if you liked the wheel of time series, which i consider to be equal to if not slightly superior to Tolkien's writings, mainly for his ability in making incredible characters, then you should read the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind

Eh, after about three books, Terry Goodkind becomes a sword-and-sorcery version of Ayn Rand. If you like a LOT of heavy-handed preaching on the benefits of objectivism, continue reading the series. If not, things are really going to start sucking for you by Temple of the Winds. A much better fit for former WoT readers is George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. Vonnegut is ALWAYS the master. So far, I have read of his: Breakfast of Champions, Player Piano, Cat's Cradle, Welcome to the Monkey-House. If you like Vonnegut, make sure you check out Joseph Heller's Catch-22 at some point.

Best book I've read recently: Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood. It's SciFi that sneaked it's way into the literature section of your local bookstore. Its a post-apocalyptic book where the character Jimmy (Snowman) describes what happened to the world (which used to be a near-future society) as he tries to make peace with his new existence as a prophet for the genetically engineered Children of Crake. Also, it's amazing. Atwood knows how to write a fallible narrator like a pro. Because she is one.

Vonnegut is ALWAYS the master. So far, I have read of his: Breakfast of Champions, Player Piano, Cat's Cradle, Welcome to the Monkey-House. If you like Vonnegut, make sure you check out Joseph Heller's Catch-22 at some point.

Check out Slaughterhouse Five. It's up there with Cat's Cradle. And it's about inter-dimensional-time-transcended beings ... and WWII. How can you lose?

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I read the first chapter and then lost the book... I think it's still kicking around the house somewhere. Not a big fan of WWII books in general (although, I realize Vonnegut is still totally worth it) so I'm not shelling out for another copy until I finish a few other randoms that I got (Dhalgren, The Weight of Numbers, Absurdistan).

I don't know if I would actually classify the book as a "WWII Book" at all. (I know I mentioned it, but it was really in contrast to the time travel aspect). More than anything, like most good novels, it's about the main character and his experience with some aliens ...

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I highly recommended Catch-22 above so I'm certainly not gonna skip it just on WWII's sake. :smile: I also highly recommend the WWII set The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.

There are a lot of junky WWII fiction books though. One entire subgenre encompasses alternate timelines where Hitler wins. Not just one or two or ten books about this. Easily into the hundreds. They could have a weekly magazine so many people write with this premise.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Michael Miller. It's a post-nuclear holocaust world where monks of the Leibowitzian order preserve the knowledge of the last age for centuries, even though after a few generations they don't understand it. It chronicles the new Dark Age, the new Renaissance, and the eventual repeat of the nuclear holocaust. As for alternate realities in which the Axis powers won WW2, read The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

Thanks for the reminder: I just started reading Slaughterhouse Five. I had this book lying around for ages and never got to read it. I'm in chapter 2 and it starts getting really weird. :smile:

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Why snark works.

<span style="font-style: italic;">Thirteen</span><span style="color: white;"> by Richard K Morgan. It's pretty good if you're into the near-future dystopia kind of setting. Nice mystery/suspense kind of story line.

Darwin's Radio. Also a pretty good near-future sci-fi story. Kind of far-fetched for my taste though.
</span>

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Some people are like slinkys...

They aren?t really good for anything, but you can't help but laugh when one tumbles down the stairs.

Slaughterhouse 5

Weird, weird but interesting book. Probably even a bit too weird for my taste, but I see it's quality nevertheless.

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Why snark works.

That's the one that everyone talks about by Vonnegut, right? 'Tis next on my list of things to read...

Yup, one of Vonnegut's most famous.

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Why snark works.

RIP Robert Jordan

Johnny Mnemonic
Good short read, some really cool imagery, it gets my recommendation. I think I'll be getting some of William Gibson's novels, anyone got any recommendations? The Sprawl trilogy seems an obvious choice, unless someone's got a better suggestion for a starting point.

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o

Found a neat little site full of articles like these.

http://frostfirecore.com/would-you-work-for-this-company
http://frostfirecore.com/a-brief-history-of-surveillance
and http://frostfirecore.com/mattels-vibrating-harry-potter-broomstick-big-hit-among-girls-mattel-pulls-toy-off-the-shelves

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Reality has become a commodity.

RedWood said:
Found a neat little site full of articles like these.

http://frostfirecore.com/would-you-work-for-this-company
http://frostfirecore.com/a-brief-history-of-surveillance
and http://frostfirecore.com/mattels-vibrating-harry-potter-broomstick-big-hit-among-girls-mattel-pulls-toy-off-the-shelves

Not really the sort of fare this thread is meant for...

Anyway. Just finished with Catch-22. I've had it recommended from too many sources not to check it out. As others have said, awesome book. It's strange how it can be so funny and yet so tragically sad at the same time.

Another one I've just finished with (though not completed) is In to the Wild. It's an interesting book in many ways, but I'm not sure I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

I was torn between just fond and just read. It was reading material and it will probably the the only post i ever add hear. :rolleyes: Bah, my bad.

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Reality has become a commodity.

I have recently been trying to acquire all the John Grisham audiobooks.

I have about 1/2 so far. ALL are good.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I recently discovered:
Jeffery Deaver - Lincoln Rhyme rulz
Janet Evanovich - Stephanie Plumb, hilariously funny
J.D. Robb - "Her death series"
Sherrilyn Kenyon - Acheron... /nuff said

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The best things in life, aren't things.

"Cappe Jugulum" by Terry Pratchett
edit:
This is the third comment in this thread since 2008 started...

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Never think about bad things!
TNKqwe:The New Killer qwe
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I am Engineer - Play Free Online Games
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Citizen Arms

tnkqwe said:
This is the third comment in this thread since 2008 started...

Can I help it if some of the best threads died when I left?

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Recently read "The Time Traveler's Wife"

Great book.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Might as well list 'em, these are the books I've read in the last 6 months:

The four Dexter books that are out (Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dearly Devoted Dexter, Dexter in the Dark, Dexter by Design), 2001: A Space Odyssey, and currently reading Star Wars: Death Troopers.

House of Leaves, the other Space Odyssey books, and some other crap is on my list.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

recently iv decided to better my self and take up reading as a hobby. sense iv started (probably just over a year sense i started) iv fished: A Brief History in Time, Decoding the Universe (book on information theory) House of Leaves and, Why E=Mc2.
At the recommendation of my friend I'm currently reading through a macroeconomics text book (he just fished the class.). He also loaned me Tipping Point, witch i am obligated , and wanting, to read. The one im most looking forward to is the one arriving in the mail tomorrow. I looked up what text books they use at MIT for their quantum mechanics courses. Their intro to quantum physics class uses 2 books. I bought the less mathematically stringent one. This one teaches more so by description instead of rigorously performing the mathematical operations to understand the topic. I'm really looking forward to a book that doesn't simplify their explanations so much.
After that ill be buying All Your Worth. A current book about the uSA economy. I can never remember her name but she has been on John Stuart several times. She like the head person for keeping books for the whole country or something like that (i forgot her title). After seeing her a few times on the daily show i can safely say she is the only honest, good hearted person working that high up in the gov.

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Reality has become a commodity.

So, it's been a few months Red, what are your thoughts on those books?

I've been reading "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks. AMCs The Walking Dead TV show (which just ended the first season last Sunday) got me all reved up for zombies and stuff. Which is always a popular topic around my friends; planning out what we'd do if that very night a class 2 outbreak occurred in our little college town. We've talked about it so much, we've got it planned out to a T what we'd do! The book is completely serious and even makes references to actual historical events of zombie attacks! There's even a real virus that does such a thing to! It's called "Solanum". I never knew about any of that; it's pretty interesting. I should be finished with it by the end of the week. Definitely essential for zombie fans!

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Finished the latest (fifth) Dexter book, and am on the fifth Parker book (The Score)

Riven, make sure, when you're done, you read World War Z!

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Oh awesome Crono, I love the tv show Dexter and I had a friend stay over at mine once and she was reading the 5th Dexter book too.

Well seeing as I'm on holidays I've decided it would be one of my goals to read a book which I haven't done in quite a while. I've chosen to read Ian Fleming's Live and Let Die and so far I'm really enjoying it. And it's quite different from the movie.

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Aaron's Stuff

Wow what your all reading sounds so much better than what I have been reading.. I just got done reading the PENAL CODE for Texas. As well as various other books related to Police work.

I did see a Police mans Zombie survival book at Barnes and Noble... almost got it.

Yea, I totally plan to buy the World War Z book. I expect that will be pretty interesting if not just as informative. What gets me though is thinking about how goveremts probably have a crisis plan for just such an occasion.

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Maybe not for "zombies", but a possibility of rabid human outbreaks, sure.

World War Z is more like the tales in the back of Survival Guide, it's not so much informative as it is a recollection of the zombie war. I'd suggest tracking down the audio books also as it's different and voiced by Mark Hamil and others. It's like a whole production.

To note, Dexter is Delicious (fifth Dexter novel) was alright. I don't like how Lindsay makes the majority of what's happened since book three be sort of by chance. Dexter tends to wander his way through the story until the conclusion presents itself to him, which is a theme to the books to some degree. But it made sense in the first, even second novel ... not so much in the others, at this point in time I'm finding it hard to believe he's as good of a serial killer as the book claims considering how clumsy he is. I'd like to see the next one be less intoxicated-by-emotion-Dexter and more I-know-what-I'm-doing-Dexter. (Also, the only similarities between the books and show is the first novel ... the show went in its own direction after that)

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Of course I hadn't read this yet since its yet to be released but for those waiting for Book 6 of the "Earths Children Series" it is supposed to be out in March this year.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Shall I add my recently read list that comes off as quite snobbish and douchey? Yes I shall!

In the last few months I've read (in no particular order)

The Hobbit + Lord of the Rings (again, spectacular as always)
His Dark Materials (a fantastic set of books that I highly recommend to everyone)
The Chronicles of Narnia (interesting to read next to His Dark Materials)
Moab Is My Washpot + The Fry Chronicles (superbly written autobiographies by Stephen Fry, my favourite person on the planet)
The Ode Less Travelled (an introduction to poetry writing and appreciation by the aforementioned Stephen Fry)
Dante's Divine Comedy (fantastic but I'll need to read a lot of other works and then revisit it to come close to understanding it's nuances)
God is Not Great (Hitchens at his best)
Sam and Max Hit the Road (collection of all the comics - spectacular)
Scott Pilgrim Series (great series of comics that I recommend to all video-gamers)
A Series of Unfortunate Events (GREAT stories that y'all should read)
Hyperion Cantos (four of the greatest books I've ever read)

That's what's coming off the top of my head. I recommend them all to everyone. I recently started an office job that grants me a lot of downtime with nothing to do and at least 2 hours a day on a bus. I've gotten a lot of reading done recently.

His Dark Materials turned out better than I'd at first thought. Good stuff.

I'd like to add some authors cause if I named books you'd need a scroll wheel.

[*]James Patterson, anything Alex related.
[*]J. D. Robb, anything Eve related.
[*]J. A, Jance, Everything written.
[*]Janet Evanovich anything Stephanie Plum.
[*]Dan Brown, everything written.
[*]John Grisham, everything written.

That'll do for starters/

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Dan Brown is a joke of an author and James Patterson has the most unoriginal titles ever.

I'm further along in the Parker series. Book ... uh ... 7? I lost count.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

More Authors:
[*]Terri Blackstock, a bit heavy on the God thing but great stories.
[*]Iris Johansen.
[*]Alan Dean Foster.
[*]Orson Scott Card, his Alvin series is very good.
[*]Alison Goodman, her new Eon series looks like its gonna be great. At least the first book was great.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I've listened to nearly everything our library has, at least for the authors I know I like.

I need you guys to post some suggestions, and if you could explain why you think they're good.

I do not promise the library will have the books but I need something more to listen to until they upload some more selections.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Recently: "Pathfinder" by Orson Scott Card. Excellent book. This link leads to a posting of chapter #1. Read it if you may. I have it in audiobook if you are interested further.

Very good read. (listen)

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The best things in life, aren't things.