Book recommendations

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What book titles have you monkeys found interesting? Let's share ideas, no matter how mundane or obscure. Click the "discussion" page above to chat about these books amongst yourselves.

A relevant Mofi link, started by the Good Cap'n himself. Alnedra

Capt. Renault
Stuff recently enjoyed:

  • Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth, Chris Ware (Graphic novel). Wow. You have NEVER seen a comic book like this. As complex and moving as any novel has ever been. It's an intense story, immaculately portrayed, has a sparse look, but that focusses the precise detailing. It's a lot to chug through, and a confusing ride at times, but if you submit to it, you'll be richly rewarded. Plus, the author clearly hates himself, which is fun. But maaaaan, is it intense. Four generations of men in a Chicago family, barely disguised kunstleroman.
  • Battle Royale, Koushun Takami. Sure, it's a ripoff of "Lord of the Flies", but it's just so good. Premise is simple -- a high school class is kidnapped, set on some strange island, and have to kill each other one by one. Victor gets to leave. Sure, it's pulp, but there's a message in there somewhere. Well-deserves its cult status. Guilty pleasure, low on guilt.
  • Another Story About Another Broken Heart, Julia Tausch. Good luck finding this one. Tiny little thing, all about a T.O. girl who moves to Montreal, and tries to get over a bad breakup. It's a first novel, and it has a lot of faults, but it's still well worth hunting for. She has a real gift for twists of phrase, and she captures mood of person and place just so. She'll be quite something if she keeps this up.
  • Don Quixote, Cervantes. Finally read it this summer. I was genuinely surprised that one of the great books of all time could be so GOOD! Who knew? Starts off well, gets a bit sluggish in the middle, but by the time Sancho becomes Governor, it really catches fire. Of all those great books you intend to read someday, make sure that this is the one you actually crack open. Laff riot.
  • Cash: The Autobiography of Johnny Cash, John R. Cash. Fantastic stuff. The stories about his childhood are very moving, and there's some great snippets of his life on the road, on drugs, in Jamaica, whatever. Very scattered book, not meant as a strict biography, but just an old storyteller tellin' stories. An old storyteller who falls asleep at the end, forgets what he was talking about. And Johnny can write (or dictate, rather) somethin' purdy. This book is the main reason I'm so nervous about seeing the biopic. (Reese? As June? WTF?)

Skrik
(In no particular order, and with no criteria other than I enjoyed the works)

  • The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - James Hogg (1824).
  • Kristin Lavransdatter - Sigrid Undset (1920-1922).
  • Northcoast Shakedown - James R. Winter (2004). A crime novel set in Cleveland. First title of a trilogy, the other novels as yet forthcoming.
  • The Man with the Magic Eardrums - Harry Stephen Keeler (1939). A twisted crime novel that is nearly all dialogue. Fascinating stuff.
  • The Cloister and the Hearth - Charles Reade (1861). A fictitious account of the romance of Erasmus's parents. No happy ending here.
  • Lorna Doone - R. D. Blackmore (1869). An historical romance set in Dartmoor.
  • Oroonoko - Aphra Behn (1688). An account of the capture, enslavement, rebellion, and eventual death of a royal slave.

Rolypolyman

  • Earth Abides, George R. Stewart. What happens when there's an apocalyptic disaster and you're one of the last people on Earth? It was explored eloquently in this 1949 classic, and is still a great read today.
  • Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury. Somewhat dated, but that's part of the charm of it. In a series of vignettes it describes the settlement of Mars and the infection of 1950s Americana, with all its kitsch, into this new world.
  • Rebirth, John Wyndham. Wyndham was better known for Day of the Triffids and Chrysalids, but this obscure book was quite good. A post-nuclear society scorns technology and embraces an Amish-like existance. A boy discovers he is telepathic, and that he is not alone.
  • Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson. Arguably one of the best 20th century ghost stories, it details a young woman who is selected among a number of guests to stay in a haunted house. There's no monsters here, but the story itself is haunting.
  • Heechee series, Frederik Pohl. I was put off by the "Heechee" name for 10 years before I finally picked the first book up: Gateway. It's a real page turner! A space station houses mysterious alien artifacts that deliver explorers to random points in the universe: to death, to nowhere, or to fantastic worlds. This is about those profit-seeking explorers and their bizarre journeys.

Nickdanger

  • Sea Room, Adam Nicholson. The author details the history, ecology and ageless beauty of The Shiants, three Hebridean islands left to him by his father. A tale of ghosts, hermits, thriving communities, sea eagles, massacres, abandonment, puffin colonies and rat infestation emerges. Plus, at the end of the book the author offers to send the key to the lonely island's sole dwelling (for a brief stay) to anyone who writes to him. That's class!
  • Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino. Beautiful surrealism. It took me a solid year to get through this book, not because it is long, but because each page demanded time to linger over the images and ideas expressed. Like reading a dream.
  • Assasination Vacation, Sarah Vowell. Upset about the the current Presidential office holder, NPR correspondent Vowell explores the history of Presidential assasination. Funny, informative, and saturated with Vowell's melancholy, aloof observations of Americana.
  • The Good Soldier Schweik, Jaroslav Hasek. Bitingly funny satire of human nature, world war I, bureacracy, politics, idealism, nihilism and bodily function. Speed written in the corners of bars and brothels by one of the most squandered talents of the century. Sadly, unfinished.

Koko

  • The Colony of Unrequited Dreams: A Novel , Wayne Johnston. A rags-to-riches story of the first premier of the newly federated Canadian province of Newfoundland, it is also the best love story I have ever read (and I don't go for love stories).
  • From Hell, Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell (graphic novel). Tells the tale of the famous Whitechapel murders from the perspective of the victims, the chief inspector, and Jack the Ripper himself. Concerns itself with the (debunked) theory that the murders were a Masonic conspiracy to cover up a royal scandal. Very dark, very gritty. Much better than the movie.
  • Running With Scissors; Dry, Augusten Burroughs. Two memoirs by a very funny ad man. The first deals with his incredibly messed-up childhood, being raised by his mother's eccentric (read: lunatic) therapist. The second deals with his battle with severe alcoholism. While retelling experiences that would break most people, Burroughs never loses his sense of humor or his love for shiny things, and for this he's one of my favorite people whom I've never met.
  • The Corrections: A Novel, Jonathan Franzen. I can't do this book justice. A satirical look at the American extended family, it delves into the tortured lives of each member of the Lambert family. Just read it, it's fucking awesome.

Weezel

  • Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell , Susanna Clarke. A story of the glorious revival of English Magic, set in King George III's time. Imagine Waterloo if the English had a magician on their side! So good it made me pee.
  • Sandman, Neil Gaiman (graphic novel series). A story about Dream, the anthropomorphic personification of dreams and stories. It will change the way you dream forever.
  • Watchmen, Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons (graphic novel). Pretty much redefined how comic books were viewed, catapulting them into the adult realm. Widely held to be one of the finest works ever done in the medium, if not the out-and-out best.

kitfisto

  • Watership Down, Richard Adams. No, really. I only read this a few months ago (having never read it bore and not having seen the cartoon), and was amazed by how fab it is. Rabbits go on a journey to find peace and prosperity, and have trials on the way. Not just for kids, trust me. And not nearly as emotionally manipulative as 'Bright Eyes' would have you believe.
  • Orlando, Virginia Woolf. The tale of a man born in Elizabethan times, who lives through to the 20th century and becomes a woman on the way. Includes a fantastically atmospheric description of a fair on the frozen Thames.
  • Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham. Just great. Have read it loads of times - The world is blinded by a mysterious 'meteor shower', leading to society's collapse and the rise of the carnivorous plants...captures the isolation of surviving perfectly.

Alnedra

  • Small Gods, Terry Pratchett. Funny, sharp, introspective, taught me alot about how to look at religion. Taught me a bit about how to look at people too. My next favourite by Pratchett (although I have to admit I love them all) is "Night Watch". I can empathise with a man who controls an constant overwhelming violent rage with a strict code of honour.
  • Hexwood, Diana Wynne Jones. Took me three readings to understand what was going on. Targetted at children, but is really good for adults as well. Involves time-travel, virtual reality, magic, high technology, more magic. Quite surreal at points.
  • Fionavar Tapestry, Guy Gavriel Kay. Three books, involving high magic, and many, many, many West European (especially English) myths. Absolutely blew my mind away. I ruined it for myself by doing my Honours year dissertation on it. I still regret that. Also, "Tigana", although that one broke my heart.
  • Animal Farm, George Orwell. Read this the first time when I was about seven or eight. It might have had something to do with how I grew up the way I did.
  • Double Starr, Robert Heinlein. His style is really too heavy-handed and dated for today's jaded sci-fi reader, but this one's pretty cute. I rather liked it. It's sorta like popcorn for the brain. "The Door Into Summer" is similiarly cute, and rather like a Harlequin romance written from the man's viewpoint and in a sci-fi setting, just not as badly written.

the quidnunc kid

1. Malmekanika, by Notte Marche. Marche's groundbreaking survey of the history of humanity from the perspective of machines that do not work - or do not work as expected. The pyramids get a thorough going over, indeed the author's fame rests largely upon his thesis that they were the archetypal bad machine, guaranteeing immortality to the ancient Pharaohs via extrance to an entirely different set of western lands than imagined. The way he marries up the famous "placebo effect", radiation poisoning in Nagasaki and Windows 98 is breathtaking, as are the somewhat racist conclusions he draws.

2. The Furious Giant, by Dr Anders Fenestrad, describes the delusional hypothesis that the great red spot on the planet Jupiter is an eye - the eye - of the faraway gas giant. Fenestrad was a onetime Professor of Astronomy at Utrecht who studied the sphere and its four Gallilean and numerous etcetera moons for longtemps, and was gradually enveloped by the awareness of a reciprocal gaze. His frankly insane and barely literate rantings fill numerous chapters with theorizing on how such a structure could have evolved (planets not usually being thought of as replicating beings) and how to undress with modesty when a whole planet is looking at you. Asked to defend his bizarre thesis at a conference in Berlin, he merely noted that the distances between objects in space being so vast, a planet such as Jupiter has no need of two eyeballs, as stereoscopic vision would be near to useless. Fenestrad committed suicide when he mistook the Olympus Mons on Mars for a giant nose. You may well want to join him after reading this rubbish.

3. Give Us Back Our Eleven Days - the Long History of Time by Rei Tokei. The great question of time - whether it had a beginning, or will have an end - is one that, throughout the whole sweep of human history, people have usually completely ignored or not worried about very much. St Augustine's famous words on the subject are instructive: "What is the time?" asked the great man: "I dunno. Noon, maybe." For this wise saying and some other ones about lawn care he was canonised, feted with strong and pungent fetes, and awarded the freedom of the month of August (previously devoted to St Pedro).

The pre-socratic philosophers argued that time must have a beginning, and it was around 10.46 am, since none of them did very much before then. Plato disagreed, arguing that time was eternal, but Aristotle brilliantly pointed out that he kept falling asleep before the end of it, and then asking everybody "what happened? Who is that guy with the scar?" and so on, which was utterly annoying. Hegel wrote copious and deep paragraphs on the subject, only in German, so no-one understood them except German people, who didn't care. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity (1905) argued that time was purple, but in his General Theory (1915, or both for 3795) he admitted that it was "purplish-green, possible mauve". This book was a complete waste of time.

4. Read Your Way Thin by Filip Blanc, M.A., is another oddity not worth your while. Blanc's thesis is that people gain nutrition via reading, rather than eating, but because he always had a bagel when he read his books, no-one noticed before. The correct diet of vowels and consonants is required for our human needs, and corpulance is often brought on by reading too many dipthongs. The book practices what it preaches - Blanc changed every occurance of "ph" in the text to "f" because he claimed it made the work "ph neutral" and prevented acidity in the stomach. An idiot.

5. Playing God by Theo Morfe addresses the question of whether humankind should ever play God, coming to the conclusion: "yes, and as often as possible". Morfe's point is that God has already played at being one of us, with Jesus an obvious "Exhibit A". He points out that the hindoo diety Vishnu, the transcendental preserver, most subtle of beings, has incarnated ten times in universal history in order to preserve the cosmic balance - appearing as a giant fish, a boar, a rather comical juggling dwarf, a washing machine, some old receipts that you haven't bothered throwing out, Krishna, Lord Rama, a fungus, a TV commercial for fungal cream, and finally as the city of Antwerp. "This book has no redeeming features", said the London Times, and as the author was hit by lightning and died four days after its publication, I suspect celestial agreement with that review.

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