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Redwall, and any others in that series, by Brian Jacques
Starfist Series -- First to Fight by Dan Cragg and David Sherman, about marines in the 26th century, good series.
Winter Warriors by David Gemmel and other books set in the same world as this. Such are In the Realm of the Wolf, Druss, etc.
The Dark Glory War By Michael Stackpole
Military/Spy fiction:
Tom Clancy (Those novels actually written by Clancy, NOT the vile Op Center)
Robert Ludlum
Bernard Cornwell
Daniel Silva
SciFi:
Isaac Asimov
R.A. Heinlein
Frank Herbert (Dune, naturally, and to a lesser extent some short stories)
Brian Herbert (as an example of how to destroy a great work)
Michael Stackpole
John Ringo
Larry Niven (Fight the power)
Timothy Zahn
Ray Bradbury
John Steakley
Piers Anthony
Orson Scott Card
Fantasy:
C.S. Lewis
Robert Jordan (Conan books, NOT Wheel of Time past book 4)
Brian Jacques
Neil Gaiman (especially American Gods and Neverwhere)
Tolkien (Not all of it, believe it or not. The Simarilion is a history book and reads like one. Useful, but not really what you'd call a good read).
R.A. Salvatore
Steven Brust
David Eddings (For selling the same story 3 times over. Awesome)
Piers Anthony (Mentioned once, but he does a lot of cross-genre stuff)
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Children's Fantasy/Sci-Fi (But enjoyable by anyone)
Patricia C. Wrede - The Enchanted Forest Chronicles: Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, Talking to Dragons
Diane Duane - Young Wizards series: So You Want to Be a Wizard is the first of seven (so far), of which my favorite is High Wizardry
Ira Levine - Ella Enchanted [Not extraordinary, but a very fun and pleasant read.]
Contemporary Fiction
Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon [Three tangled plot lines in one, essentially three books in one great read.]
Christopher Moore - Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Friend [If you're deeply religious, this may not be for you, but it had me laughing out loud on numerous occasions.]
Science Fiction/Fantasy
David Farland - The Runelords Saga: The Runelords, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Wizardborn, Lair of Bones so far. And I just found out there's a movie trilogy starting in 2006 that's hoping to fill the LotR void in fantasy epics!
Dan Simmons - Hyperion, Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, Rise of Endymion, and in a separate series Ilium
George R.R. Martin - Songs of Fire and Ice: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords [The fourth book in this series is probably the second-most-awaited book on my list, after the next Wheel of Time book.]
Classics
John Steinbeck - East of Eden
Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo
Nonfiction
Brian Greene - The Elegant Universe [Although I am a physics major, I really recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the most recent theories on how the Universe works.]
Edit: I also echo everyone above who recommended Robert Jordan, Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, Dan Brown, J.K. Rowling, and Michael Stackpole. Stackpole in particular has written countless numbers of books in many different "universes," but his writing style makes all of it enjoyable.
It's a long book, so it's all I've been reading lately.
The Exorcist: By William Peter Blatty.
Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, and Blood Canticle: By Anne Rice.
Ring, and Spiral: By Koji Suzuki.
Dracula: By Bram Stoker.
Anything by H.P. Lovecraft (I enjoy the format of The Best Of series).
Religion/Religious Fiction
While I'm not at all religious, I've become quite fond of studying different religions. Specifically the western ones. For anyone else who also enjoys studying religion here's a short list of fantastic reference books.
A Dictionary of Angels: By Gustav Davidson.
The History of Hell: By Alice K. Turner.
Sepher Rezial Hemelach: The Book of the Angel Rezial: By Steve Savedow.
The Book of Enoch the Prophet: By R.H. Charles.
The Book of Nod: By Sam Chupp and Andrew Greenburg (Tons of beautiful and dark illustraitions by a number of artists).
The Screwtape Letters: By C.S. Lewis.
Faust: By Goethe.
Paradise Lost: By John Milton.
Fiction
King of the Ants: By Charles Higson.
A Clockwork Orange: By Anthony Burgess.
Mondays are Red: By Nicola Morgan.
This book really inspired me. I did not thing it was possible to be so moved by a Fantasy book. The first 5 books are also very good, thought not as inspirational. If you decided to read 7 & 8 be prepared for a let down.
That's where I got my name from.
And I recommend that you all read Great Expectations. Its wit and humor contrasted with the heart wrenching subject matter makes for a very powerful novel and you can see why it's one of the classics. Difficult to read at some points though.
Overall I love a great novel that has great battlescenes. I love the way Jordan and Goodkind do a battle scene, but most of the rest of the books are so hard to read...
Anyone have any reccomendations on some authors that do great battle scenes, preferably in the fantasy settings?
I would suggest David Gemmel's books, such as Druss, In the Realm of the Wolf, Winter Warriors, etc. Those come highly recommended, but I haven't read the ones that aren't based around the Drenai and what not.
Michael Stackpole and his Dark Glory War is good too, and I would suggest William King's novels based around Gotrek and Felix in the Warhammer setting. Not too much is needed to know to figure anything out, because those were what got me started with Warhammer books. Never played the game however.
Dan Cragg and David Sherman who wrote the Starfist series(It's Sci-Fi) are also good and worth checking out, and First to Fight, does a great job with the fighting.
I know it doesn't really fit to the standards, but those are some that I don't really see read much.
Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works - Erik Spiekermann, E.M Ginger
This is an excellent primer in basic typographical theory. You may already know to do or not to do some things with type but this book will tell you why. It's very short and well written but sitting down for the hour or so it should take you to read it will set you up to write with much more legibility and professionalism than most experienced authors and journalists probably posses after a lifetime of hacking.
The Elements of Typographic Style - Robert Bringhurst
Once you've done reading Stop Stealing Sheep, start on this. Well, actually, it's probably better to keep this as a reference as whilst it can be a very enjoyable read if you are into this sort of thing, most of you probably wont want to sit and read it from cover to cover. Speaking of which, this book covers everything about typography and typographic style from elegant page layout using a fibonachi series to how to properly format numbers in a spread sheet. So yeah, there is a lot of stuff in here that you will probably never need to know but there is also a hell of a lot that you definately need to know - how and when to use speech marks, quote marks, inches and feet; when and where to put punctuation in speech; the difference between an em, an en, a hyphen and a subtraction; when to use small caps and when to use capital letters; &tc.
Use this to perfect your legibility and improve your typographical sophistication.
A really interesting story of love, sex and coming of age. Funny and sad in all the right places. I also hear that his other works are well worth reading.
Hear the Wind Sing
Pinball
A Wild Sheep Chase
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
The Elephant Vanishes
Dance, Dance, Dance
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
South of the Border, West of the Sun
Underground
Sputnik Sweetheart
Three Men in a Boat: by: Jerome K. JeromeIf anyone built an awesome ray to concentrate copious amounts of awesomeness into a small area, you would be like "damn now there's an easy way to explain how Jerome managed to fit so much awesome into one place".
It's loquacious; it's English; it's witty, and it's hilarious. And, it's short to boot. Its commentaries on society and 'remember when...' humor reminds me of a victorian Family Guy, plus he manages to even add slapstick in a literary work and it turns out brilliant.
Awesome book. Shut up.
Calvino is a genius.
I'm also reading Aleksander Soltzinitzhen's (sp?) Gulag Archipeligo, which is a little slow going. But an amazing look at life at being a politcal prisoner in Stalinist Russia. Also pretty depressing. Best to take in small doses. And yet, I like it.
For Fiction, I just finished Michael Chabon's Summerland...which is everything The Gulag Archipeligo is not. Hopeful, uplifting, and it took me about 2 days to read. It's one of those, one-more-chapter-before bed-hey-it's-six-in-the-fucking-morning....one-more-chapter-before-work kind of a book.
(7 book series)
Robert J. Sawyer-
Frameshift
Calculating God
Flashforward
Neanderthal Parallax
1. Hominids
2. Humans
3. Hybrids
Anything by Kurt Vaughnegut
Salinger: Catcher In The Rye,Franny and Zoey
Edgar Allen Poe: The Fall of The House Of Usher, Masque Of The Red
Death
George Orwell:Animal Farm
SciFi/Fantasy
Starwars: New Jedi Order Series, I Jedi
Tolkien: LOTR trillogy, Unfinished Tales, Silmarillion
C.S. Lewis: Chronicles Of Narnia Series, Screwtape Letters
Anything by Terry Brooks
Bram Stoker: Dracula
R.L. Stevenson: Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde
Ray Bradbury: Farenheit 451, The Halloween Tree
Classics
Charles Dickens: Tale of Two Cities
Mark Twain: Tom Sawyer
Plays:
The Real Inspector Hound- Tom Stoppard
Anna in the Tropics- Nilo Cruz
SF/F:
The Mote in God's Eye- Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle (CLASSIC).
Belgariad/Mallorean series- David Eddings
Contact- Carl Sagan
SF/F meant for kids but amazing for adults as well:
Juniper- Monica Furlong
Chronicles of Narna -CS Lewis
Neverending Story- Michael Ende
Historical Fiction:
Here be Dragons- Sharon Kay Penman. An amazing, based on true events, account of Wales and England in the 12th century.
Audrey Niffenegger's "The Time Traveler's Wife" was totally engaging and fun, well-written and just solid all around... and Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides) was fantastic.
And on a slightly less modern, but still living note... there's been no mention of the oral histories by Studs Terkel, one of which concerning the second world war managed to grab a nobel prize and is an absolutely heart-wrenching, laugh-out-loud funny beast of literature.
Also don't forget Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, which is not earth-shaking by any means but it's well written and fun to read.
Plays:
Tom Stoppard, anything really. Lots of translations but they are good and his personal creations are all fabulous.
The Skin of Our Teeth by Thorton Wilder
Oscar Wilde, works
Books:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence by Robert Pirsig
Le Morte D'Arthur by Thomas Malory
The Once and Future King (entire series) by T. H. White
Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson (in addition to his other works already mentioned)
The Elements of Style - Strunk and White
Fiction
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (Highly recommended)
The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
I Am Legend - Richard Matheson
Bid Time Return - Richard Matheson
A Stir of Echoes - Richard Matheson
Pidgeon Feathers - John Updike, Short Stories Pt. 1
Trust Me - John Updike, Short Stories Pt. 2
The Joke - Milan Kundera (Highly, highly recommended)
Black Coffee - Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie
The Complete Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Tales - Edgar Allen Poe
The Complete Romances of Chretien de Troyes
The Songs of Distant Earth - Arthur C. Clarke
The Guide - R. K. Narayan
Bless Me, Ultima - Rudolpho Anaya
Ulysses - James Joyce
The Dubliners - James Joyce
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Im Westen nichts Neues - Erich Maria Remarque
Religion
The Nag Hammadi Library - Translated by Various
The World's Religions - Huston Smith
The Analects - Confucius
The Koran
Poetry
La Vita Nuova - Dante
The Song of Roland
Nonfiction
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Gibbon
The Hero With A Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell
My Life - Bill Clinton
An Ecclesiastical History of the English People - Bede
Man And His Symbols - Carl Jung
The Principles of Psychology - William James
Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick - Lawrence Sutin
-- Echo
I absolutely agree. Stranger in a Strange Land and The Mote in God's Eye are essential readings for science fiction fans or authors.
They're absolutely amazing.
I totally agree with you on Stoppard, Wilde, and Marion Zimmer Bradley.
Good taste, man.
On the other hand, its subject matter is a little distasteful. If Cal weren't such a brilliantly rendered narrator, it'd be practically unreadable, but he/she has enough spunk and intelligence to help us see the humorous side of parental grief, incest, and sexual identity crises.
So, I guess I'd recommend this if you're not bothered by the socially uncomfortable subject matter, but if not, you should probably pass.
Don't let the "Pulitzer Prize Winner" sticker fool you, though: it's far, far less boring -- and far less safe for that matter -- than such accolades might suggest. This is the kind of book you might feel a tad guilty about reading.
-- Echo
this is a really great book but it's nearly impossible to find in stores unless you live in the UK where it was recently re-released.
World's Most Dangerous Places (5th Edition) by Robert Young Pelton.
An interesting, and very differently written book on the hotspots of the world, citing every source, along with stories of travels through said DP, and guides to deal with common situations in those places (surviving kidnappings, muggings, dinner with Afghani Warlords).
The writer is currently in Iraq researching a either a new edition, or a new book.
I would also recommed his book, The Hunter, The Hammer, and Heaven: Journeys to Three Worlds Gone Mad, which tells of his travels through Sierra Leone, Chechnya, and the South Pacific island fortress of Bougainville.
Nothing like going thousands of miles, and searching for two years to interview a guy who thinks you're coming to kill him.
Pelton wrote for National Geographic Adventure, and possibly did some work with CNN.
The Dark Tower is absolutely fantastic- I'm reading the Wastelands right now and can't believe the stuff I'm reading- King really is an excellent writer.
R.A. Salvatore is an excellent fantasy read- start with the Icewind Dale trilogy and work your way up from there.
And really, you should start with the Dark Elf Trilogy, then move to the Icewind Dale Trilogy, then then the Cleric Quintet, followed by the Legacy of the Drow books and then the Paths of Darkness set, and finish up with the Hunter's Blade trilogy.
Of course, that's just MY suggested reading order.
[Edit]Spelling is fun![/Edit]
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King... read the first one over a decade ago and he just put out the hardcover of the last one. I literally feel like an unborn part of my soul is finally going to come alive. Though I have to warn the drug up there that when you finish the Wastelands you had better have Wizard and Glass handy right that very fucking instant or your head will explode. I waited a couple of years for it when I finished that book and nearly pulled a Misery on old Stevie.
The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis, and pretty much anything from GK Chesterton if you like that kind of thing.
"Tortilla Flats," by Steinbeck, and For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway.
And for a good laugh, pick up any of Dave Barry's earlier books. One Door Away from Heaven by Dean Koontz... boy, has he come a long way since Night Chills. And from someone who has gone in the opposite direction, both of the Jurassic Park books from Crichton.
And finally, anyone who has had an opportunity to read Wuthering Heights and has passed it up, whether they end up liking the book or not, should be taken out into the street and... well, read to. Shooting them wouldn't really help matters. Heathcliff= biggest badass in British literature.
Me: My Father was 82nd Airborne. He'd throw my ass out a window. Also, I'm older than you.
-George Bernard Shaw
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court -Mark Twain
Candide -Voltaire
The Three Musketeers -Alexandre Dumas
and all of its sequels:
Twenty Years After
The Vicomte de Bragelonne
The Man in the Iron Mask
Invisible Man -Ralph Ellison
The Invisible Man -H.G. Wells
Science fiction:
Fahrenheit 451 -Ray Bradbury
Something Wicked This Way Comes -Ray Bradbury
I, Robot -Isaac Asimov
It's in my top-five books of all time.
-- Echo
I'm surprised I only just read it, considering how much I love the Sandman graphic novels and the Lucifer comics.
Well, regardless you all should read it.
and the Sandman.
The Ender and Homecoming series in particular.
I've read every book that i could find by this man, maybe I'm afraid of variance.
Non-Fiction and Fugitives & Refugees
both of which are fascinating.
George Orwell, 1984 - this book is devastating :shock:
Joseph Heller, Catch 22 - I am surprised no-one has mentioned this already
David Ambrose, The Man Who Turned Into Himself- a real pickler
Oscar Wilde, A Picture of Dorian Gray - Lavishly decadent
Ruaridh Nicoll, White Male Heart - not gay like it sounds. savage. brilliant.
Toby Litt, Gang in the US, Deadkidsongs in UK. - blacker than black :twisted:
Terry Brooks, Faerie Tale - good new fashioned horror page turner
Julian May, Saga of the Exiles - fantasy sci-fi. character driven.
It is very easily the best book I've ever read.
You need to read more books, then.
-- Echo