Recommend me a book that _________
Here's a fresh new thread for book recommendations! The last thread from a year ago got bumped and saw some new top-level activity but few votes or responses on the new requests. I think it's probably not visible in a lot of people's feeds due to its age, and I was planning on rebooting it anyway, so here's a fresh topic we can use for new recommendations that will be visible to all.
Top level comments should fill in the blank with some sort of descriptor identifying a kind of book you would like suggestions for.
Replies can then recommend books to that individual.
Examples of what top level posts might be are below. Get as generic, specific, abstract, or out there as you want!
- Recommend me a book that will make me cry.
- Recommend me a book with a great twist.
- Recommend me a book that deals with loss.
- Recommend me a book about the fall of the Roman Empire.
- Recommend me a book with a main character in her 80s.
- Recommend me a book to help me learn PHP.
Thread reading tip: use the "collapse replies" button to see only top-level requests.
Since we're
going with this bumpstarting anew:Recommend me a book that is hard sci-fi without unnecessary character "development/focus".
Example: Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy; Red Mars was a wonderful book about getting to Mars and surviving it, Green Mars was a good book about the terraforming of Mars and some character development, Blue Mars was a mediocre at best book where Robinson had run out of ideas and so instead ditch the "hard" part of hard sci-fi and just wrote a bunch of hooey about interplanetary politics and pushing characters into relationships they never had in two previous books.
2312, also by Kim Stanley Robinson, does tilt more towards exploration of his hard scifi setting (which is sort of a sequel to the Mars trilogy) than character driven stuff. It's not completely absent of it, and there is some interplanetary politicking that's kind of meh, but it's more on the level of Green Mars than Blue Mars. For what it's worth, I entirely share your opinion on the Mars trilogy (I never even finished Blue Mars), and I enjoyed 2312 well enough.
The Revelation Space series (and some of Reynolds' other stuff) might also be worth a look. It's not the practically diamond hard scifi of the Mars trilogy, but it's a reasonably grounded take on the space opera genre without staples like FTL, and Reynolds is really good at building original and compelling settings.
I would also tentatively recommend a few of Charles Stross' books, namely Singularity Sky, Glasshouse, and Accelerando, but aside from Accelerando (which frankly is one of his weaker books), they do feature FTL travel and some other clarketech, although in a way that just puts them in the "One Big Lie" category of hard scifi, rather than taking them out of the genre. Might not be quite what you're looking for, but they are very good books.
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
I genuinely can't remember any characters in the book, but I can still remember the descriptions of the unique physics and geometry of Rama. Quite compelling.
This might be a controversial opinion, but Dune. A lot of Dune consists of what the characters think, and how they grow, but I wouldn't consider it "focus" or development.
For example, you will see characters going through emotions without the story spending too much literary capital on describing the exact feelings and whatnot. This doesn't mean Dune lacks depth, it's quite the opposite really, but it's approach to character growth is quite unique and if you can get through some of the drier portions (heh), I would recommend it.
Straight from the old thread:
Recommend me a book with strong romantic relationships, preferably fantasy of maybe some other kind of speculative fiction.
Fantasy typically has very bad romance-plots, usually in the format of "the hero gets the girl in the end". I'm looking for something more like "power-couple" dynamics, where it's not (at least not only) about the couple finding each other, but them fighting and succeeding together.
For example, while Mistborn's main romance maybe wasn't the best part of the books, I really enjoyed the dynamic they had in the later books. It's actually kind of hard to think of more examples, maybe because this usually requires good female characters, and those are also somewhat rare in the genre. Something slightly random that comes to mind is Izumi and Sig from FMA, but ideally more centered on them.
My wife recently recommended a series of books to me about a woman from the 1950s who travels back in time 200 years and tries to get around in the scottish highlands of the 18th century. I guess you could call it "fantasy or another kind of speculative fiction".
I only read the first one, "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon. There is a bit too much romance for my taste, but on the other side, the female protagonist is a very strong character. She – unsuprisingly – bonds with a Scot, but they do have a hard time finding each other because of the circumstances, and they do fight a fight together. The plot takes place before the defeat of the Scots by the Empire.
It's the best roundup I can give; maybe if someone else read the book you could add your two cents.
There's also a TV show on Netflix by the same name, based on the books. I watched the first few episodes and enjoyed it, but didn't end up keeping up with it.
Wouldn't some of Sanderson's other works such as Elantris, Warbreaker, and Mistborn era 2 fit that or are you looking for something more specifically power-coupley? If stuff like that count, some other ones I can think of are:
Six of Crows - the romance is between the very well-developed and important POV characters
A Court of Mist and Fury - this is the second book in the series as the first doesn't fit and the others weren't particularly good, but the whole book embodies power-coupling if I remember correctly
The Priory of the Orange Tree - just finished this, and while it has its flaws, I still quite liked it. The romance is between a queen and an undercover (female!) mage sent to protect her; need I say more?
I have a few suggestions which might fit the bill.
The first is perhaps my all-time favourite book, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It’s a romance/fantasy novel in which two magicians in Victorian-era England are pitted against one another in a competition with rules they do not know and masters they do not understand. This is a very different novel from Mistborn, much slower and with a more complicated structure. The timeline can be somewhat dizzying to follow on occasion as it leaps backwards, forwards, and sometimes sideways... but I found it very much worthwhile in the end. The atmosphere in Morgenstern’s writing is sublime—scenes unfold and reveal themselves like a dark, lucid dream.
My second recommendation would be Maggie Stiefvater’s four-book The Raven Cycle, starting with The Raven Boys. Again it’s a bit of a departure from Mistborn (slower to start, real-world setting, etc.) but the relationships between the characters are fantastic and well-developed. Stiefvater’s strengths are similar to Morgenstern’s; ambience, prose, and characters/relationships. I will say that as much as I enjoyed the first two books, I thought the story stumbled in the third and didn’t quite stick the landing in the fourth. The series is still a great read, though, and many others have liked all the books equally.
The Raven Cycle and The Night Circus are both superb in audiobook form, if you prefer to listen. Will Patton and Jim Dale respectively do the narrations.
I’m also tempted to recommend you check out Guy Gavriel Kay’s books (partly because I think they’re a good fit and partly because he’s my favourite author…). Kay mostly writes standalone fantasy novels with little to no magic, and almost all of them include a romantic subplot. He tends to favour bittersweet endings, however, and the romance is not quite as central to the narrative as in The Raven Cycle or The Night Circus.
Edit: somehow I missed this line:
In that case the Raven Cycle still kinda fits; Kay and The Night Circus less so. Maybe look into the science-fiction Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold? I haven't read more than just the first book but I believe there are long-running romantic relationships throughout the series. You could also check out the Wheel of Time but I don't know how well that fits the "well-written male/female characters" request, lol. It definitely is long-running, though, and relationships develop and change over several books. I've also seen it compared to an anime series in terms of its relationships, characters, and plot arcs.
Edit#2: having now read the first four books of The Vorkosigan Saga, it appears that I was mistaken: while the first two books revolve around a 'power couple,' the next few books do not.
Thank you! I'll look into these!
Maybe look into Ilona Andrews' more recent works. It's the pen name of a couple. As such they bring a interesting perspective. I've been told they write good characters, while also delivering on good fantasy. I can pry for more info if you want me to. I'm just forwarding this.
I've got a handful of categories that I'm interested in recommendations for. I'm currently populating a personal reading list, so I'd love any and all books in these categories that you can clue me in to!
Recommend me a book with a kind of pessimistic futurism (like the Black Mirror television series)
Recommend me a book with deep or resonant LGBT/queer themes
Recommend me a book that has stuck with you for a long time (5+ years)
Recommend me a book that you love that you never see talked about or mentioned
Recommend me chilling, non-grotesque horror (e.g. House of Leaves)
Recommend me a book that deeply affected you in a strongly emotional way
I have a single book that covers all four: The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It's one of the bleakest and most emotionally devastating books I have ever read. So much so that I would highly recommend avoiding it if you are in any sort of fragile or unsteady emotional state. It rocked me to my very core. :(
I started reading The Road some time ago, but since I'm not American, I didn't really get a lot of references mentioned. I just knew that "Hey JFK was assassinated and it was pretty big", "Hey there was this artist Houdini", et cetera. Do you think if I read it further it'd become a better experience? Because honestly I felt that reading through it was excruciating since I can't really relate to any of the cultural themes at all.
I found the entire book to be an excruciating experience (emotionally speaking), so I wouldn't really recommend it unless you're of totally sound mind and into misery porn. I also don't remember it having as many pop culture references as you allude to, but I am Canadian (American adjacent) so it's possible that since I already knew all the ones that were brought up and didn't get confused by them as a result, I have simply forgotten about them after all these years. So given all that, I might not be the best person to ask that question, TBH.
Great recommendation! I've already read it, and I loved it. It felt very much like a literary Fallout or The Last of Us.
At least Fallout has some absurdism and zaniness to balance out the bleak elements though... whereas The Road has absolutely none of that. The Last of Us is a pretty apt comparison though.
I believe The Elementary Particles may partially fit the bill. It's certainly pessimistic... but the futurism only really exists in the very beginning and end (from my recollection).
Confessions of an Economic Hitman and Bartleby the Scrivener. (I'd put Evicted here, but it hasn't yet been 5 years.)
Oh, definitely Bolaño's 2666. One section does get somewhat gruesome in describing murders, but does so to chilling effect. It's really 5 connected books in one, so you don't necessarily have to read through all ~900 pages in one go. But each successive book builds off knowledge gained from the previous, to some extent. Certainly left me feeling uneasy by the end.
I'd suggest the boxed set, if you can find it. Breaks the book down into more manageable pieces.
I recommended these in the last thread, but I'll throw what weight I have behind them again. I found Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and For the Time Being profound and emotionally effecting pieces of literary non-fiction. The former, written when she was younger and is fairly cheery. The latter, written when she was older and is a bit more bleak. Both beautiful pieces of work, though. Sort of yin-yang in their combination.
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. Great book that really made me empathize with diaspora communities in a way I never had before, not having any personal experience with it. Also a good murder mystery. And you’ll come out of it knowing more Yiddish expressions than you did before, unless you grew up in a Jewish community.
1984
Fahrenheit 451
The Tao of Pooh
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
The complete works of Edgar Allan Poe
The Missing Piece meets the Big O
Edit: None are new
The Unwomanly Face of War
In the Soviet Union during WW2, women could hold all the positions that men could in the military. They flew planes, manned tanks, served as officers, etc. When the war ended, they didn't get much recognition for their deeds, and mostly returned to the lives they had before the war. Svetlana Alexeivich tracked down a bunch of these women in their older age and interviewed them about their wartime experiences.
A few of the stories are funny, but most of them are heart-wrenching. Some of them had incredible experiences that they were reluctant to talk about, but Alexeivich got them to share.
I also have The Last Witnesses by her, which is a series of interviews of people who would have been children in the Soviet Union during WW2 and what they remembered. My grandparents were children during this time, and I've heard a few stories. I haven't summoned the emotional strength to start reading this one yet, though.
I read and loved both Voices from Chernobyl and The Unwomanly Face of War. Each are so rich and compelling and haunting, and Alexievich has such an amazing talent at eliciting stories from her subjects and then telling them in their voices. Her Nobel prize win was absolutely deserved.
Secondhand Time is on my to-read list, and your post made me aware that she has a new book coming out too! Thank you!
Recommend me a book that feels like reading SCP-Wiki or /r/nosleep
I've had a really hard time focusing on reading books for the past years, however, for some reason I can just spend hours in SCP-Wiki or /r/nosleep reading about creepy creatures, objects or locations; I also enjoy when stories have a universe in common and share certain lore.
I wonder if anyone knows these websites and has read anything that feels similar; doesn't necessarily have to be very creepy, could be sci-fi, mythical, historical...
I'll second Annihilation. I thought the book was wonderful, and I thought the movie adaptation went in its own direction in a good way.
I will say that I didn't love the rest of the Southern Reach trilogy. Authority and Acceptance both left me cold. Annihilation can easily be read and enjoyed on its own though. I was riveted the whole way through.
Authority and Acceptance each had some extremely cool details added to the world ... but it felt like the author didn't quite know what to do with them, and there's a ton of padding around them.
I still find myself thinking about the world of the Southern Reach trilogy and trying to think about what the underlying mechanics of the events must be. The author does a great job of giving almost enough information to let you know what's going on, but with enough left out that there's a lot of interesting ambiguity. Though ultimately I think I'd have preferred to get a bit more than that trickle of information and to be allowed a few a-ha moments of realization eventually.
I did not enjoy the Annihilation movie; I found it somewhat boring and generic, didn't get anything interesting from it, though it might be that I just had a bad day, because it's very appraised.
I've heard good things about the book as well, so I might consider it.
Maybe Ubik?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/590036.Ubik#
or 11/22/63:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10644930-11-22-63
It's a little out there, but you might like Ellis: The Assault on Reality
https://dkmu.org/text/Ellis-The-Assault-on-Reality.pdf
It chronicles, via recovered chat logs, the beginning of an occult current.
And if you haven't already, the SCP wiki Tales are good reading too.
I've actually read Ubik and 11/22/63 (which I enjoyed a lot).
Will check out that Ellis thing later, it looks short so shouldn't be too hard for me to focus on finishing.
Roadside Picnic (which inspired the Tarkovsky movie Stalker, and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. videogame series) is great, and reads a lot like an SCP entry or /r/nosleep post, IMO. From a previous comment of mine on it:
The call of Cthulhu
The Metamorphosis
Naked Lunch
Frankenstein
Dracula
Dathan Auerbach's Penpal actually started as a series of /r/nosleep posts.
I've actually read Penpal (the story in Reddit) a long time ago, I don't know if the book would be too similar or not.
House of Leaves
Was rereading a favorite story of mine, and thought of this comment. I've got something that fits the bill, if you haven't read it already.
The Northern Caves
https://archiveofourown.org/works/3659997/chapters/8088522
Despite being on AO3, it's an original work. For the best experience, start reading it at midnight, (or later if you're a night owl) with something suitably ambient playing. (I would recommend The Disintegration Loops, it matches the style of the work)
Thanks! I'll take a look at it later
Recommend me a book written by someone outside of the Eurosphere (including North America)/"the West".
Thank you so much! Those all sound fascinating!
Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. I'm almost through it, and I love it.
Also, this is my third Murakami book, the first two being Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and those were also great.
Maybe an obvious one, and I haven't read it yet myself, but The Expanse novel series undoubtedly has a lot of those elements you mention.
A lot of cyberpunk also generally does as well, almost as a prerequisite (although with varying degrees of "hardness" in terms of the science involved). E.g. William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy, and many of Neal Stephenson's books. And if you count comic books as "books", I would also recommend checking out Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan as well, though it definitely falls more on the soft rather than hard scifi side.
You might enjoy The Lifecycle of Software Object by Ted Chiang.
It's a short-story (more of a novella going by it's size) about a world where people spend most of their time Animal Crossing-esque virtual worlds, and there is a new form of virtual life/pets, Digiform developed by some company. It's decent, although not the best of Chiang's works.
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams
I don't know if it fits exactly what you're looking for as It isn't near-future, and it was only technically published this millennium (2002) but was actually written in the last one (1994). Plus, this is more a mention than a recommendation, as I myself did not love the book, but I figured I'd put it on your radar in case it's in line with what you're wanting.
The Martian Chronicles touches on a lot of those issues, though I wouldn't categorize it as hard sc-fi. Nevertheless, the writing is beautiful and it's definitely worth a read.
In another comment, @mercury recommended "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" by Ted Chiang. I just finished Exhalation, a book of his short stories which includes "Lifecycle". I'll go ahead and extend @mercury's recommendation to the whole book itself, as almost all of the stories in it hit on at least one of the first three items in your list in pretty profound ways.
That's a really tough one, since what works for some people not only doesn't work for others when it comes to dealing with depression and feeling lost, but may in fact make them feel worse. But one book that I feel is relatively safe to recommend, and I found helped brighten my outlook quite a bit, was Prof. Hans Rosling's Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think... which was actually mentioned by another user, @JackA, recently in a topic about battling feeling hopelessness. Copying their comment (and my response) here for you:
May be a bit late, but I do highly recommend Feeling Good. It focuses around cognitive behavioral therapy aka the idea that your depression is caused by your thoughts. It doesn't seem to be like a normal, money-grabbing self-help book. It focuses around tested methods that have been proven to work with some people and which definitely helped me. It is actually dense with information (unlike many self help books that throw useless stories in), a lot which I could relate to. The only problem I had was that it didn't talk much about loneliness.
Recommend be a book that's a period drama/adventure-of-going-on-a-journey-ish, perhaps swashbuckler, like the Three Musketeers (and even it's sequel, Twenty Years After). I'd read Ten Years later, the third in the series, but I want to take a break from the beloved musketeers for some time.
Historical fiction novels are amongst my absolute favorite type of books to read, although I lean more towards the military history rather than pure adventure/swashbuckling ones... so prepare for a wall of recommendations in that vein! ;)
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey–Maturin series - British Royal Navy focused historical fiction set during the Napoleonic wars. The movie Master & Commander was based on the first few books of this series, and did a good job of representing the overall tone/feel of the series, so if you like that movie then the books will probably tickle your fancy as well.
C.S. Forrester's Horatio Hornblower series - Similar to Aubrey-Maturin, it's about the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars, but with a bit more adventure/swashbuckling and focused instead on a single protagonist, Horatio Hornblower, who starts off as a midshipman, and through his heroism, tenacity and guile manages to rise through the ranks. There is an absolutely amazing BBC TV series based on it that I would also highly recommend watching as well.
Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series - Another series taking place during the Napoleonic wars that also has a fantastic BBC TV series based on it (starring Sean Bean AKA Ned Stark from GoT). This one focuses on the British Army instead of Navy this time though, and follows the protagonist Richard Sharpe's similar journey through the wars and rise through the ranks.
James Clavell's The Asian Saga - This series spans 300+ years, and is incredibly varied in their subject and region each book takes place in, but tied together loosely by the protagonists familial lineage... so you might not actually be interested in them all (even though I highly recommend them!). But given your penchant for historical adventure, I would at the very least recommend reading the first 3 books (in the internal chronological order) starting with Shōgun, which is about an English explorer who gets shipwrecked in feudal Japan and becomes embroiled in the politics of the time. Imagine The Last Samurai but with more political intrigue, and you won't be too far off. p.s. Shogun had a decent (though now very dated) TV series based on it too.
Thankyou I'll start with watching the series since they take less time haha.
I actually wanted to see something like The Last Samurai for a long time. I recently added the book to my read list.
NP, and yeah that's totally understandable. The TV shows are much easier (and less intimidating) to dive into than the books. But I would definitely still recommend checking out the books if you do wind up enjoying the shows. :)
Oh, oh... if you don't mind a farce, give John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor a go! It lampoons those types of stories, but even if you take it straight it's pretty good. I suppose Don Quixote fits that bill, as well.
Well I haven't read any farce of the heroic books. Must be fun. I'll check it out. Thankyou.
Also check out Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle trilogy for 17th and 18th century science and adventure, and The Mongoliad Cycle for an interesting attempt at depicting realistic combat (and other adventures) in the Mogol Empire and medieval Europe.
Both of these books seem very interesting (although huge). Thankyou I'll check them out!
recommend me a book that isn’t sci-fi/fantasy (n?)or some self-help/productivity-focused/pop-(insert field) non-fiction thing.
Around the World in Eighty Days
A Gentleman In Moscow
The Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
Chekhov's stories are really something else. Realistic people living (usually) tragic lives. I first started reading Chekhov because of a letter that Kurt Vonnegut wrote to one of his children. Part of it goes:
Last note: When reading a translated work, the translation is really important and can significantly change the voice or even the meaning of a work, so you'd better make sure it's a good translation. A lot of Russian literature was translated into English by Constance Garnett, who did a truly awful job, but she was the only one doing it so many people have only read her translations. Pevear and Volokhonsky, as far as I can tell, are excellent translators and I can't recommend them highly enough.
Good rec! So good, in fact, that I've already read the P&V translation of Chekhov's short-story collection! Rated it a 3/5 when I finished it. Short-story collections are hard to rate. Without a central theme, I find it difficult to latch onto an idea that I can carry with me to the end...though the writer's style permeates. It'd be better to rate each story on their own rather than the entire collection. Most collections I read end up in the 3/5 range. I guess I don't have to rate things...
Yeah, I had to read quite a few of his stories before he really "clicked" for me and I recognized his brilliance. My absolute favorite story is "A Boring Story". Do you have a favorite?
Honestly, it's been a while and I can't remember. I vaguely recall the one you're mentioning, though. Well, I remember that title, at least...
There's a lot of space to work with in your recommendation request, so I'll scattershot three different books I've recently loved:
It's a nonfiction book about a woman who cleans up extreme situations: hoarding, suicides, etc. Unlike most nonfiction, the author writes with a very personal tone and is openly mesmerized by her subject and involved in her subject's life. The author uses her words to pull us into the magnetism she feels. Most nonfiction is scholarly, but this read is much more intimate and personal.
This is probably more well known for its movie adaptation (which is also great, by the way). The title makes it sound like it's a horror book, but instead it's a slow-burn drama about an ownership dispute over a house. What makes the book great is that all of the characters are complex and human, relatable and flawed. I've described it before as "a book without an antagonist" because there isn't any one person who's fully, clearly in the wrong. You get to see all sides and empathize with everyone, which makes the dispute all the more meaningful and difficult.
This is a modern folk tale comic about a gigantic beard that is evil.
Recommend me a book that is a good start...
... for getting into US history. I really want to start with the revolutionary war. I just want a general picture of it. I would also like to read a book that explores the strategies used in the war, looking into what could have gone wrong, which moves turned the tide etc.
... for getting into Roman history. I really want a general picture of Roman empire, how it started and how it fell.
... for getting into empires in general. I want to know more about how empires start and fall throughout history. This could includes nations or even businesses. But I would prefer the political and historical perspective that I would get from a history book.
I know these are all complicated topics that can't be summarized in one book each. But I would like to get an idea of each of these topics before I dive deeper.
Thanks!
Recommend me a book that will teach me about linguistics.
Ideally something well written and engaging, as opposed to a dry text-book. I'm thinking along the lines of Sapiens if at all possible :)
Recommend me a book that is both sci-fi and comedy. I like the AI and robots type of sci-fi more than aliens and space battles. Something similar to Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, David Wong, and Phillip K. Dick.
You should check Stanislaw Lem. I would recommend you to start with "cyberiad" that is more about robots and then "the stars diary". Both of them are short stories about different characters and discuss a lot of interesting scifi and philosophical subjects while being really funny.
@mrnd
@mercury
@AugustusFerdinand
@Tech
Topic-level pings don't yet work (I think?) so I'm using this comment to let you four know that you should repost your requests from the old thread here so that they can get more visibility and responses. Sorry about the extra legwork! I wasn't sure if the old thread would regain traction or not.
Also, please mark this comment as off-topic so that it stays at the bottom and doesn't clog up the recommendations!
Ping works.
It should work in comments just fine. If I were to put the mentions up in the topic text though, I don't think you would have gotten notified, as I don't think that's been implemented yet.
Ah, gotcha, misread that.
Thankyou. Will do.