Open Thread: Your Recommended Reads...

How about Hemingway's Old Man And The Sea? As a marine biologist you ought to like that one? It's a classic!

Or Life Of Pi?

Similar ideas. Sort of.

I love a good mystery story. In particular, I will read every new translation of the works of Swedish writer Henning Mankel. Mankel uses the genre of the police procedural crime novel to explore a number of current issues: the role of women, the evangelical movement, the source of so much violence in society, race relations.

I wish that there were a mystery writer of his stature doing the same for contemporary America.

Anything by Robert Sapolsky or Jared Diamond.

The last novel I got swept up in was The Betrothed (I promessi sposi) (1827) by Alessandro Manzoni.

The irony is that one night, I was having trouble sleeping, so I picked up what I thought would be a boring and difficult book off a shelf of books that I'd inherited from an elderly relative, and never intended to read. Instead, I got nothing done for the next two weeks, as I followed the horrible trials and gallant adventures of two lovers cruelly separated on the eve of their marriage, against a backdrop of Spanish tyranny and the Plague of Milan.

Another classic I enjoyed recently was the 1818 edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which couldn't have less to do with popular representations of Frankenstein. It's a terrific novel about science, obsession, responsibility, and humanity, and you won't find a single anti-scientific "tampering in God's domain" message in it.

There are SO many stories out there that are compelling, meaningful, and... well, they qualify for all those overused descriptors. And yet, there are comparitively few great stories that grab us and make us think, feel, and then see the world differently than we did before.

"Ender's Game", by Orson Scott Card - makes Sun Tzu comprehensible while still being a story about a little boy in an impossible position

"Nine Princes In Amber", by Roger Zelazny - ya know how you've got this feeling that there's more to the world than meets the eye, and also where did the car keys go, they were just here a moment ago... an excellent action-adventure tale that twists the imagination like Lovecraft always wanted to, makes politics and war personal, and shows us the incomprehensible in fine detail. Even better, there's a sequel.

"The Sea & Little Fishes", by Terry Pratchett - a Discworld novella (you'll find it in the book "Legends") about a real witch and why. No why what, just why.

"A Bear Called Paddington", by Michael Bond - If you've never met Paddington Bear, there's so much of life that you just won't ever understand.

"Something From The Nightside", by Simon R. Green - Vampires and werewolves are kinda pedestrian and boring. This, though, is what it's all about - the place the supernatural goes for holiday when it's sick of haunted houses and the dark place under the bed.

May I suggest 2 sci-fi classics?

The first is Stanislaw Lem's The Futurological Congress. Mind bending, brief and hilarious--and you'll see why the English translator should get a gold medal. Can't tell you about it, you'll just have to read it.

The second is Walter Miller's A Canticle for Liebowitz, far and away the best book nobody has read. It is a classic. The scope and of Rushdie and Marquez. Make this little blogger happy and read this! Ambitious and successful. It spans nearly 2000 years and documents phases in the life of a monastery whose sacred charge is to preserve the written word after the nuclear holocaust and a revolt against the learning that brought it. Oh, rapture! Transfixion! Unsparing delight around every corner!

HJ

I immeadiately thought William S. Burroughs as opposed to Edgar Rice Burroughs. Very different worlds but both very influential and very, very good.

Do you do fiction? (Some people don't. One must ask.)

The Terror, Dan Simmons' latest, is one of the best books i've read in my life.

I've recently started reading Michael Chabon. Many of his books take what could be simple genre fiction in new directions. I first read his serialized piece in the NY Times Magazine, which is now "The Gentlemen on the Road." It's not particularly deep, but it's a quick read.

"The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" was very good and, at times, thought provoking. It's hard to describe in a few words, but it has interesting characters, some surprising events, and a well researched history on 1930-40's comic book artists and WWII refugees. Some of it was more depressing than necessitated by plot and character development, but I still liked it.

I'm currently working my way through the "Yiddish Policeman's Union." So far it's a great detective story wrapped around a fully formed alternate history and has some of his cleanest writing yet.

"Summerland" seemed to be targeted more towards middle/high school readers. It was fairly predictable, and the quality varied through the book, but it was entertaining at times. My biggest complaint was the narration was very inconsistent and switched from omniscient hindsight to following specific characters with no real rhyme or reason. Kavalier and Clay did this a bit too, but it was rare enough to be less annoying there.

yttrai: Simmons is great! Many people love his "Hyperion" cantos, but I'm actually a bigger fan of his "Illium" series. He's excellent at putting classic literature into his storyline to add nuance.

If you happen to like fantasy as well as Sci-fi, I've gotten a bunch of people hooked on Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series, which has incredible world building and character building.

A few all time favorites and recent reads

Two great love stories-
The Time Traveller's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

Some nearly non-fiction-
Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell

A couple of graphic novels-
Persopolis, by Marjane Satrapi
Maus, A Survivor's Tale, by Art Spiegelman

And some sci-fi-
Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson (also Neuromancer)

I have an endless list. Better stop now...

I second McGhandi's motions for "A Canticle for Liebowitz" and anything by Stanislaw Lem. I'll add George R. Stewart's "Earth Abides."

May I suggest the THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN by John Fowles? The almost hero is an amateur paleantoligist who has taken up with the new fangled ideas of Darwin and Freud. The insights into London may be of particular interest.

I recently picked up the POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver and haven't been taken with a novel like this in some time.

One of my all time favorites is THE BIRTH OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF ANTARCTICA by John Calvin Batchelor. The love interest, if you could call her that. is a female descendant of Jeremy Bentham who wins a Nobel prize. Benthamism is a recurring theme, among many others in this captivating adventure tale, full of Norse mythology, down at the heels Viet Nam Vets living in Sweden, and the refugees of the future.

Wow... I love open threads like this! So many good recommendations to have bookmarked for future reference. My guess is that a number of people will do just that.

So, let me add my suggestions.

Top of the list, based on what you list as your favorite authors, is Haruki Murakami. Murakami is one of the best writers of our age. I can prove that with three books of his, any one of which would illustrate his immense abilities. Firstly, for those with a fondness for genre-bending science fiction (Publishers Weekly calls it "pyrotechno-thriller"), is Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World. The second, an intricate and sprawling work, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, equal parts Kafka, Camus and David Lynch in his heyday. The third, his first success and a genuinely moving, satisfying novel, Norwegian Wood, which is more straightforward than his other works.

Now, another author I feel I don't see often enough listed. Octavia E. Butler had one of the most beautiful, resonant voices in science fiction literature. I recommend especially her timely novels, Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. In 1995 Butler received a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" grant, and it is very easy to see why. Very few writers so deftly touch the human pulse and write its rhythms into prose.

I hope that these books prove to be of value to you and anyone who takes my suggestions.

My thanks to you for your post and to those who commented here for their suggestions. Good reading!

The Pivot of Civilizaton, by Margaret Sanger, founder of planned parenthood.

Explains why human weeds are destroying our society, written by an atheist with the courage to say it!

I recently finished two fairly new books that I highly recommend: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (David Wroblewski) and Run (Ann Patchett). Both books explore slightly off-kilter families and family relationships, although the stories themselves are very different.

I've also been delving a bit more into literature from Inidan and Indian-American authors and would recommend three recent releases. The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga) takes a look at the seamier side of India's explosive growth and burgeoning middle and upper classes, from the point of view of one of their drivers. Jhmupa Lahiri's most recent collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth, travels between the US, India, and England, exploring the lives of Indians and their American and British-born children. The Palace of Illusions (Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni) retells the story of the Indian epic The Mahabharata from the point of view of Panchaali, the wife of the Pandava brothers.

Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy by Annette Gordon-Reed is a book that has changed my thinking about history and hagiography.

"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.

Matthew, you're a masochist. "Atlas Shrugged" as a good story? Not exactly light reading, though it is impressive.

And no, I'm not mocking you. I'm merely amazed. :o)

There are just too many great books out there. Since I last posted on this thread, I've read Jack DuBrul's "Havoc", which is a fun action read with a unique way of paying homage to "The Odyssey". It's far from being one of the greats of modern literature, but it is a fun read and has an interesting mix of social commentary and weird science.

I've also gone over an old favorite, "Wizard of the Pigeons" by Megan Lindholm. It's long out-of-print and tough to find, but if you can find a copy it is well worth the effort. Even when you're finished reading it, you may have trouble deciding whether it is a dark modern fantasy following a glorious historical tradition or a glimpse into deep and tortured schizophrenia. It's a truly awesome work that needs to find its way back into print.

Sheril - you should bump this back to the top. Good books need a bump every now and again. :o)