Ask Slashdot: What Do You Like To Read? 647
badeMan writes "I will be traveling a third of the way around the world this Christmas, and that means a lot of time on a plane. I have decided I am not going to do any coding or technical reading during the flight. Outside the realm of technology and all things related to work, what do you find interesting to read? What books, genres, and authors do you enjoy?"
Non-Feminist SF/Fantasy (Score:1, Insightful)
John McPhee (Score:4, Insightful)
I love John McPhee's work. A long time contributor to The New Yorker, McPhee's writing is so concise it's hard to see how he could make a single sentence more informative. His writings cover a broad range of subjects, including geology, oranges, tennis, nuclear energy, Soviet dissident art, the merchant marine and fishing.
I strongly recommend reading "Levels of the Game", as it's one of the finest examples of sports writing you will find. McPhee covers the 1968 U.S. Open semifinal between Arthur Ashe and Lynn Graebner, and he uses the tennis match as a biographical frame of each player. It's extraordinary.
If you like reading about nuclear weapons (i.e., you've read both "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" and "Dark Sun" by Richard Rhodes), then "The Curve of Binding Energy" is a must read. McPhee interviews Ted Taylor, who helped develop smaller versions of nuclear weapons for the U.S., and discusses how hard it would be for a terrorist group to create a nuclear weapon. Even this book was written in the early 1990s, it still has a lot of relevance today.
My favorite piece by McPhee is "Coming into the Country", which are three separate stories about Alaska. The first story recounts as Alaskan backcountry canoe trip he took with state and federal park employees, and the second is about the state's efforts in the 1970s to build a city and make it the new state capital. But the best story by far is the last piece about the people of Eagle, Alaska, which is a small trading post along the Yukon River near Canada. The profiles he writes about those who run the city and those who live on the periphery is some of the best storytelling you'll find. It's simply a phenomenal book.
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand (Score:3, Insightful)
It's an old one and definitely a classic... but I have only just started reading and must admit it's a great one if you haven't read it yet.
Re:new yorker (Score:5, Insightful)
Vonnegut's overrated.
Only if you don't like his work.
Re:Non-Feminist SF/Fantasy (Score:3, Insightful)
Fuck escapism - real-life, real history, is much more fascinating with the right narrator.
Re:Non-Feminist SF/Fantasy (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, there's always Terry Goodkind.
Re:Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand (Score:3, Insightful)
Please, God, no
Re:PKD (Score:3, Insightful)
PKD has been in every movie everywhere. Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but read him. If you don't, I will find you and kick you in the balls. Not because I get a royalty check, or because I think you have balls, but because I read my roommate's PKD collection. And it is awesome. The movies he inspired are incredible.
I will KHITBASH if needed. But please read PKD. One book from the public library should convince you to buy everything, ever. If not, the library got another rental, BFD.
Re:Ok, For me personally... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd highly recommend Peter Watts. Blindsight is a good start, as it is self contained. The Rifters' Trilogy is fantastic, but then you are committing to 3 books.
I also recently read a short story, Wool, by Hugh Howey that I thought was fantastic. Sometimes I just feel like short and sweet, and it delivered.
I've also been reading a bunch of non-fiction lately. So, some non-technical books recently that I liked:
Re:Non-Feminist SF/Fantasy (Score:2, Insightful)
I would say to that, fuck reality. Anyone with half a brain can smell the entropy all around us and the smaller picture is worse. America debating going all the way with fascism, with Americans cheering all the way. I met a sweet little old lady convinced that all Muslims were out to kill Americans because "they think that we are the great white Satan." Reality is pretty fucking awful and, on occasion, I need an escape.
Re:Wheel Of Time (Score:2, Insightful)
You should even have time to read the first 5 or 6 Malazan books.
On a more serious note, read WoT first. Malazan makes WoT look like a children's story, with a simple linear plot.
Re:new yorker (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow. You recommend "Ian" M. Banks' Culture novels but suggest he be careful of his other stuff? I'd put it the other way round.
Good Iain Banks books: Wasp Factory, Espedair Street, The Crow Road, Whit, A Song of Stone, the Steep Approach to Garbadale.
Good Iain M Banks books: Use of Weapons (possibly), Inversions
Bad Iain Banks books: Complicity [not read the others so I can't comment on them]
Bad Iain M Banks books: Consider Phlebas (boring); The Player of Games (oh GOD how fucking boring do you need to get?), Feersum Endjinn (if I wanted to read books written phonetically I'd read Irvine Welsh, not this bullshit), Excession (other than the Culture ships' names - always brilliant - this is a book about nothign with a stupid ending), Look to Windward (boring). [not read the others so I can't comment on them]
Just because it's "science fiction" - and I'd even argue that point; they're fantasy in space, and not very good fantasy at that - doesn't make it any good.
Actually I disagree. (Score:4, Insightful)
I like the Dresden books, like the stories, like his characters. But it is very much pulp fiction. The writing is not great -it's ok but not great- it's the stories and the characters that do it for me.
Harry Potter for grown ups. (Ducks and runs).
Re:new yorker (Score:4, Insightful)