Topic: The Book Suggestion Thread

We have the Books! Books! Books! thread, but I thought it would be nice to have a thread to suggest books to each other.

Any particular genre? I've been enjoying a lot of vampire/romance lately, but sci-fi is usually my favorite. Classics such as Dune and/or Neuromancer are the default recommendations. I re-read them every other year it seems.

@Magician How the bejeezus do you have time to re-read books with all the games you have?

I only tend to read footballers' autobiographies nowadays; I find it hard to commit time to books that I won't find out whether I think it's time well spent or not for ages.

I suspect there's not many here looking for footballers' autobiographies so I'll now out for now.

@gcunit - I suppose "listen" would've been a more appropriate term to use rather than "read". For the past few years I've been consuming audiobooks throughout the workday. Or while I'm grinding out experience levels in the numerous rpgs that I play, rather than listening to in-game overworld and combat music ad nauseum.

@Magician No specific genre, but you can say what genres you like and people make suggestions to you!

I'd say Ready Player One is an entertaining read, if you're into sci-fi and videogames.

I would add the Halo novels into the Sci-fi recommended list. I read them a few years ago and they were stellar. Going to reread them again after I clear out my book backlog.

If you like fantasy books, here are some good ones:

Harry Potter series (If you haven’t already) by J.K. Rowling
His Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman

I wouldn’t say these are fantasy books, but they’re good:

The Doughnut Fix by Jessie Janowitz
Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambless Bertman

As a big sci-fi fan I absolute adore The Expanse by James S.A. Corey. Probably the best hard sci-fi I've ever come across. The authors (Corey is a pen name shared by two people who work together) put a lot of effort into research and try to base most tech off of real world present day tech. And I feel like they do a very good job of making most things seem plausible, if not likely.

For the longest time I couldn't tell if the authors had a very positive or depressingly negative view of humanity until I came to the recent conclusion that they have both - and that's the point. The whole series is very muddy and morally grey and covers a lot of interesting and adult issues that tie very heavily back to the real world. Over the series they've done a great job of both building a fictional world while telling deeply personal stories of very diverse and human characters.

I love that there's no "white knight" heroes or "demon lord" antagonists. While there are clear protagonists or antagonists and people I think most would consider "bad" - depending on your point of view I could see people rooting for almost anyone in this series and that's largely what I love about it.

It makes me think, and question things I might have simply taken at face value when I was younger - things I see many people still just accepting blindly. The books have made me sympathize with with terrorists and dictators as much as the "good guys" and the fact that I can see myself on almost any side of these different groups depending on my own circumstances draws me in endlessly.

Another recommendation I have is the Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn. Heir to the Empire, Dark Force and the Last Command. Before Disney and the new canon, these books were often called "the sequel trilogy we never got" and I hold that they are better in basically every way to the sequels we did get. If a person were interested in the "old Star Wars" this is where I would tell them to start, and if they only wanted to read one part, this is the perfect piece to focus on.

Thrawn is a very different kind of antagonist than Vader or the Emperor and the portrayal of the original trilogy characters in these books is something I think is much more accurate to their characters than their portrayal in the Disney films.

Another personal favorite is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. A post apocalyptic story that is far harsher than most other stories I've seen in the same vein, it's a story of some of the last humans travelling a ruined world with no hope and a defeated humanity. The journey of the father and the son is a powerful experience and an uncommon look at a genre that's been generally more happy and silly than I think it ought to be.

Another one I like are two series by Neal Shusterman, Unwind and it's sequels and the Skinjacker trilogy

Unwind is a very interesting dystopian near-future story of a world that has developed a nightmarish "compromise" after banning abortion and trying to deal with "juvenile delinquents". Overall it's kind of a classic runaway story of people who are rejected by society and a society that's turned it's blind eye toward a state sanctioned atrocity.

The Skinjacker books are more fantasy and tell a story about the place between life and death and are a fantastic adventure story - just talking about it makes me want to drop everything and re-read them. But it's hard to explain much without major spoilers.

@MsJubilee I was always curious about the Halo novels but kind of like I've heard said about Star Wars, I don't really know where to start. What would you suggest?

@Heavyarms55 Start with the Fall of Reach. It's a good starting point if you like it you can keep going to The Flood and First Strike or beyond(there are more books and comics). Be warned you might get confused at times(might have to look some things up on your own) cause the Halo lore runs deep.

@MsJubilee I would add A Wrinkle In Time to great Sci-Fi books.

Not really interested in Computer game based books, Ready Player One is a great nostalgic book (the film was pretty poor compared)

Any Brandon Sanderson books, especially Mistborn Series and the Way of Kings series (even though he is still writing them they are amazing)

Any David Eddings books (Belgariad Series etc)

Any Robin Hobb series

@Bunkerneath

Yeah Ready Player One was definitely better as a book. I couldn't quite put my finger on what the film did wrong, but there was definitely something a little bit off about it. I think the villain needed to be more imposing.

As I transition into uni I finally have a lot more time to binge through comics I've missed in addition to heftier material like Dune and the Song of Ice and Fire series

I also managed to finish Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and 1984, which I was meaning to get to as a fan of dystopian novels and sci-fi noir

Right now I'm refreshing my memory on certain comic runs in anticipation for the MCU Phase 4 lineup, like Matt Fraction's run on Hawkeye, Tom King's Vision series and lots of Blade since my only preceding knowledge of the character was through the Wesley Snipes films and the few times he teamed up with Spider-Man

@Wargoose I think the movie was pretty light in terms of actual character plotting all around
I didn't really emotionally connect with really anyone and I thought the whole message about expressing yourself behind an online avatar wasn't as well explored as it could've been.

It all just felt like a byproduct of the pretty amazing fanservice action sequences

@TheFrenchiestFry

Have you read/watched V for Vendetta and a scanner darkly?

@Wargoose I've watched the film adaptation of V for Vendetta but the graphic novel is definitely also on my radar in the future after I finish up stuff like Matt Fraction's Hawkeye, Batman R.I.P. , Dune and the Amazing Spider-Man's relaunch

A Scanner Darkly is one I've been meaning to get to for months since I'm pretty much on board with anything Philip K. Dick writes

@Bunkerneath Robin Hobb is great. Felt like she was going through the motions a bit on the Rain Wilds tetralogy, but everything before that was brilliant.

For fans of offbeat, thought-provoking sci-fi, I suggest Nick Harkaway. The Gone Away World is superb, and Gnomon is very good, but all of his stuff is interesting. He generally takes philosophical conceits and extends them into fantastical world-building - but he's also funny and approachable. The Gone Away World is, hands down, the best kung fu novel I've ever read.

@MsJubilee The Fall of Reach, okay, I'll check it out. Hopefully there's a kindle version.

@Heavyarms55 There is(for all the Halo books), and there's an audiobook as well if you're into that.