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Good Books You've Read Recently

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Nicko

Sun Jun 13 2010, 06:06PM

Registered Member #1334 Joined: Tue Feb 19 2008, 04:37PM
Location: Nr. London, UK
Posts: 615

Does an older favourite just re-read count:

"An Unexpected Light, Travels in Afghanistan", by Jason Elliot

Extraordinary book

Zum Beispiel

Sun Jun 13 2010, 09:27PM

Registered Member #514 Joined: Sun Feb 11 2007, 12:27AM
Location: Somewhere in Pirkanmaa, Finland
Posts: 295

Watership Down by Richard Adams. Hell of a book. It's about bunnies!
Re-re-re-read it a while back, one of my all time favorites.

Lately I've been reading the Powerhouse of the Atom, by Kirill Gladkov. This thing makes nuclear technology look easy.

WaveRider

Mon Jun 14 2010, 11:39AM

Registered Member #29 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 09:00AM
Location: Hasselt, Belgium
Posts: 500

"Poorly Made in China" by Paul Midler.

A fascinating, scary and sometimes very funny account of Paul Midler's time working as an industrial consultant in China. All is not well in the Middle Kingdom!

Arcstarter

Tue Jun 15 2010, 12:49AM

Registered Member #1225 Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253

Though it is a book very often read by us yunguns (First time i read it, it was for school, in 4th grade i'm sure), I love the novel Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. It was written in 1987, and there are like 4 sequels. It is classified as the Genre 'young adult'. I still remember my teachers talking about the 'Newbury reward' this book received...

"Hatchet is the story of a boy named Brian. On a trip to the Canadian oilfields to spend the summer with his dad, the pilot of the Cessna he is traveling in suffers a heart attack and dies. Brian must land the plane in the forest. Brian learns to exist in in this wilderness. He faces many dangers including hunger, animal attacks, and even a tornado. This book gives the reader a better understanding of what it is like to survive in an untamed land."

That and another book i read way back, called Frozen Fire or something... I cannot remember if that is the actual name, but it was another survival story, in some land populated by Inuit people.

I am not sure if it was just because that was the funnest time in my life (8-13 is greaattt) that makes the books so special, but i reread hatchet and it was just as good as when i was 9, or whatever age.

klugesmith

Tue Jun 15 2010, 02:29AM

Registered Member #2099 Joined: Wed Apr 29 2009, 12:22AM
Location: Los Altos, California
Posts: 1716

I recently enjoyed reading Voyage, by Stephen Baxter, after hearing a radio-play dramatisation on the BBC. Returned the book to library, but am going to buy a used copy to share.

Amazon's review says it well:
"Kennedy survived. Like many alternate history stories, that's the premise of Stephen Baxter's Voyage. But in Baxter's version of the past, that one altered fact is the propellant that drives humanity into space, beyond the primitive lunar landings of the 1960s. Spurred by a JFK who champions space flight and a Nixon administration that backs NASA, humans reach Mars in 1986. But this is a tragic tale as well as a triumphant one, for Baxter's relentless realism chronicles the perils of extended space flight as well as its glamorous achievements, making for a gritty, true-to-life story. "

In my more techy words:
After the Apollo lunar landings, real NASA history has Skylab, ASTP, then Space Shuttle. No humans have flown higher than LEO since 1972. In the alternate version, Space Shuttle is cancelled in favor of Saturn/Apollo technology evolved into a manned mission to Mars. The technology, the characters, and the aerospace institutions & bureaucracy are well developed & plausible.

[edit] in first sentence, changed -iz- to -is- in accordance with BBC practice.

Z28Fistergod

Thu Jun 24 2010, 06:49PM

Registered Member #2040 Joined: Fri Mar 20 2009, 10:13PM
Location: Fairfax VA
Posts: 180

Prophets
S. Andrew Swan

A Sci Fi mix of religion, space travel, alien species, artificial intelligence, androids, and genetic engineering. I found this in a shared laundry room, a kind of makeshift book exchange. When I started reading it I was afraid it was going to try to convert me throughout the whole book, but it isn't like that at all. It's well written and pretty interesting.

Chris Russell

Thu Jun 24 2010, 07:14PM

... not Russel!
Registered Member #1 Joined: Thu Jan 26 2006, 12:18AM
Location: Tempe, Arizona
Posts: 1052

Arcstarter wrote ...

... Hatchet by Gary Paulsen ...

That was a great book, actually. The early 90's made-for-TV movie based on the book wasn't half bad either.

My recent good reads (see if you can detect a theme):

The SAS Survival Handbook
When Technology Fails
Apocalypse How: Turn the End-Times into the Best of Times
How to Survive a Robot Uprising
The Zombie Survival Guide

I've ordered them from most to least practical, which also happens to make the list ordered from least to most funny.

IntraWinding

Thu Jun 24 2010, 09:03PM

Registered Member #2261 Joined: Mon Aug 03 2009, 01:19AM
Location: London, UK
Posts: 581

Dalus wrote ...

I've recently read two books by Daniel Suarez. Daemon and Freedom. These are techno thrillers very interesting to read when you wonder how sosciety could change and if your interested in what the digital era might end up doing.

Hope someone else reads them too, everyone I know off ended up enjoying reading them. I finished both books in under 2 days

Thanks for the recommendation - I'm half way through 'Daemon' and it definitely gets a thumbs up from me.

Turkey9

Sat Jun 26 2010, 05:01AM

Registered Member #1451 Joined: Wed Apr 23 2008, 03:48AM
Location: Boulder, Co
Posts: 661

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It was amazing. It really builds characters and describes people in a way that I have never before experienced. Riveting and presents interesting views on society as a whole.

the_anomaly

Sat Jun 26 2010, 12:35PM

Registered Member #19 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 03:19PM
Location: Jacksonville, FL
Posts: 168

Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif. I'll admit I am only partway through it but I allways enjoy motivation through history. I wish more electronic books including history it would be nice to have that motivation for why things were done the way they were. I also really enjoyed reading Hatchet.

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