Recommend some books for my new kindle

El Mucho

So I got a kindle for Christmas and I need some books to read on it. I mostly read sci fi/fantasy but I am up for anything that is interesting.

I am currently reading A Dance with Dragons in hardback, and before that I finished World War Z (which was awesome). I also really enjoyed Ender's game and all the sequels.

Any recommendations are much appreciated.

Khavall

I'm currently devouring all Asimov on mine right now. End of Eternity is especially good, as well as the Foundation series.

drfog

Check out Brave New World if you haven't read it.

JHunz

I'm going to categorize this post into three separate sections.

1) Free

ManyBooks.net, Project Gutenburg, etc. all have huge collections of out-of-copyright books. Pretty much any classic that you've been meaning to read for a while will be available. Most of the ones you've ever heard of are also conveniently on Amazon in the Kindle Popular Classics collection.

There's a ton of stuff published by Baen available legally for free as well. There's the Baen Free Library, and then there are the collections of their free CDs. In particular, if you haven't read the Honor Harrington series or the Vorkosigan saga then you should get to it.
Note: The Vorkosigan CD is missing one book. If you get up to the Miles In Love volume, make sure you pick up Memory first (Webscriptions has it pretty cheap).

2) Currently free or discounted
You can keep an eye on this page to see a bunch of Kindle books that are currently free or discounted for a limited time. There is a lot of garbage to wade through, frankly, but I've occasionally found some gems in there (a few decent cookbooks, a Peter Hamilton short story, some random fiction that was readable, etc.)

There are also a bunch of sites that track Kindle free/discounted content. For example, there's inkmesh, which is a search engine that lets you track prices across all the major stores and has a list of free books. There are various others, but I can't find my bookmarks for them at the moment.

Make sure you watch the Kindle daily deal as well. You never know what'll be on there.

If you're a Prime member, you should also make sure you're taking advantage of the lending library's one free rental a month.

3) Actually buying stuff
If you actually want to spend money for some stuff to read, here are some things I think you should read if you haven't already:

Jim Butcher: The Dresden Files series is very entertaining, although the first few aren't nearly as good as the rest of them after he gets up to speed. You can buy them individually for $10 each or in huge collections if you prefer it that way.

Peter Hamilton: I like the Night's Dawn trilogy a lot.

Guy Gavriel Kay: I recommend pretty much anything by Guy Kay, but the Sarantine Mosaic duology is my favorite (1, 2). The rest of his catalog doesn't seem to be up as Kindle books yet for some reason, and those two are a bit pricy for eBooks, so you may be better off with paper. Tigana and The Lions of Al-Rassan are also really great.

Scott Lynch: The Lies of Locke Lamora is a very entertaining read. Some people diss the sequel, but I enjoyed it just as much as the first. Unfortunately the third book has been tied up in writer/publisher hell for a while, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Brandon Sanderson: The Mistborn trilogy is pretty great, with a unique magic system.

John Kennedy Toole: It is rather a tragedy that A Confederacy of Dunces is the only book we'll ever have from this guy. It is a comic masterpiece.

Brent Weeks: The Night Angel trilogy is fun and pulpy, with a crazy stuff going on all the time style. I thought The Black Prism was pretty good too, and it is currently $3 for some reason which is a ridiculously good price.

Esh

The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. You won't be disappointed.

DrAllecon

A fun series I'm enjoying now is written by Naomi Novik. The first book (and arguably the best) is His Majesty's Dragon.

The whole series is about the Nepoleonic Wars, but with an air force in addition to naval battles. Only the air force is a fleet of dragons. It's about $7 (USD) on Amazon now for the Kindle.

reddog

I just got a Kindle too and I'm loving it. Reading Feast of Crows right now on it (this book is NOT one of his best).

American God's by Neil Gaiman is a must read if you haven't read anything by him.

I really enjoyed R.A. Salvatore's The Cleric Quintet series. A nice light fantasy series.

Tad William's The War of the Flowers and Terry Brook's Magic Kingdom for Sale. SOLD! are two different fantasy type books that I love too.

El Mucho

Awesome thanks for the recommendations. I purchased End of Enternity, The Black Prism and the first book in the First Law trilogy. I should be well stocked for the bus for a good while.

I will have to remember this thread when I run out of reading material.

Esh

El Mucho wrote:

Awesome thanks for the recommendations. I purchased End of Enternity, The Black Prism and the first book in the First Law trilogy. I should be well stocked for the bus for a good while.

I will have to remember this thread when I run out of reading material.

I win! If you like that trilogy (and you will) there's two stand alone books that come after it. Best Served Cold and The Heroes.

Khavall

Esh wrote:

El Mucho wrote:

Awesome thanks for the recommendations. I purchased End of Enternity, The Black Prism and the first book in the First Law trilogy. I should be well stocked for the bus for a good while.

I will have to remember this thread when I run out of reading material.

I win! If you like that trilogy (and you will) there's two stand alone books that come after it. Best Served Cold and The Heroes.

I win too!

And if you like End of Eternity(you will), the Foundation trilogy is amazing.

TychoCelchuuu

I'm just going to recommend books that are 1. free, 2. free from Amazon.com for your Kindle, and 3. kickass:

Jane Eyre
The Devil's Dictionary
Frankenstein
Moby Dick
Gulliver's Travels
Crime and Punishment
Anna Karenina
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
A Tale of Two Cities
Wuthering Heights
Treasure Island
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Iliad
The Odyssey
War and Peace
Pride and Prejudice
Right Ho, Jeeves
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut
On the Decay of the Art of Lying
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences
In fact, everything Mark Twain has written
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
The Jungle
Heart of Darkness

Iceman.USAF

I've read a lot of John Scalzi recently. Conveniently, he also runs a site called "whatever" (whatever.scalzi.com) and posts some "big ideas" of other authors he finds interesting and such. Its a great way to get some exposure to new books.

Also, his books are pretty great.

Also, Mike (as in Mike from PA) did the cover for "Agent to the Stars" first edition.

ahava

DrAllecon wrote:

A fun series I'm enjoying now is written by Naomi Novik. The first book (and arguably the best) is His Majesty's Dragon.

The whole series is about the Nepoleonic Wars, but with an air force in addition to naval battles. Only the air force is a fleet of dragons. It's about $7 (USD) on Amazon now for the Kindle.

ohmygod. Such a fun and great series. I got i think the first five or six and finished them in about 2 weeks. Devourable.

Edit:

oh, if you like GRRM, then the first 3 are available as an omnibus thing for kindle. So you can pay I think it was about 12 bucks for the first three books, read them all at once, and then get into the latest one.

And I can't, if you like literature, I can't recommend the Free Classics list more. My kindle is full of those books.

noir_blood

Also, if you're on twitter, start following some of your favorite authors, or do a search for a genre you're interested in. I'm started doing that for pulp/crime fiction and have loaded my kindle with tons of books. Most of them are for independent writers and publishers who sell their books for a few dollars, or will put them up for free for a limited time to try to raise them on the amazon list.

MagicToaster

I read Dan Simmon's Hyperion Cantos because someone on this board suggested it. It was FANTASTIC!!!

I'm currently reading "The Cleanest Race - How North Koreans See Themselves". It's very interesting if you're into that kinda thing.

Steev

Also, check your local library and see if they offer downloadable books!

Chorazin

I scour the Top 100 Free Fantasy and Sci-fi books on Amazon's site almost every day, I've found some really enjoyable books that way! Plus, if it kinda stinks it was still free, no harm no foul.

Esh wrote:

The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. You won't be disappointed.

Just picked this one up myself, gonna dig into it after I finish the newest Halo novel.

mere_immortal

Any of the Culture series by Iain M. Banks.

Recommend them to anyone who likes Sci-Fi. Don't need to start them in order but the first in Consider Phlebas although many consdier the second, The Player of Games to be his best.

Wulf

Peter V. Brett's 'The Warded Man' Series is really good reading, as is 'The Name of the Wind' and its sequel by Patrick Rothfuss.

JHunz

Wulf wrote:

Peter V. Brett's 'The Warded Man' Series is really good reading, as is 'The Name of the Wind' and its sequel by Patrick Rothfuss.

The Warded Man was good reading. The Desert Spear was utter drek, and is #1 on my most disappointing books of the last few years.

Tom819

Ready Player One.

Public Enemy Zero.

Dean Koontz has a modern day Frankenstein series that pretty cool also.

Esh

Tom819 wrote:

Ready Player One.

Public Enemy Zero.

Dean Koontz has a modern day Frankenstein series that pretty cool also.

I liked Ready Player One until the protagonist became...

...all of a sudden all powerful and what not. I would've liked to have seen more struggle.