So, what to read now?
These are off the reading list due to the face one or most of us have read them:
Stephanie Meyer - Twilight series
Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse: True Blood series
Lord of the Rings
Hunger Games
Game of Thrones/Fire & Ice
Wheel of Time
Heinlein, Asimov, Anne McCaffrey, Neil Gaimen,Orson Scott Card, CS Lewis, George McDonald
These I am reading on my own:
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Glass Castle by Jeannette Wells
Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare (someone else has already read the series)
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - never heard a bad word said about it. No one in the group really wants to read it.
Possible Books Hunger Dames' books:
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion - sounds interesting. But they are zombies. I don't know if any one of this group is a zombie fan.
I looked for list and for NPR's 'Your Picks: Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy' Great list. No YA or horror, they said that would be another list. This is people's submission and votes.
#26 Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Sounds like a interesting and fun read.
--Amazon.com review: ... world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet--incarnate as the Metaverse--looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist--hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible
#75 The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
The story of an engineer who creates a device to raise a girl capable of thinking for herself reveals what happens when a young girl of the poor underclass obtains the device.
#60 Going Postal by Terry Pratchett - I have had that book in my hand a couple times and considered reading it.
Sentenced to death for forgery and swindling, Moist von Lipwig accepts
an offer of a pardon in exchange for revamping an ancient post office,
but his efforts are thwarted by tons of undelivered mail, an
18,000-year-old ghost postman, his shoe-wielding new girlfriend, and
murderous characters who want the post office shut down.
Comment with any of your favorite books. Share book titles. Choosing a book is an ongoing process that must be decided unanimously.
Several people mentioned going back to the fantasy realm with War For The Oaks, which I think would be fun. Here's the summary:
ReplyDeleteWar for the Oaks (Emma Bull)
Amazon.com Description
Eddi McCandry sings rock and roll. But her boyfriend just dumped her, her band just broke up, and life could hardly be worse. Then, walking home through downtown Minneapolis on a dark night, she finds herself drafted into an invisible war between the faerie folk. Now, more than her own survival is at risk—and her own preferences, musical and personal, are very much beside the point.
"My recommendation for urban fantasy standalones is War for the Oaks, a very clever story about a singer who gets caught up in a Faerie war. Yes, we've all been inundated over and over with Faerie this and Faerie that, but War for the Oaks is something new. Or rather say, it's something old that's still better than a lot of the new stuff (book was released in the late 80s.). It's won a gaggle of fantasy awards over the years, in case you think I'm just blowing smoke over an "unknown" novel. Even better, if you're a fan of rock and fantasy, this book is God's gift to you. For the rest of us, it's a damn swell story that's one of the best standalone books in its class."
Another book I would like to read is Lifelode, by Jo Walton (which I got from this list http://www.mythsoc.org/awards/winners/). Here's the short blurb Amazon gives:
"The Boskone 46 Guest of Honor book is a unique fantasy novel by Jo Walton winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the World Fantasy award. From the introduction by Sharyn November: "Lifelode is what one might call domestic fantasy, set in a quiet farming community but it's also about politics, God and religion, sexual mores, the make-up of a family, and how people change over time. There is magic, humor, and lots of good food.""
Snow Crash and Going Postal sound interesting too.