I got £30 to spend at Waterstones and an extra £10 for WHSmith (And some of my own money)

BOOKS

Truthfully, I'm not too sure what I want to read. Anything really. Sci-Fi is good, read a horror/graphic book a while ago and really enjoyed it...
Not too crazy about historical novels, or incredibly romantic tales either but nonetheless, go ahead.
I do much prefer first person books ("I" "We" etc)

Thanks in advance, everyone.

And hopefully some people out there also looking for books can find something.

EDIT: Recommendations coming in quick... Going to bed soon, can't wait to see all the replies tomorrow! (I might be going shopping tomorrow so hmm...)

10 years ago*

Comment has been collapsed.

Game of Thrones, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and The Road.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Dresden files - if you enjoy fantasy at least a bit, you will enjoy these books!

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Absolutely this! The Dresden Files are a kick-ass read.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Game of Thrones... although it is not really in first person

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

any David Baldacci book, enuff said.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

If you want some epic-scale sci-fi, go for the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. The main series is 13 novels (IIRC) at this point. There's also 4-6 anthologies of short stories and two spin-off series (which parallel the main series but focus on other areas). The spin-offs and main series cross each other, sometimes showing the same scenes from different viewpoints, and they directly effect each other. That said, what you need to know for the plot of each series is explained within that series' books.

You can read the first two books in the main series at the Baen Free Library and you can get the whole series in ebook format from BaenCD at the Fifth Imperium.

The Honor Harrington series is a very large, expansive space epic that largely follows Honor Harrington, a resident of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, through her military career. The series has many strong characters, most characters are multi-dimensional, fully-fleshed-out characters, and the plotline is both compelling and has a realism that comes from drawing upon historical sources.

The series isn't for everyone, though. David Weber (the author) does tend to put info dumps into his books - when characters are considering things that the reader doesn't know much about (such as the functioning of the ships, or how they move through space) he tends to dump the relevant info. The books are also getting increasingly long.

Edit: I found a shorter link for the Baen Free Library.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

BTW, before anyone asks: I swear, that library link isn't a referral link. It's just LOOOOOONG. And the BaenCD site I linked is fully legal and the contents are explicitly licensed for electronic sharing.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

indeed one of the best uses of legal uses of torrent software as most(all?) of the library is mirrored on torrents which i keep meaning to get but yknow steam backlog and stuff :)

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

This is a really good book. Very much unheard of and it is a very very big book. It has 814 pages... Something around that.

Brave Story

I highly recommend this book. it is AMAZING!

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

If you want good sci-fi, read the Foundation trilogy.
The Dune books by Frank Herbert are also excellent. Philip K. Dick was also mentioned above - he's a good sci-fi writer. if you're into paranoid/trippy explorations of what is essentially PKD's quest to find out whether he talked to God, or if he's just schizophrenic.

If you want something entertaining but semi-historical in setting, try James Clavell's books (Shogun, Tai-Pan, etc)
Something a bit more serious, but still interesting is I, Claudius by Graves.

Fantasy: Terry Pratchett - can't go wrong with him. Entertaining, witty, with a huge world that he build layer by layer. I recommend starting with the watch books.

Interested in science but don't know where to start? A brief history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson.

If you want something more literary/serious:
Tartar steppe by Buzzatti, or Henderson the rain king by Saul Bellow.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Infinite Jest.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Glad to see a link to smile.amazon, "it's always something". Some NGO/assos, etc have ref links that give them a better percentage thought.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Hmmm, these are my starting recommendations:
Michael Curtis Ford is my favourite, but they are historical novels.
Maybe try some Philip K Dick for sci-fi. Also I quite like Eric Nylund's Mortal Coils series, but the third in the trilogy is not out yet.
Of course there is always the translated Night Watch series by Sergei Lukyanenko as well. The first two books were brilliant (although I feel the series does get a bit weaker as it goes on)

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I like Alistair Reynolds for sci-fi. He doesn't always manage to pull off the endings all that satisfactorily but that seems to be a common thing in sci-fi from what I can tell. I started with Revelation Space.

I recently read Ship of Fools by Paul Russo and although I was expecting something different from the ending I'm still glad I read it. It's sci-fi with some horror elements and it kept me thinking for a long while after I finished it.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

The Hobbit

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

The Eight
Author Katherine Neville
one of the best books i read, simply amazing

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Prisoner B-3087 by Ruth Gruener and Alan Gratz. Great book imo

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Matthew Reilly's books. Start with Ice Station.

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

If you think you are a real gamer and you think you know everything about the previous century's games, you MUST read Ready player one, by Earnest Cline. It's pretty long, but worth every page you read. And that epic battle in the end. TheIt's really good written. When I finished it, I sadly realized that I'm in the real world, where nothing like this happens. YOU MUST READ IT!

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

The Night Angel trilogy (about assassins and stuff) Sci-fi

Crime and punishment (psychological thriller and suspense)

Lord of the flies (need i say why?)

Watchmen (graphic novel filled with psychological aspects)

The Killing Joke (short graphic novel about the Joker's past - a must read for batman fans)

Jordi, Lisa and David - by Theodore Isaac Rubin (psychological book from the point of view of a schizophrenic child and the story of two troubled patients that fall in love)

10 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Closed 10 years ago by Simowl.