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Baa?21242 Posts
Anyone have any recommendations for books (fiction, novels) about games? Where a game (real or fictional, card games, board games, other competition) plays a central role in the story. I realized I just really like books about games lol, so I'll take a look at all recommendations, feel free to liberally toss them out~
Examples:
Go in Kawabata's Master of Go Games in Card's Ender's Game Titular game in Hesse's Glass Bead Game
Stuff I haven't read but sounds like they fit the bill: Various games in Banks' Player of Games (haven't got into Banks yet but it sounds like it fits the bill) Cards in Pushkin's Queen of Spades Chess in Nabokov's Luzhin Defense among others
As you can see I'm down with a variety of genres and how the games relate to the work, so again, feel free to be creative with suggestions.
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On April 03 2014 00:26 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: Anyone have any recommendations for books (fiction, novels) about games? Where a game (real or fictional, card games, board games, other competition) plays a central role in the story. I realized I just really like books about games lol, so I'll take a look at all recommendations, feel free to liberally toss them out~
Examples:
Go in Kawabata's Master of Go Games in Card's Ender's Game Hesse's Glass Bead Game
Stuff I haven't read but sounds like they fit the bill: Banks' Player of Games (haven't got into Banks yet but it sounds like it fits the bill) Pushkin's Queen of Spades
As you can see I'm down with a variety of genres and how the games relate to the work, so again, feel free to be creative with suggestions. Check out the one I just posted, you'd find it interesting.
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The Gambler by Dostoyevsky is a really nice, short work that deals with roulette, and you can get all meta with it as the book was written as a means with which good 'ole Fyodor was to pay off his own gambling debts.
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Zweig's The Royal Game talks about chess. Edit : pretty sure tons of SF books fill the bill. Errr, Solar Lottery maybe ? :p
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Casino Royale centers around a game of baccarat. If you like spy novels, it's a pretty good one.
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Baa?21242 Posts
Thanks for the recs so far.
The chess book seems interesting. I'll check it out if I see a copy somewhere. Truth stranger than fiction?  I have Zweig's Chess Story/Royal Game on my to-read list, as well as a couple other things by Zweig as well, thanks for the reminder. Haven't thought of The Gambler as that, but yeah, that was on my to-read list already as well. Not familiar with Solar Lottery, but I usually pick up Dick books when I see them on discount, so I'll keep an eye out for that one. I've already read Casino Royale! xD
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On April 03 2014 00:26 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: Anyone have any recommendations for books (fiction, novels) about games? Where a game (real or fictional, card games, board games, other competition) plays a central role in the story.
Check out The Squares of the City by John Brunner
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On April 03 2014 00:26 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: Anyone have any recommendations for books (fiction, novels) about games? Where a game (real or fictional, card games, board games, other competition) plays a central role in the story. I realized I just really like books about games lol, so I'll take a look at all recommendations, feel free to liberally toss them out~
Examples:
Go in Kawabata's Master of Go Games in Card's Ender's Game Titular game in Hesse's Glass Bead Game
Stuff I haven't read but sounds like they fit the bill: Various games in Banks' Player of Games (haven't got into Banks yet but it sounds like it fits the bill) Cards in Pushkin's Queen of Spades Chess in Nabokov's Luzhin Defense among others
As you can see I'm down with a variety of genres and how the games relate to the work, so again, feel free to be creative with suggestions.
Ready Player One
The whole book is centered around solving a multi-part riddle to win a competition.
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1001 nights is hilarious, there's this girl who was kidnapped by an ifrit who now keeps her as his wife and trapped in a box, and while he sleeps she fucks random men in front of him just to prove that when a woman wants something there's nothing that can stop her from getting it.
edit: gabo is hospitalized. FUCK
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On April 03 2014 00:57 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Thanks for the recs so far. The chess book seems interesting. I'll check it out if I see a copy somewhere. Truth stranger than fiction?  I have Zweig's Chess Story/Royal Game on my to-read list, as well as a couple other things by Zweig as well, thanks for the reminder. Haven't thought of The Gambler as that, but yeah, that was on my to-read list already as well. Not familiar with Solar Lottery, but I usually pick up Dick books when I see them on discount, so I'll keep an eye out for that one. I've already read Casino Royale! xD How about Moonraker? Cheating at bridge is like the entire first part of the book.
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+ Show Spoiler + despite the clear bias of the author in some topics, its still a very interesting and informative book.
+ Show Spoiler + this was... rather depressing
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Almost done with this, it's a pretty interesting book, it follows a peasant family in China through the course of the events of the 20th century.
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Baa?21242 Posts
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If you've not read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, you would be intrigued by its role in the USSR. It was written by Solzhenitsyn just about ten years after he had served time in a Soviet gulag, and approved for publication by Khrushchev despite the objections of top party officials.
One of, if not the first overt descriptions of the Soviet camp systems widely available in the USSR.
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Baa?21242 Posts
I have 
Been meaning to get my hand on a copy of The First Circle and Cancer Ward at some point as well.
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On April 08 2014 04:45 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:I have  Been meaning to get my hand on a copy of The First Circle and Cancer Ward at some point as well. Ah where Solzhenitsyn falls into the stereo-typically Russian lack of brevity, that is my thing with Russian novelists on the whole.
They get there, but the take forever and a day to get to the point; you'll enjoy the journey to the point, but personally I get to feeling like I am wandering too much from the story.
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finished Heart of Darkness oh well, it is indeed dark
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The horror ! The horror !
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On April 08 2014 04:42 ThomasjServo wrote:If you've not read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, you would be intrigued by its role in the USSR. It was written by Solzhenitsyn just about ten years after he had served time in a Soviet gulag, and approved for publication by Khrushchev despite the objections of top party officials. One of, if not the first overt descriptions of the Soviet camp systems widely available in the USSR.
One of my favorite books. He wrote really well about ritual and habit and I felt very absorbed into the setting
I just finished War & Peace. I enjoyed it, but I felt my interest definitely waning towards the end. The real climax seemed to be in the middle when + Show Spoiler +Anatole tried to escape with Natasha right before Andrei showed up.
After that, the story seemed to be more and more overtaken by Tolstoy's historical and philosophical ruminations, which I'll admit, while still interesting, they did not interest me as much as the main characters.
Above all other writers I've read, Tolstoy did an amazing job describing character development, characters interactions, and the reason behind character motives. The characters were very unique and real, and easily distinguishable from each other. Still, while I was really excited about the character development in the first half, I felt kind of disappointed by the characters at the end of the book
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