Recommend some good books to read while on a month long break from work

[Atmos]

I've always been a huge fan of David Eddings' the Dreamers series as well as the Belgariad and Malloreon.

Might be slightly skewed because they're the series I grew up on, and I'm a huge epic fantasy nerd, but imo they are still excellent and absolutely worth checking out.

[AbrahamoLincolni]

3 minutes ago, Atmos said:

I've always been a huge fan of David Eddings' the Dreamers series as well as the Belgariad and Malloreon.

Might be slightly skewed because they're the series I grew up on, and I'm a huge epic fantasy nerd, but imo they are still excellent and absolutely worth checking out.

Alright will check them out and add them to the To Read list.

[Ithanul]

The Name of The Wind

The Wise Man's Fear

 

Any of the Witch World books by Andre Norton.

Heck, any of her books.  They are not super long but good reads.

[Tocsin_786]

13 hours ago, AbrahamoLincolni said:

I'm on a month long medical break from my work and will be spending a lot of time at home so I want to use the time to read some good books.  My tastes in books vary so you can recommend almost any book you want, but no mindless smut or cheap drivel like 50 Shades or Twilight or Hunger Games.

If you want to read for enjoyment, then look no further than The Stranger. I absolutely hated reading, then my professor assigned this short book to read within a week an an assignment, and I got completely lost in it. I actually felt like I was next to the main character the entire time. This book (specially chapter 2,3) will change your perspectives. 

[SlipperyPete]

16 hours ago, AbrahamoLincolni said:

I'm on a month long medical break from my work and will be spending a lot of time at home so I want to use the time to read some good books.  My tastes in books vary so you can recommend almost any book you want, but no mindless smut or cheap drivel like 50 Shades or Twilight or Hunger Games.

Wheel of Time. a 14 novel fantasy epic worthy of comparison to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Each book is around the length of a lord of the rings book with a world that is much more in depth and complex with 3 main plots all weaving together to create a masterpiece.

[Zodiark1593]

10 hours ago, AbrahamoLincolni said:

 

These recommendations are good but I have read them and they are too mainstream.  I want something interesting, something new.  Something I haven't heard about before.

The Tempest, by William Shakespeare. 

 

Life and Times of Mark Twain (when I got around to writing a report on this one, I actually enjoyed it). 

 

His Dark Materials (series) by Phillip Pullman. Unlike the movie that was based on the book, The Golden Compass (first book of the series), the actual book, and it's sequels are quite good, and lengthy. 

 

Wolf's Trap (and sequels), by WD Gagliani. 

 

Of all the books I've read, I empathize most with the main character from the His Dark Materials series. 

[AbrahamoLincolni]

On 4/15/2017 at 3:40 PM, AkiraDaarkst said:

Have you read the following?

• Isaac Asimov: The Robot Series, Foundation Series
• Joe Haldeman: The Forever War
• Robert A. Heinlein: Starship Troopers
• Arthur C. Clarke: The Rama series
• Frank Herbert: The entire Dune series, including the ones written by his son
• Orson Scott Card: The Ender series and the Jason Worthing series
• M.M. Kaye: The Far Pavilions
• James Clavell: The Asian Saga
• Carl Von Clausewitz: On War
• David Weber: The Honorverse collection including the sub-series (Saganami Island, Kingdom of Torch and Manticore Ascendant series)
• Wu Cheng'en: Hsi Yu Chi
• Luo Guanzhong: Romance of the Three Kingdoms
• Shi Nai'an: The Water Margin
• Mahabbharata and Ramayana
• Daidoji Yuzan: Budoshoshinshu
• The Poetic Edda
• Miyamoto Musashi: Go Rin No Sho
• Yoshiki Tanaka: Ginga Eiyu Densetsu (Legend of the Galactic Heroes)
• Murasaki Shikibu: Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji)

Yeah I'm a bit heavy on sci-fi and Asian or Asian related literature.

 

Let me know if any of the stuff I mentioned isn't interesting enough and I'll recommend more.  The ones with non-western authors will have English translations available.

 

On 4/15/2017 at 7:49 PM, AkiraDaarkst said:

To give you more suggestions to fill up that month:

• Eric Van Lustbader: Nicolas Linnear series
• Jeffery Deaver: The Lincolm Rhyme series of crime thrillers (begin with The Bone Collector)
• Terry Goodkind: Sword of Truth series
• James Corey: The Expanse series
• Paul B. Thompson: Elven Nations Trilogy
• Anne McCaffrey: The Pern series
• Edward Elmer Smith: Lensman series
• C. J. Cherryh: The Alliance0Union and Foreigner series
• Jack Campbell (John G. Henry): The Lost Fleet, Beyond the Frontier, and Lost Stars series
• John Scalzi: Old Man's War series
• Edgar Rice Burrouchs: Princess of Mars (Barsoom) series, and of course his Tarzan series
• Frederik Forsyth: all of his spy thrillers
• Keven J. Anderson: Saga of Seven Suns
• Various works by Niel Gaiman
• Richard Feynman: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What do you care what other people think?
• Carl Sagan: Cosmos, Pale Blue Dot, Contact and other books
• Marion Zimmer Bradley: The Avalon series, and other works
• Mercedes Lackey: Valdemar series, Elves on the Road series, and other works
• Rudyard Kipling: he's the author of The Jungle Book and he has written so many amazing books
• George Orwell: every time someone mentions his name the first book they think of is 1984.  But he has written other wonderful books, one of my favorite being Burmese Days which I like even better than 1984 and Animal Farm

You want to read Asian fantasy/martial arts novels?  There's online fan-translation communities that have translated works by Chinese authors like Jin Yong, Gu Long, Wang Baoxiang, etc.  For example, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon the movie was based on a Chinese Wuxia novel.

 

Or read manga like:

• Rurouni Kenshin
• Ravages of Time
• Lone Wolf and Cub, Samurai Executioner, Path of the Assasin, Lady Snowblood
• Kingdom

There's lots of good history books that cover military events such as The War of the Roses, The Punic Wars, World Wars I and II, The Gallic Wars, Hundred Years War, The Great Game (i.e. European involvement in Afghanistan during the 1800s).  Julius Caesar's commentaries on the Gallic Wars is a good read.  Obviously Sun Tzu's The Art of War is also a good book to read.

 

Since you're also a photographer:

• The Bang Bang Club
• Unreasonable Behavior by Don McCullin

If you want to read poetry I recommend reading the works of the Chinese poets Li Bai and Du Fu.

Man, thanks for recommending such great books.  I'm already a third of the way into Shogun, couldn't put it down.

[AkiraDaarkst]

45 minutes ago, AbrahamoLincolni said:

 

Man, thanks for recommending such great books.  I'm already a third of the way into Shogun, couldn't put it down.

I know the feeling, when I pick up a good book I read it non-stop while working, on the bus, on a plane, in bed, etc. until it's finished.

 

James Clavell's Shogun is one of my favorite books and I first read it nearly thirty years ago as a kid.  The character John Blackthorne in the novel is loosely based on the real life Englishman, William Adams, who arrived in Japan just before Tokugawa Ieyasu (Toranaga Yoshi in the book) became Shogun.  William Adams was an influential figure, especially in the area of trade and Japan's relationships with other countries in that time, during the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate. 

 

Shogun is a great book and is more historically accurate than that crap shit of a movie called The Last Samurai.  I'm glad you are enjoying it.

[AbrahamoLincolni]

On 4/17/2017 at 8:04 PM, AkiraDaarkst said:

I know the feeling, when I pick up a good book I read it non-stop while working, on the bus, on a plane, in bed, etc. until it's finished.

 

James Clavell's Shogun is one of my favorite books and I first read it nearly thirty years ago as a kid.  The character John Blackthorne in the novel is loosely based on the real life Englishman, William Adams, who arrived in Japan just before Tokugawa Ieyasu (Toranaga Yoshi in the book) became Shogun.  William Adams was an influential figure, especially in the area of trade and Japan's relationships with other countries in that time, during the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate. 

 

Shogun is a great book and is more historically accurate than that crap shit of a movie called The Last Samurai.  I'm glad you are enjoying it.

I just finished reading Shogun.  It was amazing!  Now I'm starting to read On War by Clausewitz, its mentioned in the Honorverse.  But I may stop and pick something else to read since its making me fall asleep.

[rmac52]

For a quick read I would recomended the Martian by Andy weir.  Its a fantastic book.

[yathis]

The Holy book The Bible

Self Help books

Non Fiction books that are rated on some popular list

[Teddy07]

Book: Never split the difference: Negotiating as if your life depended on it

Description: A former FBI hostage negotiator offers a new, field-tested approach to negotiating - effective in any situation.

 

I am nearly halfway through with this book and it is NOT some bullshit marketing book on how to negotiate like a master. I bought this book due to a recommendation of this video, so rather hear from someone who has finished the book:

 

[AkiraDaarkst]

6 hours ago, AbrahamoLincolni said:

I just finished reading Shogun.  It was amazing!  Now I'm starting to read On War by Clausewitz, its mentioned in the Honorverse.  But I may stop and pick something else to read since its making me fall asleep.

On War is certainly not an easy book to read.  I first learned about the book because it was mentioned in Flag in Exile and I wanted to see how it compared to Sun Tzu.  There's another military strategist, Antoine-Henri Jomini, who also wrote some interesting books regarding war.  Jomini is often compared to Clausewitz.

 

There are a many key points to On War, here are some of them:

• Clausewitz writes about the social, political and economic impacts and dynamics of warfare.  Both with the populace back home and the populace of the enemy.
• War is a continuation of politics by other means.
• That war is fought by human beings, who have emotions, fears, desires, etc.
• It is not necessarily the army with the better technology or more numerous soldiers that win the war, but a nation where the populace supports the war effort more than the enemy nation.  For example, look at the Vietnam War.  The US essentially lost because the populace back home became "war weary".

If you read Heinlein's Starship Troopers, you'll see a passage in the book where one of the characters explain:

Quote

"If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off? Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an axe. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him...but to make him do what you want to do. Not killing...but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how -- or why -- he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people -- 'older and wiser heads,' as they say -- supply the control. Which is as it should be."

Which basically means that the intention of war is not always about annihilating the enemy but more of getting the enemy to do what you want them to do.  This I think is a Clausewitzian concept.

 

But it's a good book and I encourage you to take your time reading it.  Feel free to take a break and read another book or two in between, I did.

[IDprofile]

I haven't read very many books, but these were really good.

LOTR series

Metro 2033 series

The Bourne series

[AbrahamoLincolni]

23 hours ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

But it's a good book and I encourage you to take your time reading it.  Feel free to take a break and read another book or two in between, I did.

I'll do this, right now I decided to move onto reading Tai Pan by James Clavall instead.

 

23 hours ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

On War is certainly not an easy book to read.  I first learned about the book because it was mentioned in Flag in Exile and I wanted to see how it compared to Sun Tzu.  There's another military strategist, Antoine-Henri Jomini, who also wrote some interesting books regarding war.  Jomini is often compared to Clausewitz.

 

There are a many key points to On War, here are some of them:

• Clausewitz writes about the social, political and economic impacts and dynamics of warfare.  Both with the populace back home and the populace of the enemy.
• War is a continuation of politics by other means.
• That war is fought by human beings, who have emotions, fears, desires, etc.
• It is not necessarily the army with the better technology or more numerous soldiers that win the war, but a nation where the populace supports the war effort more than the enemy nation.  For example, look at the Vietnam War.  The US essentially lost because the populace back home became "war weary".

If you read Heinlein's Starship Troopers, you'll see a passage in the book where one of the characters explain:

Quote

"If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off? Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an axe. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him...but to make him do what you want to do. Not killing...but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how -- or why -- he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people -- 'older and wiser heads,' as they say -- supply the control. Which is as it should be."

Which basically means that the intention of war is not always about annihilating the enemy but more of getting the enemy to do what you want them to do.  This I think is a Clausewitzian concept.

Thanks for the explanation.  I don't recall hearing that dialogue in Starship Troopers movie.  It must be a book thing.

 

War is indeed fought by human beings.  I'd hate to imagine if machines fought wars for us, it would be a catastrophe.  Real living flesh and blood soldiers have emotions, they can make judgement calls on whether to continue fighting or retreat.  A machine would just calculate the odds and keep on fighting if the odds look good even if the collatoral damage can be high.

[AkiraDaarkst]

13 hours ago, AbrahamoLincolni said:

I'll do this, right now I decided to move onto reading Tai Pan by James Clavall instead.

Tai Pan is my second favorite book out of Clavell's Asian Saga.