Good books?

bscotchseth

GANG!

What are some good books you'd recommend everyone should read? Here are a few off the top of my head:

• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (get motivated to get shit done)
• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (learn how to rewire your brain)
• The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell (100 ways to think about game design from different perspectives)
• The Stand by Stephen King (awesome fiction)
• Star Force Series by B.V. Larson (light-hearted yet badass military sci-fi)
• Codex Alera Series by Jim Butcher (easily some of the best fantasy I've ever read)

Anyone have other recommendations?

CBenoit

BscotchSeth said:

• The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell (100 ways to think about game design from different perspectives)

Agreed, I got that books 5 years ago, and it's really interesting to read.

To my mind, some interesting books as well :

• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - book by the neurologist Oliver Sacks describing the case histories of some of his patients. Interesting and touching.
• Discworld - A comic fantasy book series by Terry Pratchett. Amusing.
• Little brother - Writen by Cory Doctorow, the book is Inspired by 1984. It's about new technology and government espionage.
• 1984 - By George Orwell, a great book in a dysutopian world.
  

SeiferTim

• THIS is my all-time favorite book, ever, even though I haven't been into the game for about a decade now, I still re-read it about once a year.
• Although mentioned already, you should read ALL of the 40 Discworld Books by Terry Pratchett - although, if you need a place to start, Mort, Small Gods, and Guards! Guards! are great ones to start with (I'll even lend them to you, Costers, if you ask)
• Swords and Circuitry is a pretty neat book about designing RPGs, and many of the sections have helped with writing Aikonia.
• Pretty much anything by Neil deGrasse Tyson is fun, interesting, and overflowing with SCIENCE!
• The first few books in the Sword of Truth (Terry Goodkind) series are okay, Wizard's First Rule by itself is decent, although the story really drags on and makes no sense after the 3rd book... BUT, if you read the first few, then skip ahead to The Pillars of Creation, he does some interesting things with storytelling that is pretty cool.
• If you can find them in book-form, the Tintin comics still hold up and are fun and full of adventure.

bscotchseth

GOD DANG. Going to have to expand my reading list.

R4V3N

The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy series, Douglas Adams speaks to my soul.

InferiorPickle

Try Prey by Michael Crichton

fatbard

I dig big long series. Here's a few standouts.

The Black Company - The first three come in one book nowadays, those are a great read. If you want you can finish up all 8-10 books (can't remember). The series was somewhat groundbreaking in that it took fantasy and made it dark and gritty. The main guys are kind of good and kind of bad. Many shades of gray.

The Dark Tower - I know most folks didn't read this past book 1, since honestly book 1 is kind of trash, but if you get past that and continue it's worth it. It's a great series that is NOT typical fantasy/science fiction stuff. While I'm not a huge Stephen King fan I really dug this.

Hyperion - The series as a whole is okay, past the first two books it gets a little over the top, but hey, don't most series? The first two (Hyperion Cantos) are surely worth a look.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen - Basically a love letter to The Black Company, but in super epic form. Each book is over 1,000 pages paperback, and there's 10 of them. The series is good in that it stays interesting and, while it doesn't end exactly where it began, you do have the same cast plus a bunch more. One thing about Game of Thrones that irks me is that by the 4th book there's almost nobody left who was in the first book, and the story is all over the place. If you're ready to spend at least 6 months reading a series then go for it!

There's a bunch more I could list but most folks already know them like LOTR and Ender's Game and such.

Oh and if you want a short single book check out Ready Player One. It's totally geeked out but it was a fun read. The Oculus Rift and all it's home-made peripherals reminds me of this book.

bscotchseth

DAAAAANG. Good. I love series.

CBenoit

Yeeah, so much new books to read !

CyberKlown28

A Song of Ice and Fire: George R.R. Martin: Epic fantasy series that is easy to get into if you can manage to keep track of many characters. No elves or gandalf here. Not that there is anything wrong with elves or gandalf.

The Dresden Files: Jim Butcher: Large Urban Fantasy series about a wizard private investigator. In a genre overflowing with female-becomes-awesome heroine-and sleeps with werewolves and vampires---this humorous, action packed, mystery filled series is a breath of fresh air.

Cirque Du Freak: Darren Shan: Young adult vampire series also fun for adults. A horrible movie adaption was made but ignore that. The books are short and fast paced. The characters are just fun. These vampires feel different for some reason.

Life Expectancy: Dean Koontz: A newborn child with a prophecy of several bad days in his future, followed by time skips to see what they are. That is a simple way of putting it, but it's a fun thriller.

Cell: Stephen King: Everyone using a cell phone is hit by this mysterious signal and becomes a zombie psycho person. A father searches for his son in this apocalyptic novel.

bscotchseth

Daaaang. That "Cell" book sounds awesome. And I'm a huge Jim Butcher fan, so I'll definitely need to check out The Dresden Files.

READING LIST EXPLODIIIIING

Duh83

Society of the Mind by Eric Barry. This sci-fi book give an interesting twist to computer AI when a psychologist is hired by the owner of a super computer to find out what is wrong with the AI computer.

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. This book has to be one of the most mind bending books I have ever read. For me it borders on Inception style mind blowing. If you read the synopsis pay no attention to it. It deals with the "concepts" of language and sound and how they are turned into physical things like a boat. I have read it 3 times and plan to read it again.

Anonymous Rex trilogy by Eric Garcia. If you like off the wall mixed with a private investigator genre this is a good series. The dinosaurs never died off and hide in disguises among us, they keep their existence secret and get high off of herbs like oregano.

bscotchseth

Man... those are some weird concepts. I'M GOING TO READ THEM.

fatbard

Parsh81 said:

here is a list i jotted down a while ago. ill put it in pastebin to save space 

http://pastebin.com/jeANG3pv

I'm a big Vonnegut fan....I'm looking at almost every book he wrote sitting on my shelf .

SeiferTim

Seconding Terry Pratchett, I think I've read all of the Discworld books.

There are 40 of them now!  Every one of them gold, and hopefully many more to come!

bscotchseth

Just started reading Hyperion. So far, so good!

bscotchAdam

How is Neal Stephenson not on here yet? All of his books are the best book. ALL OF THEM.

fatbard

BscotchSeth said:

Just started reading Hyperion. So far, so good!

Sweet. You'll like the first two books, consider the "Hyperion Cantos". It's the 3rd and 4th that you'll have to go out on a limb for. They answer all the questions you might have, but not necessarily in the way you wanted. Also sometimes the mystery is a good thing. Let your imagination figure it out.

bscotchseth

IMAGINATION? DANGIT PAT, I READ BOOKS SO I DON'T HAVE TO THINK!

bscotchAdam

@PattyC‌ I stopped after the second, since it wrapped up nicely and I figured the others would struggle to meet my expectations. You can't stop after the first, though, since it is just a ridiculous cliffhanger at which NO QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED AT ALL.

MeaKitty

I grew up reading all the Stephen King books. Horror (psychological or gore) doesn't bother me, bur I found most of the books I ended up losing myself in were fantasy.

The Pendragon Cycle by Stephen R Lawhead is one of my all time favorites, and is based on the legend of Merlin, Arthur and the Knights.  It is the most awesomely fantastical telling yet and starts a generation back with Taliesin. I NEED to acquire the last 2 books for myself and reread them all again. I borrowed them from the library (multiple times) and have yet to own my own copy of all 5. But I will. One day I will.

Beyond that I really like the D&D fantasy novels, particularly the Drizzt Do'Urden books which I actually read before I even knew the P&P existed. Didn't realise how much that actually effected my characters until I reread some of them.

Beyond that most of my stuff is murder/mystery. Patricia Cornwall is my fave author of all time, her storylines carry through multiple books but don't rely on you having read them from book one. Despite the obvious death it is neither gory, nor forensic based (you don't get lost in medical jargon or forensic theory), nor does it devolve into a written soap opera like some.

fatbard

@MeaKitty‌I read a good amount of the Drizzt books. They're fun reads, nothing super ground breaking in terms of writing but the stories are interesting enough to keep you hooked. Drizzt and his posse are OP though, they roll through most anything that comes their way.

@BScotchAdam yeah the first book would have been brutal to read before he finished the second book. You can't get the first book by itself as a gift to someone. My brother did that to me. Super annoying. Believe or not he never read past the first book, yet still recommended it to me and bought it for me as a gift. I'll never understand him. He named his kid Marcus Aurelius Crecelius (rhymes with my last name). He doesn't listen to music. Never bought a cd or had a favorite song/ band his whole life. Madness.

bscotchseth

You have to admit, Marcus Aurelius Crecelius is an amazing name.

fatbard

Only if it's not your child . His next one will be Orange Julius Crecelius, or maybe Cornelius Maximus Crecelius.

CBenoit

I just finished five book from the Foundation Cycle by Asimov yesterday. That was AMAZING. I took 8 days to read all these five books !

bscotchAdam

@CBenoit‌ Ha! I stopped at 3 because I was afraid the series would get ruined after that. You recommend the last 2 as well?

CBenoit

Yes, I recommand it. However, yeah, there are big changes.. I found it cool, but not as cool as the original trilogy. I'm going to read the two prequels now !