<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Confederacy-Dunces-John-Kennedy-Toole/dp/0807126063/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232469279&sr=8-1" target="_blank">A Confederacy of Dunces</a> by John Kennedy Toole <!--coloro:#FF00FF--><span style="color:#FF00FF"><!--/coloro-->[FUNNY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> One of the classics of humor, this book is the story of a pompous idiot in New Orleans and the people and city around him. Whether you find it laugh out loud funny or not depends on the person, but even if it wasn't funny at all it would still be a fantastic book, and when you add onto that how uproarious it is, it's pretty much a surefire hit. Unless you don't like it. I've seen it happen. Still, most people love it, and it's one of the great American novels, so it's easily worth the miniscule time it takes to read it now that you've sharpened your mind on EVERY OTHER BOOK I SUGGESTED.
moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
edited January 2009
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Midnights-Children-Novel-Salman-Rushdie/dp/0812976533/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232489746&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Midnight's Children</a> by Salman Rushdie <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->[HISTORICAL LIES]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#A0522D--><span style="color:#A0522D"><!--/coloro-->[BRAINY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> Winner of the Booker Prize, and the "Booker of Bookers" (they determined that this was the best book that had ever been awarded the Booker) Midnight's Children tells the story of the life and ancestry of Saleem Sinai. He is born at the stroke of midnight at the moment that India gained its independence, and, along with all of the other children born in that first hour, he has magical powers. The events in his life are inextricably bound to the fate of India as a nation. Magic is woven into the story, but it is more correct to say that the metaphors in the telling of the story have the power of fact, and affect the lives of the characters as physical forces. The story is told from the narrator's fallible memory, time jumps around as easily as symbols in his memory jump in and out of reality. It's a great introduction to the history and culture of India, and is beautifully written, though it helps to know a bit about the history of India going in.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dresden-Files/lm/R1EQBHOSL7CEGD/ref=cm_lmt_srch_f_2_rsrsrs0" target="_blank">The Dresden Files</a> - Jim Butcher <!--coloro:#2E8B57--><span style="color:#2E8B57"><!--/coloro-->[ELVES]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#FF00FF--><span style="color:#FF00FF"><!--/coloro-->[FUNNY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> Not a book but an entire series - thus far there are 10 books centered about the wizard Harry Dresden living in the modern-world Chicago. While the beginning of the series features books with mostly disjunct story lines, eventually the books start carrying over from one to another. There is a reason that every single one of the books from this series has at least 4 stars on amazon - they are very well written.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Furies-Calderon-Codex-Alera-Book/dp/044101268X/ref=pd_sim_b_2" target="_blank">Codex Alera</a> - Jim Butcher <!--coloro:#2E8B57--><span style="color:#2E8B57"><!--/coloro-->[ELVES]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> By the same author as The Dresden Files, this series is set in a medieval-style world. In this fictional world, there are elemental spirits called Furies that every human bonds with while growing up. Through these Furies, people can either enhance their own body and/or control elements. The main character in these books is a boy called Tavi who is unfortunate enough to be the only human known not to have bonded with furies while growing up for (initially) unknown reasons. The story arcs around how Tavi grows up while dealing with his deficiency and, of course, different threats to the Aleran people. As with the Dresden Files, these books are exceptionally well written, every book has at least 4 stars. However, the style is notably different: Codex Alera is written somewhat more serious and does not have the cynical and situational jokes of the Dresden Files. There's no list for the Codex Alera series so I just linked the first book (Furies of Calderon) above. The rest can be found <a href="http://www.jim-butcher.com/books/alera/" target="_blank">here</a>.
I'm going to make up my own tag because YOU CAN'T FIT ME IN YOUR NEAT LITTLE BOX.
<a href="http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/index.html" target="_blank">Lovecraft</a> - pretty much all of it. <!--coloro:#FF8C00--><span style="color:#FF8C00"><!--/coloro-->[SpOoKy]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->[Free?]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> I've been (re)reading a lot of Lovecraft lately. Srsly, some of his stories are pretty predictable, but nothing else creeps me out quite as successfully as Lovecraft. He understands maybe better than anyone before or since that things we don't know or understand are the scariest and most disturbing. Dude does like to use a lot of the same words too much though. Is anything <i>NOT</i> Cyclopean? Stuff is a nerd culture must-read, at any rate.
I think his stuff is in the public domain, but I haven't been able to find any working links on the internet to free versions... hopefully the link above is only temporarily b0rkt. at least there's <a href="http://lolthulhu.com/" target="_blank">this</a>.
KassingerShades of greyJoin Date: 2002-02-20Member: 229Members, Constellation
Risking <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_creep" target="_blank">feature creep</a> I added another tag.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Storm-East-Struggle-Christian-Chronicles/dp/0812974190/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233614103&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Storm from the east</a> by Milton Viorst <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->[HISTORICAL]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#A0522D--><span style="color:#A0522D"><!--/coloro-->[BRAINY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#33CC00--><span style="color:#33CC00"><!--/coloro-->[SHORT]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> A great (but very short) summary of the relationship between the Arab world and the west. It is political and you could argue biased, as it is critical to how the Western world has dealt with the Arab world, but that's the point. It gives perspective to why we've given each other such a hard time lately, beyond "they hate us for our freedom".
It concentrates on the last 100 years, with the time between 600 - 1800 is given 20 or so pages, the book (paperback) being only around 170+ pages in all. It was a great eye-opener and gave me much needed perspective before I had a longer stay in an Arab country.
Also, I've just recently read Malcolm Gladwell's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316010669/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233614943&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Blink</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference/dp/0316346624/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233614943&sr=1-6" target="_blank">The Tipping point</a>, which I find as entertaining non-fiction. I'm looking into to getting <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017922/ref=pd_sim_b_2" target="_blank">Outliers</a> too.
It's rrrrrreading time! Cidsa got on my case in IRC for recommending books she'd already read so here's stuff that's less popular, especially amongst the pasty nerds that you all are. In other words some of these books are more pretentious than what I've generally been recommending.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Man-Ralph-Ellison/dp/0679732764/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237430659&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Invisible Man</a> by Ralph Ellison <!--coloro:#A0522D--><span style="color:#A0522D"><!--/coloro-->[BRAINY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> One of the best books about race relations and racism ever. A fantastic piece of literature that doesn't have an extra word in it, and all the words that ARE in it are pretty fantastic. It's not just a great book, it's one that everybody should read, because if you don't read it, you have been empirically proven to hate black people. Sorry, that's just how it is.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sometimes-Great-Notion-Penguin-Classics/dp/0143039865/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237430805&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Sometimes a Great Notion</a> by Ken Kesey Kesey was one of those Beat hippies but this book is fantastic. It's about loggers in the Pacific Northwest but not in a bad way. They made a movie out of it but you're not allowed to watch the movie instead of reading the book because that sort of misses the point. There are lots of touching, poignant scenes in here which all made it into the movie but just as important is the epic scope of the narrative and the nuance with which the author captures relations between people and you've probably stopped reading my description by now. Goooood book though.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Whom-Bell-Tolls-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0684803356/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237431234&sr=8-1" target="_blank">For Whom the Bell Tolls</a> by Ernest Hemingway <!--coloro:#A0522D--><span style="color:#A0522D"><!--/coloro-->[BRAINY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->[HISTORICAL LIES]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> I almost recommended "A Farewell To Arms" but I figured you guys would want the more exciting one, and this one is set right before World War II in the Spanish Civil War instead of in boring old World War I, and the lovey dovey stuff doesn't go on as long. Oh, and it's a classic and everyone on Earth should read it and it's a fantastic book about war and love and mostly war. In my opinion. If you like this, read "A Farewell To Arms," and if you like that, read "The Sun Also Rises" which is a tough one.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237431426&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Demon Haunted World </a>by Carl Sagan This one's nonfiction. Carl Sagan's that sweet dude who said "billions and billions" in that one TV show. If you have no idea what I'm talking about that's okay. If you've ever been curious about those atheists like Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins or something and their "Why God is a ######" books, this is a fantastic starting point, because instead of being a weener about it, Sagan wrote a really good book that just deals with science and rationality in a very fun, interesting manner. Read the first chapter (you can probably find that online or something) and you'll most likely be hooked.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spook-Country-William-Gibson/dp/0425226719/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237431690&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Spook Country</a>by William Gibson Congratulations on making it to the end of my most elitist book recommendation list yet! Your reward is a book by the dude who wrote Neuromancer and it almost got a "sci-fi" tag because it's almost science fiction, so it'll be right up your alley. Spook Country's about present-day spycraft, but not really spies. Mostly just people, in New York and all over the world, with conspiracies and guns and parkour and kidnapping and translation and stuff. It's more than just your average spy novel because William Gibson is an awesome dude, and it's probably his best work since the Sprawl Trilogy, at least IMHO.
<!--quoteo(post=1702993:date=Mar 19 2009, 02:39 AM:name=TychoCelchuuu)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TychoCelchuuu @ Mar 19 2009, 02:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1702993"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Man-Ralph-Ellison/dp/0679732764/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237430659&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Invisible Man</a> by Ralph Ellison <!--coloro:#A0522D--><span style="color:#A0522D"><!--/coloro-->[BRAINY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> One of the best books about race relations and racism ever. A fantastic piece of literature that doesn't have an extra word in it, and all the words that ARE in it are pretty fantastic. It's not just a great book, it's one that everybody should read, because if you don't read it, you have been empirically proven to hate black people. Sorry, that's just how it is.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This isn't the first time you have written a recommendation in a way that seems to specifically goad people into NOT reading the book just to spite you. Please, if a friend or family member of mine ever gets a book published, don't read it and never talk about it.
Maybe you're just preternaturally disposed towards looking for ways to spite me. In general my recommendations meet with great success; see, for example, the thread about "The Name of the Wind" on these very forums.
puzlThe Old FirmJoin Date: 2003-02-26Member: 14029Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
I second Midnight's Children - I read it on an epic 36 hour train ride from hampi in South India to Calcutta. It's a fantastic read and although very difficult at times to keep abreast of all the references, the book delivers substance that very few other 'magical realism' books come close to. But having said that...
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez <!--coloro:#A0522D--><span style="color:#A0522D"><!--/coloro-->[BRAINY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> A roller coaster ride through a family's history that illuminates how human nature remains the same no matter how much the surface facets of fashion and culture appear to change it. Apparently those of us who don't speak Spanish will never appreciate the true genius of Márquez's writing style.
Hyperion/Endymion Cantos by Dan Simmons <!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro-->[SCIFI]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> Simply the greatest works of sci-fi and the style and pace of each book is very different showing just how much of a master storyteller Simmons is. The first book is probably the best, being a modern re-imagining of the Cantebury tales, but the character development in the later books is second to none.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237776053&sr=1-1" target="_blank">The God Delusion</a> By Richard Dawkins <!--coloro:#A0522D--><span style="color:#A0522D"><!--/coloro-->[BRAINY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#FF00FF--><span style="color:#FF00FF"><!--/coloro-->[FUNNY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> A fantastic book that I recommend to anyone, whether or not they agree or not with its message. "In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence." (Wikipedia) This book, among others, has helped me personally to defend my atheism in debates with delusional people. "We're all atheists, some of us just take it one god further."
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Bible-King-James-Version/dp/1565633253/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237775853&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Holy Boble</a> By Many, Many People <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->[HISTORICAL LIES]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#FF00FF--><span style="color:#FF00FF"><!--/coloro-->[FUNNY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->[FREE]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> A most wondrous work of historical fiction! It is a compilation of writings and stories from various authors, written throughout a vast period of time. It tells many absurdly silly stories, such as the one where the entire earth is flooded by a massive rainstorm, killing everybody, except for the main character Noah, his family and apparently a male and female of every single species of animal on Earth, who escape certain death in a really big boat commissioned by God. That is but one example, but there are many equally absurd tales contained within the pages of this classic. It's also free, just ask your local Jehovah's Witness for a copy.
:edit: <i><!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->Replaced the name Moses with Noah, and adding a note that I was moderately intoxicated during the composition of the above post, honest mistake.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></i>
Comments
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Confederacy-Dunces-John-Kennedy-Toole/dp/0807126063/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232469279&sr=8-1" target="_blank">A Confederacy of Dunces</a> by John Kennedy Toole <!--coloro:#FF00FF--><span style="color:#FF00FF"><!--/coloro-->[FUNNY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
One of the classics of humor, this book is the story of a pompous idiot in New Orleans and the people and city around him. Whether you find it laugh out loud funny or not depends on the person, but even if it wasn't funny at all it would still be a fantastic book, and when you add onto that how uproarious it is, it's pretty much a surefire hit. Unless you don't like it. I've seen it happen. Still, most people love it, and it's one of the great American novels, so it's easily worth the miniscule time it takes to read it now that you've sharpened your mind on EVERY OTHER BOOK I SUGGESTED.
Winner of the Booker Prize, and the "Booker of Bookers" (they determined that this was the best book that had ever been awarded the Booker) Midnight's Children tells the story of the life and ancestry of Saleem Sinai. He is born at the stroke of midnight at the moment that India gained its independence, and, along with all of the other children born in that first hour, he has magical powers. The events in his life are inextricably bound to the fate of India as a nation. Magic is woven into the story, but it is more correct to say that the metaphors in the telling of the story have the power of fact, and affect the lives of the characters as physical forces. The story is told from the narrator's fallible memory, time jumps around as easily as symbols in his memory jump in and out of reality. It's a great introduction to the history and culture of India, and is beautifully written, though it helps to know a bit about the history of India going in.
Not a book but an entire series - thus far there are 10 books centered about the wizard Harry Dresden living in the modern-world Chicago. While the beginning of the series features books with mostly disjunct story lines, eventually the books start carrying over from one to another. There is a reason that every single one of the books from this series has at least 4 stars on amazon - they are very well written.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Furies-Calderon-Codex-Alera-Book/dp/044101268X/ref=pd_sim_b_2" target="_blank">Codex Alera</a> - Jim Butcher <!--coloro:#2E8B57--><span style="color:#2E8B57"><!--/coloro-->[ELVES]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
By the same author as The Dresden Files, this series is set in a medieval-style world. In this fictional world, there are elemental spirits called Furies that every human bonds with while growing up. Through these Furies, people can either enhance their own body and/or control elements. The main character in these books is a boy called Tavi who is unfortunate enough to be the only human known not to have bonded with furies while growing up for (initially) unknown reasons. The story arcs around how Tavi grows up while dealing with his deficiency and, of course, different threats to the Aleran people. As with the Dresden Files, these books are exceptionally well written, every book has at least 4 stars. However, the style is notably different: Codex Alera is written somewhat more serious and does not have the cynical and situational jokes of the Dresden Files.
There's no list for the Codex Alera series so I just linked the first book (Furies of Calderon) above. The rest can be found <a href="http://www.jim-butcher.com/books/alera/" target="_blank">here</a>.
<a href="http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/index.html" target="_blank">Lovecraft</a> - pretty much all of it. <!--coloro:#FF8C00--><span style="color:#FF8C00"><!--/coloro-->[SpOoKy]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->[Free?]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
I've been (re)reading a lot of Lovecraft lately. Srsly, some of his stories are pretty predictable, but nothing else creeps me out quite as successfully as Lovecraft. He understands maybe better than anyone before or since that things we don't know or understand are the scariest and most disturbing. Dude does like to use a lot of the same words too much though. Is anything <i>NOT</i> Cyclopean? Stuff is a nerd culture must-read, at any rate.
I think his stuff is in the public domain, but I haven't been able to find any working links on the internet to free versions... hopefully the link above is only temporarily b0rkt. at least there's <a href="http://lolthulhu.com/" target="_blank">this</a>.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Storm-East-Struggle-Christian-Chronicles/dp/0812974190/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233614103&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Storm from the east</a> by Milton Viorst <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->[HISTORICAL]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#A0522D--><span style="color:#A0522D"><!--/coloro-->[BRAINY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#33CC00--><span style="color:#33CC00"><!--/coloro-->[SHORT]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
A great (but very short) summary of the relationship between the Arab world and the west. It is political and you could argue biased, as it is critical to how the Western world has dealt with the Arab world, but that's the point. It gives perspective to why we've given each other such a hard time lately, beyond "they hate us for our freedom".
It concentrates on the last 100 years, with the time between 600 - 1800 is given 20 or so pages, the book (paperback) being only around 170+ pages in all. It was a great eye-opener and gave me much needed perspective before I had a longer stay in an Arab country.
Also, I've just recently read Malcolm Gladwell's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316010669/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233614943&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Blink</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference/dp/0316346624/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233614943&sr=1-6" target="_blank">The Tipping point</a>, which I find as entertaining non-fiction. I'm looking into to getting <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017922/ref=pd_sim_b_2" target="_blank">Outliers</a> too.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Man-Ralph-Ellison/dp/0679732764/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237430659&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Invisible Man</a> by Ralph Ellison <!--coloro:#A0522D--><span style="color:#A0522D"><!--/coloro-->[BRAINY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
One of the best books about race relations and racism ever. A fantastic piece of literature that doesn't have an extra word in it, and all the words that ARE in it are pretty fantastic. It's not just a great book, it's one that everybody should read, because if you don't read it, you have been empirically proven to hate black people. Sorry, that's just how it is.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sometimes-Great-Notion-Penguin-Classics/dp/0143039865/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237430805&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Sometimes a Great Notion</a> by Ken Kesey
Kesey was one of those Beat hippies but this book is fantastic. It's about loggers in the Pacific Northwest but not in a bad way. They made a movie out of it but you're not allowed to watch the movie instead of reading the book because that sort of misses the point. There are lots of touching, poignant scenes in here which all made it into the movie but just as important is the epic scope of the narrative and the nuance with which the author captures relations between people and you've probably stopped reading my description by now. Goooood book though.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Whom-Bell-Tolls-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/0684803356/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237431234&sr=8-1" target="_blank">For Whom the Bell Tolls</a> by Ernest Hemingway <!--coloro:#A0522D--><span style="color:#A0522D"><!--/coloro-->[BRAINY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->[HISTORICAL LIES]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
I almost recommended "A Farewell To Arms" but I figured you guys would want the more exciting one, and this one is set right before World War II in the Spanish Civil War instead of in boring old World War I, and the lovey dovey stuff doesn't go on as long. Oh, and it's a classic and everyone on Earth should read it and it's a fantastic book about war and love and mostly war. In my opinion. If you like this, read "A Farewell To Arms," and if you like that, read "The Sun Also Rises" which is a tough one.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237431426&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Demon Haunted World </a>by Carl Sagan
This one's nonfiction. Carl Sagan's that sweet dude who said "billions and billions" in that one TV show. If you have no idea what I'm talking about that's okay. If you've ever been curious about those atheists like Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins or something and their "Why God is a ######" books, this is a fantastic starting point, because instead of being a weener about it, Sagan wrote a really good book that just deals with science and rationality in a very fun, interesting manner. Read the first chapter (you can probably find that online or something) and you'll most likely be hooked.
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spook-Country-William-Gibson/dp/0425226719/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237431690&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Spook Country</a>by William Gibson
Congratulations on making it to the end of my most elitist book recommendation list yet! Your reward is a book by the dude who wrote Neuromancer and it almost got a "sci-fi" tag because it's almost science fiction, so it'll be right up your alley. Spook Country's about present-day spycraft, but not really spies. Mostly just people, in New York and all over the world, with conspiracies and guns and parkour and kidnapping and translation and stuff. It's more than just your average spy novel because William Gibson is an awesome dude, and it's probably his best work since the Sprawl Trilogy, at least IMHO.
8 Times.
One of the best books about race relations and racism ever. A fantastic piece of literature that doesn't have an extra word in it, and all the words that ARE in it are pretty fantastic. It's not just a great book, it's one that everybody should read, because if you don't read it, you have been empirically proven to hate black people. Sorry, that's just how it is.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This isn't the first time you have written a recommendation in a way that seems to specifically goad people into NOT reading the book just to spite you. Please, if a friend or family member of mine ever gets a book published, don't read it and never talk about it.
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez <!--coloro:#A0522D--><span style="color:#A0522D"><!--/coloro-->[BRAINY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
A roller coaster ride through a family's history that illuminates how human nature remains the same no matter how much the surface facets of fashion and culture appear to change it. Apparently those of us who don't speak Spanish will never appreciate the true genius of Márquez's writing style.
Hyperion/Endymion Cantos by Dan Simmons <!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro-->[SCIFI]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Simply the greatest works of sci-fi and the style and pace of each book is very different showing just how much of a master storyteller Simmons is. The first book is probably the best, being a modern re-imagining of the Cantebury tales, but the character development in the later books is second to none.
A fantastic book that I recommend to anyone, whether or not they agree or not with its message. "In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence." (Wikipedia) This book, among others, has helped me personally to defend my atheism in debates with delusional people. "We're all atheists, some of us just take it one god further."
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Bible-King-James-Version/dp/1565633253/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237775853&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Holy Boble</a> By Many, Many People <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->[HISTORICAL LIES]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#FF00FF--><span style="color:#FF00FF"><!--/coloro-->[FUNNY]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->[FREE]<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
A most wondrous work of historical fiction! It is a compilation of writings and stories from various authors, written throughout a vast period of time. It tells many absurdly silly stories, such as the one where the entire earth is flooded by a massive rainstorm, killing everybody, except for the main character Noah, his family and apparently a male and female of every single species of animal on Earth, who escape certain death in a really big boat commissioned by God. That is but one example, but there are many equally absurd tales contained within the pages of this classic. It's also free, just ask your local Jehovah's Witness for a copy.
:edit: <i><!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->Replaced the name Moses with Noah, and adding a note that I was moderately intoxicated during the composition of the above post, honest mistake.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></i>