Rate The Dude's Fiction Bookshelf (+diablo and others too!)

[P Chippa]

I'm in the middle of the Vampire Chronicles series through audiobooks for my commute to and from work. I like the stories but a big part of the draw for me is the massive size of the set. I've started them a few months ago and it's like over 200 hours of entertainment. I like how the stories intertwine and how chunks of the story repeats itself from different points of of view through other characters. Anne Rice gets a little long winded in some irrelevant details IMO, but it doesn't really bother me.

Would anyone suggest another gigantic saga?

[J.A.K.]

I saw the one "Odd Thomas" book. Thoughts? I fell away from Koontz as he got too supernatural for my tastes after Intensity, but the Odd Thomas series looks promising.

I would suggest Hawthorne's short stories (if you haven't yet read them) for some great timeless classics on human nature. Also J.D. Salinger's "Nine Stories".

Elmore Leonard (mystery/crime) is tough to beat. More character/dialogue driven than plot driven, but perfect pitch with wonderfully flawed protagonists.

[El Diablo]

Dude,

The Bourne Identity is excellent. If you don't like that, you won't like other Ludlum. If you do, read the other Bourne books and then I'll give you other suggestions.

For Frederick Forsyth start with The Day of the Jackal. If you like that I'll recommend more.

John Le Carre's books are not quite as fast paced as those two, but arguably are better written. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Little Drummer Girl are two good ones to check out.

Ken Follett has a number of thrillers that are really good, maybe start with Eye of the Needle. My favorite book by him is actually an epic work of historical fiction set in the middle ages, Pillars of the Earth.

Hmmmm, probably will break this out into a spy novel thread.

[gumpzilla]

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You like science fiction and fantasy, it would seem. Read any Gene Wolfe?... You would also probably enjoy the first few books in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series

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Gene Wolfe sounds familiar, as though he's been recommended to me in the past. I'll definitely check it out. I've got some gift cards I've been wanting to use for awhile now. Is The Book of the New Sun what you'd recommend to get into Wolfe?

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It depends on what you're going for. It's his most famous work, and has a lot to offer. But the plot is obscure and hard to follow (though it's still enjoyable even without that.) Book of the Long Sun is a fair bit more approachable, so I might try that first. The description of Long Sun that I read in an interview with Wolfe was that it was his attempt to write a story about "a good man in a bad religion," which is a pretty good way to sum it up (though there's a lot more going on.)

[gumpzilla]

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here is one of my bookshelves. not strictly fiction. have read most of the books, but not all of them.



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Having GEB and Consciousness Explained next to each other seems pretty fitting to me. I read about 1/3 of Consciousness Explained years ago and I'd like to try giving it another shot.

Also, I'm surprised people don't have more books. EDIT: I need to pay more attention to the "one of my bookshelves" comments. I'm a wee bit drunk, so I'll write it off as that.

[Subfallen]

I don't really know how to take this. Is it an April Fool's joke? I'm hardly a lit snob, but you seem to be missing...well...EVERYTHING. I mean, no Dostoevsky, Nabakov, Proust, Shakespeare, Joyce, Hemingway, Faulkner, Warren, Updike, just to name a few?

[El Diablo]

Sub,

Uh oh, none of those on my bookshelf. Pretty much no "literature" on it at all!

[The Dude]

Sub,

Of those, I've heard of Shakespeare, Joyce, and Hemingway. Hemingway actually is a bit tempting. Care to take your comments beyond basic condescension and actually make a recommendation for one of his works?

Cheers,
Dude

[Subfallen]

asdfl;kjasdf;lkjsadf I knew I would sound pretentious. But I still don't get it. E.g., start with The Brothers Karamazov and then tell me you haven't done yourself a serious disservice by ignoring the consensus "classics." (As snobby as that sort of language sounds.)

[Tao_Jones]

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here is one of my bookshelves. not strictly fiction. have read most of the books, but not all of them.



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Solid... Borges is the man, was one of my old party screen names ;-) Where is Pale Fire? The Bros Kara is one of my all time favs. GEB melted the left portion of my brain. Also, I see Hesse, but not enough... The Glass Bead Game is a must!