Book Recommendation/Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by Hashhog, May 25, 2015.

  1. Yes Moby Dick is a good adventure. For Agatha Christie you should read the orient express, its reputación is well deserved, but my personal favorite is Death on the Nile
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  2. Just finished the second book of the Broken Earth trilogy. I will have to come back and provide an update after I've finished the whole thing, but it is magnificent. Fantasy-science fiction book which takes place in a world subject to "Seasons," rare events occurring once every few hundred years in which earthquakes devastate the continent, and filled with orogenes, a minority race capable of manipulating rock.

    Fantastic narration, wonderful twists, and a completely engrossing story. I liked the first book more than the second, but I hear great things about the third.

    EDIT: Done with the third book, and she stuck the landing! Good read, answered my questions, and tied everything up very well. Great trilogy!
  3. I recently borrowed an omnibus from Frances Hodgson Burnett from the library, containing The Secret Garden, A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy. I'd read The Secret Garden before, about 10 years ago, and the novels were in reverse order of release, so I read them in reverse order.
    I really enjoyed all three novels, and would recommend them to both children and adults. However, while all books were rather pleasant, I felt like The Secret Garden was much more elegant in a way, and more satisfying.
    I think this might be because whereas all three of the novels follow a child who experiences one or multiple changes of fortune, only The Secret Garden stars a child that experiences a change of heart. To me, this makes the book a lot more engaging, and I felt more connected to Mary than I did to the perfect Sara and Cedric.
    Has anyone else read all three, and would you like to share your thoughts?
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  4. I havnt seen this thread before so I read some posts and had to comment.
    I cried when I read the Red Wedding. Not only that, I threw the book forcefully at the wall. Contemplating to never ever read something by George ever again. Took me a week or two to pick up the book and start reading it again.

    I've read the first 30 or so. I think the last one I read was "Going postal" back in 2004. I think most of them are good books but the quality varies.

    Three very good books according to me, can highly recommend.

    1) Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
    2) The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu
    3) The Hedge knight by George RR Martin. (Big author, much less well known book, still a banger) Actually didnt read it per se, my first audiobook that I ever finished.
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  5. Searched this thread and seen it was mentioned in an older thread in 2013 but not this one. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Recently gotten into works by Hunter S Thompson and is one of the greatest authors I,ve personally seen.
  6. Hm, I can't recall why I asked. :p I mostly know of Discworld from the video game, but I haven't personally played that either, I mostly recall the opening cutscene. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  7. I'm going to be buying a book written by Jennette Mccurdy which details her personal life struggles that she had to put up with as a child actress, most notably as her roles as Sam from iCarly and Sam from Sam & Cat. I heard a lot of great things about the book from others, and I want to understand her better as a person. It will give me an in-depth perspective to what she was going through during the production of those shows.

    (I will not mention the book's name here, as it will violate EMC's rules, but Google it and you'll find it.)
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  8. I read Seymour Papert's Mindstorms, in its Dutch translation (published in 1984; the original is from 1980). I came across it in a thrift store a while ago, where I bought it being not entirely sure what it was, but I do think it is a classic in the AI (artificial intelligence) literature.
    The translation wasn't always great, unfortunately, but I was able to follow Papert's thoughts fairly well, I think. It was interesting! The book is mostly about education reform, and as usual with attempts to reform education, forty years on we see very little of the ideas in the book implemented; less than were implemented in 1984.
    The main idea of the book in my view is that computers can be used to let children learn, by letting them use the computers to learn in new ways, such as by programming in Logo, the programming language that Papert worked on. Nowadays, we see this less and less, I feel like. Neither my high school nor my elementary schools used computers in this way. Computers are used in education, but they are used to reimplement the current status quo. For example, instead of letting children learn arithmetic by playing around with computers, manipulating numbers and symbols and seeing what the outcome is, children learn arithmetic by being presented an equation on the screen, having to use the decades or centuries old methods to arrive at the answer, and entering the answer into the computer.
    It is unfortunate, as I do think computers could have enabled reform.
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  9. I’m halfway through the first book and hooked! I’ll share more thoughts after I’m done with it hehe

    edit: loved book 1.2,3 took a break before continuing!
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  10. I read Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens' last completed novel. I rather enjoyed it! It wasn't the easiest to get into, but after a few chapters it got better. It also has some fun twists, although I found one of them somewhat hard to believe. Plus, there's one thing I do not understand... let me google it. :p Hm, I can't find my question. If you've read the book, let me know, and I'll dm you it. I can't ask it without giving a huge spoiler. ;)
    Speaking of spoilers, I read the 1997 Penguin Classics edition, of which the notes contain very few spoilers! ... and I just realised I forgot to read the introduction, which of course I skipped at first, because it is usually full of spoilers. I hope I can read it still, before I have to return the book to the library tomorrow. :p
    I wonder if it would be possible for me to make a ranking of Charles Dickens' novels at some point. In this case, it would be based on how much I enjoyed reading each book, not on how well-crafted I think each is. It might be challenging to compare books read across different decades, though.
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