Recomended Books???

[PLOWKILL]

Im not a big reader but every now and then I go and pick up a Steven King novel to read before I go to sleep. Something I picked up from the ex :mad:

Anyway... Some of the books Ive picked up were pretty good and left me wanting to read more and others I struggle to keep reading.

Anyone have anything they might recomend to me? Horror, Drama, Fantasy.... Aslong as it keeps me flipping Ill read it (might take me a few months).


I need a book for the days I dont have any beer, theres nothing on TV, and its to late to hop on the old XBOX, but cant sleep. :cool:

Plus girls find it pretty cool to see a book lying on the night stand beside the bed.... "Ill never understand women.... :rolleyes: "

[xSpartanC17x]

Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield.... awesome rendition of the battle at Thermopylae imho

[Jlance999]

Read Horus Rising from the Horus Heresy of the Warhammer books. Great series.

[Maawdawg]

In the fantasy genre I would have to recommend Terry Brooks. He has some amazing stuff. The shanarra series is great but may be too long for just nightstand reading. Running with the Demon is a good series. I would pick up the Magic Kingdom for Sale series for something to start with. It is about an alcoholic lawyer who's wife dies, he sees an ad for a magic kingdom in a rare items catalog and buys it. The kingdom isn't what he imagined and he gets pulled into something much deeper than he had planned.

If you just want one book, my favorite book of all time is Captain Jack Zodiac by Michael Kandel. It is a really hard book to find but you can get it used off amazon from a ton of vendors. I really can't recommend it enough. It is about post WW3 America and is a bunch of stories that intertwine as the book progresses. Some of the story topics are...

-a guy who's lawn comes to life and hunts him
-a guy who gets superpowers from a mix of Right Guard, St. Pauli Girl, and radiation
-a guy who's dead mother in law torments him from hell
-a guy trying to track down his kids, one is a "space cadet", a drug addict basically but in the book you don't just trip you actually space travel until the drug wears off, the other kid is a mall zombie
-a guy who finds out you can die in the afterlife, after you die, and starts experimenting with it.

crazy read, some of the best scifi I have read ever.
http://www.amazon.com/Captain-Jack-Zodiac-Michael-Kandel/dp/0553293672

[Jurgy]

Because I know what type of person you are, I would like to suggest a book that reminds me a lot of you.

"I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" by Tucker Max

You will laugh your a$$ off, because I've read it a couple times, and from some of the stories in there, it sounds like they ripped off your life.

Please, go out and get this book. You'll really enjoy it.

[Eleazar]

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
It starts a bit slow, but if you can get through for first chapter you won't want to put it down. I think it is the only book that I've ever read in less than a month.

If you like Monty Python Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series is something you need to pick up.

[phildo881]

I was handed the first trilogy book of the Forgotten realms by a friend a while back and got hooked straight away.

Im a big fantasy fan so these books were a great get away from real life for me. The series derived from dungeons and dragons i believe and has a feel simmilar to lord of the rings...... you know, elf's, dwarves, dragons etc.

Dark elves are where the story starts. They are an evil race but the star of the show is a dark elf who begins to dislike the way his people are. So he packs up and F***s off Lol well there's more to it than that but i wouldnt want to spoil it.

His father, a weapons master trains him with DW swords, the first books revolve around him learning magical, as well as battle techniques to survive life in the dark elf city..... it's quite intense a lot of the time, but has it's philosophical moments too.

I've read 5 of these trillogy books now, they take a GOOD ammount of time, but for me that's part of the fun.

There's some info here about them, and a few Google searches for Drizzt Du'Urden will tell you a lot more.

http://www.o-love.net/realms/head_dri.html

Worth a look

[phildo881]

OMG double post, and why didnt i suggest this first?

Thinking of your posting style i can see you enjoying the Discworld series by Terry Pratchet.

The maddest and funniest books i have ever read. Had me laughing 70% of the time, the other 30% i was trully baffled with the logic Terry uses.

He basically made his own world of pure madness. Things just dont make sense in reality but in discworld it works.

"Discworld is a comedic fantasy book series by the British author Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four giant elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle,[1] Great A'Tuin"

:o

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld

[Shaynard]

Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles keep me coming back every year.. I have read them all close to 10 times each and keep reading them when I finish off others.. Must be a reason... Don't let the Vamp theme fool you, these books are great and full of historical references and intense imagry.

[Janot79]

Okay..I've got a few good books for you to read..They are mainly series so you will have plenty of reading material
1. The Dark Tower series by Stephen King...Great books about 7 in total. I've read them all like 5 times each..
2. The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice...WoW is all i can say.
3. The Mayfair Witches by Anne Rice..A three book series that intersects with the Vampire Chronicles(which by the way is a 12 book or so series)
4. The Cell by Stephen King..A great book. I'm hoping he writes more..It seems like he could branch out with this idea.
5. Anything by R.A. Salvatore..He does a lot of Fantasy stuff. His main Character is Dritzz Du'Urden mentioned above by Phildo881.
6. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy..Don't know who it's by(i forgot) but it is funny.
Hope this helps

[The_Fallen]

1. Slam by Nick Hornby
2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
3. Maus 1 & 2 by Art Spiegelman
4. Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation by M.T. Anderson
5. A long Way Down by Nick Hornby
All great books

[laxfish76]

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
It starts a bit slow, but if you can get through for first chapter you won't want to put it down. I think it is the only book that I've ever read in less than a month.

Just about to recommend this, Eleazar :p

Great book, can't recommend enough.

I am currently reading Anasi Boys, about Fat Charlie Nancy, and it's great too :)

[RAziel1979]

Why not read the books that Denis recommended?
http://www.toohuman.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1900&highlight=malazan+books

I'll be checking those books out as soon as I'm done with Hyperion.

[DirkPitt45]

Any Clive Cussler book, except The Chase. They've got action in them and it's believable, nothing over the top; Dirk Pitt FTW.

The movie Sahara was based off of the Cussler book.

[Guirec730]

Punisher MAX series.

Graphic novels count, right?

[laxfish76]

If we are doing graphic novels, I would say Watchmen.

[PLOWKILL]

I was just looking for my next book.... If it has pics in it then thats cool, but kinda ruines making up your own idea of what things look like.

Thanks for all the recomendations, looks like Im set for the next year or so on books I should read! :)

[Bloodwrath970]

My personal choice for fantasy books :The Dragonlance series. massive list of books, and ive read most of them. any of them by the founders Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, basically are the s*it. Another good book is "The Relic", and its sequel "Reliquary" pretty guesome at points, but they're really good. all the afforementioned books are a bit long, so probably not great for nightstand-reading.

[Zakath]

Why not read the books that Denis recommended?
http://www.toohuman.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1900&highlight=malazan+books

I'll be checking those books out as soon as I'm done with Hyperion.

I finished the 1st and 2nd books. I'm gonna get the 3rd one after I'm done reading my 3 books backlog :) One thing I must about that series though is that it is not an easy read. There are tons of characters and it's not easy to keep track of everyone and understand the whole mythology of the world. It's also somewhat confusing to figure out where the whole thing is going, but it is definetly a good read. Just go into it with no expectations at all and let it take you away ;)



As for other suggestions, I mostly read Fantasy so here goes :

-The Fionavar Tapestry (trilogy), Guy Gavriel Kay. My personnal favorite books.
-The Belgariad and The Malloreon ( decalogy splitted in 2 series of 5 books), David Eddings
-Bilbo the Hobbit, JRR Tolkien ( I found this book more entertaining than LotR personnally )
-Orcs, Stanley Nicholls (decent trilogy, there is a sequel that I am about to read)
-The Dreamers, David Eddings (not as good as The Belgariad, but I like the characters in it, it's a decent series. 4 books )


We could probably sticky this or make a new official thread with all the suggestions listed in the OP for future references. This is a topic that comes back regularly on the forums.

[Nixon]

Anything by Philip K. Dick.

My favorite science-fiction writer. Some of his works:

VALIS
Ubik
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
The Man in the High Castle
Galactic Pot-Healer
Gameplayers of Titan

You seen the movies Blade Runner, Total Recall and A Scanner Darkly? They are all based on Philip K. Dick novels.

[Guirec730]

I'll go ahead and make my suggestions from the last time a thread like this was up:

Ender's Game...a must for the videogame crowd.

Blindness...didn't see the movie but the book will place some very unique images in your head.

Battle Royale...because schoolchildren butchering each other never gets old.

[Daziel]

Velocity By Dean Koontz, Very fast paced novel, i didn't read much until that book, finished it in week, and i've been lending it out to friends for the past year becuase they all want to read it.

[Maawdawg]

My personal choice for fantasy books :The Dragonlance series. massive list of books, and ive read most of them. any of them by the founders Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, basically are the s*it. Another good book is "The Relic", and its sequel "Reliquary" pretty guesome at points, but they're really good. all the afforementioned books are a bit long, so probably not great for nightstand-reading.


I have a catalog of about 100 Dragonlance books on my shelf. I enjoyed a lot of Weis & Hickman's stuff, though some wasn't as good as others. The Chronicles are classic, I read them first around 1989, and have gone back to them many times since. "The Twins" series (Test of, War of, Time of), and the "Dragons of" (Vanished Moon, Lost Star, and Fallen Sun) are among my favorite series in the mythos.

I would also recommend Brothers In Arms and Soulforge if you want to know more about the Majere twins. The Preludes series is the individual backstories of the major characters in Chronicles, 6 books total, one on each. Tales of Uncle Trapspringer is also very good.

My favorite series of all time from Dragonlance is The Dhamon Saga by Jean Rabe. Downfall, Betrayal, and Redemption are the 3 books. It is just an amazing series, and Dhamon is my favorite character in any of the books I have read in the Dragonlance series. He ranks slightly above Raistlin and Tasslehoff for me. If you read and like the Dhamon series, Niles next best work is the Dragons of a New Age series.

I have read so many over the course of so many years it is hard to remember what other ones were better than others but those all stand out in my mind.

The wiki has a pretty comprehensive list of all the novels. Some day I would love to have the whole collection and have read it all but it is such an immense backlog I don't know if I ever will.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dragonlance_novels

[TheFacelessOne]

For fantasy I recommend the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R R Martin. The first book "A Game Of Thrones" might be made into an HBO series - they bought the television rights - but nothing's been officially announced. The series is very dark, graphic, and explicit - rare for the fantasy genre - but the books are around 6 - 8 hundred pages each so they're not light reading. If you like horror try searching for this book called Headhunter by Michael Slade. It's pretty old but probably on ebay. A very complex serial killer mystery with a hell of an ending.

[Nicholbert]

for those who smoke...

My wife and I recently stumbled on a book which helped us quit smoking. Yes, we read a book and we quit smoking. We weren't given a barrage of scare tactics. We weren't tricked into it. The book, The Easyway to Quit Smoking, by Alan Carr, gives a very easy, methodical, and sensical approach to break your mind's addiction to nicotine and the habit of smoking. The author at one point in time was a 5 pack a day smoker. That means he was basically lighting one off of the other everyday. He got so sick of being a slave to his habit and addiction, he came up with his Easyway method. You can find the book online, and usually can walk into any neighborhood B&N and find it in the Self Help section.
My wife and I were smoking over a pack a day when we quit. I had been smoking since I was 12, she since age 14. so we were 15 years into the habit as well, and didn't think there was any way, but we were open to trying anything and everything. We extinguished our last cigarette on December 4th, and have not looked back. I haven't had any of the cravings people talk about. I haven't substituted smoking with anything else. We just quit, plain and simple after reading this book. I HIGHLY recommend it to any smoker who is looking for something to help them quit.

[xSpartanC17x]

also take a look at Marine Sniper by Charles Henderson. its been a while since i read it but i remember it being quite graphic at some times