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Speake
United States494 Posts
I was going to start up the Wheel of Time series, but i'm also interested in books that are more general (Society, Economics, Science, Social Interaction etc.) if anyone has any good recommendations. I was planning on ordering a good 10-15 books off of amazon to read during the summer, all recommendations are welcome!  | ||
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aRyuujin
United States5049 Posts
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Chef
10810 Posts
There are lots of good books, so it's weird to try to recommend something to a stranger. If you haven't read them yet, The Hitchhiker's Guide the Galaxy is very funny. So are the two Dirk Gently books by the same author. I liked Solaris and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep a lot, if you want sci-fi. Lilith is a very interesting fantasy novel (it doesn't have elves and dwarves tho, if that's what you're interested in). http://www.amazon.com/Crime-Novels-American-Postman-Thieves/dp/1883011469/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371589368&sr=8-1&keywords=noir crime novels 1940 This is a really good anthology of crime novels which I loved. At a thousands pages it's a few different novels collected into one normal sized looking book, thanks to its thin pages. That's what I'd recommend. If you're interested in economics, I suggest an actual textbook... Which is probably more expensive than you'd like, but you're going to get a really biased pseudo-sciency feeling if you read any pop-science books. Freakonomics is entertaining, but not likely to give you any foundation in the subject. I listened to Freakonomics when I was in high school and liked it, but I'd probably be less impressed these days. It is a good introduction to thinking of alternative causes to phenomena if you have never thought about it before, the way I hadn't when I was a young teenager. | ||
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Speake
United States494 Posts
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Jerubaal
United States7684 Posts
Classic Fiction: Moby Dick, Herman Melville; Absalom, Absalom, William Faulkner Science: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn Mathematics: Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter Science Fiction: Fahrenheit-451, Ray Bradbury; A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller; Anything by Michael Crichton Sociology: Community and Growth, Jean Vanier Various: A Flannery O'Connor collection with "A Good Man is Hard to Find" A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy O'Toole | ||
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theking1
Romania658 Posts
Well if you want to get a glimpse about how society and economiy will be in the future you could try the Dune series by Frank Herbert.I find it quite realistic considering the middle east situation going on today. Also mangas seem to be preety deep on the social topic you asked for books so imma leave you with Dune  . | ||
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Animzor
Sweden2154 Posts
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Chef
10810 Posts
On June 19 2013 06:21 Speake wrote: To clarify : It's not that I'm particularly interested in economics. I just recognize the ability for reading to improve yourself mentally and socially (better perspective, vocabulary, etc.), but I really only know how to choose books from the Fantasy/Sci-Fi genre. I'd like to read books with a broader life relevance (beyond the world of the book) but I don't really know where to start With the exception of Douglas Adams, the books I told you about are all studied at the university level (but are not too dry / old to be hard to understand / are from the less serious courses). Of course you could read any classics as well. Douglas Adams' philosophy is apparent in his sense of humour and style of writing, and he was a very intelligent and interesting person. Besides Douglas Adams, the other books all pose challenging questions which you can grapple with if you are smart enough to recognize them. You throw me off by reading Game of Thrones if you are looking for self-improvement tho. Same with Wheel of Time. They're extremely popular, but they're not going to challenge anyone (which is why they're popular.... lowest common denominator appeal, I think). Reading something that is way beyond you might not help either tho. An anthology with annotations might be really useful if you care about understanding literature a little better. But try not to be one of those people that thinks they're are smart because they reading, but what they're reading is actually glorified pulp fiction that hasn't done a thing to their understanding of the world. If that's what you like, just admit that all you want is to be entertained haha. | ||
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babylon
8765 Posts
On June 19 2013 07:50 Chef wrote: With the exception of Douglas Adams, the books I told you about are all studied at the university level (but are not too dry / old to be hard to understand / are from the less serious courses). Of course you could read any classics as well. Douglas Adams' philosophy is apparent in his sense of humour and style of writing, and he was a very intelligent and interesting person. Besides Douglas Adams, the other books all pose challenging questions which you can grapple with if you are smart enough to recognize them. You throw me off by reading Game of Thrones if you are looking for self-improvement tho. Same with Wheel of Time. They're extremely popular, but they're not going to challenge anyone (which is why they're popular.... lowest common denominator appeal, I think). Reading something that is way beyond you might not help either tho. An anthology with annotations might be really useful if you care about understanding literature a little better. But try not to be one of those people that thinks they're are smart because they reading, but what they're reading is actually glorified pulp fiction that hasn't done a thing to their understanding of the world. If that's what you like, just admit that all you want is to be entertained haha. Wheel of Time is challenging. It certainly challenged my patience. I had to try three times to get through the first book and only succeeded on the third try by ignoring all the prose and only reading the dialogue instead. Then I went on and found better ways to waste my time. Having said all that, your dismissive attitude of Game of Thrones makes me think you're a bit narrow-minded. I'm not a huge fan of GRRM, but I can easily think of ways in which his writing is far better than 95% of the fantasy and sci-fi genre. If someone came to me for spec. fic recommendations, I'd list him off without a second thought; sure, he has his faults -- I abhor his writing style, for instance -- but the man knows how to tell a damn good yarn, and that by itself is worth its weight in gold. (Worth more if you're an aspiring writer who actually wants to know how to be a good storyteller. Needless to say, I find most classics to be poorly written stories.)  OP, instead of reading Wheel of Time, you should probably just read anything and everything by Guy Gavriel Kay. He's a historical fantasy writer in the same general vein as GRRM, but I find that there's a lot more substance in his novels. His treatment of history and historical narrative is engaging (if not exactly subtle), and he's ... well, let's just say if you're at all interested in the art of writing and storytelling, he's a must-read. He's a very thoughtful sort of author. A strong stylistic and thematic writer. His three best books are probably Lions of Al-Rassan and the Sarantine Mosaics duology (Sailing to Sarantium + Lord of Emperors). | ||
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Divinek
Canada4045 Posts
checkout abebooks for cheap cheap used books, and its a legit site no worries | ||
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Epishade
United States2267 Posts
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Meborg
Netherlands50 Posts
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thOr6136
Slovenia1775 Posts
I once read somewhere along those lines: if A Song of Ice and Fire is microscopic (huge emphasis on characters), Malazan is macroscopic (overall picture, wars between (im)mortals and also gods (yes, gods )). But don't get me wrong, there are many really really awesome and badass characters, it's not like it's just war all the time all over the place.And by hard i mean, you get thrown in the world and you know nothing about it. When you read more and more you slowly discover things and understand a lot more about the world, it's history, characters etc. Oh and series is like 10 books long, with books over 1k pages so you will read for a while i guess :D I really recommend it! | ||
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Targe
United Kingdom14103 Posts
Tales of the Otori (fantasy), His Dark Materials (fantasy), Hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy (if you're looking for humour) and Discworld (If you're looking for crazy wtf humour) | ||
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-ReD-
Canada167 Posts
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docvoc
United States5491 Posts
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rauk
United States2228 Posts
the joke, the unbearable lightness of being (kundera) as i lay dying (faulkner) snow crash, anathem (neal stephenson) neuromancer (gibson) norwegian wood, the windup bird chronicle, sputnik sweetheart (murakami) | ||
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TheTenthDoc
United States9561 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + Also you could read my book. -pokes at sign suggestively- but I think Gladwell/Taleb will help you a lot more. | ||
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Divinek
Canada4045 Posts
On June 20 2013 07:32 TheTenthDoc wrote: If you're looking for some good nonfiction, check out anything by Malcolm Gladwell or Nicholas Nassim Taleb. Blink and The Black Swan (not the one about sexy ballerinas)/Antifragile are amazing. + Show Spoiler + Also you could read my book. -pokes at sign suggestively- but I think Gladwell/Taleb will help you a lot more. As a person who has been directly involved in the field that malcolm gladwell writes about in that book i can tell you blink is pretty meh as far as what's actually backed up by science, and by pretty meh i mean quite meh. Though i agree it is an entertaining read but imo it's highly misleading based on what's actually been found. Though i do like the guy | ||
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Yagonagos
Canada12 Posts
Brave New World and 1984 are also damn good fictions that definitely changed the way I thought about social organization | ||
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datcirclejerk
89 Posts
On June 20 2013 03:08 docvoc wrote: If you want to do any philosophy, you could read Being and Nothingness by Sartre, though it might depress you a bit. That is an absolutely horrible book. Good read if you want to drive yourself insane. | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + Well, yeah, everybody made random recommandation, that didn't have that much to do with the OP, I might as well do it too ! | ||
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