Good books you may have read.

[Labrocca]

I figure we should have a topic of books.

I would recommend these

The Life of Pi
Dune (the whole series)
Mars Trilogy (stanley robinson is the author)

Anyone else have great books to recommend.

[Stoner]

- Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

- 93 Confirmed Kills - Dan Henderson

- Deception Point - Dan Brown

- Digital Fortress - Dan Brown

- Minutes to Burn - Gregg Hurwitz

- The Kill Clause - Gregg Hurwitz

- Faint Echoes, Distant Stars - Dr. Ben Bova

- Rogue Warrior - Richard Marcinko/John Weisman

[Drocket]

Dune (the whole series)
Are you actually serious? The whole series? I mean, book 1, certainly - it's brilliant. Books 2 & 3, sure - they're not great but are at least interesting. Book 4, however, has a not-so-faint odor of "Damn, I actually managed to write something popular! I'm going to milk this thing until I die!" and just goes downhill from there. The falloff in quality actually makes Robert Jordan look good.

Mars Trilogy (stanley robinson is the author)
Those were pretty good, though it had a few too many characters for my taste. Once a book reaches, on, 30 or 40 main characters, I start to get confused :P

My own list:
Anything by Stephen King (excepting Tommyknockers)
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen Donaldson (a trilogy of trilogies)
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman (actually, most stuff by him is pretty good. Neverwhere is generally considered his best book, but I slightly prefer American Gods.)
Pretty much anything by Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, especially)
Early Marget Wies/Tracy Hickman collaborations (the Dragonlances, of course, but also the Deathgate Cycle and Rose of the Prophet trilogy)
Wolf of Winter, by Paula Volsky (Illusion is also good.)

I could probably go on all day. As you can see, I generally prefer fantasy, though I also read quite a bit of horror and sci-fi. I also sometimes read mysteries, but I really can't think of any that I'd consider good enough to be worth mentioning... Maybe the early Cat Who series, I guess. I used to also read a lot of nonfiction, but anymore, that sort of stuff is just so much easier to research online that I virtually never actually buy them.

[Buck Laser]

I grew up on fantasy and science fiction, and still particularly enjoy the alternative history genre. Harry Turtledove is today's leading writer in that field. Unfortunately, I can't call the titles to mind at the moment. But Philip K. Dick, that great science fiction writer, had a great one,The Man In The High Castle, based on the premise that the Japanese won WW2 in the Pacific.
Lately, I've been reading historical fiction. I particularly enjoy Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, as well as just about anything else he's written. Edward Rutherfurd writes historical sagas in the manner of Michener: I'm halfway through Old Sarum, and have Moscow on the shelf. I've been all the way through the Hornblower series, in some cases a couple of times, and I'm trying to catch the rhythm of Patrick O'Brian's sea novels: the nautical terms just about put me to sleep, though.

For thriller novels, my favorites are anything by Stephen Hunter, author of Point of Impact, [Dirty White Boys] and others.

Heavier stuff I enjoy include political books: Obama's The Audacity of Hope, which has made me an Obama supporter, and various other political analyses. I also like serious historical analysis like Guns, Germs and Steel, along with the more recent Collapse. And one I've been working on for at least eight years is Daniel C. Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea The greatest joy of retirement is that I actually have time to work on some of these more demanding books--and to go back and dig in where I don't get it the first time.

[Labrocca]

When it comes to fantasy/horror I think Clive Barkers few books were 10x better than Stephen King. King is all about the details and really has no substance to many of his stories. He might spend a whole chapter on some small detail that really doesn't further the story. He likes to paint a very vivid picture of everything. It gets annoying after reading a few of his books. I read about 10 of them too. I find it painful now.

Barker on the other hand rocked with books like Imajica, Weaveworld and The Great and Secret Show...also Galilee was pretty good but very different than his previous work.

Are you actually serious? The whole series? I mean, book 1, certainly - it's brilliant. Books 2 & 3, sure - they're not great but are at least interesting. Book 4, however, has a not-so-faint odor of "Damn, I actually managed to write something popular! I'm going to milk this thing until I die!" and just goes downhill from there. The falloff in quality actually makes Robert Jordan look good.

Yes I am very serious. I found books 4,5,6 to be BETTER than 1,2,3 simply because they give meaning to those books. It explains it all pretty much. I have read them 4 times fully (yes the whole set) and each time I find them better and more amazing. The thing that the 2nd trilogy produces is the biproduct of the first trilogy. It's constantly referencing the past which imho is important in all reality. The direction the books take are enormous and amazing. The Tyrant's story is unparelled in any book. The story of Duncan Idaho is near perfection. Oddly he becomes the main character..which again...is amazing. The book begins with an ideal..the Atreides ideal and this ideal is consistent only because of one character...Duncan. It is consistent because he dies then is reborn as a ghola again and again and again for thousands of years. His story alone is enough to make the books worth reading. The characters added to the 2nd trilogy are imho more thought out that the first set. Yes the story isn't as broad in many ways...not nearly as exciting one could say. However the introductions of the whores from the scattering really brings up more interesting plots and characters. Plots within plots within plots. It's the basis of Dune. Plots that have been in place for 10,000 years. Have you read the newer books by Kevin Anderson and Herberts kid based on notes from Frank Herbert? While the writing isn't nearly as good as Franks it's still great story imho. They really have done well to add to the dimension of the Dune universe.

[Saigio]

Anything by H.P. Lovecraft is great.

[Drocket]

When it comes to fantasy/horror I think Clive Barkers few books were 10x better than Stephen King.
Barker is pretty good, but I just prefer Stephen King. I LIKE the details, myself - they're what make the story rise above just being ok. I hope you've at least read the Dark Tower series? The first three are absolutely brilliant (book 4 blows, 5-7 almost manage to rise back to the level of 1-3, but not quite.)

I'm currently reading Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill (who it was recently discovered is Stephen King's son writing under a pseudonym.) It's pretty good. He has his father's eye for details combined with a lot of raw emotion, a hallmark of King's early work. Even if I didn't know he was Stephen King's son, I think I'd be making comparisons to The Shining and Carrie.

Yes I am very serious. I found books 4,5,6 to be BETTER than 1,2,3 simply because they give meaning to those books. It explains it all pretty much.
That, I think, was why I didn't really like them. Explanations aren't always necessary or a good thing, IMO. My favorite books almost always are ones that leave things open to questions. Actually, I suspect that's probably part of the reason I like Stephen King more than you - King almost always leaves things unexplained.

Have you read the newer books by Kevin Anderson and Herberts kid based on notes from Frank Herbert? While the writing isn't nearly as good as Franks it's still great story imho. They really have done well to add to the dimension of the Dune universe.
Nope. Maybe someday...