Book Recommendations (work in progress)
This list is a work in progress and only just begun. I've tried to give some understanding of the books and my recommendation of them. Some are better then others.
I've generally grouped similar books together.
Sci Fi (note: Douglas Adams mentioned later on)
- Bujold's Shards of Honor and the following series
- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Excellent.
- (oddly I almost want to stick this in fantasy next to Tolkien. Understand it is not at all Tolkien and hardly to be compared to it. However there is just a little more sense of Background in Dune then you'd find in your average run of the mill novel)
- Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson
- Incredible book. Possibly should include various warnings here. [Compeling; worth reading in the novelty, originalness, scope of its content/ideas; however is decidedly in parts 'adult readership'.].
- Niven, Heinlein, Inherit the Stars by Hogan, the prolog to Code of the Lifemaker. (The Winds of Mars by H.M. Hoover (younger readership)).
- Pandora's Star - Read at your own risk. Compelling read. Interesting content. Make sure you have the sequal on hand before you get to the end.
Light Reading, Entertaining, Quality Fantasy books:
- Ronia the Robber Daughter by Astrid Lindgrid
:)
- Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (series)
Delightful. Read this.
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'engle (sci fi) (series)
- (probably ought to be put on the list of classic books (not classics mind you, rather), that is, some books ought to be read by everyone growing up. This is one of them. (would also mention here Watership Down, Anne of Green Gables))
- Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen (series)
More Light fantasy:
- The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
- Song of Sorcery by Elizabeth Scarborough
- Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling
(entertaining)
- A bit dark but not at all horror somehow.
- Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
- (The Nine Princes in Amber)
- (Ursula LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea.)
(the following are pure sugar. May or may not like. Similar in vein to each other. If you like one you'll probably like them all, with the exception of Ella Enchanted which I would recommend to a wider audience.)
- Ella Enchanted by Gail Carlson (also her Princesses of Bamarr)
- (note: I feel like I should slip Daddy Long Legs in here. Good book, but not fantasy, so I will list it later)
- Jackaroo by Cynthia Voigt
- Alanna: the First Adventure by Tamora Pierce
- (don't read Pierce's Circle of Magic books, they lack whatever elements make her Alanna and Daine books entertaining)
- Child of Fairy, Child of Earth by Josepha Sherman
- Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman
- The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf by Gerald Morris
- The Changeling Sea by Patricia McKillip
- (Similar to Ella Enchanted: Beauty by ? (do I have the title right?); Just Ella (?) )
- I'm not sure if this is the one you mean, but "Beauty" by Robin McKinley (and "The Blue Sword", and "Spindle's End", and pretty much anything else she wrote) should be here.
- Thank you, that was the one I meant. -KL. Double thank you. Just finished reading Spindle's End. --KL
- Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffry
- Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey (If you ever get a change to listen to Mercedes Lackey and her husband in person - I highly recommend. Very fun to listen to them talk. (PS - Those of you into lotr movies - they know some good stories on the making of.))
more Fantasy:
- The Princess and the Goblins by George MacDonald
- The Once and Future King by TH White
(feel vaguely like I should make some reference to the Three Musketeers, The Long Ships, and Ivanhoe.)
- (this was read to me a long time ago and I'm afraid I don't recollect its caliber to any precise degree. I believe it is well worth recommending, but it has been a long time)
- Its a piece of cake if you understand later Middle English :->. Definitly a good book though.
- JRR Tolkien - The Hobbit; The Lord of the Rings
- The Princess Bride by Morgenstern aka William Goldman
- The Neverending Story By Michael Ende
- The Lady or The Tiger by Frank Stockton
- The Lady or the Tiger in itself is not of the fantasy genre, but the other stories by Stockton that I read in the short story collection I acquired included a giffin and Echo-dwarfs and I felt like putting the Lady or the Tiger here for that reason.
(I'm sure I'm forgeting something important)
(Note: mention of Illiad, Oddysey, the Voyage of Argo, 1001 Arabian Nights. Haven't read the last two. The first is not the most wonderful of writing as translated, but is very built into our culture and good to know first hand. I should probably be listing these under classics.)
Humourous and Highly entertaining writing:
- Douglas Adam's The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the following series (sci fi)
- (Also see Books on Wooster and Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse)(at the moment I can't tell if this is a good or bad connection to make)
- Interesting association - I'll have to reread Wodehouse.
- (Note that Wodehouse is already listed below)
- Terry Pratchett (fantasy) (Discworld Books) (note: order hardly matters(in my opinion))
- Terry Pratchett wrote them with the intent that the order shouldn't matter, and for the earlier books, it certainly doesn't. I know "Lords and Ladies" WAS written with the assumption that you'd read other books with the witches, but it's not too baffling without having read them. I think later books mean more if you've read the previous books with those same characters.
Mystery:
- (I think my favorite is still the first one I read: The Man in the Brown Suit)
- Also by her, And Then There Were None, or Ten Little Indians (same book, different title). My favorite of her works, and very well done, classic mystery story
- I believe And Then There Were None is the title of the play based on the book Ten Little Indians.(?) The book is brutal!! Recommendation don't read it at, say 2 in the morning. I think I ended up getting up and watching a large portion of of Brigadoon to undisturb myself...(PS. I Think my mother played in that play in high school or college or something :) ) -KL
- Sherlock Holmes books by Sir Arthur Connan Doyle
- (The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin)
(other miscellaneous mystery books)
General Lit light reading to lessthanlight reading
(Pure sugar, and things I grew up on and subsequently can't help but recommend. Understand some of these are so far beneath reading level they may no longer be palatable. Still. I have this feeling that some books everyone must read at least once. (I keep repeating myself, blimey! If I could just make an n-dimentional book web that would tie everthing together by association I wouldn't have to repeat things so much.))(both fiction & nonfiction)
- Dr. Seuss
- Those books with Lowly the worm by Richard Scarry
- Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
- ((Jasper Tomkins))
- (Sven Nordqvist)
- Masquerade by Kit Williams
- Dinotopia by James Gurney
- The pictures are wonderful
- The Trumpet of the Swan by EB White, also Charlotte's Web
- (?Commanche of the Seventh?)
- (Laura Ingles Wilder(nonfiction))
- (Grandma's Attic by Arleta Richardson (nonfiction))
- The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
- (Half Magic by Edward Eager)
- something about a witch and a spelling Bee, title or author anyone?
- Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Casey
- Lois Lowry
- From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L.Konigsburg
- MacDonald Hall books by Gordon Korman (or anything else he wrote)
- Bunnicula by James Howe
- The Far Walker by Larry Leonard
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
- (I'm hoping this title is the book I think it is) (I mean I remember the book and I remember the title, but I'm not sure if I'm connecting the right book to the right tittle)
- Watership Down is the really good one with the rabbits who get kicked out of their home.
- Good. That's the book I wanted.
- Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry
- (Walk Two Moons)
- (Homesick:My Own Story)
- (Memoirs of A Geisha (Adult Fiction))
- Jean Craighead George
- A Log From the Sea of Cortez (I think this is the title) :)
- Where the Red Fern Grows
- Clay Marble
- Scott O'Dell
- The Witch of Blackbird Pond
- Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
- The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
- Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
- (King of the Wind)
- Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates
- (The 5 little Pepers and How they Grew)(?)
- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- A Little Princess
- Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
- Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery (and other books)
- (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin)(reminds me a lot of LM Montgomery's writing. Which came first?)
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- Eight Cousins & Rose in Bloom; (An Old Fashioned Girl)
- Pride & Predjudice by Jane Austen
(I love Pride&Predjudice, Alcott, Montgomery. Of all books I've probably reread Alcott the most. Of all movies Pride and Predjudice, for truly this is the one case where the movie matches the book. ((Also Much Ado about Nothing and Princess Bride are excellent movies)))
- Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webber
- (The Girl of Limberlost) (I think Freckles comes first.)
- Christy
- (Tisha)
- Mrs. Mike
- Books on Wooster and Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse.
- How could I possibly have forgotten to mention these for so long? --KL
- Hornblower (read these in order) (historical fiction)
- see also the Far Pavilions
- The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton
- I Heard The Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven
- At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon
- Fried Green Tomatoe's At the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
- Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. Macavoy
- The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
- If you open this book please do me the courtesy of reading the first ten chapters. It is a wonderful book, yet if I hadn't known that it would be, I probably would have dropped it on the first chapter and never found out.
- Cider House Rules by John Irving
- (haven't read Rudyard Kipling really)
[General Lit]
Plays (written form)(Some also found in 'classics' below):
- The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
- Mary, Mary by Jean Kerr
- Same Time, Next Year by Bernard Slade
- (Someone I know was looking for a comedy that's old enough to be out of copyright and contains a strong female character...Suggestions?
- Tipping Point, Blink by Gladwell
- Freakonomics
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Better by Atul Gawande
- Where Have All the Leaders Gone by Lee Iaccoca
- Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on An Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande
- James Herriot's It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet
- ((While You're Here Doc by Bradford Brown))
Bio/Autobio
?/historical (note many of these may be found in other sections - Lakota Woman I think is one, Grandma's Attic is one, Little House on the Prairie, Homesickness My Own Story is more or less one,...)
- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
- Do you know how evil it is for someone to have a book like this lying around when I'd never read it before? -KL.
[Humanity nonfiction
- Don't remember this book in detail as to caliber, but I feel like I ought to recomend it, for it really woke me up as to how recent things I thought were AncientHistory? metaphorically speaking occur. Would like to figure out how to better know the US policy and implementation and what's actually going on in the country I live in.
- The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson (About the 1854 Cholora outbreak in London. Recommended because I enjoyed reading it.)
]
[A List of Classics and Commentary:
- (to be completed Later. I'm too Lazy right now)
- (from MegaLit? List)
- (I included some books that were similar to a particular neighbor, although perhaps not dubbed or to be considered of the classics cannon)
- (I would generally recommend reading classics, as they have been so oft read down the ages and show up unexpectedly in society and culture, though admitedly some of are lesser quality in writing, and some books oughtn't to be classics, though considered as such.)(Why are some books dubbed "classics" and not others? Sometimes I think its not deserved and in other cases ought to be.)
(Or perhaps I am too lazy to ever get around to typing this, but it is a nice thought)
(Maybe I should make a diferent link)
]
[
Classics by Recommendation and Association:
- The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas
- The Long Ships (I hope this is what I think it is. Excellent. Very funny. Involves Vikings)
- (Not actually a classic but I put it here because it is historical fiction like Three musketeers and Ivanhoe and because like them it contains elements of comedy. I can vouch that this is a good book, though I can only remember that this was my impression at the time of hearing it.)
- Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
- Crime & Punishment
- (The Red Badge of Courage)
- The Crucible
Painful to read but well worth it. Deserves the title of Classic
- To Kill a Mockingbird (much lighter reading then the above two)
- Of Mice and Men; Grapes of Wrath; The Pearl; etc. by Steinbeck
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brönte
- Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
]
Poetry
[
Some(but not necessarily all) of the sayings, essays, and or poems of -
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Kipling
- Longfellow
- Emily Dickenson
- Thoreau
- Henry Wordsworth
- What all did he write again? I should check. -KL
- Ben Franklin, Mark Twain
- Ecclesiastes
- Solomon, reflecting on life
- Shakespeare
- (I'm not so familiar with Keets, and various others that might fall under this catagory)
]
[Math, Science,
(alright, yes, evaluation is good.)
(recommendations?)
(I refuse to evaluate text books, sorry) (Actually, listing the textbooks assigned for various classes and evaluationg them would be a useful thing to do. I'm probably too lazy though.)
Some things might note:
- A Brief History of Time <- broad overview in layman's terms (yes I'm sure you're already aware of this)
- ((Elegant Universe (which I spilled Chinese food on and still haven't read.)))
- Helliwell's Relativity book (ok. it's silly to put this here, I know, (seeing as its pointless to recommend a book we're all assigned), but I'm putting it down anyway. (It's a simple, clearly written, neat little book on relativity and it includes rhonocerouses moving at high speeds. Who can resist?))
- Gödel Escher Bach
- (Out of Control (?))(?)
- (random things heard of
- (List of physics texts: ...Haliday Resnick Krane, Atkin's Physical Chemistry, Quantum Physics (Eisberg & Resnick)(baby quantum), Shankar (Principles of Quantum Mechanics)(nonrelativistic still)(has postulates)...)
- Rudin's Analysis book
)]
- Escher's drawings - Excellent!
Entertaining, Games of Thought, Unexpected:
- This is the Title of this Story, Which is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself [here].
(short story)
- dialogues in Gödel Escher Bach
- (the dialogues belong in this category. The book itself is more serious. Deserves recommendation, but in a different category entirely.)
- Borges's El Camino de Sendero's que Bifurcan
- (I have a copy of this in Spanish that I could loan you. I would recommend everything I've read by Borges, but this is my favorite so far)
The Prayer of the Atheist (I have a copy in Spanish if you would wish to read it.)
San Manuel Bueno, Martir
(Niebla) (most of Niebla I wouldn't particularly recommend, but the ending is quite worth reading)
- The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis
- Letters from one devil to another, his nephew, with advice on manipulating a human
- ((Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead))
- ((Voumes I & II of Adeline Mowbray by Amelia Opie))
- Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
- I went on a white water river rafting trip at a family reunion this past summer, and the raftsman, who was a character in his own right - chipper, unexpected, talkative. He talked of his life in the outdoors.. "Poverty with a view".. and did a back flip off the front of the raft and came out 'orking' like a seal. He could have been on the river 20years. I don't know. We passangers sang songs for part of the trip, and he knew all the words to 'Love Potion Number Nine.' - recommended this book. Seemed, somehow, terribly appropriate.
[If you see English spelling mistakes please let me know or correct them. Lazyness, again. I know I spelled dialogues wrong somewhere (including here)(severe mumbling and a reference to Merlin's profuse "byourlady" commentary in the Once and Future King -KL) and several other things, but am to lazy to look up correct.]
[Note: If you put notes in the above text I will leave them up for a while (and possibly reply) and then after a 'suitable time' I may encorporate said comments into the page as applicable (i.e. the authors name really is thus and such or this book really belongs somewhere else, it is much nicer to read if I change the authors name or move the book rather then just leaving interrupting comments lying about wheras if you're giving comment on the book itself 'I hate this book. What were you thinking?' I may (or may not) leave it indefinitely (rather then 'suitable time'). Possibly I'll move it to the bottom of the page if I find it cluttersome after a suitable time. See KLGoodBooksArchivedCommentary.][KLxToReadxReadingxRead]
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Page put together by KatieLewis (aka Katie of Atwood, still of Atwood (Blimey!) really?)
also see GoodBooks and wiki pages mentioned there. (Books for loan at BookCollection) (Books for sale at BookSale)(ShmackBooks)(EastLibrary)(EvilSouthiesGoodBooks)(STanBookNotes)(ScienceFictionBookList)(MuddTextBooks)[gutenberg]
Comments welcomed. Also if you think of books I should read, I would be most interested to know.