Book Recommendations

[Blivsey]

Since this forum was totally empty, I decided to throw this in. The thread is just what it says on the tin: you recommend a book that you think is really good.


Technically not a book, but often treated similarly: After reading Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream recently, I have a newfound love for Shakespeare. If you can learn to read the style in which he writes (and/or have an annotated version of the play, it helps), you find that Shakespeare makes tons of phallic jokes and various puns. MC's depiction of him in the comic may be fairly accurate.

Example/Fun Fact: It's heavily implied that Juliet is only about 13-14, while Romeo is heavily implied to be around age 20. A bit awkward by today's standards, and even a bit by theirs.


Further, I recommend go reading the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Holmes is very different in the stories from most familiar adaptions; he's a bit of a manipulative chessmaster in his sleuthing, a druggie and generally a bit of a pain to be around. On the other hand, the stories are nearly impossible to figure out and it's crazy to see Holmes solve them almost effortlessly. A majority of them are short stories, at the most 20 pages long, so you can just read one whenever you've got the spare time.

[Mastercougar]

Yeah, Shakespeare's great if you know how to read him.

I absolutely love the Uplift Universe of David Brin, who imagines a universe in which mankind is late to the intergalactic party. It features aliens whose galactic culture involves species continuously uplifting each other into intelligence. Naturally, they're flabberghasted when "orphaned" humanity stumbles onto the scene. Great stuff, and really well thought-out. Brin's "Earth," which predicted a network much like the Web, is superb as well.

I enjoy most of Madeline L'Engle's work (seriously, she has more superb stories than just A Wrinkle In Time), as well as Sylvia Engdahl's very interesting stories on cultural evolution.

There's also a little gem called Sophie's World, which gives a basic overview of philosophy wrapped up inside an excellent reality-bending adventure.

Finally, I reccomend The Elegant Universe, which is a must for anyone who wants to understand advanced physics, including string theory. It's very clearly written, but I must admit it lost me once we got to M-Theory and branes.

[jeshi]

I've tried reading Shakespeare but it isn't the grammar that throws me off but rather that the F's look like S's. I keep reading it as "Sor sredric was sondling his soft sresh sarm when his samily came over to give him a gist os wool and sreetoes"

I recommend the Havemercy series. The first book drags on a bit in the beginning but once you get towards the end of the first book it really picks up and none of the momentum is lost when you get into the other books in the series.