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A Good Read: Book Suggestions & Recommendations

feel the bubble.... feel the monkey!

sir, I SALUTE you! :glee::glee::glee:

great video.
 
Dr. Porhoët said:
I didn't take pics of my library, but I made a video about the Fortean gems that I picked up at the Library Book sale over the weekend.
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Mysterious Monsters looks quite good to me. I like the way that a video review means you can dispense with words altogether and just use sign language as in your deft summing up of The Truth About Cabala. We used to have an emoticon that did that.
 
Mythopoeika said:
If I'd lived in a mansion, I wouldn't have given all my books away.
However, my life has been up and down, and I've moved a few times.
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I abandoned my books (& photo albums of my parents, an excellent record collection, clothes & my babyhood teddy) to escape a dangerous situation; clothes I stood up in and a backpack was all I could run away with - that was 35 years of life left behind in the hope I'd have a future. I've spent the last 13 years trying to get it back.

That I'm getting there, that I have a house and most of my old collection back is an achievement solely due to my determination, not something born of inheritance or connection. Some people do have it easy, some even have big houses left to them. Not me, not most people. I have a house partially filled with books because I spend every penny, every moment of my life trying to recreate the best of my past whilst at the same time trying to create a future.

I'd rather not have spent time in a mental hospital, I'd rather not have been homeless. I wish I'd spent my life in a sunny drawing room listlessly gathering books and barely caring for them, but I didn't. Every single book I now have the pleasure to own (as well as Archie & my house) is here because I fought like a bloody demon to be able to get them. That's why there is nothing on this planet that will ever separate me from any of them in the future.

I prefer, as much as I can, to not bore people with the lows I have endured - that's mainly for the counsellors and therapists (& Internet forums!) Should I ever make friends with someone and invite them to my house, I hope the bookish, old fashioned feel of the place will make them feel cosy, safe, & warm; an attempt to provide the physical embodiment of this: Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

I'm not lucky, just bloody determined!
 
Please note, EyronRen, that I wasn't having a jealous pop at you.
I was merely making the observation that if I lived in a much bigger house, I wouldn't have needed to make so many life changes over the past 25 years. I'd still have all my stuff and I'd have room for a workshop.
The only way I'll ever do it now is if I move far North.
 
Has anyone read this interesting book? The Face of Twilight by Mark Samuels
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6218231-the-face-of-twilight

It has been published in a vanishingly small edition and is unimaginably expensive second hand:
http://www.amazon.com/Face-Twilight-Mark-Samuels/dp/1904619606/

PS Publishing looks like an interesting publisher, and this e-book has a good press:
http://www.pspublishing.co.uk/land-at-the-end-of-the-working-day-eshort-by-peter-crowther-742-p.asp

I also discovered Tartarus Press, and this book is absolutely magnificent. A steal for the Kindle price:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7894905-the-st-perpetuus-club-of-buenos-aires
https://www.amazon.com/St-Perpetuus-Club-Buenos-Aires-ebook/dp/B01E69TBFU
 
Mythopoeika said:
Please note, EyronRen, that I wasn't having a jealous pop at you.
I was merely making the observation that if I lived in a much bigger house, I wouldn't have needed to make so many life changes over the past 25 years. I'd still have all my stuff and I'd have room for a workshop.
The only way I'll ever do it now is if I move far North.
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Sorry, mate, I know. I tend to feel a bit vulnerable as I do get a lot horrible things said to me because I don't "look" or speak like a "usual" mental health patient. Not that I thought you had said anything horrible, more that I thought I might have given the impression I was some rich tart who thought selling or giving away books was the most heinous of crimes. When I thought again about what you had written, I just said to myself (not for the first time) "you are a twat!"

So my apologies again. It's crap having to move again and again, and it's shit to have give up things you earned money to buy. I know, been there, done that. I'm hoping it doesn't happen to me again, and I hope that you have also found some stability. Much love, Eyron, x

p.s. re moving North. I was torturing myself by looking on an estate agents website and found that for much less than the price of a house here in Oxford I could get a real life castle (I think I remember that correctly) up in Northumberland that contains a fully ordained chapel. The house used to be a Bishop's house back in the day and is now on sale for around £2,500,000. Obviously tons of money but only one or two judicious house moves in Oxford (if you happen to be on the housing ladder in Oxford, which I'm not!!)
 
A book which recently came my way, by chance; would class it as a very good read, though not immensely long (just over 300 small-ish pages). Published a couple of years ago (2014, for a reason), but I was unaware of it until recently coming across it in local library. By Kate Saunders, whose quite numerous novels I love – title of this one, Five Children on the Western Front. A follow-on from E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It and others, about a group of siblings and their discovery of the Psammead – an irascible ancient magical “sand fairy” with the power to grant wishes (which usually backfire on the wishers).

The author, realising that Nesbit’s books being set in the first years of the twentieth century means that the older boys in the group would be of prime age to fight in World War I -- follows that circumstance where it leads; plus involving, once more, the Psammead. A mixture of finely recreating Nesbit’s style; plus much, delightfully, of the author’s own. A quote on the back cover from a newspaper review, says it well: “A simply brilliant book... beautifully crafted, funny, heart-breaking.”
 
uair01 said:
Probably well advertised here already:
Jeff Vandermeer - Southern Reach trilogy
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17934530-annihilation

My review on Goodreads:
Good modern SF for psychogeographers because of the great landscape descriptions. I bought part 1 (Annihilation) on Friday and finished it by Sunday afternoon. So I had to cycle to the bookshop to buy parts 2 and 3 (Authority and Acceptance). I'm reading part 2 right now. Meanwhile my son started part 1 and was immediately pulled into the book. He took it home with him and I expect he'll come for the other books soon. It's a long time ago that I was so captivated by a book.
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I took up your suggestion and bought this and have almost finished the first. I've got it on Audible and it is outstanding. One of the best books I've read/listened too for decades.

Went for a walk by the sea at night with the sea crashing along the shore line listening to the Biologist entering the lighthouse...:eek:
 
Natural Selection by Dave Freedman ( Hyperion,New York,2006).

If you like a `real world`science fiction thriller with a creature at its core then this is the one for you. The premise - a species of ferocious deep water manta ray that has learnt to fly to avoid disease in its natural habitat - is as credibly explained as it is extravagant.

It is very much in the mould of the better stuff by Michael Crichton and shares the same faults of his writing too,viz pallid characterisation and pedestrian prose.It is, however, slow moving (in a good way) and understated (in a good way) and there is enough real science in it to make you feel as though you are not being shortchanged, and may even be learning something. The shift of scene of the action from the oceans to on-land in the form of a redwood forest is very well handled too.

As far as I can see Freedman has been resting on his laurels for the past ten years, which seems a shame as this is an enticing debut.
 
This is a long thread so I apologize if any of these authors have been mentioned before.....
I recommend Ian Banks' 'Culture Series' to anyone who likes intelligent space opera.
Sadly he passed away a while back so there won't be anymore in the series but there are quite a few.
The last few years I have been into horror/sci-fi/fantasy where the lead character is a detective of some sort who solves crimes that end up being occult in nature. My favorites are:
The Repairman Jack series by F Paul Wilson
The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher
The Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey
The Nightside series by Simon Green....who also has several other series.
 
ramonmercado said:
Target London: Under Attack From The V-Weapons During WWII, by Christy Campbell.
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Picked this up and enjoyed it thoroughly. I was intrigued by Campbell's treatment of V.R. Jones, who didn't come off entirely favorably in his account.

So, in the spirit of "fair and balanced", I picked up Jones' "The Wizard War". It really fleshed out the story of those tumultuous days, and I came away with a greater appreciation of Jones' role. Jones was a merciless political in-fighter, and I can understand why some folks who thought they could screw with him came away with s bad taste in their mouths.

"The Wizard War"; Highly recommended.
 
Frasier Buddolph said:
Picked this up and enjoyed it thoroughly. I was intrigued by Campbell's treatment of V.R. Jones, who didn't come off entirely favorably in his account.

So, in the spirit of "fair and balanced", I picked up Jones' "The Wizard War". It really fleshed out the story of those tumultuous days, and I came away with a greater appreciation of Jones' role. Jones was a merciless political in-fighter, and I can understand why some folks who thought they could screw with him came away with s bad taste in their mouths.

"The Wizard War"; Highly recommended.
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I'll look out for it.
 
Yes indeed, I like it too! But be warned ... :D

In grad school, MFA fiction workshops led me even further away from horror and science fiction. In workshops we’d scoff at the sap who dared bring allegorical/dystopian/Vonnegut knockoffs, or Game of Thrones imitations. If you wrote genre fiction—or read it, or defended it—you were a hack and should lop off your writing hand.

From: High Strange Horror: Weird Tales of Paranoia and the Damned (Michael Bryant, Charles Martin, Toni Nicolino, David Owens, Matthew Bartlett, Doctor Gaines, Christopher Fraser, CRJ Smith, Matthew Jordan and John Shannon)
 
Memoirs Of A British Agent by R.H. Bruce Lockhart.

Once again dipping into this fascinating memoir by a larger than life character.

From the introduction:

... The second half of Lockhart's book is surely one of the most thrilling things in all the war records. You feel that he exaggerates nothing, sentimentalizes over nothing, is not shocked, nor disgusted, nor frightened, nor exultant. A singularly passive young man, for it is as a very young man indeed that I still think of him, because, when I first knew him as Vice-Consul of Moscow, he looked like a first-term undergraduate who might get his place in the Freshman's trials at Rugby football. His swift, unexcited pen-pictures of all the figures that crowded that odd stage are surely very remarkable. Peters, for instance, by now a quite legendary figure, or Lenin advancing to the front of a platform at a revolutionary meeting, the Englishmen, Buchanan, Cromie, Knox, Hicks, and the others. And his own personal courage and common sense is everywhere present, reminding me here of the humorous insouciance of Yeats-Brown in Bengal Lancer and Golden Horn. ...

You may read the full text here: http://www.spyculture.com/docs/UK/Lockhart-MemoirsBritishAgent.pdf
 
uair01 said:
Yes indeed, I like it too! But be warned ... :D

In grad school, MFA fiction workshops led me even further away from horror and science fiction. In workshops we’d scoff at the sap who dared bring allegorical/dystopian/Vonnegut knockoffs, or Game of Thrones imitations. If you wrote genre fiction—or read it, or defended it—you were a hack and should lop off your writing hand.

From: High Strange Horror: Weird Tales of Paranoia and the Damned (Michael Bryant, Charles Martin, Toni Nicolino, David Owens, Matthew Bartlett, Doctor Gaines, Christopher Fraser, CRJ Smith, Matthew Jordan and John Shannon)
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haha thanks. No worries about me being intimidated by writer snobs. I will wallow in trashy fiction until the day I die.
 
Some Remarks by Neal Stephenson.

WilliamMorrow Paperbacks (2014).

PB: 336 pp. $15.99. ISBN: 9780062024442.

Some ask: where are the flying cars?

Stephenson asks: Where's my donut-shaped space station? Where's my ticket to Mars?

Known for the SF novels Snowcrash and Anathem Secret History Cryptonomicon and the Historical Novel Cycle The System of the World, Some Remarks gathers together 16 pieces: Stephenson's journalism, meditations, interviews and a short story.

In articles ranging from 1993 to 2012 he muses on the development of rocketry in Locked In; early e-Money in The Great Simoleon Caper; academic snobbery in Everything and More Foreword.

In a wide ranging Q&A, The Salon Interview (2004), he expands on the historical background to The System of the World, the quarrels between Newton and Leibniz, the development of Calculus, Puritanism, the reconciliation of Science, Religion and Alchemy both Leibniz, Newton and other savants of their time, and the links between System and Cryptonomicon. Perhaps of equal importance is how the System novels turn the birth of modern banking into entertainment!

Some of the same territory is covered and updated to the 21st Century in Metaphysics in The Royal Society 1715 - 2010.

A book within a book, is Mother Earth, Mother Board, (118 pages). This collects Stephenson's Hacker Tourist articles on under-sea telecommunications cable-laying in the 1990s. Introducing divers, engineers who calls themselves cable trash and who lay the modern cables it also provides a history of the art. And Art it is as every hill, dip, and shallow has to be taken into account. Read how Lord Kelvin invented the mirror galvanometer, a new improved compass and a depth sounder, making a fortune from each.

While some of the material is dated it covers the development Stephenson as an SF writer and the adolescence/growing to adulthood of the World Wide Web. 8/10.
 
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This has no doubt been mentioned in the past but I want to mention The Trickster by George Hansen.....a very interesting book about the psychology, sociology, and marginality surrounding the paranormal and ufos and how that affects investigation and understanding of this whole area.
http://www.tricksterbook.com/
"
The paranormal encompasses everything from levitating monks to ESP, from spirits to cattle mutilations—an incredible and unsavory hodgepodge. The mix seems incoherent. But the trickster makes sense of it.
Among other things, this book explains:

  • Why parapsychology and UFOs are shunned by establishment science.
  • How anthropology and literary criticism apply to the paranormal.
  • Why psychic phenomena are associated with mystical practices.
  • Why tabloids often put paranormal features on their front pages."
 
dr wu said:
This has no doubt been mentioned in the past but I want to mention The Trickster by George Hansen.....a very interesting book about the psychology, sociology, and marginality surrounding the paranormal and ufos and how that affects investigation and understanding of this whole area.
http://www.tricksterbook.com/
"
The paranormal encompasses everything from levitating monks to ESP, from spirits to cattle mutilations—an incredible and unsavory hodgepodge. The mix seems incoherent. But the trickster makes sense of it.
Among other things, this book explains:

  • Why parapsychology and UFOs are shunned by establishment science.
  • How anthropology and literary criticism apply to the paranormal.
  • Why psychic phenomena are associated with mystical practices.
  • Why tabloids often put paranormal features on their front pages."
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Looks interesting. I'll put it on my list but I have a backlog of books at present.
 
ramonmercado said:
Looks interesting. I'll put it on my list but I have a backlog of books at present.
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I first read it about 15 years ago and every now and then I pick it up and read a few sections....one of the most interesting books I have ever read about deconstructing this whole area....I also recommend Daimonic Reality by Patrick Harpur.
 
IMHO...it's one of those must reads by anyone seriously interested in the 'paranormal' and related issues.
As said by many it can be dense and academic at times but it's worth it. Even though I don't understand all of his points it touches on many aspects to a very marginal reality called the Paranormal that we as Forteans are all interested in.
 
Every so often I get offered a free ebook out of a small selection of varying quality. A few months ago I chose a book called Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb but took a while to get round to reading it as like most people I have a pile. And I have really enjoyed it. It is the first book of a trilogy and luckily my library has the others so I can find out what happens next.

It is a fantasy novel set in a world where some people own a special type of ship made out of a special type of wood which comes to life when a certain number of family members die. Some women it turns out, have a charm made out of this wood which means they don't get diseased or pregnant. Much sailing, pirates and fornication ensue. Also contains amputations, oozing and ichor so not for the squeamish! The characters are great and very realistic. I found I could identify to some extent with most of them. There are no annoying "perfect" people who always do everything right. Or indeed wrong. It also contains sea serpents.
 
after seeing it mentioned here i have ordered the trickster and the paranormal, and i would highly recommend "ghosts of K2" by mick conefrey, it doesn't contain "real" ghosts but it is a wonderful, exciting and sad tale about the race to reach the top of the world's most dangerous mountain, it gripped me from the beginning and i am not and never intend to be a mountaineer.
 
Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile by Verlyn Klinkenborg

A short novel told from the point of view of the point of view of the tortoise whose real life was observed by the 18th century English curate and naturalist Gilbert White.

A quiet reflective book to read on a sunny autumn afternoon. This book is no more about a tortoise than Moby Dick is about a whale.
 
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