter F. Hamilton: Fallen Dragon

All recommendations by spring in other book threads, bought them all, red them all, recommend those three. Also, The Spin.

[Caydr]

I thought "Reckoning Infinity" was an OK book. No idea how I came across it or if it measures up to other books in any way, I just know that for some reason I read it and thought it wasn't horrible. I would recommend it to anyone who likes realistic sci-fi, but I don't remember anything specific about it.

[MidKnight]

Anything by Isaac Asimov is fun. Genre is obviously science fiction.

Magic: The Final Fantasy Collection is a bunch of his forays into fantasy. It's an amusing read.

[FireStorm_]

Sf novel
Heinlein: 'The moon is a harsh mistress'
plot: Why and how to bring about a coup on the moon.
To me it is about what makes an organisation work and what doesn't.

Philosophical novel
Albert Camus 'La Peste'
plot: A town is struck by plague and is quarantined.
Reading good Philosophical books IS actively studying philosophy.

Autobio anecdotes
Richard Feynman 'Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman.'
Plot: Brilliant physicist cracks saves to steals nuclear secrets. Hahaha, no i'm joking. Or am I? A great and fun read. Laughed a lot.

I must agree with MidKnight. One cannot read to much Asimov.
At least read this one:
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html
And then you can always ask if if the other books I recommended are any good:
http://www.multivax.com/

[Sucky_Lord]

Anyone here read the Riftwar trilogy by Raymond. E. Feist?(Magician, Silverthorn, A Darkness at Sethanon)
I believe these books to be fundamental in the fantasy genre, and i thoroughly enjoyed them

[tombom]

Autobio anecdotes
Richard Feynman 'Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman.'
Plot: Brilliant physicist cracks saves to steals nuclear secrets. Hahaha, no i'm joking. Or am I? A great and fun read. Laughed a lot.

I must agree with MidKnight. One cannot read to much Asimov.
At least read this one:
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html
And then you can always ask if if the other books I recommended are any good:
http://www.multivax.com/

agreeing with these two

Also Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
I read the translation by Edith Grossman, which is very readable even though it deliberately uses some roundabout and archaic language. It's a comedy and parody of the genre of chivalry - a village noble spends so much time reading chivalric novels he imagines they're real and decides to become a knight-errant, going round righting wrongs. Unfortunately, he's not very good at it. Considering it's 400 years old, it holds up very well and is still pretty funny, making me laugh out loud a few times.

[KaiserJ]

woohoo keep 'em coming guys;

lots of ones i havent read, and the ones that i have were great!

[PicassoCT]

many addbots and people just visit us for the book and musicrecommendations, spring- the engine is just a sort of

[MidKnight]

Sf novel
Heinlein: 'The moon is a harsh mistress'
plot: Why and how to bring about a coup on the moon.
To me it is about what makes an organisation work and what doesn't.

Philosophical novel
Albert Camus 'La Peste'
plot: A town is struck by plague and is quarantined.
Reading good Philosophical books IS actively studying philosophy.

Autobio anecdotes
Richard Feynman 'Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman.'
Plot: Brilliant physicist cracks saves to steals nuclear secrets. Hahaha, no i'm joking. Or am I? A great and fun read. Laughed a lot.

I must agree with MidKnight. One cannot read to much Asimov.
At least read this one:
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html
And then you can always ask if if the other books I recommended are any good:
http://www.multivax.com/

And I must agree with you!
Feynman's book (and its sequel What Do You Care What Other People Think?) are the most engaging autobiographical volumes I have ever read.

Oh, and, since it hasn't been mentioned yet: Terry Pratchett. His stuff's good.

[Caydr]

Umm...

Well if you happen to find yourself in the mood for something nostalgic, the Thrawn Trilogy was pretty well-received by Star Wars fans. It was written long before Episode 1 came to ruin everything good in the world and make Natalie Portman a pedophile.

It's basically what a hypothetical Episode 7/8/9 might be if George Lucas had no involvement. Lots of things in it became official canon, such as the name of Coruscant.

Oh it was by Timothy Zahn if you've heard of him.