Book Recommendations

[Feisty1]

So I've got some free time and wanted to start reading a new book...looking for something intelligent, any genre. Rec's, anyone?

I would proffer "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver.

 

[Angel]

The Unexpected Dragon by Mary Brown

Not my usual type of book, but I read it because someone asked me to, and I actually enjoyed it.

 

[CreamyLady]

That was a good book.

Right now, I'm re-reading Beowulf, Seamus Heaney's translation. I'm still rooting for Grendel and his mom.

 

[Laurel]

Here's some of the top of my head...

Good Fiction:
The Atlas by William Vollmann
The Secret Life of House by Scott Bradfield
Blindness by Jose Saragamo

Good NonFiction:
Author Unknown by Don Foster
The End of Time by Julian Barbour
and of course
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright

 

[Angel]

The Painted House by John Grisham.

Reading it now, it's unlike his more popular books, but it's good.

*sighs* I have over 4000 books and it's too late for me to remember any of the good ones.

 

[Feisty1]

Just finished "Blindness" not too long ago...no wonder he won the Nobel Prize.

Creamy Lady...you should read John Gardner's "Grendel." It's the story from Grendel's perspective.

 

[fgarvb1]

If you want some serious heavy duty reading..

worlds in collision...also.. ages in chaos

they were once black listed in the early fifties

by..immanuel velikovsky

[Edited by fgarvb1 on 03-17-2001 at 09:58 PM]

 

[Weird Harold]

I enjoyed The Redemption of Althalus By David and Leigh Eddings.

 

[Pyper]

Nothing can ever beat Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Yossarian lives!

 

[Feisty1]

pyper...just don't ever read the sequel. it's truly painful.

 

[jcgirl]

John Harvey "Last Rites"

 

[ranajja]

A Game of Thrones or A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin. A third one is out, but I haven't read it yet.

But starting with the first one and continuing in the second, this story takes you by the nose and hits the ground running and doesn't stop--

NC17 for sure

 

[Pyper]

pyper...just don't ever read the sequel. it's truly painful.

Feisty: Too late! Oh, the horror. BTW, I thought The Poisonwood Bible was great too.

 

[Weird Harold]

Oldies but Goodies

I just spent an interesting hour finding the proper sequence of the 22 Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the 40 "Official" Oz books By L.Frank Baum, Ruth Plumly Thompson, John R. Neill and others for my daughter.

Everything after the first book in each series has been forgotten except for a few die-hard fans like me. They are all good reading even today, 50-80 years after they were written.

 

[Madame Pandora]

I love Barbara Kingsolver, but if I was going to tout one of her books, it would be Animal Dreams. I think every woman should own a copy

MP

 

[cherrypop]

Midwives, by Chris Bohjalian! Holy wow!

 

[RonG]

Nothing can ever beat Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Yossarian lives!

Actually, I always liked God Knows by Heller better. The Old Testament makes so much more sense now.

A book in a similar vein as Catch-22 in style, is The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. Much easier to read than anything else Pynchon has written.

 

[ShyGuy68]

If you like adventure

"The Hobbit" and "The Lord Of The Ring" Triology by J.R.R. Tolkien

Last year I read "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon, and that is a very good read too!

 

[Jade]

All of the ones there that I have read out of those reccomended already are fabulous reads!

Otherwise, the Grass Dancer was a nice book that applied Native American elements in the same way that "Wudan" was incorporated into Crouching Tiger... loved thinking about it while not reading it... that make sense?

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence is my favorite philosophy book b/c it's constantly changing pace (I can elaborate if you need me to. )

Any poetry by Tennison (sp?) or Henley.

 

[RisiaSkye]

Fiction:
_Bless Me, Ultima_ by Rudolph Anaya
_Passing_ by Nella Larsen
_The Good Brother_ by Chris Offutt
_The Reader_ by Bernhard Schlink
_Hearts in Atlantis_ by Stephen King
_Alias, Grace_ by Margaret Atwood

Non-Fiction
_Stiffed_ by Susan Faludi
_Skin Shows_ by Judith Halberstam
_Tangled Memory_ by Marita Sturken
_Time Passages_ by George Lipsitz
_Love and Theft_ by Eric Lott

Short Fiction
_Tabloid Dreams_ by Robert Olen Butler
_Skeleton Crew_ by Stephen King
_The Snows of Kilamanjaro_ by Ernest Hemingway
_The Piazza Tales_ by Herman Melville
_Welcome to the Monkeyhouse_ by Kurt Vonnegut


I guess the message here is, never ask a lit major this kind of question.

 

[R Nitelight]

Weird Harold

Weren't there 24 Tarzan Books?


1)Tarzan Of The Apes
2)The Return Of Tarzan
3)The Beasts Of Tarzan
4)The Son Of Tarzan
5)Tarzan And The Jewels Of Opar
6)Jungle Tales Of Tarzan
7)Tarzan The Untamed
8)Tarzan The Terrible
9)Tarzan And The Golden Lion
10)Tarzan And The Ant Men
11)Tarzan, Lord Of he Jungle
12)Tarzan And The Lost Empire
13)Tarzan At The Earth's Core
14)Tarzan The Invincible
15)Tarzan Triumphant
16)Tarzan And The City Of Gold
17)Tarzan And The Lion Man
18)Tarzan And The Leopard Men
19)Tarzan's Quest
20)Tarzan And The Forbidden City
21) Tarzan The Magnificent
22)Tarzan And The Foreign Legion
23)Tarzan And The Madman
24)Tarzan And The Castaways

The last two were published posthumously, and thus might include other material.


Was there a question somewhere in this thread?

What about 'Tales Of The Dying Earth', By Jack Vance.
An omnibus edition including The Dying Earth, The Eyes Of The Overworld, Cugel's Saga, and Rhialto The Marvelous

Hell. How about anything by Jack Vance?

 

[WriterDom]

The Terrible Truth about Liberals
Neal Boortz

How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy: And Found Inner Peace
Harry Stein

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Tarzan

Weren't there 24 Tarzan Books?
...
22)Tarzan And The Foreign Legion
23)Tarzan And The Madman
24)Tarzan And The Castaways

The last two were published posthumously, and thus might include other material.

Actually, I think there may be 25, because I don't recall the last three being listed in Books In Print. I may have doubled up a title also.

I know that some of ERB's books were ghost-written to completion after his death, and they may have been listed under another author's name in Books In Print, or just may not have any entry there.

 

[R Nitelight]

Weird Harold

I got the list from The Encyclopedia Of Science Fiction, and I only listed those attributed to Burroughs.

In the sixties, Fritz Leiber wrote an authorized spinoff, 'Tarzan And The Valley Of Gold'. I know that recently both Joe Lansdale and Philip Jose Farmer have written Tarzan books.

 

[Madame Pandora]

Oh! That reminds me!

The Norton Book of Science Fiction.

Maybe the best anthology of short Sci-Fi ever gathered.

MP