Fiction Book Recommendation Thread

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BoonetheAiredale said:
"The Overstory" by Richard Powers: Mind altering view of our world and our balanced place in it. I have never read anything like it.
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"Let the Great World Spin" by Colum McCann: Multiple sub story narratives that read like walking through a perfect garden.
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"Young Men and Fire" by Norman Maclean: A book of near poetic writing about a deadly fire in Montanna in 1949. A number of Forest Service firefighters (smoke jumpers) lost their lives for a number of different reasons. The author turns those decisions and ramifications into a slow subtle exploration of life and death and the vagaries of how we move towards our end. Just a wonderfully beautiful book written by a true craftsman.
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"Always keep in foot in the black." That has sort of become my motto in life.
 
I started a new plan a couple weeks ago. I am re-reading children's books as a 67 year old. It's been really fun so far and there is so much deeper meaning than I remembered already. So far, I've completed:

The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats
The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein
Olivia, Ian Falconer
Reynard the Fox, not sure as my copy says both Scandinavian and French influences
The House at Pooh Corner, AA Milne
 
BoonetheAiredale said:
"Let the Great World Spin" by Colum McCann: Multiple sub story narratives that read like walking through a perfect garden.
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I picked this up at random from the library book sale a number of years ago and basically read it all in a single sitting, it's so good. I read another of McCann's not too long ago, Transatlantic, that was also really good. Kind of along similar lines where there are intertwining stories, in this one it's of people/ancestors/descendents who meet and separate over the years on various sides of the Atlantic.
 
Batt Boy said:
I started a new plan a couple weeks ago. I am re-reading children's books as a 67 year old. It's been really fun so far and there is so much deeper meaning than I remembered already. So far, I've completed:

The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats
The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein
Olivia, Ian Falconer
Reynard the Fox, not sure as my copy says both Scandinavian and French influences
The House at Pooh Corner, AA Milne
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The Giving Tree is a great read on how to lose yourself to a bad relationship. Zero stars
 
tallheel95 said:
The Giving Tree is a great read on how to lose yourself to a bad relationship. Zero stars
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There are even those (the Austrian School lovers) who claim it's about the ills of socialism.

That Insufferable "Giving Tree" | Mises Institute

Chris Westley asks what Shel Silverstein really meant to say with his book The Giving Tree. It is bad economics leading to a dangerous political bent.
mises.org mises.org

As a 67 year old, I see it as more of a what not to to do or how not to treat lesson
 
can this be an all books thread?!

i started reading A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan last week.....its narrative non-fiction.

really good so far.
 
HeelingAg said:
Presently working through LOTR again.

I'm revisiting books that held particular influence in adolescence, with a curious eye towards how they may influence my systems of thinking and compass, today (e.g. To Kill a …, Old Man and the Sea, Night, Of Mice and Men, Candide, amongst others). It's quite navel gazey and not executed with rigor, but has served a meditative and meta-cog practice role, both of which needed a reboot in my routine. There's also a bit more color to the various environs of Middle Earth now that I know a bit about Tolkien's WWI inspirations.
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Odd. I'm doing more or less the opposite. I'm on a jag of reading classics I "missed the first time around" as it were. I'm about halfway through War and Peace at the moment. Before that it was A Brave New World and before that it was Gatsby.

I do have a copy of Catch 22 on my shelf that's calling out to me. I've read it at least three times but the last time was decades ago, so that is the next classic on tap, I think. But immediately after War and Peace I think I'll do a lighter book in between probably R.A. McAvoy's The Book of Kells.

Catch 22 might just be my favorite book of all time, if I were forced to pick just one.
 
Ddseddse said:
Odd. I'm doing more or less the opposite. I'm on a jag of reading classics I "missed the first time around" as it were. I'm about halfway through War and Peace at the moment. Before that it was A Brave New World and before that it was Gatsby.

I do have a copy of Catch 22 on my shelf that's calling out to me. I've read it at least three times but the last time was decades ago, so that is the next classic on tap, I think. But immediately after War and Peace I think I'll do a lighter book in between probably R.A. McAvoy's The Book of Kells.

Catch 22 might just be my favorite book of all time, if I were forced to pick just one.
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Catch is up there for me, as well, I’ve just read it fairly recently. Not sure I’ve ever laughed harder while reading. Bradbury fits my influential list, as well, but I read his stuff every 5-10 years.
 
I just finished The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. I loved it. Of course, I really enjoy books from that time period (1860). I don’t know why I hadn’t read any Wilkie Collins before now.
 
Not sure if this a favorite novel thread or recently read novel thread, but here's both:

Gravity's Rainbow - Pynchon {{{ sometimes replaced in my thought ranking by Lolita - Nabokov }}}

Victory City - Rushdie
 
an0maly said:
Not sure if this a favorite novel thread or recently read novel thread, but here's both:

Gravity's Rainbow - Pynchon {{{ sometimes replaced in my thought ranking by Lolita - Nabokov }}}

Victory City - Rushdie
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Had to read parts of it in a class in Greenlaw and both liked and hated it. Tedious read, but perhaps should try again. Gravity's Rainbow that is.
 
Batt Boy said:
Had to read parts of it in a class in Greenlaw and both liked and hated it. Tedious read, but perhaps should try again. Gravity's Rainbow that is.
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I tried several times over the many years to get into Gravity's Rainbow. Just sits on a shelf.
 
grimes70 said:
I tried several times over the many years to get into Gravity's Rainbow. Just sits on a shelf.
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The only way I got through "Gravity's Rainbow," was to convince myself there was no narrative to follow and just try to enjoy each sentence on it's own. Sort of the literary form of Abstract Expressionism. B/T/W - I don't like Abstract Expressionism, but it at least it has the virtue that after looking at it for 10 seconds, I can walk away feeling satisfied that I gave it a chance.
 
an0maly said:
Not sure if this a favorite novel thread or recently read novel thread, but here's both:

Gravity's Rainbow - Pynchon {{{ sometimes replaced in my thought ranking by Lolita - Nabokov }}}

Victory City - Rushdie
Click to expand...
Jesus, you actually finished Gravity’s Rainbow? I’ve tried and failed a half dozen times over the years.
 
Re: the Gravity's Rainbow chat, I don't know if any of y'all are on BlueSky but there's going to be a group read there starting up next month. It's scheduled out for a chapter or two a day, or whatever works out to be around 20 pages. I got about halfway through the first chapter the first and only time I gave it a try 2 decades ago so I'm hoping the schedule and discussion will get me to the end. The feed is called Rainbow Connection if anyone's interested, or the guy running it is @harrisj.bsky.social.
 
05C40 said:
In Science Fiction: I like and recommend books by Martha Wells, John Scalzi, and Andy Wier.
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Took a break from Zora to look at Martha Wells...was impressed by the number of Hugo/Nebula etc awards she'd won, so picked up a couple of murderbot novellas. Pretty good stuff...thanks for the recommendation
 
From a pretty young age, I started reading roughly a book a week. This continued up until 5 or 6 years ago... where over a pretty short time I just stopped reading all together.

There were a number of contributing factors, but the primary ones IMO were converting to working from home full time (no longer reading on the subway), significant uptick in the amount of time I spend on my phone (games, news, texting), and managing teams based in India (lots of phone calls between 10pm and midnight).

Despite all the factors still being in play, I'd like to make an effort to get back to reading. I'm looking for some "can't miss" books or authors who I can start with. I suspect that if I don't get pulled in fast, I'll default back to my phone and forget the book.

In the past I was big into sci-fi/fantasy, mystery novels, action/adventure, etc. Mostly what I would call brain candy... fun fiction novels that move quick, and potentially have an few unexpected twists.

Whatcha got, ZZLers?
 
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