Book list

[tedly]

My go-to recommendation is always "Lamb" by Christopher Moore. His writing style reminds me of Douglas Adams, great characters, very funny, vividly detailed. It's subtitled "The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" and it's a great read. He's one of my favorite authors, but this one stands out above the rest.

OK, that one's going on the list!

I'm also a Tim Dorsey fan, read a bunch of those.

I kept seeing Dorsey compared to Carl Hiaasen so I finally read some of his stuff. Easy to see where the comparisons come from, he's not as fast paced and all over the place as Dorsey is but he's almost as weird and writes some very enjoyable books. "Tourist Season" is the best I've found so far.

I've started reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, those are pretty cool, he invented a very unique world and filled it with some great characters.

I've read a couple of Pratchett's books but their titles escape me right now. Good books, a very dry British sense of humor.

The "Otherland" series by Tad Williams is pretty cool. Usually he does fantasy stuff but he went with a more sci fi type for these. The story is a bit long winded in spots but it held my attention through 4 books at about 700-800 pages each. I started re-reading these not long ago and am going to pick up the last one in the series in a few.

Started on "The Portable Jung", a collection of some of his work from throughout his life. I haven't made it that far into it yet, it's not an easy read but very interesting and worth powering through all the psychobabble. There's spots where I have to re-read the same couple of sentences over and over and really chew on them to get what he's trying to say. Definitely not light reading.

Well, I'm off to raid the bookstore for this weeks new additions. I'll let you know if I find anything interesting.

[Silver68RT]

recently I've read things as diverse as Clive Cussler to President's club. I've read the Art of Racing in the rain (loved it). I've slogged through Smokey Yunick's diatribe, throughly enjoyed a couple books from the Top Gear presenters (UK), and the list goes on. I like stuff that looks at things in a different way - ala anything by Douglas Adams - so far I've got to read "The Great Iron Ship" and "Floating City" - both about the same ship but written to different purpose. Also went with A Dog's Purpose.


I've read Malcom Gladwell, enjoyable books (ie. "what the Dog saw")

I also read lots of religious books - my latest being one about a guy who moved to Saudi Arabia, then converted to Islam. Strangely the hardest ones to read are the ones that are teaching rather then relating an experience. With books that joke about religion (I love late night Catechism) - but their level of enjoyment to me tends to be diminished if the story is just someone lashing out at their experience with people who claim to be religious.

Keep it up, these are great suggestions.

My go-to recommendation is always "Lamb" by Christopher Moore. His writing style reminds me of Douglas Adams, great characters, very funny, vividly detailed. It's subtitled "The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" and it's a great read. He's one of my favorite authors, but this one stands out above the rest.

I'm also a Tim Dorsey fan, read a bunch of those. I've started reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, those are pretty cool, he invented a very unique world and filled it with some great characters.

My favorite series is Kim Harrison's Hollows series, which starts with "Dead Witch Walking", it's witches and vampires and werewolves and demons and stuff. It's set in an alternate modern day Cincinnati after a virus wiped out a good chunk of humanity and all the underworld creatures came out of hiding and attempted to blend into society. Fantastic characters, amazing imagination, and a very entertaining read.

[tedly]

Its as if today is like 451, 1984, and Brave New World all mixed together. Elements of each are here right now, but not the complete dystopia of any single one. At least the government isnt banning words, watching us through the TV, but we are somewhat addicted to the nice things in life.

Oooohhh, Brave New World! Another one I've always meant to pick up but never have. That's going on the list.

Some of the things that really got my attention in 451 were the peripheral things. I had just seen an add for an 84 inch TV not 5 minutes before I got to the part describing the wall screens. I was reading it on break at work, got to the part where Guy's wife had the shell ear phones constantly on, looked up and everyone had Ipod headphones crammed in their ears. The "family" programs on their tv's, easy comparison to reality TV. The casual devaluation of people and human life in general, just turn on the news. Little nuggets of information without any substance passing for knowledge, again, turn on the news. Lots of little things just happened to coincide with what was happening in the book as I was reading it. Strange timing.

[tedly]

"Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut. Also just picked up "The Art Of War" by Sun Tzu, always wanted to read it but never got around to it. There's a few ahead of it on the waiting list but I'll let you know if it's any good.

[oldsman496]

The Dune trilogy fur sure. Brief history of time, and, Briefer also...We have a LOT of Haynes books on the shelf at the shop.... i just finished OBDII, A/C systems, and Engine Overhaulin' - short reads but still usefull! and they can be humorous at times since they don't get edited very frequently...... But my favorties are telecom switch manuals AT&T 5ESS and anything on Madge network inverse multiplexers..... Oh good stuff... and yeah, i need therapy.....

[68 Valiant]

Devil's Gaurd is an AWESOME book about Vietnam. Its hard to find and if you do you could end up paying from $8 to over $100. It was listed on the Chapter's website for $60ish but when it should up I was only billed $8.

Some discussion about it:

http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/30-76965.aspx#startofcomments

[Thumpin455]

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I read it over a dozen years ago and liked it. Reading it again I was kinda shocked at the parallels between this 50 year old book and todays world.

Its as if today is like 451, 1984, and Brave New World all mixed together. Elements of each are here right now, but not the complete dystopia of any single one. At least the government isnt banning words, watching us through the TV, but we are somewhat addicted to the nice things in life.

A book that starts out rather dry but is very interesting if you are into logistics is "The Candy Bomber." Its about the Berlin Airlift right after WWII ended and Stalin wanted complete control of Berlin. Since I was a cargo guy and participated in the next two largest airlifts in history, it was an interesting read and made me feel like my USAF job really mattered and made a huge difference in the world.

[tedly]

Isaac Asimov's Foundation series
Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series
DUNE DUNE DUNE DUNE

Haven't read the "Foundation" stuff, but I liked the "2001" series. Finished the last book in Koontz's Frankenstein series, not bad. Haven't read Dune since I was a kid, going to have to check it again.

[PatricksDad]

The original "I Am Legend from 1954", by Richard Matheson.

[Eagle Kammback]

Isaac Asimov's Foundation series
Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series
DUNE DUNE DUNE DUNE

[JOES66FURY]

.
Shop Class as Soulcraft-Mathew B Crawford;.

THIS is a very good book, if you want it I will send it to you...

[pdub]

Been building up my humor section lately, Calvin and Hobbes is always worth a chuckle, as is Far Side. Picked up the first few Garfield books recently, it has been long enough since I read them that they were still kind of fresh but brought back memories of when I was a kid and would get one of his compilations every year at Christmas. Going to pick up the early Bloom County books soon, those were always good for a laugh.

For the humor section, don't miss Herman. It may not have been a syndicated comic strip in a newspaper near you but back in the day, but we'd buy my daddy a Herman collection book for Christmas every year. He loved those Herman comics so much, in the vein of the Far Side, almost always one frame per each. The one I think he laughed at the hardest ever, dude was in front of his lawyer in a jail room interview. Lawyer says, "If you plead innocent and are found guilty, you'll get 20 years. If you plead guilty you'll get ten years."

Dude in jail stripes answers, "What if I plead very, VERY guilty?"

And I won't try again to promote the Arbinger Institute books to anybody. They got lost down the road somewhere real soon in the BangShift Book Club fray.

[Bill McGuire]

Overhaul: An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry by Steven Rattner, who led the govt. rescue team.

His description of what ails GM -- structurally and culturally -- is worth the price of admission. Rattner is a Detroit outsider and a non-car guy but he still nailed it.

http://www.amazon.com/Overhaul-Insiders-Administrations-Emergency-Industry/dp/0547443218

[Brian Lohnes]

SBG...did ya have a chance to cruise "The Great Iron Ship"?

Also, Halberstam's "The Reckoning" is an amazing book about the auto industry in the 1980s.

[JOES66FURY]

I have opened a buch of books lately but have finished none...none seem to grab my attention.

I really enjoyed this one (car related)

http://www.amazon.com/7th-Day-God-Created-Chevrolet/dp/0945575130

I have enjoyed Richard Marcinkos books, lots of em'

And I LOVE Louis L'amour