Book recommendations?

[wintrmute]

Hey all

Comments

[gwen]

I'm not much of a reader, but I loved the Bill Hicks biography. It was pretty funny, and sad and memorable.

[wintrmute]

Only Forward is one of my favourite books of all time :)
One of Us is great too.

[squirmelia]

I've read Pygmy and it was okay, but I prefer some of Palahniuk's other books. I took it on my flights, but failed to read it until I got back to the UK.

I want to read The City & The City and it sounded good from the reading I went to, from Miéville. I'll probably wait until it is cheaper though. (Unless you can read it all on the way over and lend it to me? ;) ) Have you read much of his other stuff?

I am currently re-reading Snow Crash, and also reading Cities, short stories by Miéville, Ryman, etc.

I recently read Stranger things happen by Kelly Link, and The Ant King by Benjamin Rosenbaum, and they were both pretty good (weird short stories), although not sure how easy they would be to get hold of there.

Hmm.. have you read much by Haruki Murakami? Or how about Jonathan Lethem? (The more sci-fi-ish ones, perhaps?) Or Borges?

I recommend diverting your flight to San Francisco and going to City Lights. Lots of awesome books there. :)

[wintrmute]

I haven't read much by Murakami, but saw The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles in the bookstore and was wondering about it too. Do you think I might like it on a flight?

[strawberryfrog]

To be honest, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles is dense and subtle. It's full of Lynchian bits and subtexts. I would recommend it, but it's not what I would want for a flight.

[wintrmute]

Ah, I was wondering if that might be the case..

[strawberryfrog]

I read House of Suns and it was good flight-reading material by my standards. Space opera, but neither boring and predictable, nor way out and requiring a full brane to understand. It's a good book too.

Chuck Palahniuk .. I've kind of given up on him. He's good, but after three books or so the same good bits tend to repeat, so my recommendation is to read a few of his books - it doesn't matter which ones so much. Maybe Choke, Fight Club and Survivor.

[wintrmute]

Yeah, I liked his earlier books, which I think I've read a number of.

[nicky_j]

Ah, was going to reccommend you Chasm City. If you're going for a re-read on a flight I'd go for Cryptonomicon, ought to keep you busy a while and surely always worth it?

Otherwise I've had a lot of luck lately with M John Harrison, Light is good and there's another I forget the name of, space opera but quite clever and funny.

[wintrmute]

I do believe you recommended Chasm City to me, and it was then the first book of his I read! :)
PS. Thanks

[wintrmute]

Ah, I've read everything MMS has ever written :)
Only Forwards is one of my favourite stories.

I liked Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon" so much that I read it twice - once on the way to the UK in 2002, and again on the homeward journey in 2007! :)
I'm awaiting his sequel to The Steel Remains at the moment, but it won't be out until next year at least, or later.

Ken Macleod's series were good too - my favourites were The Star Fraction and The Stone Canal, but I've read just about all the others too. I do think I've read all the Peter F Hamilton and Neil Gaiman recommendations though :)

More books along the lines of those would be great!

I'll look up the others you mentioned that I haven't heard of.

[pete23]

house of suns is good.

now you mention it, the new ken mcleod - the night sessions - is really enjoyable, finished it last night.

[pete23]

i found the serrano stuff to be a bit turgid - there's only so much horseriding nonsense and upper class buffoonery a man can take, even in space - although i did make the mistake of trying to read the entire first trilogy in one go, so maybe i just overcame my resistance or something...