Corte Madera Chronicles

A group blog; a place to share photos, thoughts, stupid shit we find on the internet, whatever. Hopefully we'll get at least one post per day from someone, and not so many posts that it's too overwhelming. Have fun!

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

book recommendations?

I need books. What have you all read that's good?

I like novels with:

-lots of plot. Definitely narrative-driven.

-good characters

-good prose

-some kind of science-fiction or fantasy element, usually.

I just read "The Big U" by Neal Stephenson and really liked it. He wrote Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon and several other great books; this was his first novel and didn't get published till after he became successful with the later stuff. He's a BU grad and there are definite echoes of Warren Towers etc in this one. As well as giant mutant rats, live-action gaming, oldschool hacking, dorms gone wild; all kinds of fun stuff.

Or, any nonfiction recommendations? Especially history books with an appreciation for narrative and with writing that's not too dry.

Hook me up.

7 Comments:

At 2:17 AM, Blogger Lorrimer said...

Read it. It's great. Plagues and Peoples is similar and almost as good.

 
At 8:20 AM, Blogger Lucas Krech said...

I don't make distinctions between fact and fiction, and as far as I'm concerned everything in fantasy. That being said, top 10 all time favorites are:
The Invisibles - Grant Morrison
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Joy of Sex - Alex Comfort
Ho Chi Minh: A life -William J. Duiker
Being and Time - Martin Heidegger
Transmetropolitan - Warren Ellis
1984 - George Orwell
Chaos - James Gleick
Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas S. Kuhn
Tortilla Flats - John Steinbeck

 
At 3:10 PM, Blogger wjackalope said...

I have no idea if you would like this stuff but Dad got me into this guy Carl Hiaasen who writes really funny books which all take place in Florida and generally have some type of pro-environment message. They have good characters, are fast reads, and are just lots of fun. "Sick Puppy" is probably the best one, but "Lucky You" was good also.

Of course all I've read lately is "Motor Speech Disorders" and "Language Disorders" and I wouldn't say those have good characters or much in the way of storylines.

 
At 12:08 AM, Blogger Lorrimer said...

I've never been able to get in to The Invisibles. I haven't really really tried, but the couple of times I've casually picked it up, I've been turned off by the lack of a simple and coherent plot that morons like me can understand.

 
At 7:47 AM, Blogger Lucas Krech said...

That's because its at least seven different plots interwoven to decenter traditional protagonist style storytelling. This is different than subplots because depending upone perspective, each one is actually the main plot.

Damnit I just gave the whole book away. Ok, well not the whole book. . .

You should read Tortilla Flats. You would love it. It is short, plot driven, and tells the story of the knights of the round table through a bunch of drunks in Monterrey.

 
At 6:34 PM, Blogger lia said...

have you ever read a game of thrones?

 
At 12:31 AM, Blogger Lorrimer said...

Ha ha, Lia.

 

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