For the book readers on STR, what are you reading?

Another book hre, this will leave you in awe,pain, heart felt compassion.
Doug Stanton
IN HARMS WAY
The sinking of the USS. Indianapolis and its survivors. The ship was sunk by a Japenese sub, and the Navy apparently lost the ship in paper work.It is a gruesome account of surviving in the ocean for 5 days in the water,no life boats.Out of 900 on 317 survived.

 

it's hard to beat vonnegut for fiction. galapagos is probably my favorite. i just finished rereading ed abbey's desert solitaire- great stuff, especially if you've ever spent any time in the desert.

 

Ok this thread is old, but have to add "The first Chimpanzee" In search of human origins.
If you were to look at their DNA- the long molecule of heredity-you would find it a hard task indeed to separate man from chimpanzee and the gorilla. The three species share almost 99% of their DNA, and on that basis.surely, they should not look, nearly as diffrent as they do.:-k

since on the subject; one more. THE CRACK IN THE COSMIC EGG. Challenging Constructs of mind and reality.
Joseph Chlilton Pearce 1971.

Sticky? If so I will add like the Oprah book club:lol:

One last read before bed. " American slavery- American Freedom" The ordeal of colonial Virgina. Edmund S. Morgan. Sure most of you know the name. Any how, I just like to read and some of these just stand out in my mind as must reads.

 

I havn't read that book yet, but if you like post-human future type stuff, you should check Neil Stephenson. Namely "Snow Crash" and "The Diamond Age". My favorite author.

 

Yeah, Snow Crash is a classic. But I couldn't make it though Cryptonomicon; might be the first book I never finished. More of a William Gibson fan myself. Neuromancer changed my whole outlook on the future.

 

Do not try reading the "Baroque Cycle" then :lol:. It takes the Cryptonomicon theme through 5000 pages in the 1600s! A great but massive read.

I've been meaning to read Neuromancer for years now... thanks for reminding me, going to order it right now. BTW, Neil Stephenson has a new novel coming out in Septmeber thats supposed to be a throwback to his cyberpunk roots :bang:.

 

I finished The Rider. Good book if you're into road bike racing. Now reading Rough Ride by Paul Kimmage.

 

Has anyone read Mountain Bike Action? There's some great fiction in there, every month.

 

OK, since we're on a book binge, in the non-fiction category I'd recommend:

Anything by Ray Kurzweil, but especially his tome The Singularity Is Near. The nattering nabobs of negativism who love to declare that the world is "going to hell" or that "things we so much better back in 19??" have obviously never read this book. I always enjoy asking "So, during what historical time period would you rather be alive than today, and why?" That usually elicits a clueless series of grunts and stutters.

And Gregory David Robers's Shantaram. It is a long (about 900 pages) and mostly non-fiction novel that I had trouble putting down.

R

 

Try The Immortal Class and the Cult of Human Power (all one title) by Travis Culley.

I like SF a lot. Oreson Scott Card, Vonegut, Herbert, Heinline etc. Yes, I am a dork.

A few of my fav non SF writers are Roberston Davies, Tolkien, Capote, Steinbeck, and Hess. I kind of love Ayne Rand too.

I think I butchered some of these names. Oh well.

Comic books are good too. I still have some old Marvels.

 

If you like Ayn Rand, specifically the Fountain Head, I bet you'd like the movie There will be blood. Although the subject matter is unrelated, it has that same "raw" feeling to it.

 

I'm a SCI Fi fan myself -- Favorites are Heinlien - all his books are excellent. "Stranger in a strange Land" is very recommended. Orson Scot Card - Ender and Shadow series. Asimov - Foundation Series. Herbert - Dune Series. I love everything Tolkien.

 

HUGE Dune fan here!

 

I love Dune. It seems like each book in the series is a little worse though. I gave out somewhere in the Middle of Chapterhouse.

 

Totally... isn't there like 10 million years between the first and fourth books? 1-3 were solid though. The ending of book one is perhaps the best ending of any book I've read, right up there with Shogun, another favorite epic novel of mine.

 

Oh yeah,

If you want to be totaly entertained and discusted, try Jersey Kosinski.

Blue within blue.

 

For those of you who appreciate unique well-written Sci-Fi/Fantasy, here are some absolute classics:

4 book series by Gene Wolfe called 'The Book of the New Sun':
"The Shadow of the Torturer"
"The Sword of the Lictor"
"The Claw of the Conciliator"
"The Citadel of the Autarch"

The above is to Sci-Fi what 'Lord of the Rings' is to Fantasy... and then some, as it's much stranger and Wolfe is a far more gifted (and well-read) writer than Tolkein.

"Radix" by A.A. Attanasio

"Hyperion" and "The Fall of Hyperion" by Dan Simmons

All of the above are found in the sci-fi section, although they combine sci-fi/fantasy/horror. A few of them won major awards. Some may be out-of-print. All are quite unique.

 

Working my way through Desolation Angels by Jack Kerouac at the moment, which has been an incredible look into the roughshod fumblings and introspections of the emerging beat poets, all as they were all on the cusp of defining what became the beat generation. Written in Kerouac's stream-of-concousness style it's not for everyone, and flows at a certain cadence, but if you've ever read On the Road I highly recommend it.

Last weekend picked up Cormac McCarthy's The Orchard Keeper, one of ther few of his i have yet to read, along with Visions of Cody also by Kerouac, which discusses his relationship with Neal Cassady, his compatriot in On the Road and beat hero. Cassady also drove the Merry Pranksters bus in 1964, for those that have read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Nice to see other readers on here...

 

Not nearly as intellectual as some of you, but I'm reading "Into Thin Air" right now and have "Into the Wild" queued for after that.

FWIW, Justin and I both loved Atlas Shrugged. My senior (HS) english teacher recommended it as extra reading and I read it in about 6 weeks. Essentially all I did was go to school, read, and sleep. I didn't like the Fountainhead as much.

Other than that I'm looking into getting some training/cycling books, but not sure I'll order any.

 

My older brother and I were just talking about that book.
He's a huge fan and told me it's a must read.