Book Recomendation Thread

IceDigger

Founder
Staff member
Yea this is one of those odd threads about books. You know... paper and all with no moving parts or electricity :p

Post what books you recommend and what genre they are and maybe a brief description.
 
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Modern Fantasy

Synapsis:

"Richard Mayhew is a plain man with a good heart - and an ordinary life that is changed forever on a day he stops to help out a girl he find's bleeding on a London sidewalk. From that moment forward he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed - a dark subculture flourishing in abandoned subway stations and sewer tunnels below the city - a world far stranger and more dangerous then the only one he has ever known."

Very cool book if you are into the Fantasy style books. I highly recommend.
 
I'll have to reccomend an oldie but a goodie - The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.

Come on you guys, If you havent read this series by now, you should be killed.
 
Dragons of Autumn Twilight

Dragons of Winter Night (I think that's the name)

Dragons of Spring Dawning

It's a GREAT fantasy trillogy. Done by Margerate Weise and Tracy Hickman. It's part of the Dragonlance series of books, good stuff.
 
Ok, This may sound corny but these are acutally good books, especially if you are a fan of the game.

Halo! Well, Only 2 of the 3 are good.

Halo: Fall of Reach and Halo: First Strike are good.

The second books sucks cause it just pretty much describes to you the game as you play it. Boring. But the other 2 are quite good IMO.

Didn't you guys learn that you are supposed to unerline Book titles in school! :p
 
there's actually a 4th book in that dragonlance set, that was written later. It involves the kids of several of the people from the first 3 dragon lance books. It's dragons of summer something or other.

my recomendation:

The last herald mage

It's a series of 3 paperbacks or a single hardback. It's by mercedes lackey. It's good stuff. There are also many other books set in this same world by her. A lot of the books are kinda sad though. And if you're homophobic at all, then stay away, cause the main character in the last herald mage is gay. Other gay/lesbian pairings show up in other books in the series too(not that any of it ever goes into any detail).
 
Originally posted by IceMan2k@Jan 27, 2004 @ 08:31 AM

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Modern Fantasy

Synopsis:

"Richard Mayhew is a plain man with a good heart - and an ordinary life that is changed forever on a day he stops to help out a girl he find's bleeding on a London sidewalk. From that moment forward he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed - a dark subculture flourishing in abandoned subway stations and sewer tunnels below the city - a world far stranger and more dangerous then the only one he has ever known."

Very cool book if you are into the Fantasy style books. I highly recommend.

I know it kind of goes against the whole "book recommendation" part of the thread, but the BBC TV series of Neverwhere is awesome. :thumbs-up:
 
Beach Music, by Pat Conroy.

This is more or less a chick book that I enjoyed. I guess I could say it's my favorite book.
 
Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte

quick Amazon review

As the founder of MIT's Media Lab and a popular columnist for Wired, Nicholas Negroponte has amassed a following of dedicated readers. Negroponte's fans will want to get a copy of Being Digital, which is an edited version of the 18 articles he wrote for Wired about "being digital."

Negroponte's text is mostly a history of media technology rather than a set of predictions for future technologies. In the beginning, he describes the evolution of CD-ROMs, multimedia, hypermedia, HDTV (high-definition television), and more. The section on interfaces is informative, offering an up-to-date history on visual interfaces, graphics, virtual reality (VR), holograms, teleconferencing hardware, the mouse and touch-sensitive interfaces, and speech recognition.

In the last chapter and the epilogue, Negroponte offers visionary insight on what "being digital" means for our future. Negroponte praises computers for their educational value but recognizes certain dangers of technological advances, such as increased software and data piracy and huge shifts in our job market that will require workers to transfer their skills to the digital medium. Overall, Being Digital provides an informative history of the rise of technology and some interesting predictions for its future.

This is a great read for anyone who has a passion for digital media like I do
 
Originally posted by Curtis@Jan 27, 2004 @ 09:45 AM

When was that screened...I don't seem to recall it?

I saw it on Foxtel a few years back. I'm not sure if it made it to free to air.

I've got most of it on VHS...
 
Well, Dragons of Summer Flame is actually part of the 4th age or sumthin liek that. IT envolves it sumwhat but in the 4th age (I think that's what it's called) there isn't any magic left or krynn and shit. but ya, the Summer Flame book isn't a part of the series.....it's just a book that kinda ties into it but is still another story alltogether.

Soulforge is another great book. It focuses on Raistlin Majere's life a lot more. It ties in w/ the trilogy books A LOT. It's all just one big story I guess, haha.
 
Shitface, they just came out with the 3rd book to the halo book series. Got it while on vacation but have not read it yet.
 
I read the first 5 books of the Xanth series by Piers Anthony last summer, good stuff.

I liked the first 3 the most:

1. A Spell for Chameleon

2. The Source of Magic

3. Castle Roogna

I started reading "On a Pale Horse" and I'm almost done with it. Its a pretty good sci-fi/fantasy book.

His writing style is sort of weird, and he likes to use certain catch phrases, parodies, and puns quite frequently. You might not like his style, I was sort of turned off by it at times, but they're worth reading.

By the way mal, do you know if they made a tv series or movie from the Xanth series? I can't remember, but I thought I heard somewhere about it.
 
"The Vision of the Anointed" by Thomas Sowell

It's a right-wing political commentary, so I doubt too many people are interested, but it basically differentiates between the way right-wingers and left -wingers see the world.

Left-wingers tend to have a higher than deserved view of human nature. They believe that when given the prize, people will then work as hard as they should have to earn it. That's the basic premise behinds welfare. Give people the money they haven't earned, so that they'll go out there and work hard enough to earn it. As a general rule, we know this doesn't always work. I'd say a large portion, if not a majority, of those on welfare programs tend to either misuse the money appropriated (ie, drugs and alcohol) or tend to rely on it for their sole source of income, neither of which are the premise for giving out the money in the first place.

Right-wingers tend to hold the value that you work for your rewards, or you don't get them. Irregardless of whether the reward is the extra spending money you could use for things like drugs and alcohol, or the money needed to put a roof over one's head.

It covers a lot more than that, actually... but that was just a part I found particularly interesting. Obviously, since it's a right-wing commentary, a more positive spin is put upon the right side.

Irregardless, I highly recommend it for anybody, whether they're interested in politics or not.
 
Originally posted by IceMan2k@Jan 26, 2004 @ 06:52 PM

Shitface, they just came out with the 3rd book to the halo book series. Got it while on vacation but have not read it yet.

Really? Cool. Well all i can say is if you liked the first one, then you'll like this one.
 
I don't read, I have ADD or some crap like that. But Fight Club was a good movie, and one time I talked to someone that reads books, and he said it was an even better book.
 
Currently reading:

Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson. Pretty good book- it's basically about the birth of modern science and the advent of natural philosophers (as opposed to alchemists). Witty in the way Stephenson usually is, but very interesting at the same time.

Ultimate recommendation:

Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon. My absolute favorite book. One of the best and most epic sagas ever written, IMHO.
 
Hmm, I read quite a bit.

Da Vinci Code - a thriller type novel. You have to be under a rock to not have heard of that particular book.

Atlas Shrugged - not for the weak of heart (2000+ pages in pt 6 font). An allegory of socialism v. capitalism.

Ishmael - How to save the world.

Crime and Punishment - ageless. An allegory for a huge number of things.

Prison Planet - a pretty old sci-fi book, but it's one of the only sci-fi books I can actually enjoy (Xender's was also pretty good, but also old).

Right now I'm on War and Peace.

Cael, how old is that book of yours? I really am leery of these books that try to classify left and right wing - they use sweeping generalizations and tend to denegrate the side they are trying to differentiate (Atlas Shrugged is no different - but it's fiction).
 
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