OT Books

[cblinkdude182]

As some may know I am 17 years old and I am looking for challenging books to read. I am currently reading Brave New World and enjoy it a lot. So I was wondering if any of you guys would like to give your favorite books and recommendations on reading.

[jeremy c]

Just looking at the bookshelf behind me (and a little biased toward science fiction)

 

The Life of Pi

 

A Clockwork Orange

 

The Shockwave Rider

 

Ender's Game

 

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea

 

A Wild Sheep Chase

 

Labyrinths

 

One Hundred Years of Solitude

 

 

[kenfxj]

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Ulysses by James Joyce.

 

Perhaps not as challenging, but two of my favorites for pure entertainment value are The Stand by Stephen King and Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

[Thomas Wilburn]

Here's a few I've read lately and enjoyed.

 

Faking It, about authenticity in pop music. Surprisingly good, even if the authors pro-bubblegum biases do sneak in a bit at the end.

 

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I tried reading All the Pretty Horses in college and couldn't finish, but this one was much easier, and a great book.

 

Anything by China Mieville.

[getz out]

1984 by George Orwell

Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

The Mixerman Chronicles

[Bruiser]

I've always associated "Brave New World" with "1984," by George Orwell. Similar themes, but perhaps even more depressing because it's even more realistic.

 

Anything by Kurt Vonnegut is worthwhile-- Gallapagos is a favorite of mine, also Cat's Cradle, or Timequake. Vonnegut just died a couple of weeks ago, so I've been thinking about rereading some of his. Vonnegut was the master of dark humor.

 

Last year I read all those books I was supposed to read in high school, but didn't: A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Oliver Twist, all by Charles Dickens. Dickens was the greatest creator of characters ever, I believe. And after reading A Tale of Two Cities, I'll think twice about turning my back on a French person.

 

For a change, read some poetry. Good Poems For Hard Times is a collection, compiled by Garrison Keillor, a good sampling of modern poetry but stuff that is very readable. Anything written by Billy Collins is enjoyable to read. If you want to stretch back into the last century, Robert Frost's work is very accessible, and he also creates very believable characters.

 

And I've recently discovered the poems of Langston Hughes. Many of his poems are based on the blues; you could practice your 12-bar blues riffs while you read his stuff, and it would fit.

 

Enjoy,

 

Ed

 

[Bottomgottem]

I've been engaged in a three year love affair with Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books. The series begins with Master and Commander and ends twenty books later with Blue At The Mizzen. They chronicle the adventures of Capt. Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy, and his friend Stephen Maturin, a naval physician. The books are set in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, during the Napoleonic wars. There is also a 21st book in the series simply called 21. It was unfinished at the time of O'Brian's death and was published incomplete.

 

The 18th century sailing and warship terminology can be a bit daunting at first. But you find yourself understanding the terms the more you read them.

 

Excellent, excellent reading.

 

+1 for Jeremy's recommendation of Ender's Game.

 

Also,

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

The Iliad and The Odyssey trans. Robert Fagles

Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

 

 

[DavidMPires]

+1 for the Stand

 

Perfume

 

Anything from Paulo Coelho (brazilian autor) Highlight "The Alquimist"

 

Anne Frank Diary

 

A trip/journey to the inside world of drugs

 

 

[Phil W]

Mister God, this is Anna

 

Mere Christianity - CS Lewis

 

Lord of the Rings and everything by Tolkien and CS Lewis

 

Beowulf

 

Anything by Kurt Vonnegut

 

Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare

 

There's a website somewhere where you enter books or authors that you like and it finds supposedly similar ones - it also funstions for music and movies.

 

Loads more novels but the titles escape me right now.

[The Geoff]

I've been engaged in a three year love affair with Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books. The series begins with Master and Commander and ends twenty books later with Blue At The Mizzen. They chronicle the adventures of Capt. Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy, and his friend Stephen Maturin, a naval physician. The books are set in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, during the Napoleonic wars. There is also a 21st book in the series simply called 21. It was unfinished at the time of O'Brian's death and was published incomplete.

 

The 18th century sailing and warship terminology can be a bit daunting at first. But you find yourself understanding the terms the more you read them.

 

Excellent, excellent reading.

 

 

I'll second that - I was almost in tears when I finished the last one, just because there were no more. I have 21 and it's hard going as it's hand-written for a large part of it, and O'Brian's handwriting isn't easy to decipher at times.

 

There's also another book which gives maps & geographical details of the places visited in all the voyages - something to be dipped into. I can't give you the name as we moved house & a lot of stuff (including my books) are still in boxes.

 

Geoff

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

Yeah, I'd go along with a lot of the things here.

 

100 Years of Solitude is a good pick. As are 1984 and Clockwork Orange.

 

As far as "challenging" goes, I'd recommend anything by Cortazar, who has done some pretty experimental things, such as Hopscotch, a novel where the later chapters can be read in any order. It actually works.

 

I'd suggest Burrough's The Naked Lunch, but that can get a tad icky. Bukowski's 1960s books are always interesting. Anything by Ray Bradbury until the 1970s. "The Stars My Destination" by Albert Bester (printed in the UK as "Tiger, Tiger"). "Manuscript Found In Saragoza" for its ante literam drugged out weirdness. The Arabian Nights, perhaps (but try to get the Burton translation). Hasek's "The Good Soldier Schweik" is a hoot. And for very readable historical fiction, you can't go past the Flashman series.

[ZZ Thorn]

Lots of good books mentioned.

 

One book that musicians might especially like is "The Glass Bead Game", by Herman Hesse. It was published in Europe as "Magister Ludi". Hesse wrote the aforementioned "Siddhartha" and also "Steppenwolf", which inspired the band 'the Archies'. No wait, it was the band Steppenwolf.

 

The book is set in the future (but not some super-mechanized living-like-the-Jetsons future, normal future) and the cream of society's crop get selected to go to something like a monastery and master the 'glass bead game', which is pretty much music. Pretty flattering for musicians!

 

Herman's a great writer and he won the Nobel Prize for this book. My favorite book by Herm is "Narcissus and Goldmund", but because there's so much music in the "Glass Bead Game" maybe musicians would prefer it.

[dcr]

Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker series, obviously, but don't overlook Dirk Gently.

 

I'd like to read more by Tom Wolfe. I read A Man in Full a few years ago & really enjoyed it.

 

Not primarily a fiction writer, but Bill Bryson has got to be one of the most entertaining writers I've ever read. (And thanks to our own Shecky Madball Slidey Chair for the tip!)

 

I don't actually do much reading as a pastime. I read & write for a living, so when the day is done, I really would rather do something else. Feeble, I know.

[jeremy c]

How about the 14th century?

 

The Name of the Rose is a murder mystery set in the year 1327.

 

Not exactly a typical mystery. It was made into a pretty decent movie starring Sean Connery.

[Tom Capasso]

Challenging? I'm assuming that you mean that in a "makes you think" kind of way.

 

George Orwell - Animal Farm

scripture of your choice

Pete Hamill - Forever (my wife gave it to me for Christmas)

Neville Shute - Trustee From The Toolroom (this was challenging as well as fun), and all of his books.

 

I'm not usually looking for challenging. I'd love something fun (hence my love of Bryson, who tackles serious subjects but in a clever way). John Mortimer's "Rumpold" series works sometimes...

I also enjoy the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters (though I find it easier to catch the rampant sarcasm from the audiobooks).

 

This is an appropriate topic for bass players. There was an advertising campaign years ago that tied it together - "reading is fun-damental".

 

Tom

 

[Big Red 67]

I like all of Tom Robbins books.

[cblinkdude182]

Wow thanxs... I actually have read quite a few of the books mentioned and I must agree with most of you. Appreciate it, looks like I have some reading to do.

[Phil W]

A few years ago I posted about something called music map

http://www.music-map.com/

Hopefully enough people have used it to have made it more effective now. It questions you about music you like and makes a map of what people who like one thing also like. The problem I found was that if you have diverse tastes like I and many people do, you can end up with all sorts of false connections. Just because I like Hawkwind and Count Basie doesn't mean that every Basie fan will enjoy Space Ritual and vice versa.

Music-map is a part of gnoosic which is a part of gnod (global network of dreams - all sites rune by Marek Gibney.

 

Getting to the point!

There is also a gnod movies

http://www.gnovies.com/

 

and a gnod books

http://www.gnooks.com/

which might be vaguely relevant to this thread

 

 

As well as something called flork which I've yet to investigate

 

[Phil W]

Ah here's a direct link to the map . . .

 

http://www.literature-map.com/

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

*shrug* I can't deny that Bryson is entertaining, but sometimes...

 

Well, you have to wonder where he got some of the stuff for "Mother Tongue", for example. Contrary to whatever he was told, Finns DO swear. And many of his claims for the superiority of English over other languages are flat out misinformed or ignorant. One of his examples of English's superiority as a language rests on the way that English lets you say "I do sing" (and..?) Well, other languages let you do other interesting things that English sentence structure can't replicate.

 

I was also amazed when Bryson talks about Milan in "Neither Here Nor There" (and isn't that an Anglocentric little title?) He claims that he could not find a coffee shop in Piazza Duomo, the city's main square. Which is amazing because there'd have to be at least twenty coffeshops there. It's that sort of weirdness that makes me wonder how he does his actual research.

 

Anyway, rant over. And yes, he is rather entertaining.

[Phil W]

bump

 

 

[Dave Martin]

The two most eye opening books I can remember right now are Douglas Hofstadler's "Godel Escher Bach" (sure, the computer stuff might be outdated, but it's still a mind-bending book) and "The Story Of Civilization" (all 12 volumes) by Will and Ariel Durant.