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Ask Slashdot: What Do You Like To Read?
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?"
I like to read Science Fiction Erotica. Some call it porn. Porn meets Steampunk.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Two books I am reading right now (in a homeopathic doses):
1. Tafsir ibn Kathir - exegesis of Holy Qur'an
2. History of Western Philosophy by Russell
Chapter on romantics is hilarious.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I've been reading a bunch of Philip K Dick on the iPad through Kindle.
Wind up bird chronicles (and any other of his books)
Neal Stephenson is a great author for Slashdot readers. Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash are great titles to start with.
Definitely Science Fiction. Peter F. Hamilton's "Nights Dawn" Trilogy, Pandoras Star & sequel Judas Unchained. I also like Alastair Reynolds. Right now I'm reading "Century Rain" by him.
1984!
It's your guide to the future!^Wpresent!^Wpast!
The Name of the Rose, Baudolino, The Island of the Day Before, Foucault's Pendulum. All good books.
While flying, I find it most enjoyable to practice my jive and maybe read something light, like a leaflet on Famous Jewish Sports Legends,. . . I also like to read books and watch movies about gladiators.
either Dresden Files or Codex Alera
Check out the Millennium Series by Stieg Larsson (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, et.all) and some Heinlein - Stranger in a Strang Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers.
I prefer a void in conversation to a vacuous one.
If you have a penchant for classics, try short stories from Twain, Saki, English translations of Maupassant and Kafka, HG Wells, O Henry and Oscar Wilde. A short story winds up in typically 15-30 mins and provides good reading satisfaction. And all works from these authors are in public domain, so those can be accessed freely online.
I do a lot of traveling for business, and am in the fortunate position of being able to read pretty much anything I like. By that I mean I can read what I enjoy, rather than what someone says I have to read (for school, business development, or what have you).
I think you will get a lot of votes for classic science fiction, so I won't go there (mainly because I don't read it. Nothing wrong with it, just not my style.)
My personal favorites:
Russian classics
I love Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc. "Anna Karenina" is a perpetual favorite of mine. If you want a long read, then go for "War and Peace". It really is riveting, and very easy to get into. "Crime and Punishment" is another favorite of mine, even over "The Idiot".
Political histories
By which I mean not only biographies (Thatcher, for instance), but also periods or themes such as "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". That is a classic.
Other
Okay, this one is probably a very geek-friendly vote, but it is a seriously fantastic book. "The History of the Making of the Atomic Bomb", by Richard Rhodes. If memory serves, he won a Pulitzer for it. Lots of high level physics, lots of sociological and political examinations, just a fabulous read all around.
"The Forsyte Saga" is also quite engrossing. John Galsworthy, I think, but you'll find it pretty easily.
For a lighter read, "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister". Not sure how well those translate to someone who didn't grow up in one of the British Empire countries, but I think they're hilarious (although fairly dated by now).
Quick and easy
I like the "Agent Pendergast" books by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. They're quick reads, so don't expect to just pick up one of them and have it sustain you for longer than a few hours. But I do tend to take one of those when I'm traveling and read it depending on my mood - sometimes I just don't feel like reading Dostoevsky.
Total math fanatic here. Run buy a corner bookstore; to hell with amazon and barnes and noble and walden and all those places. Find 'ya a local book re-seller. You can get extremely cool books from all genres, usually have bargain racks with stuff under 25 cents (yes you can really buy stuff for change on a dollar these days).
:) And pay the publisher if they are still around by purchasing a real copy/licensed copy if the book ends up being worth your time and effort!
I am working through Churchill's Operational Mathematics right now, classic from decades ago, picked it up for under 5 dollars. I swear you can get a masters deg. worth of education from pure bookstores alone if you have the dedication.
Also if your a fan of the free and don't have any serious moral qualms, just use google to pick up some free pdf e-books. Use queries like "The Complete Calculus site:mediafire.com" and you can hit jackpots of pdfs on the free.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
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.
By. Neal Stephenson. Nuff Sed - excellent, and at 1000+ pages, will gobble up a fair bit fo your flight in a very entertaining fashion. http://www.amazon.ca/Reamde-Novel-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0061977969 As well, William Gibson has new non-fiction collection out which I expect will be dandy. http://www.amazon.ca/Distrust-Particular-Flavor-William-Gibson/dp/039915843X
Three Squirrels
on iPad
Download all of the Slashdot archives so you'll be able to read unsolicited product endorsements ad-nauseum.
Douglas Adams. HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy...interesting, funny and lightweight reading (if you are a geek, that is)
"The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing
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.
I for one welcome our superior snoo-snoo demanding nubile female overlords
1. Go for books with strong imagery over dense plot (e.g. Stross's Jennifer Morgue, Gaiman's Neverwhere, Lewis's Blind Side.) You get interrupted so much on planes that a 40 page idea is hard to enjoy: go for simple ideas done vividly.
2. Pack three unstarted paperbacks in carry-on. Don't be afraid to switch books if the current one isn't gripping you.
3. If all else fails, drink and then sleep.
4. Be in the first-class cabin.
If you haven't already read Lolita, Pnin, or Pale Fire from Nabokov, I would highly reccomend them. Pnin is my personal favorite; it puts a nice twist on a rather tragic story. I'm sure you are acquainted with Lolita. And if you want to read something confusing and highly original: Pale Fire. Pozdravlyayu s nastupayushchimi proznikami brat!
...for the articles.
this seems like a troll, but there really is an obnoxious trend in the fantasy genre. Emotional confused woman plus a superpower and a distant tall dark stranger. She, of course, is smarter and more clever than everybody else, but realizes her feelings for Mr. Dark only after he rescues her. Now empowered by LOVE she defeats the evil. Now repeat over a thousand variations with different titles. You have the fantasy section at Barnes and Nobles. It sucks.
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
I just got done with Don Quixote which I found highly amusing and funny, if difficult to follow at times. Very verbose, but extremely interesting. Unlike many story-telling media these days where we wind up with repetitive stories (Dan Brown's novels all share very similar plotlines/main characters/rising action/falling action/plot twist; other better examples exist), Don Quixote never seemed repetitive. I enjoyed it greatly.
My next is Dante's Divine Comedy, Inferno. I don't care much for poetry but I'm giving it a shot.
After that I'm tackling the Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist papers, and some Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Paine, Mark Twain, Machiavelli, and The Social Contract (I have minor political ambitions, mostly just want to be able to affect lawmaking)
I'd recommend grabbing something you normally don't read, that's what I did with Don Quixote; I grabbed it because it's the first "modern novel" and I wanted to see what that was all about.
If you want something else fun, might I recommend Lolita. It's interesting. I've had several friends that have read Atlas Shrugged with mixed reviews. Battlefield Earth is one of my favorites, despite the movie and author's religions nutcrackery (that should totally be a word!).
I've had my share of fantasy, from "Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan, to "Sword of Truth" by Terry Goodkind, and Elantris and "Mistborn" trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Of those my favorite were everything AFTER "Wheel of Time" (mostly because they have been finished).
Band of Brothers and Generation Kill were also very good books. If you want any kind of insight into what Marines faced in Iraq, definitely read Generation Kill, it's the best I've found that captures the experience of being an infantry Marine in a combat zone.
I also read Neil Strauss' Emergency and based on his writing style picked up and read The Game. Those were interesting in themselves...
The Gunslinger series by Stephen King is also fantastic. Definitely THE best series I've read, though I disliked the part where he brought himself into the books, I felt he overdid that a bit. The ending will piss you off, though.
If you're into Scifi or Fantasy check out this link:
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books
Having trouble choosing a book from the list? Try this:
http://www.box.com/shared/static/a6omcl2la0ivlxsn3o8m.jpg
I really enjoyed Daemon and FreedomTM by Daniel Suarez. They're kind of a present-day sci-fi thriller, in case you haven't heard of them. William Gibson's three trilogies are good too. The Sprawl trilogy is especially fun, now that you can see all the things it has influenced since it was first published.
Airframe by Crichton, Snakes on a Plane: printed edition, Airport'77 paperback, :D.
WoT is a short little series you should be able to finish on the flight.
You have enough time to finish (first part of) the Dragonlance Chronicles:
Dragons of Autumn Twilight (April 1984), Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, (ISBN 0-88038-173-6)
Dragons of Winter Night (April 1985), Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, (ISBN 0-394-73975-2)
Dragons of Spring Dawning (September 1985), Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, (ISBN 0-88038-175-2)
Also, the most famous Legend of the series:
Time of the Twins (February 1986), by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, (ISBN 0-7869-1804-7)
War of the Twins (May 1986), by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, (ISBN 0-7869-1805-5)
Test of the Twins (August 1986), by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, (ISBN 0-7869-1806-3)
Must read for leisure and pleasure, if you like LoTR style fictions.
Vonnegut's overrated.
Only if you don't like his work.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
A nice long airplane book!
The fantasy genre is itself obnoxious. It makes me want to listen to Blind Guardian and not shower for a month.
Fuck escapism - real-life, real history, is much more fascinating with the right narrator.
Well, there's always Terry Goodkind.
Vonnegut's fun, and any random Mark Twain is great (especially Huck Finn), but man do I love me some Umberto Eco. His novels establish themselves in the period of their setting and just drill down deep into the minutiae, so his books are great if that's your bag. The first I read was The Name Of The Rose, largely as a way to hate-fuck that awful, awful movie adaptation (don't watch it by the way, it's awful. And by "it" I mean Christian Slater.) I have no qualms recommending it, nor Foucault's Pendulum, which is like The Da Vinci Code for people not confused by fractions. The Island Of The Day Before is also a cracking read. I cannot speak to the merits of Baudolino, but it sits on my shelf, taunting me. He also has collected essays, which are fine for what they are. But the novels have the advantage that they are so damn long and dense you'll only need one book for the whole break.
As for me, I'm spending the holidays plowing through the Lemony Snicket cycle.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
Since Ender's Game didnt come up in a quick search.. well there ya go, Ender's game is perhaps the best fiction you can read.
It isn't just you. Neal Stephenson has gotten VERY long winded. His early works were much better, and very good, in my opinion.
I also really liked Stephen R. Donaldson's "Gap Series". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_R._Donaldson#The_Gap_Cycle
Also a bit long winded but I enjoyed them a great deal.
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
The Sprawl trilogy is "classic cyberpunk", and if you haven't read it yet, it is dated but still fun.
The Bridge trilogy kind of carries the Sprawl a bit farther forward, but I found the "spirituality" aspects less interesting than the first trilogy. YMMV.
The Blue Ant trilogy has almost nothing to do with cyberpunk or his other books, and is set about 10 minutes in the future (or 30 minutes in the past, depending on what kinds of toys you play with.) I really enjoyed it.
While he's often cited as a visionary writer, the thing I like best about Gibson is his writing by analogy style. He spares words by making an association of a setting, activity, or thing with a concept I'm already familiar with, but doesn't go into great detail. Future references around that thing will bring it up only obliquely with a simple associated word, and I find it enjoyable making these connections. Kind of an English Lit version of "Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra", or "Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel" or "All nerds watched Star Trek TNG."
John
I'm a huuuuuuuuge fan of Terry Pratchett's work... you could really start anywhere in his Discworld series and be smiling in minutes. Vonnegut is another favorite of mine, as well as Douglas Adams. Oh, and Dave Barry has some incredible collections of laugh-inducing work, too... I'm a big fan of humorous works, if it isn't obvious. :) I also like Neil Gaiman (though I enjoyed his work in the Sandman comics the most), and I'm now starting in on Game of Thrones, which is looking like it will occupy a welcome spot on my kindle. Hope my list inspires someone to pick up a good book, whatever the format!
"Name of the Wind" series, first book is excellent, second book is good. Very well written fantasy.
Confederacy of Dunces
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The real economy is based on natural resource extraction and industrial production. As such, I find it important to read about commodities (petrol, natural gas, bananas, cereals, coal, iron ore, etc.) and how they've shaped civilizations through the ages. To this I add books about effective management of water, topsoil, rangeland, and forest resources.
A short list of books related to these subjects:
1) Nature's Metropolis by William Cronin
Cronin tells the story of Chicago's development during the 19th century by tracking the flows of various commodities to and from the city, its hinterlands, and other urban centers. The chapters on how improvements in transportation networks and grain storage facilities led to futures trading are a must-read.
2) The Economic Growth Engine: How Energy and Work Drive Material Prosperity by Robert Ayres and Ben Warr
Ayres (a physicist and economist) has argued for decades that the real growth of the economy is strongly based on how effective civilizations can convert energy resources (especially from fossil fuels) into useful work. In this slightly esoteric work, Ayres and colleague Warr flesh out this idea (the "useful work growth theory") and challenge the Solow model of economic growth and its exogenous variable representing "technological progress" favored by many neoclassical economists. They also discuss topics such as how best to measure energy quality (net energy vs. exergy) and the interplay between thermodynamics and economics.
3) The Rice Economies: Technology and Development in Asian Societies by Francesca Bray
Rice is one of the most important cereals in the world; this book explains how its cultivation has shaped Asian societies. If you're interested in how Asian societies have managed soil fertility and high crop yields over the ages, I also recommend Farmers of Forty Centuries by American agronomist F.H. King.
4) Merchants of Grain by Dan Morgan
About the global grain trade and the titans who control it.
5) Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed The World by Dan Koeppel
Covers banana republics, banana cultivation methods, and the virtual extinction of the Big Mike varietal in the mid-twentieth century. The Big Mike was superior to today's Cavendish banana in taste and durability.
6) A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization by John Perlin
How about trying one of these books?
* Christopher Hitchens -- God is not Great
* Richard Dawkins -- The God Delusion
* Daniel C. Dennett -- Breaking the Spell
* Sam Harris -- The End of Faith
These guys, sometimes collectively referred to as "The Four Horsemen," write even better than they sound in their many interviews, lectures and debates that can be found on YouTube and elsewhere. Whether you've already made up your mind about religion or not, these books don't just offer food for thought: they represent a banquet!
I'll second that. Take along an ebook copy of "Reamde" too. It's a hoot and will make the time fly by. Dude knows how to tell a story. Some of the best set pieces you'll find in the genre known as "sci fi" and the most fantastically plausible situations that could totally never happen, unless they do. It helps to have at least a passing acquaintance with roleplaying games, networks, and geopolitics, but it's not required.
Also, the Stephen Mitchell edition of the Tao Te Ching is worth sticking in the backpack (the actual paper copy, not the ebook). It's a slender volume, won't take much room, but will occupy a lot of space inside your head if you read it without expectations. You'll come back from the holidays refreshed and I guarantee that picking it up and reading passages will attenuate the holiday blues. You'll want the paper copy so you can flip around to something you read a few days previously, just to see if it really says what you think it said.
A great historical read is "Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War" by Tony Horwitz. It's a great reminder that if you go back to any of the most important events in American history, you'll find someone who could very easily (and mostly accurately) be termed a "terrorist". It's the story of unbelievable courage or zealotry bordering on the insane, depending on your point of view, and a chapter from our past that a lot of people don't know about or are uncomfortable talking about. John Brown is an amazing character that is held up as a hero by the far right and the far left and of whom even the "middle" stand in awe (if a bit uncomfortably). The things that happened at Harpers Ferry are still affecting us today.
Also, make sure you take a little time to read nothing, to take out the earphones and put away the electronics. The real interesting stuff is what's happening inside you, if you only have the patience and ability to quiet the noise in your head for a while.
And happy new year if I don't see you before.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I always like honest seekers. I have a book I wrote that you can get free in ebook format. I figure to make it free because I'm not writing for money, but to help more people learn about God. People might not believe me, but I know God exists for a fact, he loves us all, Jesus is LORD. And God approved of that book. Victor writes about applying spiritual truths to your life in the first half. In the second half I write more about answering modern questions to Christianity,"How can Evolution and Creationism coexist?" and "How can God be good and all powerful when suffering exists on Earth?"
God spoke to me
So I've seen at least three Neal Stephenson threads, a Will Gibson, a Phil Dick, and Ender's Game. Some more recommendations on books I think most geeks should read:
Vernor Vinge - Rainbows End. Seriously, every geek should read this book. It's the best fiction on near future augmented reality that I've seen myself. Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep is also outstanding, but much more "out there"; it's more entertaining than eye-opening. It does have one of the best alien perspectives I've read. Not just humans with bumpy foreheads, really *alien* aliens.
Charles Stross - Just about anything, really. His "Laundry Files" fantasy read like a cross-between H.P. Lovecraft, Douglas Adams, and Ian Fleming ("James Bond"). I know that sounds really weird, but it works. They're a riot. More serious and sciency are the "Eschaton" books -- Singularity Sky and sequels. Some of his works are available online for free, legally. Scratch Monkey for example.
John Scalzi - Old Man's War. I just finished this myself. The finish was weak but the ideas are a blast. As one reviewer put it, it's like Starship Troopers without the lectures.
Here's a few others I'm suspect will won't appeal as broadly, but I'll throw in 'cause I want to. It's my post.
C.S. Friedman - This Alien Shore. Space SF. Protagonist is a girl with cooperative multiple personalities; this is fascinatingly portrayed. Very good speculation on how direct brain interfaces might be realized. Lots of diverse human cultures. The real winner, though, is a human culture that values emotional differences and has social customs to let people interact across such boundaries. Introverted geeks (INTJ) will love this. Friedman packs a very high density of ideas into her books.
Corey Doctorow - Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom . Free content. An interesting take on a post-scarcity meritocracy. I think it's kind of nutty, but interesting. For the price, it's decent.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
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:
I should clarify that Paranormality doesn't try to find reasons why, eg. ghosts or mind reading could exists, but rather why we believe they do. So, it focuses on psychology, not the supernatural.
I'd recommend a Latin primer.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
John Brown is an amazing character that is held up as a hero by the far right and the far left and of whom even the "middle" stand in awe (if a bit uncomfortably). The things that happened at Harpers Ferry are still affecting us today.
If you like historical romps the whole "Flashman" series by George MacDonald Fraser are excellent, and they even include one that centres on the events of Harpers Ferry. The concept is that Flashman (the bully from "Tom Brown's School Days") is expanded on and his life after being expelled is explained. In his memoirs he describes how he became a hero and celebrated soldier all the while he was a scoundrel, coward and cad. Excellent series of books. Apparently when it was first published, at least one reviewer thought it was a real memoir.
Terry Pratchett, Robert Rankin, Jasper Fforde are all great, quite British but I'm sure an American wouldn't be too put off by anything in there.
You call me a pedant? I prefer the term "correct"
Pandora's Star and the books that follow (including the "Void" books) are in my opinion the most enjoyable Sci-Fi books I have read. That title used to be held by the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card.
Oh c'mon, graphic novels: This is /.
And you're on the wrong website.
Add my vote for anything by Alan Furst and anything in Ian M. Banks' "Culture" series. Be careful of the latter's other stuff.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
I really like "The Deed of Paksennarrion" by Elizabeth Moon. It's about a paladin, and is easily the best fantasy book on a holy warrior. "The Malazan Book of the Fallen" series by Steven Erikson is fantastic. And the main series is finished, so there's no worry about it not getting done like certain other major fantasy series.
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.
I second Pratchett. For some reason, this is the only one of two posts that recommends Pratchett and/or Neil Gaimen(sp?).
Keep in mind that fictional literature offers a story-teller many avenues not available to movies or plays. For example, I've written a few short stories (see here for a list and IIRC, only one of them can be done as a movie. If you are looking for a good read, the author needs to employ skills in story-telling, in plot construction, in character-development, in eloquence, etc. All the skills needed, in fact, for a good movie. In addition he/she also needs to employ those skills that are superfluous for movies/plays, but can add greatly to literature.
As a concrete example, read this novella for a story that simply cannot be filmed, acted, etc.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
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).
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I generally prefer his non sci-fi stuff, (the Crow Road is possibly my favourite 'straightforward fiction' ever) but would really recommend the latest Culture one, Surface Detail. I only picked it up as my other half had just read it, but found I really enjoyed it (although he still can't stop himself spending half his time coming up with unneccessarily ridiculous names for all the characters, even when he has a decent story to tell).
Here are some different books from different genres that I have particularly liked and read recently. They're Steam Punk, Cyber Punk, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Space Opera, and Dystopia. If you like this sort of thing I've got more on my Goodreads profile.
Steam Punk: Soulless - Gail Carriger
Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.
Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire -- and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.
With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?
Cyber Punk: The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer - Neal Stephenson
Decades into the future, near the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has broken the rigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neo-Victorians, by making an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer". Seattle Weekly called Stephenson's Snow Crash "The most influential book since ... Neuromancer."
Fantasy: Poison Study - Maria V. Snyder
About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.
And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly's Dust—and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison.
As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can't control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren't so clear
Urban Fantasy: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London’s Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he’ll face is a paper cut. But Peter’s prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter’s ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.
Space Opera: Old Man's War - John Scalzi
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-and aliens willing to fight for them are common. The universe, it turns out, is a hostile place. So: we fight
George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. It's good addictive fantasy. It took a bit for me to get into but after that I loved it.
The Ian Fleming James Bond books are good. My favorite so far is Casino Royale.
If you are looking for some SF with more depth, but still fun I'd recommend Lem's Tales of Pirx the Pilot
New Yorker? Printed??? Talk about at parties?????
Are you lost, little one? This is SLASHDOT!!
Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Niven, the rest of the old greats; Doctorow, Adams, Pratchett, all of the new guys. Hell, LOTR alone would probably get you through most of the trip. Or you could do like Scotty does and bring a bunch of engineering manuals, or Physical Review or something similar.
New Yorker? WTF?
Free Martian Whores!
The New Yorker on the iPad really is a good idea - the reading experience is at least as good, and sometimes better than, the print edition. Subscribers also have access to special issues, mostly compilations of older articles around a theme. For books I like my Nook, but magazines on the iPad are pretty nice.
I just finished REAMDE by Neal Stevenson & liked it, but if you're here you probably have already done the same... Also recently read a bunch of Jo Nesbo's books, they're page turners, especially The Redbreast.
Since Christopher Hitchens passed, I'm reading "god is Not Great. How Religion Poisons Everything"
Fantastic book. He nailed it.
As a first choice, I recommend getting an anthology of some kind. The problem with getting a novel of some kind is that if it turns out you don't like it, you're stuck with it regardless, whereas an anthology of short stories means that if a particular story is dull, it doesn't matter because you won't be reading it for long. I recommend The Mammoth Book of Best New SF, which is a collection of short stories that gets released each year in around August/September (most recent one is number 24), and is inexpensive, but also a very dense book, and the quality of the stories is consistently good. I also liked The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF from the same publisher (worth it just for Cory Doctorow's "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" and Alastair Reynolds' "Sleepover").
Novel-wise, I'd recommend virtually anything by Ian McDonald, who largely specialises in SF with a third-world setting. His book River of Gods could be described as a kind of Gibson-esque cyberpunk set in India, although that really doesn't give it justice as this makes it sound derivative when it's anything but - he's also produced a great book of short stories in the same future India called Cyberabad Days. Adam Roberts is also an excellent author, and I'm very fond of the sci-fi work of Richard Morgan, particularly his Takeshi Kovacs novels. Charles Stross has also been mentioned elsewhere, and I'd recommend his work. If you're not put off by hard SF, Alastair Reynolds is an excellent author, especially House of Suns and the Revelation Space series.