Grand unified books thread

[Scipio]

Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes.  Follow up to Best Served Cold and The First Law trilogy.  Better than them, as well.

Home Fires, by Gene Wolfe.  A serious departure into a more hard sci-fi world for Wolfe; less dreamy philosophizing, more Jack Vance meets Iain M. Banks.

[Malthus]

Reading Philp Kerr's A Quiet Flame. Excellent post-ww2 noir about a German cop, reluctantly drafted into the German army, then swept to Argentina where he gets involved in various sorts of nastiness - I highly recommend it (it's the 5th book in a series - the whole series is great).

Hmm is there something called the Berlin Trilogy by him? I think I have it in french but my mum stole it. 

Yup, the Berlin Noir trilogy. It's the first three books of the series. He left off writing his series for some years, and then went back to it ...

If you like Chandler, you will love Kerr.

[Valmy]

Here's a book that looks interesting for Languish parents ...

http://www.amazon.com/Go-Fuck-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/1617750255?tag=5336612429-20

Oh wow..

[Malthus]

Here's a book that looks interesting for Languish parents ...

http://www.amazon.com/Go-Fuck-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/1617750255?tag=5336612429-20

Oh wow..

There's a couple more:

http://www.amazon.com/Thats-Not-Your-Mommy-Anymore/dp/156975926X/ref=pd_sim_b_3

http://www.amazon.com/All-My-Friends-Are-Dead/dp/0811874559/ref=pd_sim_b_2

Can my idea for a Nazi version of Thomas the Tank Engine be far behind? 

[Capetan Mihali]

For classic crime/noir novels: Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Jim Thompson, Cornell Woolrich, Charles Willeford, David Goodis (my personal fascination), and Georges Simenon's romans durs ("Dirty Snow," "Tropic Moon")...

If Chandler's universe is the paradigm, Hammett's is wittier and lighter, Thompson's is more psychopathic, Woolrich's is more melodramatic, and Goodis's is filled painful failure and self-destruction...

[Kleves]

Just finished James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia. I really liked it (though I seem to recall the movie being shit). After reading the afterword though, Ellroy seems to be a bit batshit insane. Still, I'll pick up The Big Nowhere soon.

Oh, and I tried reading Chandler, but gave up when I read the lines: "My God, you big dark handsome brute! I ought to throw a buick at you!"

[Scipio]

Just finished James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia. I really liked it (though I seem to recall the movie being shit). After reading the afterword though, Ellroy seems to be a bit batshit insane. Still, I'll pick up The Big Nowhere soon.

Oh, and I tried reading Chandler, but gave up when I read the lines: "My God, you big dark handsome brute! I ought to throw a buick at you!"

How sad, to prefer Ellroy to Chandler.  It's like preferring Manischewitz to Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

[The Minsky Moment]

Can my idea for a Nazi version of Thomas the Tank Engine be far behind? 

I always thought of more of noir, gangstery kind of take on it.  With the Island of Sodor being a depressed, pollution-ridden (all those coal burning engines!) post-industrial community with meth labs run by competing gangs being the principal form of economic activity now that the mines have declined.

[MadImmortalMan]

Here's a book that looks interesting for Languish parents ...

http://www.amazon.com/Go-Fuck-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/1617750255?tag=5336612429-20

Oh wow..

There's a couple more:

http://www.amazon.com/Thats-Not-Your-Mommy-Anymore/dp/156975926X/ref=pd_sim_b_3

http://www.amazon.com/All-My-Friends-Are-Dead/dp/0811874559/ref=pd_sim_b_2

Can my idea for a Nazi version of Thomas the Tank Engine be far behind? 

Customers who viewed this item also viewed:

[Ed Anger]

Looks like a book I'd write.

[Kleves]

How sad, to prefer Ellroy to Chandler.  It's like preferring Manischewitz to Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

I ought to throw a buick at you.

[Scipio]

How sad, to prefer Ellroy to Chandler.  It's like preferring Manischewitz to Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

I ought to throw a buick at you.

You'd have better luck throwing an Oldsmobile, kid.

[The Brain]

In my quest to order every single book on Amazon with naughty words in the title I have come to The Nigger Of The 'Narcissus'.

[Josephus]

I read Let The Right One In by some guy with a Swedish name. I've watched both versions of the movie and liked them.

Teh book, i think, was somewhat uneven.

[Agelastus]

Also "The Fall of the Roman Empire" by Peter Heath.  Anyone read this?  It's filling in massive gaps in my knowledge of the era but I can't wholeheartedly endorse the writing style.

Yes. I quite like Heather. He does seem to be somewhat controversial, though. His style seems fine to me, but I'd probably not pick up on the less fortunate writing due to English still being my second language.

I also bought his Empires & Barbarians, but it'll be summer reading, I suspect.

I read Goldsworthy's "Fall of the West: The Death of the Roman Superpower" recently which I liked a lot.

Heather's book on the Fall of the Roman Empire is the superior work, but I can understand people who have quibbles with his writing style (which I feel is more pronounced in "Empires & Barbarians" than it is in "The Fall".)

Both books are fascinating reads, as much for what they say about how our view of the past has changed over the years (in particular for this see "Empires & Barbarians") than just for the fine historical interpretation itself.