cp2011 said:

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aglaohfour said:

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Lafayette (Unger) is by far the best biography I've ever read. If you have even the tiniest interest in the American and French revolutions, you'll love it.

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I have had this book for years but haven't gotten to it yet. Moved to the top of the list

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Would love to hear what you think when you're done!

Easy uplifting read is Eat, Pray love. I'm a dude and I really like it. I

Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. Good WWII story of duty, sacrifice, courage and leadership

Personal favorites are: Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Lonesome Dove, Comanche Moon, Dead Mans Walk, and Streets of Laredo

lord of the rings is favorite,, 3 body problem series is a close second. the martian is also really great

w.e.b. griffin has a few good ww2 fiction series, each spanning about 10 books

band of brothers, unbroken are great

MW03- you share a lot of likes with me. Good recommendations.

OP- if you care to read good books outside your normal genres,

Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan
Starship Troopers- Robert Heinlein
Dune- Frank Herbert
The Black Prism- Brent Weeks
Pretty much anything by Brandon Sanderson

bearamedic99 said:

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MW03- you share a lot of likes with me. Good recommendations.

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I'd love to hear what else you like. Books for me are like music in the sense that I can pretty much enjoy anything that's well done, regardless of the genre. I also enjoy fantasy/sci-fi but didn't list them because they didn't seem to fit in with the OP. In particular, I enjoy these:

- The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher
- The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson
- The Dark Tower series by Stephen King (there's actually a lot of Stephen King that I enjoy

I'm presently working my way through the "bobiverse" sci-fi books by Dennis Taylor in the audiobook format. I'm in book 2 right now, and it's pretty enjoyable.

Anyway, always looking for new stuff and I'd be interested in checking out what you've liked or are anticipating.

How did you finish Les Miserables? I hate musicals, but was interested in what the story would be. I had no preconceived notions of what it was. It was jarring that the story would shift from the main story to some 30-40 page historical narrative of Waterloo, or a weird nun sect and some weird convent? I got so frustrated I quit, because I don't think I was half way through the book and hated the long, unrelated, tangents so much.

MW03 said:

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bearamedic99 said:

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MW03- you share a lot of likes with me. Good recommendations.

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I'd love to hear what else you like. Books for me are like music in the sense that I can pretty much enjoy anything that's well done, regardless of the genre. I also enjoy fantasy/sci-fi but didn't list them because they didn't seem to fit in with the OP. In particular, I enjoy these:

- The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher
- The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson
- The Dark Tower series by Stephen King (there's actually a lot of Stephen King that I enjoy

I'm presently working my way through the "bobiverse" sci-fi books by Dennis Taylor in the audiobook format. I'm in book 2 right now, and it's pretty enjoyable.

Anyway, always looking for new stuff and I'd be interested in checking out what you've liked or are anticipating.

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I have this on my list. Looks really good and different!

littledude said:

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My favorite book is Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. If you haven't read other any of his other novels I would start with All The Pretty Horses.

Anything Erik Larson is great. It's historical non-fiction but written like a novel. In the Garden of Beasts occurs in the years leading up to WWII

Agree with the Ken Follett novels also.

For self improvement/psychology I really like Grit by Angela Duckworth

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I love Cormac but he ain't much on the feel good stuff.

Furlock Bones said:

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littledude said:

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My favorite book is Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. If you haven't read other any of his other novels I would start with All The Pretty Horses.

Anything Erik Larson is great. It's historical non-fiction but written like a novel. In the Garden of Beasts occurs in the years leading up to WWII

Agree with the Ken Follett novels also.

For self improvement/psychology I really like Grit by Angela Duckworth

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I love Cormac but he ain't much on the feel good stuff.

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No kidding. If you like dystopian, it doesn't get much better than The Road. That's a tough book, though.

fido00 said:

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How did you finish Les Miserables? I hate musicals, but was interested in what the story would be. I had no preconceived notions of what it was. It was jarring that the story would shift from the main story to some 30-40 page historical narrative of Waterloo, or a weird nun sect and some weird convent? I got so frustrated I quit, because I don't think I was half way through the book and hated the long, unrelated, tangents so much.

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Those parts can be a bit dry, but I found them fairly worthwhile, if only to get a nice glimpse into what France was like at the time. Since that frustrated you, though, might help to find an abridged copy, because the story is definitely worthwhile reading.

All the Light We Cannot See
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Passage by Justin Cronin

MW03 said:

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Furlock Bones said:

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littledude said:

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My favorite book is Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. If you haven't read other any of his other novels I would start with All The Pretty Horses.

Anything Erik Larson is great. It's historical non-fiction but written like a novel. In the Garden of Beasts occurs in the years leading up to WWII

Agree with the Ken Follett novels also.

For self improvement/psychology I really like Grit by Angela Duckworth

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I love Cormac but he ain't much on the feel good stuff.

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No kidding. If you like dystopian, it doesn't get much better than The Road. That's a tough book, though.

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Very tough read. Shockingly, my wife read this. Still can't believe that.

Oooo, yeah, forgot to mention the Dresden Files series. Easy to read urban fantasy/ kind of pulp noir detective who is also a wizard.

Three Roads to the Alamo- the Lives and Fortunes of Bowie, Crocker and Travis

My favorite book of all time is The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami.

"Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand was horrific in its true details, but ultimately redemptive in its account of Louis Zamperini. Subtitled "A World War 2 Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption", it was powerful

Malcolm Gladwell's "David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants" I thought was an excellent read. The blurb says it challenges the way we look at obstacles and disadvantages.... I just know that I couldn't stop thinking about it, and talking about it for months after I read it. Diverse and inspiring examples of reframing challenges made this so much more than just a collection of narratives. I liked it A LOT!

My favorite? "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" by CS Lewis, and you can pretty much throw in the rest of the Narnia Chronicles, as well... (Lewis always said that if you had something really important to say, that you should put it into a children's book)

The Three Body Problem trilogy by Cixin Liu
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Hannah Arendt - "The Origins of Totalitarianism"
Richard J. Evans -The Third Reich Trilogy
"Without Getting Killed or Caught" - Guy Clark bio

Saw the TR trilogy and "The Three Body Problem" mentioned- agree wholeheartedly on those two series.

greentab81 said:

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All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Fictional book set in France during WW2. It's excellent.

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I am reading all the Pultizer Prize winners and read this right after it won. I was sitting up at 3 AM trying to convince myself "just one more chapter".

One of my favorite books I've ever read.

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck. A masterpiece.

We listened to that one on tape. It was such a good story, but then in my (very, very unexpert) opinion they carried it on about 3 chapters too long.

We also loved Unbroken, and that was a beast of a read, which some may argue continued on too long too, but I think it provides good context for the rest of his life.

I've been on a general Chriton kick lately, personally.

I could not stand Book 4 of the Black Prism series and put it down. Have never gone back to the series, after that.

I could only give you some Sci-fi and fantasy recs, as I don't really read regular fiction.

My personal favorite Crichton book is Sphere. Also not a very long book.