Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Favorite Books

Books I have enjoyed and that have influenced me:

As a teen/high school:

Douglas Adams: Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy
Kurt Vonnegut: Breakfast of Champions and others
John Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men
Sinclair Lewis: Babbitt
Flannery O'Connor: Greenleaf; Everything That Rises Must Converge; and other short stories *** truly awesome, appreciated critically but not as widely appreciated popularly as she should be

College:
More Flannery O'Connor
T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland
Tom Morris (my favorite philosophy professor): The Concept of God

I haven't done much reading since college, unless comic books and medical journals count. The books I have read have been light, like the Harry Potter series and books by comedians that are basically edited collections of their stand-up material: George Carlin and Lewis Black are my favorites there.

My wife is the avid reader in the family and has told me I need to read Fritjof Capra, especially The Web of Life.

-The Rights of Man (Thomas Paine)
-Why I Am not a Christian (Bertrand Russell)
-Man's search for meaning (Victor Frankl)
-Bakunin on anarchism (Michael Bakunin)
-Utilitarianism, On Liberty, On Socialism, The Subjection of Women (John Stuart Mill)
-Manufacturing Consent (anything else by Noam Chomsky)
-And any works by Jiddu Krishnamurti (I highly recommend at least checking out his web site).

Currently reading "Life Inc.".

Those are to name a few. I'll try to get a picture of my cabinet with my collection of books.

I was also fascinated by This is Your Brain on Music--and the concepts were presented in an easily accessible way.

Also, love Ray Bradbury's books. I think his prose is beautifully constructed and quite poetic. On the other hand, I can't stand his poetry!

I'll just list authors:
Jack McDevitt-archaeology and sci-fi! How can you miss?
Robert Jordan (of course) - epic fantasy
Larry Niven - epic hard sci-fi
David Weber - epic military sci-fi
Peter F. Hamilton - epic rock hard sci-fi
John Scalzi - just plain fun sci-fi
Neil Gaiman - weird fantasy, brilliant writing
Harry Turtledove - epic alternate history
Alastair Reynolds - rock hard sci-fi, verging on cyberpunk
Connie Willis - hard sci-fi, high emotional impact
Terry Pratchett - well written, dry comic fantasy

Hmm... I've had favourites for different periods of my life.

Dr Zeuss was up there when my kids were young. I had a lot of fun ad-libing after the first dozen readings of a given book.

Samual Clemmens (Mark Twain) Roughing It was a fascinating read

Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance. I was fascinated by this book in the first read through. The second time I came to the conclusion he was on one big acid trip.

Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes. Creepy yet fascinating.

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart. A fascinating look at the downfall of African society as the western world conquered 'the continent'.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment. Another creepy yet fascinating book.

Frank Herbert, Dune Best ever science fiction book!
Ursela K. LeGuin, The Dispossesed
Phillip K. Dick, Ubik
Steinbeck, pick one
Salmon Rushdie, Midnight's Children

I've heard him interviewed a couple of times. Fascinating guy!

I really need to try and find some LeGuin. My local library only has a few, and they all seem to be in the middle of series. I'm pretty anal about reading all the books in a series in published order, so if I can't get my hands on one, I tend to not read any.

I tried reading the EarthSea trilogy, but could never get into it. This is from Wikipedia on The Dispossessed:

"The book won the Nebula Award in 1974,[1] both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1975,[2] and received a nomination for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1975.[2] It is also notable for achieving a degree of literary recognition unusual for science fiction works."

The last sentence is what stands out. Its an exceptional book.

Anyone read any Esther Friesner? My friend thinks I should read her Majyk series, at least, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

With titles like Chicks In Chainmail how can you go wrong?

She has won a couple of Nebulas for short stories as well as getting additional nominations for that award and a Hugo.

Sounds promising!