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The best book you've ever read...

Fiction: The Safehold Series by David Weber

Non-fiction: The surviving works of Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Small Press: Get Bent: a Hater's Guide to Surviving in an HOA.
 
NolanVoyd said:
Interesting fact.

Ken keasey, who wrote One flew over the kukoos nest, was sort of the leader of a band of San Francisco hippies at the time. He had a party at his house in LA Honda. The author Tom Wolf who was writing a book about Keasey and his band of hippies called "The Electric Cool Aid Acid Test" was at the party. Hunter S Thompson, who was writing Hells Angel's at the time, showed up at the party with a bunch of hells angels.

It was kind of a disaster.

But you can read about the same party from Tom Wolf's point of view in Electric Coolaide Acid test, and also from Hunter Thompson's point of view in Hells Angel's.

Two totally different takes on the same party from two totally different points of view
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I remember that episode. The party going nuts, cops lined up on the road and one of the Angels- Terry the Tramp?- taunting them from the yard. Was that party where Neal Cassidy was prowling around with a hammer, tossing it high end-over-end and catching it by the handle?
I remember the band of hippies being called The Merry Pranksters, Neal Cassidy driving the Magic Bus.
 
Luce said:
Fiction: The Safehold Series by David Weber

Non-fiction: The surviving works of Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Small Press: Get Bent: a Hater's Guide to Surviving in an HOA.
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Safehold is about the people hiding from aliens, and he does a whole Reformation thing? I think I read 3 of 4.
 
Grand Mal said:
I remember that episode. The party going nuts, cops lined up on the road and one of the Angels- Terry the Tramp?- taunting them from the yard. Was that party where Neal Cassidy was prowling around with a hammer, tossing it high end-over-end and catching it by the handle?
I remember the band of hippies being called The Merry Pranksters, Neal Cassidy driving the Magic Bus.
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Yep.

I don't remember if I read Hells Angel's or the Electric Cool Aid Acid Test first, but I read them fairly close together and I remember how tickled I was when I realized they were both describing the exact same party.

Dug out the other book and compared notes.
 
reinaert said:
Safehold is about the people hiding from aliens, and he does a whole Reformation thing? I think I read 3 of 4.
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You have to start with book 1 to get it.

It's amazing. It's at book 10 right now, but I think it's pretty much done. Book 10 was a little strained, and happens after the main story line.
 
Two obscure authors that my mother introduced me to.

Guy Gilpatric, his history is interesting and tragic; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Gilpatric
The Glencannon stories were read to me in the Scottish accent by mother.




Robert Lewis Taylor; Pulitzer Prize winner for “Travels With Jamie McFeeters.” Every bit as good as an adult as a child. I have read many of his other books. He never got the credit he was due, IMO.

Robert Lewis Taylor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Journey To Matecumbe
Action in the North Atlantic
Two Roads to Guadeloupe
A biography of Churchill, ( can’t recall the title.)
 
It's close match, but I would say Moby Dick by Herman Melville. I'm glad I read it my mid-30s, because I think I would have bounced off it when I was younger.

moby-dick-by-ge-rard-dubois-v0-8x3pca9k9cza1.png


It is closely followed by Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Best "Weird Fiction" I have ever read.

9780330392891-us.jpg
 
Going to go back a ways....

In my teens....loved science fiction and fantasy....
Loved Asimov, Clarke, and so so many others
But my favorite story teller was Terry Brooks

Shannara (Chronological Order) Series​

33 books so far in the series....and yeah i was hooked

Another great storyteller is Terry Goodkind
The Sword of Truth Series

And my last series i will tout is Robert Jordan's
The Wheel of Time

The book that helped me understand finance and investing
Peter Lynch Beating the Street

And the list wouldnt be complete without mentioning Warren Buffett's biography
The Snowball co-written with Alice Schroeder

I go through 10-12 books a month, and have for 40+ years....i am constantly reading
One of lives greatest pleasures
 
Moon said:
Anything by Isaac Asimov.

‘Merle’s Door’ by Ted Kerasote. Not a novel, but an awesome read.

More recently, ‘Wool’, ‘Shift’ and ‘Dust’ by Hugh Howey. The stories that make up the Silo series.
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That trilogy is fantastic!

And like The Lord of the Rings, the second book, Shift, was the best.
 
I'd like to mention Mark Helprin: Winter's Tale is amazing. Seriously, I was amazed.

Also: A Soldier of the Great War; Memoir from Ant Proof Case; Freddy and Frederica; In Sunlight and in Shadow.
 
Felis Leo said:
It is closely followed by Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Best "Weird Fiction" I have ever read.

9780330392891-us.jpg
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Do you like fun anecdotes? Here is one for you.

A friend of mine loves the Mieville book The City & the City. He bought it for me as a gift. Every time I try to read it; I can't slog through it. It is brutally awful in my opinion. I have started it several times. I will finish it one day.

I bought him a book I love as a gift on a separate occasion. It is called The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. He has had the same reaction to that book. He just can't get into it.

The fun bit is they tied for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.
 
Bok Tuklo said:
Do you like fun anecdotes? Here is one for you.

A friend of mine loves the Mieville book The City & the City. He bought it for me as a gift. Every time I try to read it; I can't slog through it. It is brutally awful in my opinion. I have started it several times. I will finish it one day.

I bought him a book I love as a gift on a separate occasion. It is called The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. He has had the same reaction to that book. He just can't get into it.

The fun bit is they tied for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.
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I hear that. I have not read The City & The City, but Mieville is definitely in love with his purple prosed combined with the mind-bending concepts he takes his books into. I found listening to Perdido Street Station on audiobook was much more digestible and far more enjoyable.
 
Bok Tuklo said:
Do you like fun anecdotes? Here is one for you.

A friend of mine loves the Mieville book The City & the City. He bought it for me as a gift. Every time I try to read it; I can't slog through it. It is brutally awful in my opinion. I have started it several times. I will finish it one day.

I bought him a book I love as a gift on a separate occasion. It is called The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. He has had the same reaction to that book. He just can't get into it.

The fun bit is they tied for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.
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I recently reread The Windup Girl. Still think old sci-fi is better than new sci-fi.
 
One Hundred of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, followed by La Storia - Elsa Morante, and Our Ancestors trilogy - Italo Calvino.

Can’t remember the first book I read, but I went through the Freddy the Pig detective books at our local library.

For science fiction Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451, Martian Chronicles. Not that I read much science fiction or fantasy either.
 
Bok Tuklo said:
Do you like fun anecdotes? Here is one for you.

A friend of mine loves the Mieville book The City & the City. He bought it for me as a gift. Every time I try to read it; I can't slog through it. It is brutally awful in my opinion. I have started it several times. I will finish it one day.

I bought him a book I love as a gift on a separate occasion. It is called The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. He has had the same reaction to that book. He just can't get into it.

The fun bit is they tied for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.
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Bacigalupi is excellent. He work gets tagged as Juvenile SF - but his plotting & characters - & situations! - are captivating.
 
southwest88 said:
Bacigalupi is excellent. He work gets tagged as Juvenile SF - but his plotting & characters - & situations! - are captivating.
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You are kidding me?!!

The Windup Girl is not Juvenile. I think the forced orgasm on the titular character in a sex club might not be for 12 year olds.
 
Loulit01 said:
I'd like to mention Mark Helprin: Winter's Tale is amazing. Seriously, I was amazed.

Also: A Soldier of the Great War; Memoir from Ant Proof Case; Freddy and Frederica; In Sunlight and in Shadow.
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I enjoyed “Soldier of the Great War” when it was first issued in paperback. Last year I started it again and quit about a third in….
 
Luce said:
You have to start with book 1 to get it.

It's amazing. It's at book 10 right now, but I think it's pretty much done. Book 10 was a little strained, and happens after the main story line.
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My bad. I think I read the first three of what was then four books.
 
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