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alligator · Apr 3, 2009, 09:26 PM

I would like to pick up a new book to read this weekend, but I have a hard time finding something I like in the bookstore. It's getting to the point where I don't read much anymore because of it.

I really enjoy reading fiction stories that actually have a good plot to them. Sort of like storytelling. The problem is that all the fiction books I pick up are about a murder. They all start like this:

"Bob was a shoe salesman, and nothing ever happened. That is, until he came across the dead body in the shoe store . . ."

I like books like Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer. It tells the story of two brothers as they grow up.

Can someone recommend something with a good non-murder plot?

RAILhead · Apr 3, 2009, 09:55 PM

Day by Day Armageddon.

ShortcutToMoncton · Apr 4, 2009, 09:12 AM

Treat yourself:

John Steinbeck – East of Eden (long read... but a better Cain and Abel than Archer I'm willing to bet)
or Of Mice and Men (short read)
Ernest Hemingway – Islands in the Stream
Annie Proulx – The Shipping News
Joseph Heller – Catch 22

Admittedly, many of these books involve murder. But I don't think they're really about that sort of thing.

greg

ctt1wbw · Apr 4, 2009, 02:18 PM

I am retired Navy and love reading Navy history. This is the best one of the ones I've read...

To Shining Sea

Hawkeye_a · Apr 4, 2009, 04:06 PM

My last read was 'Angels and Demons' almost 3-4 years ago. I find the hardest part about reading is actually picking a book i'm interested in, otherwise i usually give up reading it before the end.

So i picked up a couple of books recently:

-Israel: A History

-The Second Coming of Steve Jobs

-The Picture of Dorian Gray

Cheers

ThinkInsane · Apr 4, 2009, 05:27 PM

Originally Posted by RAILhead

Day by Day Armageddon.

Nice choice. I hope he gets the sequel done soon. And as long as we are recommending the stumbling dead, don't forget about World War Z.

RAILhead · Apr 4, 2009, 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by ThinkInsane

Nice choice. I hope he gets the sequel done soon. And as long as we are recommending the stumbling dead, don't forget about World War Z.

Just finished that, and now I'm also reading The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. I also just started reading The Host, but I'm not far enough along to thumbs-up or down it.

turtle777 · Apr 4, 2009, 06:26 PM

Originally Posted by alligator

I really enjoy reading fiction stories that actually have a good plot to them. Sort of like storytelling. The problem is that all the fiction books I pick up are about a murder.

Try some Eric Ambler.

Few of his novels contain murder, but if they do, it typically doesn't take the center stage of the plot.

Start with this one, no murder, IIRC.

http://www.amazon.com/Passage-Arms-E...8883813&sr=8-5

http://www.amazon.com/Coffin-Dimitri...8883901&sr=8-1

-t

LegendaryPinkOx · Apr 4, 2009, 07:10 PM

Hitchhiker's Guide.

ShortcutToMoncton · Apr 4, 2009, 07:27 PM

You people are all wack

LegendaryPinkOx · Apr 4, 2009, 07:44 PM

wiggity wiggity

ThinkInsane · Apr 4, 2009, 08:09 PM

I just finished The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell and it was excellent (the sequel isn't quite as good but well worth the read as well). I highly recommend it.

Also, Straight Man and Nobody's Fool, both by Richard Russo are a couple of favorites. If you want some humor, anything by Christopher Moore or Terry Pratchett, and of course Adam's Hitchkiker series. If you like things a bit darker, Cormack McCarthy would be someone to check out. What else... If you like sci fi, give The Forever War by Joe Haldeman a read.

I read so much, two or three books a week that I have a tough time sorting the good **** from the ****y **** when it comes to recommendations. I'll have to give this some more thought.

Railhead, check out the WWZ audio book. iTunes has a few sections up as podcasts

mattyb · Apr 5, 2009, 03:50 PM

Do you like Crichton? I've enjoyed all of his books.

Bill Bryson is funny as well.

Best fictionalized history that I've ever read : Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield

Like interesting people? THE most interesting man in history is Sir Richard Francis Burton. If anyone hasn't read about this person, then do so and we'll argue later. Winston Churchill also had a very interesting life, and also wrote some good books - not really light reading though.

/Glances back from his bookshelves

Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad is very good. Mr Nice about a dope dealer is funny. Endurance is about Shackleton's South Pole adventure. Secrets and Lies - about Digital Security. Chaos by James Gleick is very interesting.

Me and the misses like murder stuff. Michael Connelly rises above the other murder writers IMHO.

I agree with the Terry Pratchett recommendation. Very funny.

If you like Sci-Fi the Dune series are excellent. Only those written by Frank Herbert though, not his son or the House of ... titles - they're dross. Asimov's Robots series if you haven't yet read it.

SpaceMonkey · Apr 5, 2009, 03:59 PM

Sticking with sci-fi for a moment, I enjoy Connie Willis: The Doomsday Book or To Say Nothing of the Dog.

If you like character studies with broad historical sweep, Ivo Andrić's The Bridge on the Drina is one my favorite books overall.

mattyb · Apr 5, 2009, 04:10 PM

We need a Good Book thread - like the Hot babes thread but with less silicon and Photoshop treatment.

alligator · Apr 5, 2009, 04:32 PM

I guess I'm just frustrated that most writers take the easy way out and write a story with someone being murdered (hence the plot to find out who did it), or the plot involves some type of drugs/violence/rape/war. Aren't there any books out there that tell really, really cool stories? I'm not against the violent plots once in a while, but I get sick of the same thing over and over again.

The ideas above are a great start . . .

ShortcutToMoncton · Apr 5, 2009, 05:06 PM

A great start? I gave you all the answer right off the bat....

sek929 · Apr 5, 2009, 05:08 PM

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Maybe I'm partial to post-apocalyptic wasteland, but it's a good read, no murder tales either.

waxcrash · Apr 5, 2009, 08:01 PM

Originally Posted by sek929

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I was going to recommend this too, but I noticed he is looking for something "like storytelling" and McCarthy's writing style is very minimalistic and short. He doesn't even use quotation marks. However, he does paint great imagery with very few words.

I agree with you it's a good read and looking forward to the movie this year.

alligator · Apr 5, 2009, 08:09 PM

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton

A great start? I gave you all the answer right off the bat....

Well, I can't comment until I've read everything on this list!

I've made a list, I'll start tomorrow. My wife is begging me to try the Twilight series. I'm not sure about that one . . .

RobOnTheCape · Apr 5, 2009, 08:14 PM

Still my favorite and for other who have read it is: Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts.
http://www.amazon.com/Shantaram-Nove...8976643&sr=8-1 Looking forward to the movie whenever they get around to filming. It's been put off ever since the writers strike.

ShortcutToMoncton · Apr 5, 2009, 08:20 PM

Originally Posted by alligator

I've made a list, I'll start tomorrow. My wife is begging me to try the Twilight series. I'm not sure about that one . . .

ThinkInsane · Apr 5, 2009, 09:41 PM

Originally Posted by alligator

Well, I can't comment until I've read everything on this list!

I've made a list, I'll start tomorrow. My wife is begging me to try the Twilight series. I'm not sure about that one . . .

Tell us some more books you've read and liked and we can probably do a little better than vampire fantasy/romance written for teenaged girls.

Is there a specific genre you enjoy?

dav · Apr 6, 2009, 08:11 AM

a little late to the party, and i haven't read, "Kane and Abel", but this is an excellent book and i think in line with what you are looking for...
A Soldier of the Great War

mattyb · Apr 6, 2009, 08:16 AM

^ Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin is also good.

atxmacin · Apr 6, 2009, 12:12 PM

Anything by Dan Brown is good... Digital Fortress is interesting if your into the whole computer thing and not the religion thing..

Jawbone54 · Apr 6, 2009, 02:08 PM

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton

Treat yourself:

John Steinbeck – East of Eden (long read... but a better Cain and Abel than Archer I'm willing to bet)

My favorite book ever, by far.

Get this book and stick with it through the many, many pages.

mattyb · Apr 6, 2009, 02:58 PM

Originally Posted by sek929

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Maybe I'm partial to post-apocalyptic wasteland, but it's a good read, no murder tales either.

Did you read it before or after Fallout 3 ?

I found it very heavy going myself, and didn't finish it.

sek929 · Apr 6, 2009, 04:41 PM

Before F3, I'm not totally finished myself.

Oisín · Apr 6, 2009, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by alligator

I guess I'm just frustrated that most writers take the easy way out and write a story with someone being murdered (hence the plot to find out who did it), or the plot involves some type of drugs/violence/rape/war. Aren't there any books out there that tell really, really cool stories? I'm not against the violent plots once in a while, but I get sick of the same thing over and over again.

The semi-autobiographical At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O’Neill is the best I can think of like this. There are no murders, it’s a good, solid story that’s told in a very storytelling-like kind of way (it’ll take a few pages at least to get used to the writing style; just a warning).

There is a bit of violence and war, but it’s circumstantial, rather than essential, to the plot. The book takes place in Ireland around 1915, so a bit of war is hard to avoid.

- - e r i k - - · Apr 6, 2009, 07:28 PM

Catch 22 - A classic dark, funny and schizophrenic satire. A darker WWII version of M*A*S*H. I enjoyed it a lot.

Oisín · Apr 6, 2009, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton

Joseph Heller – Catch 22

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton

A great start? I gave you all the answer right off the bat....

*cough*

- - e r i k - - · Apr 6, 2009, 07:32 PM

A second recommendation only means the book is even more worth reading, no?

What happened to all the Twilight kiddies we had an influx of here earlier? Doof eat them?

SSharon · Apr 6, 2009, 08:37 PM

I really enjoyed both The Killer Angels (by Michael Shaara) and Gods and Generals (by Jeffrey Shaara). They are both about the civil war and so of course involve people dying, but the story telling and visual descriptions make you fell like you are there.

If you like physics and humor I also suggest Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman.

Gavin · Apr 8, 2009, 10:33 PM

How about some Mark Twain, Dickens, Vonnegut, or any of the classical russian authors?

I would recommend "Things Fall Apart" by Achebe. It's about a man in a small african village trying to live a traditional life while encroaching colonialism slowly changes the culture out from under him.

Also "Empire of the ants" by Bernard Werber.

Apple Pro Underwear · Apr 8, 2009, 11:36 PM

The Pixar Touch by David Price

Tells the story of Pixar and how it kicked the doors in after struggling. fascinating and there is a little nugget in the middle after steve jobs buys it for the apple fans. it was a page turner for me the whole time i read it.

Tiresias · Apr 9, 2009, 12:34 AM

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton

Ernest Hemingway – Islands in the Stream

A superb book.

As to book recommendations, here are the some of the books that I will be rereading, with undiminished pleasure and enthusiasm, for the rest of my life (Shortcut has already mentioned one. East of Eden's pretty good too, though Steinbeck's too much of a literal-minded moralist for my taste).

Ulysses, James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
The Collected Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges (Hell, everything by Borges)
Don Quixote, Cervantes
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
War and Peace, Tolstoy
Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov (Hell, everything by Nabokov).
Confessions of an English Opium Eater, De Quincey
Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift
Junky, William Burroughs
A Pale View of Hills, Kazuo Ishiguro
Beautiful Losers, Leonard Cohen
The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton
Hamlet, Shakespeare (Hell, everything by the Bard)
Gargantua and Pantagruel, Rabelais
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
The Complete Short Stories of H. G. Wells
The Complete Short Stories of Franz Kafka (Hell, etc.)
The White Devil, John Webster
Time's Arrow, Martin Amis
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
The Man Without Qualities, Robert Musil

Tiresias · 04:30 AM

Originally Posted by Oisín

The semi-autobiographical At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O’Neill ...

Phew! For a minute there, I thought you were going to recommend the worst book ever written (in my oh-so-humble opintion): At Swim-Two-Birds by O'Brien.

Oisín · Apr 9, 2009, 04:37 PM

Originally Posted by toothpick_charlie

Phew! For a minute there, I thought you were going to recommend the worst book ever written (in my oh-so-humble opintion): At Swim-Two-Birds by O'Brien.

Never even heard of it, though I’m a bit disappointed you removed your rant. Rants are good.

ShortcutToMoncton · Apr 9, 2009, 08:22 PM

How about some great character development in a boxing/prizefighting novel? "The Professional" by W.C. Heinz is a great read as well then.

greg

Tiresias · Apr 9, 2009, 09:41 PM

All right, Oisín.

After reading At Swim-Two-Birds, I was so annoyed I drafted this start to an Amazon review. I decided not to publish it because I knew it would draw me into stupid arguments with his necessarily stupid readers.

Horses for courses, as they say; but I am not horse enough for O'Brien's course.

Nabokov said, of the praise lavished on a book he hated, that it amounted to, "an absurd delusion, as when a hypnotized person makes love to a chair." I can think of no other way to describe the discrepancy between the highfalutin praise given this book and my experience of actually reading it.

At Swim-Two-Birds is probably the dullest, most slipshod, most irritating novel that I have ever read; a scattershot gallimaufry of bad jokes, turgid nonsense, purple prose, and long, long-winded creatures of Irish legend carousing like the phantasmagoria of a tedious nightmare, or like an overlong piece of impromptu theatre, attempting ribald hilarity, but failing—each amateur actor jostling for centre-stage with histrionic imbecility, and each crude gag falling flat on its face.

Its defenders will say that this is all parody. Perhaps. But the primary victim of O'Brien's writing is the helpless reader.

And so on, and so forth.

Oisín · Apr 10, 2009, 06:32 AM

Outstanding ranting there, absolutely first-class!

Plus, anyone that teaches me new words automatically gets a thumbsup (in this case, ‘gallimaufry’, a most excellent addition to the vocabulary).

mattyb · Apr 10, 2009, 07:39 AM

Originally Posted by Oisín

Outstanding ranting there, absolutely first-class!

Plus, anyone that teaches me new words automatically gets a thumbsup (in this case, ‘gallimaufry’, a most excellent addition to the vocabulary).

You've watched Bill and Ted again recently haven't you ?

Oisín · Apr 10, 2009, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by mattyb

You've watched Bill and Ted again recently haven't you ?

Nope. Think I saw it once, about 15 years ago (i.e., when I was about 10 or so), but not since. Can’t really remember it.

Tiresias · Apr 11, 2009, 02:06 AM

I'm glad you like the rant, Oisin; especially if I have increased the likelihood that you will steer clear of O'Brien. So many good books to read, why waste your time on garbage.

Bill and Ted is a movie about two surfer dudes whose catchphrase is, "most excellent" or "totally excellent", or something like that. But your innocent unfamiliarity with this particular piece of cinematic trash does you credit.

alligator · Apr 19, 2009, 11:24 AM

Hey, don't knock Bill and Ted. Now there was a great cinematic production. Unfortunately, I was looking for something a little "heavier" in a book form that Bill and Ted.

Wild Stalion Rules!

Andy8 · Apr 19, 2009, 11:31 AM

I read the Economist every week. They have a good website and an audio version of their print edition you can download if you are tired of reading

auto_immune · 11:52 AM

Any book by James Michener would be a good choice.
( Journey and Drifters are both good reads.)

Also, check out Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace

mattyb · Apr 19, 2009, 03:08 PM

Originally Posted by Andy8

I read the Economist every week. They have a good website and an audio version of their print edition you can download if you are tired of reading

My dad got two years of the Economist from me for Christmas. He never stops saying what a good present it was. Only £160 as well. I may get myself a subscription.

angelmb · Apr 19, 2009, 04:31 PM