Read anything good lately?? Book recommendations

Panacea Financial Contract Review
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
CoolDoc1729

CoolDoc1729

Full Member
2+ Year Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2020
Messages
434
Reaction score
716
Hi all,

Awhile ago someone recommended the book One Second After by William Forstchen. It’s a very compelling novel about the aftermath of an electromagnetic pulse attack on the US and I would not have come across the book any other way. Thanks to whoever that was.

I wonder if anyone has any book recommendations ? I feel like as highly educated people with generally short attention spans, we might enjoy some of the same writing styles, which are probably a little different from the average American .. I’m often disappointed by the books recommended by women’s magazines, for example.

I’d love anything fiction or nonfiction ! And hope this would help others as well
Members don't see this ad.
 
Last Days of Jack Sparks.

It’s an equal parts horror/comedy about a journalist trying to disprove supernatural phenomenon. It pulls off the unreliable narrator archetype very well and is quite entertaining.
 
Stormlight Archive if you like fantasy.

Wool if you like SciFi.

World War Z was fantastic (not at all like the movie which came out later).

I am currently reading How to Win Friends and Influence People by Carnegie so I can appear to care when nursing tells me about something I don't care about.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
WhatJobDoIPick said:
Stormlight Archive if you like fantasy.

Wool if you like SciFi.

World War Z was fantastic (not at all like the movie which came out later).

I am currently reading How to Win Friends and Influence People by Carnegie so I can appear to care when nursing tells me about something I don't care about.
Click to expand...
I second wool. Excellent trilogy.

Stormlight is great, as are most of Sanderson's writings (e.g. mistborn).

The name of the wind is also fantasy and also fantastic. The problem is that Rothfuss writes slower than George R R Martin and god only knows if the 3rd book is ever going to come out.

Tangentially related to OP's original topic but as nonfiction: The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes is absolutely fantastic. I remember it being very long, but captivating. One of the best books I read in high school.

Tales of the Ketty Jay. Beach reading. Firefly meets steampunk. If you like those two things, you'll probably love it. If you don't, I wouldn't bother.

The Martian by Andy Weir

Into thin air by Jon Krakauer. Nonfiction account of the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Hard to describe. Fantasy meets Mythology meets American drama.
 
Hokuloa Road, Generation Loss, or Curious Toys by Elizabeth Hand

Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Magic Kingdom by Russell Banks

Name of the Wind by Rothfuss if you can live with never seeing the third book

Love and Murder in the time of Covid by Xiu Xiao-Long

The Woman Who Married a Bear or The Big Both Ways by John Straley

Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson
 
An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield

The Silent World by Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Unnatural Causes: The Life and Many Deaths of Britain's Top Forensic Pathologist by Richard Shepherd

El Jefe: The Stalking of Chapo Guzmán by Alan Feuer​

Cold War Command: The Dramatic Story of a Nuclear Submariner by Richard Woodman, Dan Conley​

Ferry Pilot: Nine Lives Over the North Atlantic by Kerry McCauley​

We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir​

Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations by Admiral William H. McRaven​

 
Last edited:
The Rescue of the Gale Runner by Dennis Noble.
 
The Red Frontier by Joe Cruz

ER doc author. Book is a sci fi thriller following a ER doc that crashed on mars
 
BoardingDoc said:
The name of the wind is also fantasy and also fantastic. The problem is that Rothfuss writes slower than George R R Martin and god only knows if the 3rd book is ever going to come out.
Click to expand...
Just read "Name of the Wind" on vacation last year and can second that one. Great read if you like fantasy. I got the sequel but haven't had time to read it.
 
I'm going to try to read "Man's 2nd Best Hospital" on vacay in 2 weeks. It's the sequel to "House of God".
I'll let you guys know what I think.
 
"Mount Misery" was the original sequel. Dr Basch starts his psych residency. I thought it was less misanthropic than House of God and I attributed that to Samuel Shem being happier during his psych residency. Man's 4th best hospital looks like a sequel for the modern era. I'll add it to my wait list at the library
 
BoardingDoc said:
Tangentially related to OP's original topic but as nonfiction: The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes is absolutely fantastic. I remember it being very long, but captivating. One of the best books I read in high school.
Click to expand...

I can second this one. It’s on my nightstand now as my non board prep reading
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Name of the wind is good. Second book is still pretty ok. I think that the author left too many threads open though so it's going to be tough to finish in one book. I doubt it will be finished.
 
CoolDoc1729 said:
Hi all,

Awhile ago someone recommended the book One Second After by William Forstchen. It’s a very compelling novel about the aftermath of an electromagnetic pulse attack on the US and I would not have come across the book any other way. Thanks to whoever that was.

I wonder if anyone has any book recommendations ? I feel like as highly educated people with generally short attention spans, we might enjoy some of the same writing styles, which are probably a little different from the average American .. I’m often disappointed by the books recommended by women’s magazines, for example.

I’d love anything fiction or nonfiction ! And hope this would help others as well
Click to expand...
The Good Lord Bird by James Macbride
Or Miracle at Santa Anna by same
Or his latest, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

The man is a genius!
 
One of the orthos I work for told me to read the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown. It might be my favorite book I've ever read. I highly recommend it if you like science fiction!
 
Fiction:
--------
Delia Owens - Where the Crawdads Sing
Andrew Sean Greer - Less
Ernest Cline - Ready Player One
Omar El Akkad - American War
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Stephen King - 11/22/63
Anthony Doerr - All the Light We Cannot See
Andy Weir - The Martian
Charlie Fletcher - A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World
Matt Haig - The Midnight Library
Fredrik Backman - Anxious People
Mario Puzo - The Godfather
Andy Weir - Project Hail Mary
Seth Grahame-Smith - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Aimee Molloy - Goodnight Beautiful
Amor Towles - The Lincoln Highway
Fredrik Backman - Beartown series
Gabrielle Zevin - Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Shelby Van Pelt - Remarkably Bright Creatures



Nonfiction:
-----------
Bill Browder - Red Notice
Matthew Desmond - Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bill Bryson - The Body
Laura Hillenbrand - Unbroken
Patrick Radden Keefe - Empire of Pain
Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow
Anything by Malcolm Gladwell or Michael Lewis
 
deuist said:
Fiction:
--------
Delia Owens - Where the Crawdads Sing
Andrew Sean Greer - Less
Ernest Cline - Ready Player One
Omar El Akkad - American War
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Stephen King - 11/22/63
Anthony Doerr - All the Light We Cannot See
Andy Weir - The Martian
Charlie Fletcher - A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World
Matt Haig - The Midnight Library
Fredrik Backman - Anxious People
Mario Puzo - The Godfather
Andy Weir - Project Hail Mary
Seth Grahame-Smith - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Aimee Molloy - Goodnight Beautiful
Amor Towles - The Lincoln Highway
Fredrik Backman - Beartown series
Gabrielle Zevin - Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Shelby Van Pelt - Remarkably Bright Creatures



Nonfiction:
-----------
Bill Browder - Red Notice
Matthew Desmond - Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bill Bryson - The Body
Laura Hillenbrand - Unbroken
Patrick Radden Keefe - Empire of Pain
Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow
Anything by Malcolm Gladwell or Michael Lewis
Click to expand...
Oh man, Bill Bryson. I haven't thought about him in decades. I also found "A Walk in the Woods" to be particularly excellent.
 
Huge fan of Brandon Sanderson so second his books like Stormlight Archive (I need to go back through them since it's been awhile), also Mistborn series was excellent. I see several have recommended Name of the Wind. I tried listening to it on audible and just could not get into. Maybe I need to give it another chance because I frequently see it listed as one of the better fantasy books out there and is often recommended by others who have read it. Someone above recommended Red Rising which I second is a great book. I'm currently on the second one of the series Golden Son which is also great so far.
 
Then there is the best series of all time, written by the master himself J.R.R. Tolkien....
 
Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision

Published in 1962, it’s a critical look at the intelligence failures and silos that led to the US being caught of guard by the Pearl Harbor attack.
 
Just finished "One Second After"....and then bought a manual well pump. Scary.

Started on The Brothers Karamazov.
 
Caveat— i love the type of book One second after is, but I didn’t enjoy its writing style and tone. Meh.

Sticking to at least vaguely scifi isssssh:
Dark Matter (as an audiobook, a thriller, not high literature, great for commuting)
Station Eleven for your post apocalyptic vibes
The Murderbot Diaries (audio book versions, so fun, only a couple hours each)
Hyperion / Fall of Hyperion (classics for a ****ing reason)
Fire Upon the Deep (I can only recommend book 1)
Dawn (Octavia Butler) was a neat twist, need to go further in this series

Of course with the Netflix show people are back on Three Body Problem but again it’s a huge success for a reason. Grand book.

I’m not going to call Cryptonomicom scifi, but it’s also a highly recommend must read that is vaguely Vonnegut / Early Clancy / accessible Pynchon.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was very enjoyable and has some of that Ready Player One nostalgia but in a much more… serious / real life story. I loved it.

All the Light We Cannot See Just became a crap movie and maybe is more magical realism than scifi but also a good read.

Come back later for my history recs.
 
Dr Mantis Toboggan said:
Take your time bro. Third book is never getting finished.
🙁
Click to expand...
I remember loving both books initially. Re-read them a couple of years ago and first still stands out. The 2nd one is solid but is tainted by the lack of a third book. I remember just being on fire at all the possibilities for the world and thinking how expansive the story was. On re-read, it's striking how little the main plot moves forward (under the assumption that he's the King-Killer by the end of book 3) and the realization that he's a Steven Moffat-like storyteller. He creates these great scenes and alludes to a rich,complex world but can't keep the narrative moving forward consistently and never really fleshes out the areas towards which he points your interest.

While not nearly as eloquent, Greg Keyes did a 4 book series -Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone that finished in 2008 and is very entertaining. It's checks off a lot of modern epic fantasy while actually moving from beginning to satisfying conclusion during it's allotted length. He's done nothing but movie and video-game tie-ins since, so either he only had this one world he needed to chronicle or realized that licensed material pays the bills better then original IP.
 
Boatswain2PA said:
Just finished "One Second After"....and then bought a manual well pump. Scary.

Started on The Brothers Karamazov.
Click to expand...

I'm on a russian writer kick and I just finished crime and punishment and 2/3 the way through the brothers karamzov. It is a slog, hard to follow who is who with all the nicknames and such. But interesting ideas nevertheless.

Arcan57 said:
I remember loving both books initially. Re-read them a couple of years ago and first still stands out. The 2nd one is solid but is tainted by the lack of a third book. I remember just being on fire at all the possibilities for the world and thinking how expansive the story was. On re-read, it's striking how little the main plot moves forward (under the assumption that he's the King-Killer by the end of book 3) and the realization that he's a Steven Moffat-like storyteller. He creates these great scenes and alludes to a rich,complex world but can't keep the narrative moving forward consistently and never really fleshes out the areas towards which he points your interest.
Click to expand...

I think he need someone like brandon sanderson to finish the series. There are too many threads for another book, he needs at least 2 more.
 
GassYous said:
I think he need someone like brandon sanderson to finish the series. There are too many threads for another book, he needs at least 2 more.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I don't think he views writing the same way that Sanderson or King does. He's spent the last decade (from a writing standpoint) tinkering around the edges of his world. I believe he did make an honest attempt at book 3 and somewhere along the line realized he couldn't do what he set out to and then hard behind that was the realization that he didn't have to. He's got the cons, the charity work, and a built in audience for whichever minor tale he wants to put out into the world and until recently had cover in that most people where still more aggrieved about GRM to really take him to task.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top