Recommended books?

[Frenetic]

I still can't get over how good The Magicians by Lev Grossman was. It's like if the Harry Potter series followed the crew into college. One of my favorite books in quite some time.

Any of you guys have any recommendations?

--F

[xbl0x180]

What genre do you like? It seems as if modern fantasy writing is what you enjoy... and I can only recommend from the classics, which are usually required reading in AP English or college undergrad reading courses

[Nana]

One of my absolute favorites from recent years (and fits into the 'modern fantasy' category -- SORT OF) is "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World," by Haruki Murakami. Very hard-hitting, fast-paced, surreal, and incredibly well-written. I don't want to spoil it too much by describing the plot, so I'll just say I've never read anything else like it.

[xbl0x180]

See, I'm more into Murakami Ryu. I wish there was an English translation of Topazu

[Nana]

Haven't read/seen anything by him! Could you recommend anything to start out? Not necessarily the most accessible, since I'm into weird stuff in general.

[xbl0x180]

Hell, I'm raring to get Topazu in English, but he has an assortment of books using Japanese society of the late 80s and 90s as a backdrop (e.g., Love & Pop, Coin Locker Babies, and such)

[Herr Schatten]

One of my absolute favorites from recent years (and fits into the 'modern fantasy' category -- SORT OF) is "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World," by Haruki Murakami. Very hard-hitting, fast-paced, surreal, and incredibly well-written. I don't want to spoil it too much by describing the plot, so I'll just say I've never read anything else like it.

You could say that about most of Murakami's works. Actually, I do like his weirder books more than the few "almost" conventional ones he's written. My favourites are probably "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" and his latest, "1Q84". The latter one I found particularly excellent.

Getting back on the original topic of book recommendations, I suggest an old favourite: "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" by Susanna Clarke. It's not for everyone, though. I know people who claimed that the book bored them to death, which I can understand, because the book isn't exactly fast-paced. I, on the other hand, have never read through another book with as many pages quicker than this. I literally haven't been able to put it down for three days and nights straight until I was finished with it.

[Ed Oscuro]

Just finished up A Study In Scarlet. Was rather surprised when Doyle switched locales for the second third of the book - rather well written, though terribly researched for a variety of reasons (geography and especially the people are horribly wrong here, but you still believe - dangerous propaganda in the wrong hands, this one, but still one that kids can read - don't quite understand its being banned on some reading lists). Ahh, the "good old days" of deterministic fiction.

See, I'm more into Murakami Ryu. I wish there was an English translation of Topazu

Leon Uris' old '60s cold war potboiler Topaz is interesting enough. Probably 180 degrees from what's being sought but I enjoyed it years past.

[Friendly]

In light of the Xbone annoucement, I'd like to recommend Nineteen Eighty-Four to anyone who hasn't read it.

[Edmond Dantes]

There's two books I recommend everyone read:

Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong (translated by Moss Roberts)
Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en (translated by W.J.F. Jenner)

I'd like to also recommend the other two "Great Chinese Classics" (Dream of the Red Mansions and Outlaws of the Marsh) but I have yet to read them myself, so it would be kind of wrong.

[Ruldra]

Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong (translated by Moss Roberts)

I have that book. After playing Dynasty Warriors I started reading the history facts included in the game and got interested in the Three Kingdoms story, and ended up ordering it from Amazon shortly after. I still need to read it though.

I'm not much into fiction books but enjoyed reading Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa.

[Edmond Dantes]

I'll admit, I got into ROTK primarily due to the strategy games (NES and SNES ones especially), but... now that I've read the books I honestly don't like the games as much. It just bothers me that the book describes all these awesome conflicts and stratagems used, and there's no way to replicate those feats digitally.

(Hell, the NES game basically comes down to "camp in a state, build up army, attack, repeat until win.")

[CMoon]

Worth a bump: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... pilgermann

Last great books I read were by Cormac McCarthy. For me it is very hard to find good authors, so there's big spans of time I don't read much.