Any Time Travel / Paradox recomendations other then Timeline? I will have to pick up "Confederacy of Dunces" today.
He doesn't care for SF, so fantasy would likely be off the list, a pity. Loved Pullman's trilogy. I could come up with loads of SF and fantasy titles that are excellent. Hey, rezdawg, if you like history and mystery in a novel, try Roman Blood, by Steven Saylor. Westerns? Larry McMurtry has only written the best ever, Lonesome Dove. Read it? Try Sin Killer. First in the best series he's done since Dove and the followups. Historical fiction from the era of the Napoleonic Wars and the heyday of the British Empire? Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe series. Wonderful stuff. The best of that genre, in my opinion? Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, the first being Master and Commander. Can't praise it enough. Far superior to the film, of which part of the plot was taken from Master and Commander. I've read the entire series at least 4 times.
Here are some books recommended for work, but might be of general interest, particularly if you like stuff by Krakauer, Junger, and the like... Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean and Fire on the Mountain by his son John Maclean... both examine major tragedies in the history of wildland fire and the changes they brought. Both are quick reads and regardless of your profession or interests, you'll learn something about organizational failures, decision-making, and leadership under great stress. Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield... about the Battle of Thermopylae, but also about leadership, doctrine, and organizational effectiveness. A good read. Freedom at Midnight by Collins and Lapierre... a history of India's independence, but also enlightening on Gandhi's organizational abilities and leadership. While many will be familar with the general outlines of the story through the movie, it is still remarkable and the movie does not do Gandhi justice. When you get the details, you wonder how he ever did it. Fire On The Rim: A Firefighter’s Season at the Grand Canyon by Steven Pyne... a fun read that even has a thinly disguised Edward Abbey character making an appearance or two. Learn about fire, learn about small group dynamics, learn about the Grand Canyon. Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales... Why do some people survive and others don't? Gonzales tries to answer that question by looking at how survivors keep their wits about them. Here's our current suggested reading list if anyone's interested... heavy on organizational effectiveness and leadership... http://www.fireleadership.gov/toolbox/documents/pro_reading_list.htm
Shan - rufs? Read COD NOW!!!! Right now I'm reading "Genghis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford and also Woodward's book "State of Denial." Some random recommendations: Phillip Roth's American Pastoral, Michael Chabon's Kavalier and Clay and some Mark Twain. I read Huckleberry Finn again a couple weeks ago and I was reminded of how much I love Twain. Next on my list: The Audacity of Hope by Obama and some fiction...some Hemingway probably.
A somewhat quick, funny read is Syrup by Max Barry. Heavy satirical fiction on marketing, corporate life, and commercialism. It includes a character named 6. 'Nuff said. Jennifer Government by Barry is also pretty good.
If you like Lonesome Dove I would suggest Comanche Moon which is part of the Lonesome Dove series. That's by far my favorite book and I've probably read it about ten times.
I highly recommend "Replay " which is about a guy who dies but goes back in time to his body as a teen. He has all his memories in-tact so he can be rich and do pretty much anything. But he still dies at the same age, but comes back later and later in his youth. It's kind of like a cross between Groundhog day and quantum leap. There's also The Time Traveler's Wife which is about a guy that spontaneously travels back and forth through time, and the relationship that he builds with his future wife as she is growing up. They're both smaller-scale, personal stories using a time travel as a device, but they're well written and well thought out.
What do you think of it so far? I've been thinking about picking it up myself. Good recommendation indeed.
If you like crime fiction: Dennis Lehane- " A Drink Before The War"-all of his books I enjoyed with the Pat McKenzie- Gina characters Charlie Huston-trilogy-hard to put down "Caught Stealing" Six Bad Things" "A Dangerous Man" Any Michael Conelly book with the Harry Bosch Character The Jeffrey Deaver books with the Lincoln Rhyme character Greg Iles-author-"The Quiet Game" Any of the John Sandford books with "Prey " in the title-"Rules of Prey"-the first and my favorite Any of Stephen Leather's books- "The Chinaman" is my favorite-theme of revenge Thank you to someone on the board for recommending "Gates of Fire" - I really liked it
Can anyone recommend any "caper" or "heist" novels. Either comical or more serious. I love anything that's basically a book version of movies like Ocean's 11, the Italian Job or the Thomas Crown affair. I've read a whole bunch of Donald Westlake's "Dortmunder" novels, and love them. And I also like Ross Thomas' "Wu and Durant" books. Like I said earlier about business novels, heist novels are way under-served. You can't throw a rock into a book store without hitting a legal thriller, mystery or romance novel, but business novels are non-existent, and heist novels aren't that far ahead. So while we're on the subject, anyone got recommendations for business novels. Like I said before, I'm a big fan of Jeffrey Archer's old stuff (As the Crow Flies, Kane and Abel etc). I'm a sucker for any hero's journey type stories set in the business world. A guy who climbs up from the bottom and ends up becoming a corporate badass. It seems like such a can't miss premise, and yet these kinds of books are nowhere to be found. And they wonder why women make up such a huge percentage of the fiction buying public.
fyi, i bought this book (The New Psycho Cybernetics) on your recommendation, after reading some other user reviews of it. haven't gotten around to reading it yet, because i'm too caught up in watching the first 5 seasons of The Shield . am looking forward to it though. hopefully it will change my life as well.
