redding is teh hard; How about a Books thread?

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I've been reading all my life, but I'm realizing now that, when it comes to "the classics" I'm not actually that well read. I usually read fantasy, science-fiction, historiological, non-fiction, stuff like that.
Contribute whatever you like, whatever books you like, be they classics or any genre.

This isn't a comprehensive list, just whatever I thought of while writing this.

Fantasy:
The Farseer trilogy
The Liveship Traders Trilogy
The Tawny Man Trilogy
These go in order
by Robin Hobb

This is probably my favorite fantasy author. Her Assassin trilogy is really good, as is the sequel trilogy. The Liveship books, in the same setting, are also really enjoyable. No elves, not really any magic, just some really strange psionic type stuff, very much a low magic setting. Lots of fun concepts in these books, and I really liked most of the characters.

Science Fiction
The first two Dune books by Frank Herbert
Never liked any of the sequels, but I absolutely loved the original. Awesome setting, I love the idea of mentats (a reference I was so proud to know in Fallout) and the technologies. Just a great book.

There's two that I read recently and really liked.

Anvil by Nicolas van Pallandt
This is a fun book. It's a bit of a mystery novel, I guess, with the character being thrown into a situation involving corporate jockying and stuff. The setting is on Thor, which is a planet with really, really heavy gravity, but there's a domed city which has these things called Icarus (I think, maybe I'm mixing it up with whatever's in Dune?) Generators which normalize the gravity. It's sort of a murder mystery, as the main character is drawn there because someone killed his sister, and he's trying to figure out why, what she was involved in, all this stuff. Main character is an Australian of teh fuchar.

Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh
This is a very strange book. The characters are really brutal. I just finished reading it, and while it's a very strange book, it's enjoyable. It doesn't deal a whole lot with the technology aspect of teh fuchar, it's mostly about a space station, which is a vital choke point between Earth Company and the Union, the former is based on Earth and Sol's space station, the second broke away and controls all of the star systems beyond, except for Pell, the setting for this book. As it goes, the Earth Company is losing the war for control of the Beyond (systems outside of Earth) which are based around the space stations in those systems, and the Union wants to take over the station at Pell, which will cut off Company supplies. The Earth Company doesn't really want to fight the war anymore, Vietnam style, and their fleet is mostly not under their control, so it's basically a bunch of pirates. The book centers around how the conflict of who controls Pell is resolved. I really liked it.

Fiction

Hunt for the Red October
Without Remorse
by Tom Clancy

These are the only two of his books that I really thought were good. Cardinal and the Kremlin is pretty good, too, but you have to read some of the less entertaining ones before it to keep up with the storyline. In case you don't know (unlikely) Hunt for the Red October is about the hunt for a silent Russian ballistic missile submarine.

Without Remorse, my favorite of his books, is about an ex-Navy Seal whose girlfriend is a prostitute and is killed by gangsters (dangling participle! The girlfriend) and he goes out to kill them all for revenge. A fun book, if you like the idea of a bunch of dumbass drug dealers getting dealt with.

Non-fiction
Blind Man's Bluff
by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew
This is about US Naval submarine espionage during the Cold War. Really fun stuff. There's one instance where a submarine went and found an underground Russian naval cable, and tapped it. This was out by...uh, there's a big port city on Kamchatka Peninsula, I can't remember the name. But anyways, the US Navy did some ballsy stuff and it's fun to read about. I learned of this book because they did a History Channel special on it and some of the chapters.


Historiological
Carnage and Culture
by Victor Davis Hanson
This book is about the idea that Western culture has led to the near-constant dominance of Western militaries. He uses some battles as illustrations, some famous, some not as famous, but his book is basically a counter to the "Guns, Germs, and Steel" argument that the West has dominated militarily because it just happened to be from Europe. As I said, Hanson's idea, which I like more because I'm not much of a determinist, is that the West gets it's advantages from it's culture, things like capitalism, republicanism, free exchange of ideas, etc. a mixture which you haven't found in other cultures. He says that the West isn't destined to win anything, it just has tons of advantages which make it a lot more likely. Anyways, I read "Guns, Germs, and Steel," and I have to say I don't like deterministic thinking, and this book appeals to me a lot more. It's well-written, not very long, either. I think I've pimped this book a few times on this forum.

Classics

1984 by Orwell
To me, the most important part of a book is it's setting. Same for games, but police states, especially Orwell's version, are just one of the most interesting settings you can possible hand me. I've heard A Brave New World (someone give me the author?) is along the same lines, but I haven't read it. In case you haven't heard of it, this book is set in a totalitarian country called Oceania, which is a huge, pseudo-communist state that covers Britain and the Americas, and it's about one guy, a Party member, who rebels after falling in love. It's half political intrigue and pseudo-psychology, half love story, and it's excellent.

The Stranger by Albert Camus
I really love this book. The setting isn't clear, but it takes place in French Algeria, I'm pretty sure. Basically about a guy who denies his emotions. He murders an Arab and goes to trial for it. A fun book.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas.
This book is excellent. In case you haven't read it, it's about this French guy who gets screwed over by some friends because they want various things that he has, like his girlfriend and position, and he ends up framed for a crime and goes to jail. He escapes the jail, and the book is about his getting revenge.

What I'm reading
Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (thanks tintin)
I've been trying to make my way through this book, but I can't keep the characters straight and it's frustrating, so I haven't gotten much very far at all. I'm so awful with Slavic names. Even when I know them, I mess them up. This is why I don't call my girlfriend by her real name, but a made up American name which is much easier for me.
I don't know what this book is about, but it's probably famous for a reason.



So, feel free to add whatever books you like, classify them by genre, please. Or don't like. Or whatever. Christmas is coming up and I'm thinking about asking for some books from relatives, since I can't think of anything else, so recommend some to me if you want, as well. Classics is the genre I'm looking at.

Hmm...I picked up the Brothers Karamazov recently intending to read it, but haven't had the time to start yet. Some friends who had to read it for their college courses said they had to read it three times until they had some idea of what was going on.

By the way, it's Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. "some russian guy"

I work in a library, and it's hard to work a shift there without finding something cool to read. A book or two that stood out in all the stuff I read this past summer:

The Reason Why by Cecil Woodham-Smith. It's a work of nonfiction about the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade and how it was largely due to the arrogance and incompetence of two leaders in the British army, Lord Cardigan and Lord Lucan. Not only is it an interesting account, but it's also a fascinating indictment of Victorian England and the notion of nobility in general.

I also enjoyed a couple of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman books. These are historical fiction with a lot of humour in them. They revolve around a certain Harry Flashman who somehow manages to play an important part in all the major events of 19th century British history (I might be getting that century wrong but I don't want to look it up). He's involved in the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan and the aforementioned Charge, among others. I only read the first two and they were good fun, again because they blast holes in the notion of the upper class English gentleman who's always honourable, courageous and intelligent.

I tried to read Ringworld by Larry Niven a couple weeks ago, and while I loved the premise and many of the ideas in the book (especially Puppeteer meddling in other races), it just didn't grab me and I didn't bother to finish it. It's actually a fairly common and distressing trend in sci-fi: great ideas and plots ruined by poor writing.

I can't really think of any other standout books at the moment, so I'll just mention what I suspect is the absolute worst book ever published. I found it in the scifi paperbacks section of the library I work at (this means we didn't buy it, it was donated--we'd never buy crap like this). It's a Star Trek novel (bad sign already) called Planet X in which (brace yourselves) the crew of the Enterprise-D meet the X-Men. I don't even want to know what the plot is, this book has no choice but to be complete godawful trash.

I definitely understand why you don't like Without Remorse, I just ignored the pretense and read about a Navy Seal hunting some dumbasses.

Star Trek meets the X men? Good gawd.

I've heard a lot about an Ayn Rand, never read any of her books. I understand her books are political and so most people hate them, but are they any good?

To paraphrase Samuel Clemens, classics are the books that no one wants to read, but everyone wants to have read.

Here's a smattering of favorites and current reads...not exhaustive but here ya go


Non-fiction:
The Bop Apocalypse: The Religious Visions of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs - John Lardas

Nonzero: The Logic Of Human Destiny - Robert Wright

Inside The CIA - Ronald Kessler

Peter The Great, His Life and World - Robert K Massie

The Quantum Brain, The Search for Freedom and The Next Generation of Man - Jeffrey Satinover

What Remains to be Discovered - Mapping the Secrets of the Universe, the Origins of Life, and the Future of the Human Race

The Devil, Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity

Garage Virtual Reality

The Varieties of Religious Experience - William James

SuperSymmetry, Unveiling the Ultimate Laws of Nature

Why I Am Not A Christian - George Bernard Shaw

Fiction
Freedom or Death - Nikos Kazantzakis

Burns' Poems -Robert Burns (my copy was printed in 1823)

D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths, by Edgar and Ingri D'Aulaire

The Essential Iron Man

The Essential Silver Surfer

Reference:

The Encyclopedia of Human Behavior - Robert M. Goldenson (yes I read encyclopedias)

Shakespearian Grammar - E.A Abbott

Baedeker's Venice

Ayn Rand?
Hmm, why, when it comes to classics, people gravitate towards Russian writers, I wonder?

Anyway, I heard that she's pretty good. Have not read her myself, too, yet I know of a guy (rich, successful, intelligent, etc) who read it like 10 times and consider it one of the best books of all times.

Well, for me, I also a voracious reader, especially since we, in Russia, have a lot of free online libraries (and writers in Russia quite often put out their novels for free downloading) so my lack of funds and space for books don't really inhibit me.. not to mention that I've downloaded a neat library of books in English from p2p, about a gig unzipped .
So, now my library is about 3 gigs in text and docs. And I've read quite a chuck of it. Neat .

Anyway, my favorite English writers are Terry Pratchett, Jordan (if only he paid less attention to garments and more on story), Zelazny, Govard, Kuttner and a lot of others I cannot remember offhand .

Yet, I find a lot of Russian (or, at least, Russia-speaking) authors better:
Oldie (actually, it's two Ukrainian writers), Eskov, Lukin, Lukianenko, Parfenova, Divov, Ignatova, Rudasov, Proskurin, Perumov, Panov, etc, etc.
It's mostly fantasy, but usually VERY different from usual 'kill the foozle, rescue the princess' stuff.
Some of them are can be called really philosophical, some (like Parfenova and her el-ing I've described on this site already) are really stunning.

I wish you guys knew Russian, heh.

I read Atlas Shrugged. I enjoyed it okay - although i did skip most of a 70+ page speech on the wonders of capitalism towards the end of the book. My biggest political problem with the book was that every character was measured in one dimension - capitalism. The uber-capitalists were smart, attractive, kind, fair, wise, etc... And the further they strayed from a capitalist belief, the less intelligent, more cowardly, and all around nasty they got. This copout makes the book useless as a commenty on the real world.

Of course if you enjoy the right wing fiction-ganda aspect of it, run do not walk to the Terry Goodkind books. It starts out as somewhat interesting fantasy but seems to turn into a collosal war against the evils of communism and pacifism.

Robin Hobb! Hell yeah. George R.R. Martin and Steven Erikson are even better.

I actually read that a couple of years ago, and I came away liking it, I think mostly because of the interplay of "hard sci-fi" in the Ringworld and tech descriptions and the fanciful stuff having to do with the girl character, which I thought was pretty clever. I didn't find the writing any more overbearing than most classic-type sci-fi. I wasn't driven to go after the sequels, though.

Yeah? I'll check them out, thanks Sol. I've got all of her latest series imported from Britain, because I didn't want to wait for the American release. I hear she's writing a new series, I'm going to check that out.

Balor I wish I knew Russian, too I'd instantly trade my French for it, no hesitation. The only Russian I know: fuck your mother, I love you, you're beautiful, good bye motherland...maybe one or two more

DarkSign, I actually like most of the "classics" that I've read.

I've heard pretty bad things about her new Soldier Son trilogy, though. They say it's not up to snuff with her previous work.

In any case, you should grab George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, and Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Dead series.

While you're at it, do yourself a favor and get China Mieville's books: Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council.

Neil Gaiman's American Gods and Anansi Boys are not to be missed.

Get every single one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books.

I rarely get any reading done, though i'm slowly progressing throgh Brave New World (Aldous Huxley, btw), which i've never read before, it's good so far. After that it's on to 1984, and then Fahrenheit 451.

Here's some bad fantasy that you should avoid:

Mercedes Lackey and her whole- Awful. Seems to be written by a 12 year old girl. It's more cartoony that Warcraft, only with lots of crappy sex. They're more like crappy romance novels for women, I suppose. The first series is about a homosexual who is just oh so tormented. Sometimes people even call him bad names!

Melanie Rawn- Really, really long books that don't have interesting plots, setting, characters, anything. She sometimes talks about massive armies of, oh, 500 or so people who battle from dawn till dusk. 2 500 person armies colliding would probably resolve itself in less than an hour, thanks.

Now that I think about it, I've read so many generic, crappy fantasy novels...

I think these two even collaborated for a series, I think I read the first book. Awful.

Iffy:
Death Gate Cycle, Rose of the Prophet, Darksword by Margaret Weis. They're just not that great. Same for her sci-fi series, whatever it's called. Death Gate Cycle is probably the best of the three, then Rose of the Prophet.
Death Gate Cycle has this lame character named Zifnab, who I suppose is supposed to be Merlin, but you can probably guess the type of dialogue he rates.
"What's your name?"
"Zifnab!"
"Bless you!"

Tolkien and George R. R. Martin is my favorite fantasy. Dune was kickass too.

Any of you that say Harry Potter are silly freaks.

I never liked Tolkien that much. I read his books the summer between 7th and 8th grade, I remember being bored.

I like A Song of Ice and Fire a bit more than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but The Silmarillion is my favorite book.

I guess they would be a bit boring compared to todays stuff, but then again you gotta think that back then they were top shit.

Oh, here's a book I almost forgot.
All Quiet on the Western Front. I really, really like this book. It's about some German WW1 soldiers who run around and flirt with French ladies and get shot at and eat rats.

edit: sounds like teh best RPG idea evar! Someone get me a line to Bethesda

The single best SciFi book I've ever read is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. The sequals are decent, but the original is absolutely magnificent, imo. Please, if you value anything in this world at all, go read it! You'll make glorious man-love to yourself for months aftwerwards just to thank yourself for finding a copy and spending an evening with it (I'm only part-kidding, it might be glorious woman-love).

As for non-fiction, I have really enjoyed the following:

Anything by Joseph Campbell. He's the real-life person after whom the symbologist in DaVinci Code is modeled (I assume, the similarities are staggering if not). Examples include:
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Myths to Live By
The Power of Myth
Transformations of Myth Through Time
The Masks of God (4 volumes! Oriental, Occidental, Creation, Ancient)

All of these are just great because they mention many of the "classic" story archetypes that are a base pattern for so many modern tales. Knowing some history of myths adds enormously to my enjoyment of almost anything I see, hear, or read nowadays. However, their main point is to unite and compare the myths believed by many different people in different places and times in order to illuminate their real value rather than get trapped in petty little literal interpretations (my spin ).

Anything having to do with modern ethics by the Dalai Lama. I'm not fully on board with buddhist metaphysics, but there's something to be said for the only major religion on earth who's followers haven't started large-scale wars in its name. This stuff is definitely on the "touchy-feely" side, but I find its applications to be practical and valid. Examples:
An Open Heart
Ethics for the new Millenium
Art of Happiness
How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life
The Dalai Lama's Book of Wisdom
The Four Noble Truths (DVD)

Fiinally, I've read Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, but I'm enjoying a non-fiction book by her best student and heir even better:
Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (by Leonard Peikoff).

It's given some very interesting methods to really assess my thinking skills and the way I evaluate things.

As y'all can guess, I'm a bit scattered, and I don't claim that any of the above are the perfect answer to anythying, but they have all been very interesting for me and have truly contributed to the way I perceive life.

Thumbs up for Flashman - quite detailed history from a hilarious super-Cad's view.

Otherwise, Lord Dunsany, Mervyn Peake and George Orwell rock my world.

Lovecraft and Gibson. 'Nuff said.

NERD POWER!!!

Raymond Feist, my favorite series of books, he has a few clunkers but over all a great series. The best to me is how he keeps his time-line moving, it's not the same characters to wondrous and fantastic things over and over.

I just finished a trilogy by Lawrence Watt-Evans - All about one mans revenge against dragons. I has a cool concept on how dragons are created.

The only "classics" I have read recently are the old Robert Howard Conan books and the Fritz Leiber short stories about the fafhrd and the gray mouser.

My reading pattern tends to go in cycles, where I like one particular book more than I like any other. Right at this moment I'm re-reading Allan Dury's Capable Of Honor, with a couple of his other books that I've managed to get via Amazon planned for afterwards.

Other than that, I read a lot of Lovecraft (or, should I say, re-read?) as well as David Gemell, the Discworld novels, and Moorcock. I'm also a big fan of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and re-read those quite often.

As for 'the classics', my tastes tend more towards Verne and Wells than Orwell. Other classics you'll find sitting on my bookshelf are Le Morte d'Arthur (translation), Pygmallion, Dante's Inferno (alarmingly in the original Latin), as well as works by Newton, Dee, and various others. Pride of place goes to a (very old) complete collection of Shakespear's plays.