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Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 11:25:56 AM   
Snort


Posts: 132
Joined: 5/15/2008
Status: offline 		I'm going skiing in a place with no snow. Any suggestions for a good read?

I consume a variety of books, from William Gibson scifi to Jared Diamond "we're all gonna die, here's why" books. Currently reading Bloodlands which is fascinating but not a lot of joy for holiday reading.

Who has a recommendation? Something well written that will raise my spirits as I read by the fire? Something fluffy but engaging to consume in an evening? Or something meaty to expand my sense of life and wonder?

Bring it on!

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 11:27:29 AM   
ashjor911


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From: balcony, having a Smoke
Status: offline 		you may skiing on the sand..... works for dubai

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 11:40:40 AM   
Aylee


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Status: offline 		"Carnage and Culture" by Victor Davis Hanson. "Plagues and Peoples" by William H. McNeill. "Guns, Sails, and Empires: Technological Innovation and the Early Phases of European Expansion, 1400-1700" (1965) by Carlo Cipolla, These are in the same vein with Jared Diamond.

If you like cyberpunk, I would suggest Neil Gaiman. I do not really read cyberpunk though. I was introduced to Gaiman through Pratchett.

Also, "The Man in the High Castle," by Philip K. Dick, has the same elements that you find in cyberpunk.

< Message edited by Aylee -- 12/20/2011 11:41:15 AM >

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 11:43:22 AM   
Snort


Posts: 132
Joined: 5/15/2008
Status: offline 		Lol. Idaho fused all the sand into volcanic rock as the rift passed throught the Snake River plain on its way to Yellowstone. No sand skiing for me :(

But as a kid on the farm we would strap boards to our feet and use the small tractor to pull us through the hills of fertilizer. Nothing could make me laugh like watching a face plant in the poop. Well, except maybe the Politics and Religion forum...

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 11:44:53 AM   
Snort


Posts: 132
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Status: offline 		Ok, scuttling off to amazon now.

Thanks, Aylee!!

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 11:47:47 AM   
GreedyTop


Posts: 52100
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Savannah, GA
Status: offline 		*snerks* love the sig line!!


try any of the Brad Thor books..

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 11:51:40 AM   
Snort


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Status: offline 		Yeah, Greedy, I got a cmail from **someone** who knew I wasn't your sock but wondered why I was a sock for someone pretending to be your sock, but couldn't be. Or something.

I am desperately confused now.




Edited since I apparently can't spell Greedy...

< Message edited by Snort -- 12/20/2011 11:52:46 AM >

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 11:53:34 AM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Snort

Something well written that will raise my spirits as I read by the fire...

The Wind in the Willows

K.





< Message edited by Kirata -- 12/20/2011 11:55:43 AM >

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 11:54:16 AM   
GreedyTop


Posts: 52100
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From: Savannah, GA
Status: offline 		good lord, I am even MORE confused!!


fuck it.. Brad Thor has fun suspense shit going on. So does Dean Koontz. just to start...

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 12:02:06 PM   
Aylee


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Snort

Ok, scuttling off to amazon now.

Thanks, Aylee!!


You are welcome. I am good with book recommendations. :-)

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 12:02:22 PM   
Snort


Posts: 132
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata


quote:

ORIGINAL: Snort

Something well written that will raise my spirits as I read by the fire...

The Wind in the Willows

K.






Oh, well played!

I loved wind in the willows. Every time I have to visit Disneyland, I insist on hitting Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Some traditions are meant to be kept if only to honor the wistful fantasies of childhood.


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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 12:02:57 PM   
MistressDarkArt


Posts: 5178
Status: offline 		2030 by Albert Brooks (yes, the actor.) Fiction, but a little too close to home to be fluffy. Thought provoking and well written, though

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. Covering a thousand years of history weaving a connected fictional tale of intrigue throughout; excellent!

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 12:05:31 PM   
Snort


Posts: 132
Joined: 5/15/2008
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aylee


quote:

ORIGINAL: Snort

Ok, scuttling off to amazon now.

Thanks, Aylee!!


You are welcome. I am good with book recommendations. :-)


You certainly are. Some great suggestions here. Thx!!

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 12:06:55 PM   
GreedyTop


Posts: 52100
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Savannah, GA
Status: offline 		Diana Gabaldon; Outlander series. Start with Outlander.

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 12:07:08 PM   
Aylee


Posts: 24103
Joined: 10/14/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata


quote:

ORIGINAL: Snort

Something well written that will raise my spirits as I read by the fire...

The Wind in the Willows

K.






Many years ago I was considering going into teaching. So I took some college classes toward that goal. One of them was a Children's Literature class and another was an Adolescent Literature class. In those classes I learned that scenes about meals, food, and eating were put in because they could not have sex in children's books. I have never been able to read about Rat and Mole on the river bank again. In fact I have a difficult time with any children's book now. Because of all the euphemistic sex they have. It is just not right.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland has been ruined as well.

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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam

I don’t always wgah’nagl fhtagn. But when I do, I ph’nglui mglw’nafh R’lyeh.

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 12:08:30 PM   
kalikshama


Posts: 14805
Joined: 8/8/2010
Status: offline 		Meaty cyberpunk - Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan
Fluffy spicy supernatural - Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire series, from which True Blood was spawned.
Darker spicy supernatural - Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake books
Fun lusty faeries - - Laurell K Hamilton's Merry Gentry books
Napoleonic era British Navy plus dragons - His Majesty's Dragon

The best Harry Potter ever:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality

or download the ebook here: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2269863/Less_Wrong

It's the first Harry Potter book retold as if Harry had been raised by a physics professor to be a hyper-rational, quasi-Vulcan scientist. Super, SUPER fun...


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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 12:08:40 PM   
willbeurdaddy


Posts: 11894
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Status: offline 		"Zone One" Colson Whitehead

There will be grumbling from self-­appointed aficionados of the undead (Sir, I think the author will find that zombies actually . . .) and we’ll have to listen for another season or two to critics batting around the notion that genre-slumming is a recent trend, but none of that will hurt “Zone One,” which is a cool, thoughtful and, for all its ludic violence, strangely tender novel, a celebration of modernity and a pre-emptive wake for its demise. If this is the intellectual and the porn star, they look pretty good together. For my money, they have a long and happy life ahead of them.


Whitehead is a very clever and sardonic writer. His assignment at the World Series of Poker has all the wit of HST's assignment at the Mint 400 in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", without the drugs (2011 isnt 1971, after all).

Of course if you havent read Fear and Loathing in a while (or ever) its a must (re-) read. No one has captured the end and ultimate failure of the 60s so clearly and concisely:

"And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back"

< Message edited by willbeurdaddy -- 12/20/2011 12:15:31 PM >

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 12:09:33 PM   
Kirata


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Joined: 2/11/2006
From: USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aylee

In those classes I learned that scenes about meals, food, and eating were put in because they could not have sex in children's books.

Some people need to stop teaching literature classes and get laid more often.

K.

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 12:10:46 PM   
Snort


Posts: 132
Joined: 5/15/2008
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: GreedyTop

good lord, I am even MORE confused!!


fuck it.. Brad Thor has fun suspense shit going on. So does Dean Koontz. just to start...


I'll check it out. I also powered through some fun books by Jim Butcher called The Dresden Files. Fun romps about a wizard plying his craft in Chicago.

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RE: Reading suggestions for my failed vacation... - 12/20/2011 12:13:21 PM   
Snort


Posts: 132
Joined: 5/15/2008
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: MistressDarkArt

2030 by Albert Brooks (yes, the actor.) Fiction, but a little too close to home to be fluffy. Thought provoking and well written, though

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. Covering a thousand years of history weaving a connected fictional tale of intrigue throughout; excellent!


Ah, cool, I like books that tie real history together in ways that the history books seem to miss entirely.

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