[O.T.] Book Recommendations?

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Fri May 02, 2003 9:31 pm

Oh I can't believe I forgot this- one of my all time favorites-

Taps for Private Tussy by Jessee Stuart

It's been out of print for years but it might turn up at the used book store.

It is soooooooooo funny!!!!!!!!!!!

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Fri May 02, 2003 9:37 pm

Walden,

I apologise... I hastily read your post and missed the most important word *NOT* right in front of Science Fiction.

My tastes actually do tend to run that way and, thinking that you were looking for a good SciFi read, I hastily posted that. It really is a great book though.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Fri May 02, 2003 9:44 pm

Just take my advice and buy the picture book. They have it at walmart for only $7.

TelegramSam · Post by **TelegramSam** » Fri May 02, 2003 9:44 pm

Flowers for Algernon.

*technically* it's considered sci-fi, but there are no aliens, no magic, nothing too weird. The only really "sci-fi" thing about it is that the operation the main charcter undergoes doesn't actually exist.

(if you're wondering, the premise of the book is that a mentally challenged man undergoes an operation to increase his intelligence. It tracks his psychological reactions through "progress reports" the character writes.)

Tom Dowling · Post by **Tom Dowling** » Fri May 02, 2003 10:12 pm

I keep meaning to re-read "The Riddle of the Sands" by Erskine Childers. It should be widely available in used paperback format in what was once a 'new edition' (Harper Torchbook?) with some important information about Childers. Of course, I'll have to get it back from the guy I loaned it to....

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Fri May 02, 2003 11:43 pm

Another book that is one of my all-time favorites (I re-read it every couple of years and fall in love with it all over again) is Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley." That man could paint a scene with words like no one else.

Redwolf

thurlowe · Post by **thurlowe** » Sat May 03, 2003 12:23 am

I'd like to second the nomination for Robertson Davies. And also recommend Ian Pears. I'm in the middle of "An Instance of the Fingerpost," about a chain of events set in Oxford, England in 1633, told from 4 viewpoints: an Italian visitor interested in science; an unstable young Englishman with a vendetta; a cryptographer hired by Charles II; and... I don't know the last one! I'm not there yet. I'll be finishing the Ian Pears section of the public library after this, believe me.

Hope you find some great books, Walden.

C.

Zubivka · Post by **Zubivka** » Sat May 03, 2003 12:43 am

If you care for classics, you could give a try to : We by Evgueny Zamiatin.
http://www.isbn.nu/author/Zamiatin,%20E ... Ivanovich/

This sci-fi novel, written in 1922 by a Soviet maverick, probably inspired both G. Orwell and A. Huxley for their subsequent best-sellers. Not that he didn't borrow himself a bit from H.G. Wells...

Also, whatever one thinks of the movies made of it (esp. Soderbergh's...), Solaris by Stanislas Lem (1961) shouldn't be overlooked.

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Sat May 03, 2003 2:57 am

Thanks for all the suggestions. I went into the bookstore, last week, and faced with aisle after aisle after aisle of books, I just didn't know what to get. I'll take these suggestions with me, when I go back, and see what of these I come across. All but Flowers for Algernon are things I've never read, and I only read it once, a very long time ago, and it's probably worth a re-read.

Feel free to continue posting suggestions. I haven't gone to the bookstore yet.

kevin m. · Post by **kevin m.** » Sat May 03, 2003 3:21 am

I found 'Diary of a Nobody' by G. & W. Grossmith highly amusing.It's the story of a middle class Victorian,Mr. Pooter, (even the names are funny,the son is called 'Lupin'-'Lupin Pooter' for Christsake!

) with pretentions of grandeur,who moves his family into a large house,trying to prove to all that he 'has made it'.
It's years since I read it,but I can always remember the scene where he paints the outside steps with red lead paint,then not wanting to 'waste' the paint that is left over, paints the bath INSIDE and out.Then later decides to take a bath with hilarious results.
The book is'nt explosively funny,more a 'slow burn',but is so well written that you could go back to it again and again and still chuckle.
I MUST have a re-read!

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Sat May 03, 2003 7:02 am

I thought Flower for Algernon immenesely sad!
I just read Ray Monk's two volume biography
of Bertrand Russell. Don't read that. Something
like 800 pages of despair, culminating in
Russell's granddaughter, who he raised,
going to a cemetary,
dousing herself with gasoline and setting
herself alight. Russell and his second wife,
Dora, raised their children by new scientific
principles, and arranged their marriage
so as to allow for relations, and children,
with others. Don't do it!

TelegramSam · Post by **TelegramSam** » Sat May 03, 2003 7:20 am

Flowers for Algernon isn't sad.

*spoiler space for the folks who haven't read it but want to*

Charlie is much happier in the end than when he was a super-genius, and also in many ways, much wiser. It has a sort of bittersweet ending, but it's not just "sad."

pthouron · Post by **pthouron** » Sat May 03, 2003 8:14 am

-George McDonald Fraser: any installment in the "Flashman" series (although starting with the first one makes sense), and his great "Quartered Safe Out Here". Greatly entertaining stuff AND informative as well.

-If you like mysteries, the latest Dennis Lehaine book is the best I've read this year so far ("Shutter Island")

-I also loved "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay", by Michael Chabon, a few years back

chas · Post by **chas** » Sat May 03, 2003 8:36 am

Redwolf wrote:Another book that is one of my all-time favorites (I re-read it every couple of years and fall in love with it all over again) is Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley." That man could paint a scene with words like no one else.

I can't believe I didn't think of that one!!! It's one of my all-time favorite books. My wife, having heard me talk about it, bought it for me a couple of years ago. She had to suffer through my giggles and endless reading of paragraphs to her. Things like he's driving up the Coast of Maine and remarks on the number of antiques shops. He says something to the effect of, "I seem to remember that the population of the colonies numbered about three million souls, all of whom apparently were making furniture, dolls and all manner of things to be sold in Maine two hundred years hence."

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Sat May 03, 2003 8:27 pm

OH WALDEN!!

If you truly have not read Angela's Ashes-- you have to!(preferrably listen to him read it).

Anyone with any intrest in things Irish, or, for that matter , anyone, would enjoy this. And it's so funny, granted it is very dark humor sometimes, but still funny, plus, sad, plus amazing.

It's an autobiography of McCourt's growing up in Limerick in abject poverty. It opens with---

"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed
to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood:
the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than
the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood,
and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."
from Angela's Ashes, a memoir by Frank McCourt

A movie by the same title was also made a few years ago.

here's some links
www.frankmccourt.org.uk
www.angelasashes.com
www.iol.ie/~avondoyl/angelas1.htm

He won a Pulitzer prize for this work.

He also wrote a follow up book called " 'Tis ".

(edited to add some info)

you realize I'm now going to have to listen to this book yet again!

Amazon has a bunch of used copies really CHEAP!

Chiff and Fipple Forums

[O.T.] Book Recommendations?

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