glass_icarus ([info]glass_icarus) wrote,
@ 2009-01-23 15:24:00
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Entry tags:i am a bibliovore

book recs, anyone?
i'm sure you've all encountered my giant reclist already, but i've realized recently that i keep forgetting the books you guys have suggested to me! so, in the interests of keeping a to-read list that even i can't lose, and in hopes that i will actually read some new things in addition to rereading my old favorites, please feel free to toss any authors, titles, or series that you can come up with my way. call it a Chinese New Year's resolution. :)

(oh yeah, and just so you know, i've already put Swordspoint and Melusine on that list, as they've been recommended to me multiple times. *g*)

also, i won't be around much this weekend, thanks to dance practice, Chinese New Year's festivities, and last-minute ski plans, so have a good one, everyone! &hearts

ETA 3/18/09: Ave's recs:
- Italo Calvino: if on a winter's night a traveller
- China Mieville: Perdido Street Station, The Scar, Un Lun Dun


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[info]ruffwriter
2009-01-23 09:08 pm UTC (link)
I don't if you've read it or not, but a great book that I found recently: Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. It's a really intense read, with awesome first-person narrative and a dystopian setting done right. Definitely read it!

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[info]glass_icarus
2009-01-26 05:17 pm UTC (link)
ooh, interesting! :) thanks!

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[info]grace_istheword
2009-01-23 10:36 pm UTC (link)
Oh man, midterms killed my brain. I read that first sentence as "i'm sure you've all encountered my giant racist already..." and it's taken me a good minute or so of dumbfounded re-readings to understand what you actually said. ajlksdjf

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[info]glass_icarus
2009-01-26 05:19 pm UTC (link)
.... ahahaha. \o/

there should be an inflatable giant racist balloon which we can put on some lawn with a pile of to-be-hurled shoes in front of it, Y/Y? :D OH WAIT, SOUNDS LIKE THE W ONE!

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[info]whymzycal
2009-01-23 11:26 pm UTC (link)
Swordspoint! \o/

I also love Garth Nix's Old Kingdom Trilogy: Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen.

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[info]glass_icarus
2009-01-26 05:21 pm UTC (link)
hee, i think i'm going to start with Swordspoint. it's been recced to me too many times to ignore, haha. (also, i love that series! i may have to move it up on the reread list, yis.)

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[info]whymzycal
2009-01-26 09:58 pm UTC (link)
\o/ Wooo, Nix! And yes, Swordspoint is WONDERFUL. I first read it *coughmanycough* a while ago, and it's as good now as when I first laid eyes on it.

I'm sure you've probably read many of these, but I'll mention them anyway because they're old faves of mine.

Um, also Michael Stackpole's Once A Hero (I am not ashamed of my love for that book) and Jennifer Roberson's Chronicles of Tiger and Del. (Sword Dancer, Sword Singer, Sword Maker, Sword Breaker) Totally oldschool, but the first three books in particular are awesome.

If you can find it, I highly recommend Martha Wells's The Element of Fire. I also totally love Stephen R. Donaldson's The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through. The worldbuilding is amazing. Really, really amazing. I don't like any of his other book-length stuff, but his short stories are pretty tasty.

Aaaaand ooh! Connie Willis's Bellwether, which is short and sweet and totally a modern fairytale, and also her Doomsday Book, if you haven't read that already.

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[info]glass_icarus
2009-01-26 10:25 pm UTC (link)
yayyy, thanks! i actually don't think i have read these, although i remember passing by Roberson's stuff on the shelves, heh. i may have to pick a random work-night to camp out at B&N, as the public libraries are not very dependable. :D

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[info]midnitemaraud_r
2009-01-24 05:25 am UTC (link)
Dan Simmons - Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion. (It's a 2 book series, which has a 2 book sequel: Endymion and Rise of Endymion.

They're science fiction, but so much more! John Keats (yes, the 19th Century poet) and some of his writings and poems play a role - in fact, the story is somewhat based on his unfinished poem Hyperion, and the best way I can describe the story is that it's like a futuristic sci fi Canterbury Tales. In the first book, we meet the 7 main characters - the "pilgrims" (a Catholic priest, a retired soldier, a Jewish scholar, a (female) private detective, a poet, a diplomat and a Templar) who are traveling to the planet Hyperion for their own personal reasons as the human Hegemony stands on the brink of war, and they each tell their tales. The second book is what happens after they arrive.

Hyperion won the Hugo back in like 1985, but the book is far from dated despite being 20+ years old. Even after 20 years, they're still my favorite books.

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[info]glass_icarus
2009-01-26 05:24 pm UTC (link)
ooh, interesting! i've been on a sci-fi hiatus for a while (too much stuff within the same idea-bubble), so it'll be nice to read something different. thanks!

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[info]riverlight
2009-02-18 09:47 pm UTC (link)
Yay Melusine. I really did enjoy that one.

Hm. The Kay I know you know :) so let me see if I can come up with others similar... have you read Elizabeth Marie Pope at all? She's done two, that I'm aware of; I think they're nominally YA books but I adore them. The Sherwood Ring is about a girl her family's history (and falling into a bit of a love affair) via the ghosts that haunt her family home, and The Perilous Gard is a retelling of the Tam Lin story. I don't know why, but I've always adored these books, and return to them again and again.

Otherwise... Hm. My favorite novel EVER (well, okay, there are many favorites, among them Barbara Kingsolver's "The Bean Trees", but beyond that) is Fall on Your Knees, which is this saga of a Scottish man in 1900s Nova Scotia who falls in love with a Lebanese girl, and of their four children. It's not a light book, by any means—there are, um, some rather unhappy themes, to be sure—but the writing is amazing and the plot hugely compelling and it's just totally absorbing and I love it. I'm not doing it justice but it's well worth a read if you don't mind a book that's like a trainwreck (painful but you can't look away).

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[info]glass_icarus
2009-02-18 10:17 pm UTC (link)
ooh, thanks for these! :) ha, i remember you telling me about Elizabeth Marie Pope, but i still haven't gotten around to reading her! *sigh*

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[info]riverlight
2009-02-19 07:57 pm UTC (link)
I know, so much good stuff to read, so little time, eh? *g*

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