Favorite fiction books

[Timothy Schoonover]

What are your favorite fiction books/writers? What books would you recommend as must reads? There are so many books to read and so little time. It's nice when you have access to a high quality selection of works. That's what this thread is for, so add your contributions below.

[Izdaari]

I don't much care for mainstream literature, but I can recommend some quality fantasy, SF and mysteries:Fantasy:George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. Superbly written fantasy with realistic power politics. Except for the mild fantasy elements, they read like well-researched historical novels.SF:Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. Excellent "hard" science-fiction.Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, a mildly dystopian but plausible anarcho-capitalist cyberpunk future. And I may be weird, but I'm not so sure I wouldn't want to live there.Mystery:No specific books, but anything by these authors: James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly and Walter Mosley.

[MadArchitect]

A few favorites:On the Marble Cliffs, Ernst Junger. Beautifully written novel about the horror of tyranny, suffesed with a fairy tale quality. Probably out of print, as the copy I have is from the 1960s.Flight to Arras and Night Flight, Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Two aviation novels by the author of "The Little Prince". The first is autobiographical, the second only partly so; both deal with issues of mortality and personal responsibility.The Bell, Iris Murdoch. Murdoch's first novel, about the intrusion of an estranged couple on a lay community near an English abbey. Incredibly well-written and immanently sympathetic, with a nicely surprising conclusion.The Master of Go, Yasunari Kawabata. A novel of the last game of the last master of the Japanese board game, Go, based on Kawabata's reports of the actual events. Simple, sedate and elegaic.Brighton Rock, Graham Greene. My favorite of the Greene novels I've read so far. Covers the attempts of a young Brighton, England lowlife to cover the trail leading to a murder he ordered by seducing a low class waitress.Of course, the novel is a relatively recent innovation -- at least in the West -- and most of my favorite literary works belong to earlier periods and don't really belong in this thread.

[Dissident Heart]

Jose Saramango's Blindness is a stunning horror story of the entire human race struck blind. An apocalyptic narrative that mortifies and inspires as we follow the journey of seven characters through every dimension of human expression: wanton cruelty, contagious insanity, painful sacrifice, bitter despair, awesome terror, faint hope, inane stupidity, and joyous resurrection. A story that will not let you go long after you put it away. Irvin Yalom's The Schopenhaur Cure is a fascinating journey through the worlds of philosophy and psychotherapy within a fictional narrative that explores questions of death and dying, the meaning of life, personal relationships, vocational calling and professional ethics, addiction and recovery, and the power of ideas to shape our habits, attitudes and view of the world. One of the 19th Centuries most brilliant atheists, Arthur Schopenhauer, serves as the gadfly/foil challenging a psychotherapy group to come to terms with the impending death of their beloved therapist and guide. Irvin Yalom is a leading figure in the field of existentialist psychology and group therapy and a master story teller. I read this book this summer and couldn't put it down. All perspectives are challenged, assumptions exposed and a geniune passion for life develops as radical pessimism and outright nihilism are confronted and surpassed. Not a timeless classic, but well worth the read!Dennis Danver's The Watch is a science fiction novel that brings 19th Century Russian Anarchist, Peter Kropotkin into late 20th Century USA. Danver's mix of sci fi, political science, philosophy, morality, and revolutionary praxis makes for an engaging read and challenging portrait of American history and contemporary politics. Again, will not become even a minor classic, but a wonderful experience.

[rasterif6]

Starship Troopers. A scifi book that makes you think.

[Niall001]

Izzy, did you get round to reading AFFC yet?Can't say I've ever read Starship Troopers, but the movie was fucking amazing. Let us agree, there is no one single reality. Not upon this stage, not in this world, all is in the mind... imagination is the only truth. Because it cannot be contradicted except by other imaginations - Richard MathesonThere are no conclusive indications by which waking life can be distinguished from sleep - Rene Descartes

[MadArchitect]

Was this thread always in this forum? Are we to direct posts about fiction books to the "Philosophy, Religion and the Arts" forum now, rather than to "Additional Readings"?

[Chris OConnor]

I'll move it Mad. Good point. I have no idea how it got here.

[Chris OConnor]

Some of these threads are hard to categorize. I think this one belongs in the Book Suggestions forum more than the Additional Book Discussions forum.

[Frank 013]

The Bible