General / Off-Topic What books would you advise others to read once in their lifetime?

Felix DiCestria

Felix DiCestria
Caramel Clown said:
Was browsing local book store, looking for another impulse purchase I suppose. Stumbled upon this beauty, couldn't pass. This is my coffee table book now :D Is this topic related? Somewhat...not really.

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Best of American;
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And European engineering;
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Sir Wintermute

Sir Wintermute
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
Leviathan Wakes by James S A Corey
A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin
The Tale of The Eternal Champion by Micheal Moorcock
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
Mort by Terry Pratchett
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Many Coloured Land by Julian May
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
 

Crumley

Crumley
highly recommend Peter F Hamilton's Greg Mandel trilogy - Mindstar Rising, A Quantum Murder and The Nanoflower. brilliant near-future sci-fi.

Also The Wise Mans Fear by Patrick Rothfuss just for his use of language.

Anything by Glen Cook: his Black Company series are my most read books.

My favourite Pratchett is Night Watch: to me it feels the best plotted and most lovingly crafted.
 

Bolasie

Bolasie
Once you have read The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion (which of course you will do anyway) - make sure to read 'Lost Tales' and 'Unfinished Tales' - excellent and often overlooked.

Also,, 'The Years of Rice and Salt', all of Conan Doyles 'Sherlock Holmes' collections - and my Son heartily recommends 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'
 

Jezzah

Jezzah
Max Factor said:
A lot of what I would have said is already been added.

So I will go with this:
The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie.

Superb series of books and the other books in the world are equally excellent.
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Yes yes yes yes.

A great series that fully deserves to get a TV adaptation. Glokta is a brilliant character, one of the most unfortunate and intriguing characters I've ever read about. That series would really transfer well into TV.
 

Lasse B.

Lasse B.
Daemon (Pt.1) - Daniel Suarez
Freedom / Darknet (Pt.2) - Daniel Suarez
Influx - Daniel Suarez
Kill Decision - Daniel Suarez

Absolutely loved his first two books. The last two books mentioned were also good reads, however not quite on the same level. Haven't read anything else from him so far.


Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Humans do what humans do best - eradicating themselves and continuing to do so even in the face of certain extinction. Salvation comes in a highly unusual form.

Bobiverse Trilogy - Dennis E. Taylor
Robert has his head frozen after some accident, to be attached to a new body some time in the future when such endeavors are possible. When he wakes up about 100 years later he finds out not only has the world fundamentally changed and he also doesn't have a body, his personality has been digitized and is about to become the operating system of the first Von Neumann probe, tasked with exploring the universe.
 

Senzafine

Senzafine
Drunk with Blood: God's Killings in the Bible by Steve Wells.

Steve takes us on a journey through the Bible and keeps careful track of every killing attributed to God, accompanied with a pithy and hilarious commentary.
 

Lucien Trask

Lucien Trask
Alec Turner and The_Wintermute are on point with their suggestions. My list:

Single books
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
Neuromancer - William Gibson
This Perfect Day - Ira Levin
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
The Daily Stoic - Ryan Holiday
The Martian - Andy Weir
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
1984 - George Orwell
The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. (All his works are great, but I stuck to my favourite)
The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft - H.P. Lovecraft
The Stand - Stephen King
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
I am Legend - Richard Matheson (The movie is not a valid basis of judgement. Goes against the main premise of the book).
Altered Carbon - Richard K. Morgan
American Gods - Neil Gaiman. (His short story "A Study in Emerald" is probably my favourite short story of all time. Also his Sandman comics are incredible)

Series (
The Commonwealth Saga / The Void Trilogy - Peter F. Hamilton
The Expanse - James S.A. Corey
A Song of Ice and Fire - George R.R. Martin. (I would recommend waiting till it's finished though. I read the first book in 1996, and I'm still waiting for closure).
Malazan Book of the Fallen - Steven Erikson
The Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan


Ack, I got carried away. Apologies.

edit: forgot Neil Gaiman!
 
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Stigbob

Stigbob
Patrick_68000 said:
An excellent thing for lovers of reading !
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Yep, I found out Neal Asher has written a couple of new ones (thanks to this thread). Within 10 minutes I'd checked they don't have them at the branch here and banged in a request for them to be transferred. I'll get an e-mail when they are there usually takes about a week or so.

Makes any branch just like a huge metropolitan library.
 
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