Book recommendations

I'll try not to forget about this when I go to the bookstore this week. Although it's more likely an Amazon order. The new Stephen King will likely be an in-store purchase.

kind of The Stand meets Dr. Strangelove. You will love it. Warning: VERY graphic.
 
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Oh, I have to add, I just re-read these recently.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series & The Dirk Gently series - (The One-and-Only) Douglas Adams
 
Oh, I have to add, I just re-read these recently.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series & The Dirk Gently series - (The One-and-Only) Douglas Adams

I’m overdue to reread HHGTTG. I love those books. Douglas Adams was awesome. I got to meet him once - total thrill. I got a couple books signed - and proceeded to tease my buddy, who’d sent books to DNA to be signed, had to resend them, and ultimately ended up spending $60 on the project. I got mine signed for a $10 ticket - and got to meet the man.

Have you read “Salmon Of Doubt”? I’ve had it for years but haven’t read it yet. It’s like it’ll really be over if I do.
 
In my younger years I read a lot of Piers Anthony, especially his Magic of Zanth series. They are chock full of puns. His Incarnations of Immortality series is also very interesting.
 
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In my younger years I read a lot of Piers Anthony, especially his Magic of Zanth series. They are chock full of puns. His Incarnations of Immortality series is also very interesting.

dude you ain’t lying, those books are special, i read them starting with the ‘blue adept’ in the 1980s. i made my lady friend listen to some of the audiobooks a couple years back and whoa the nostalgia it was thiiiiiiick.
 
For science fiction fans, The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End, a trilogy by Cixen Liu that's really interesting.

For history fans, George Marshall, by David Roll is one of the best books I've read in a long time. You really get an appreciation of what a great man Marshall was, and how well he served this country.

Zara Steiner's The Triumph of the Dark explores the years between WWI and WWII, and there's lots of information that wasn't touched on in other books on the topic I've read. Steiner passed away this year, and I believe this was her last book. The analysis and how she brings this material to life are astoundingly good.

The Wages of Destruction
, by Adam Tooze, explores what happened in Germany economically during WWII and leading up to it. The emphasis is on the economic issues that doomed them from the 1930s throughout the arms buildup and the subsequent war, and mismanagement of whatever economic opportunities they might have had after the conquest of France in 1940. It's a real eye-opener to a subject matter that's rarely discussed by historians. It explains a lot. Not everything, but a lot.

Klaus Mann's classic book Alexander is a semi fictional work about Alexander the Great. Alexander is always an interesting subject. Klaus Mann was the son of Thomas Mann, who fled Germany before the war and wound up an American citizen. Klaus served in the US Army, but was himself an author who wrote in a German style.

Speaking of classic books by German authors, if you've never read it before, Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game is an amazing tale that raises interesting philosophical questions, but it's also a wonderfully entertaining read. Hesse was also the author of Siddhartha, a book every hippie was required by the Law of Hipness to read in the '60s, but he was far from a hippie. Think of him as the intellectual counterweight to Vonnegut, both using the novel to comment on the weirdness of the world. I read this in college (yes my college was in a cave and the material was taught by shamans, but it was all we had), and re-read it this year.

Richard Miles' Carthage Must Be Destroyed explores the Punic Wars that kicked off the era of Roman power in the Mediterranean. I wish they'd titled it Carthago Delenda Est, the famous Latin phrase every high school Latin student translates from the speech made by Cato the Censor that means the same thing Oh well. Cato probably said Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam, anyway, but students are taught the shorter phrase in Latin 2. Regardless, it's an interesting read.

If you like a little philosophy along with your intellectual history, there's no better read than The Age of Genius, by A.C. Grayling. It's about the science developed in the 17th Century that got the modern era going. We don't think about the 17th Century much, but it started with Galileo and culminated in Sir Isaac Newton. Pretty important era. Grayling is a terrific writer, and brings the history to life.

Empires of the Sea includes the battles of Malta, Lepanto, and others for control of the mediterranean between Western European states and the Turkish Empire in the 1500s; it's pretty engrossing stuff. Roger Crowley is an excellent historian, and a good writer.

For those interested in Civil War history, Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is the most detailed analysis of the battles he led and of his career during the period from the Mexican war through the Civil War. Turns out Grant was an excellent writer! I expected flowery 19th Century prose. Nope. It's a very modern read, and it's actually pretty exciting, if you like military history. It's also interesting to read a book by the person who lived it, as opposed to a person studying it a century and a half later.

If you've never read Churchill's series of histories of his WWII experiences, the man was a great writer - in fact, he was published beginning in the late 19th Century, was a war correspondent himself (Boer War) and had already written a very good book on Marlborough, his ancestor, before the war. There's a lot of Churchill being egocentric Churchill in this series, but again, it's history by the person who lived it, instead of history one or two generations removed from events.
 
In my younger years I read a lot of Piers Anthony, especially his Magic of Zanth series. They are chock full of puns. His Incarnations of Immortality series is also very interesting.
The Shade of the Tree is an excellent Piers Anthony novel.

Make sure you read all 5 books of the Hitchhikers trilogy. That's DA humor!
 
dude you ain’t lying, those books are special, i read them starting with the ‘blue adept’ in the 1980s. i made my lady friend listen to some of the audiobooks a couple years back and whoa the nostalgia it was thiiiiiiick.
Blue Adept was what got me hooked on Mr. Anthony too. I quite litterally ran into him at a shopping mall in Virginia. He was there for a book signing, and we ran into each other going into, out of the mall rest rooms. It was one of those, you look familiar moments, then realizing who he was when he was sitting outside the book store. I did'nt get anything signed because I was a broke sailor. But, it was a memorable moment for me.
 
In the middle of Obama's book, "A Promised Land"

Recently completed:
Confess - Rob Halford
Ian Gillan's autobiography
Sean Parnell - Outlaw Platoon (non-fiction) and Man Of War (fiction)
Greenlights - Matthew McConaughey - the Mrs said I had to read this. Glad I did. It was a good read
Difficult Conversations With A Black Man - Emmanuel Acho
Full Force and Effect - Tom Clancy (Mark Greaney)


and, I've got a bunch to read..............


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For science fiction fans, The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End, a trilogy by Cixen Liu that's really interesting.

For history fans, George Marshall, by David Roll is one of the best books I've read in a long time. You really get an appreciation of what a great man Marshall was, and how well he served this country.

Zara Steiner's The Triumph of the Dark explores the years between WWI and WWII, and there's lots of information that wasn't touched on in other books on the topic I've read. Steiner passed away this year, and I believe this was her last book. The analysis and how she brings this material to life are astoundingly good.

The Wages of Destruction
, by Adam Tooze, explores what happened in Germany economically during WWII and leading up to it. The emphasis is on the economic issues that doomed them from the 1930s throughout the arms buildup and the subsequent war, and mismanagement of whatever economic opportunities they might have had after the conquest of France in 1940. It's a real eye-opener to a subject matter that's rarely discussed by historians. It explains a lot. Not everything, but a lot.

Klaus Mann's classic book Alexander is a semi fictional work about Alexander the Great. Alexander is always an interesting subject. Klaus Mann was the son of Thomas Mann, who fled Germany before the war and wound up an American citizen. Klaus served in the US Army, but was himself an author who wrote in a German style.

Speaking of classic books by German authors, if you've never read it before, Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game is an amazing tale that raises interesting philosophical questions, but it's also a wonderfully entertaining read. Hesse was also the author of Siddhartha, a book every hippie was required by the Law of Hipness to read in the '60s, but he was far from a hippie. Think of him as the intellectual counterweight to Vonnegut, both using the novel to comment on the weirdness of the world. I read this in college (yes my college was in a cave and the material was taught by shamans, but it was all we had), and re-read it this year.

Richard Miles' Carthage Must Be Destroyed explores the Punic Wars that kicked off the era of Roman power in the Mediterranean. I wish they'd titled it Carthago Delenda Est, the famous Latin phrase every high school Latin student translates from the speech made by Cato the Censor that means the same thing Oh well. Cato probably said Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam, anyway, but students are taught the shorter phrase in Latin 2. Regardless, it's an interesting read.

If you like a little philosophy along with your intellectual history, there's no better read than The Age of Genius, by A.C. Grayling. It's about the science developed in the 17th Century that got the modern era going. We don't think about the 17th Century much, but it started with Galileo and culminated in Sir Isaac Newton. Pretty important era. Grayling is a terrific writer, and brings the history to life.

Empires of the Sea includes the battles of Malta, Lepanto, and others for control of the mediterranean between Western European states and the Turkish Empire in the 1500s; it's pretty engrossing stuff. Roger Crowley is an excellent historian, and a good writer.

For those interested in Civil War history, Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is the most detailed analysis of the battles he led and of his career during the period from the Mexican war through the Civil War. Turns out Grant was an excellent writer! I expected flowery 19th Century prose. Nope. It's a very modern read, and it's actually pretty exciting, if you like military history. It's also interesting to read a book by the person who lived it, as opposed to a person studying it a century and a half later.

If you've never read Churchill's series of histories of his WWII experiences, the man was a great writer - in fact, he was published beginning in the late 19th Century, was a war correspondent himself (Boer War) and had already written a very good book on Marlborough, his ancestor, before the war. There's a lot of Churchill being egocentric Churchill in this series, but again, it's history by the person who lived it, instead of history one or two generations removed from events.

I went down a Hesse path in college, and really enjoyed it. I Narcissus and Goldmine, Steppenwolf, and Glass Bead Game were my favorites. He was quite a Renaissance Man, author, poet, artist, sex symbol. Well, maybe not that last point.
 
I’m about to finish ‘Breath’, it feels a lot like a Michael Pollan book. Those are all great too, I’m mad I’ve already read his whole catalog. Botany of Desire, In Defense of Food, Cooked, A Place of My Own, How To Change Your Mind, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, all worth reading.


and, I've got a bunch to read..............

From the look of what’s in those stacks you might like ‘Rogue Male’ by Geoffrey Household. It’s a classic spy/espionage thriller from 1939, really good. Not too long, definitely a precursor to characters like Jack Ryan.
 
A few of the more recent books I've read and recommend.
  • Tommy Orange, There, There. I'm still processing this, but it's very moving. It's about the experience of Native Americans in Oakland, California. As a non-spoiler warning, however, the climatic scene is violent.
  • Jennifer, Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad. Several characters are involved in the music industry, and it doesn't paint the most flattering picture, but I was very impressed with it, including some narrative techniques.
  • Ted Chiang, Exhalation. A collection of sci-fi short stories. I haven't read much sci-fi but really liked this.
  • Margaret Atwood, The Testaments. I was concerned about a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, but I think it's quite good. I have some issues with how tidily some things end, though.
  • Robin Kelley, Thelonious Monk, The Life and Times of an American Original. An in-depth biography of Monk. This was mostly my waiting-room book for a year, but it's exceptionally well done. If you're interested in Monk or jazz and be-bop consider reading it.
  • Oliver Sacks, Musicophillia, Tales of Music and the Brain. Sacks' case studies are well-known and exceptional, and music hits especially close to home.
  • Junot Diaz, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I read this a while ago now, but it's one of my favorites read in the last decade.
 
:)

I hadn't planned on reading it, but it is actually really good. His writing style, or something, makes it read like a "I'm not a former President"

I enjoyed it, looking forward to part two. I wanna know his current thoughts now on the Edward Snowden whistleblower deal.

As far as presidential accounts go, Rawhide Down is a good read on Ronald Reagan’s attempted assassination.

A friend of mine was on the SS away detail for Bush ‘43. He has some cool stories, wish he’d write a memoir.
 
I enjoyed it, looking forward to part two. I wanna know his current thoughts now on the Edward Snowden whistleblower deal.

As far as presidential accounts go, Rawhide Down is a good read on Ronald Reagan’s attempted assassination.

A friend of mine was on the SS away detail for Bush ‘43. He has some cool stories, wish he’d write a memoir.
I'll grab part 2, as well. Cool on the SS agent.
 
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