Book Recommendations

This is a place to share and recommend your favorite books. I want this to be a bit different from the “What are you reading now” thread, because I’m sure we’ve all read, or are reading, books that we wouldn’t consider exceptional or recommend to the general public. I don’t want this to be limited to just philosophy either; recommendations of all types and genres are welcome.

This could also be a place for suggestions. If you have a specific genre or subject you’re interested in, you can ask the other posters to recommend their favorite books of that type.

Posting just the title and author of a book is fine, but it could also be helpful to add the genre or a brief description, if not made obvious by the title.

I’ll start with one. A classic that I somehow just got around to reading for the first time (which shames me now that I’ve read it).

Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange

Fiction:
Herman Hesse - Siddhartha, Damian, The Glass Bead Game (also called Magister Ludi).
All three are philosophical fiction. Strong eastern influence, but they cover a lot of ground.
Siddhartha is about the philosophical and spiritual development of the first buddha, I don’t know how historical it is but it present a lot of different strains of buddhist philosophy pretty well.
Damian is similarly a novel about philosophical development. More western philosophical influence, lots about the nature of good and evil.
The Glass Bead Game is an allegorical autobiography, so again about philosophical development and institutional learning. A good critique of the ivory tower.
For context, I didn’t like Hesse’s Steppenwolf.

John le Carre - A Perfect Spy, The Night Manager, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
Spy fiction, but well written.
The Night Manager is pulpier than the other two, about a night manager in a hotel who gets caught up in an arms deal.
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold is about the cold war, cynical but good depth.
A Perfect Spy is the most abstract, lots of spy elements but also good rumination on trust and lies and duty and family and love and what have you. It’s a little stream-of-consciousness, it was a sort of emotional catharsis for le Carre and he wrote it in a very short period of time, but it is still be my favorite of his works.
I’ve loved everything I’ve read by le Carre, but these are my top three.

Orson Scott Card - Ender’s Game
Fuck the dude for his politics, but goddamned if this isn’t a phenomenal book. Sci-fi bildungsroman. I recommend pirating it, because seriously, fuck that dude.

Non-fiction:
Niall Ferguson - The Ascent of Money
Great book about where money came from and what it means and how we should think about it. I read this in the dying days of my communist streak, so it might have been partly the right-book-at-the-right-time effect, but it is well researched and engagingly written.

David Brin - The Transparent Society
Brin is a sci-fi writer, but this book is non-fiction. Here he argues that the best way to protect ourselves from the specter of the surveillance state is to open up the surveillance state, and society as a whole, to what he calls sousveillance (‘sur’ meaning ‘above’, ‘sous’ meaning ‘below’. See what he did there?). He’s basically defending the social panopticon by expanding it to include the jailers as well as the prisoners. Excellent and challenging.

Douglas Hofstadter - Godel, Escher, Bach
So well done. Hofstadter is an honest to goodness genius, and it shows in this book that presents ideas on so many levels at once. It’s hard to describe, but it’s basically building an argument from math up to consciousness through music and biology and poetry. Chapters are interspersed with socratic-like dialogues that are sometimes absurd, but illustrate the ideas being discussed.

Jay MacLoed - Ain’t No Makin’ It
A book about poverty and inequality, based on an in depth investigation into the lives of kids growing up in a housing project. The book follows them through their lives. It’s emotionally hard to read, but it’s engrossing. For context, I grew up relatively well off not far from where this book was written, so it could be that it’s interestingness is particular to my background.

Carleas has provided an excellent list. But if you decide to read The Glass Bead Game, make sure to read Journey to the East first. It’s an important intro, so to speak.

There’s a new book by Harper Lee that’s about to be released. Apparently, from some article I read, when to kill a mockingbird was published, it was because the publisher rejected the book she submitted initially, which had some of the same characters but they were in their adulthoods. Then the publisher was like, "yo why don’t you write a book from this girl’s perspective as a child, so she did just that and that book was to kill a mockingbird.

Now she’s really old, and probably about to die, and she never released another book, so I think the story is that they’re releasing that original one pretty much unedited. The first chapter was publicized to generate a little hype. I read it but it was like 5 in the morning. It didn’t seem shitty.

So, whether it’s a subject matter that interests you or not, that’s one book of historical significance that you might find interesting.

In the process of finishing A Clockwork Orange. Great recommendation, phyllo. What an excellent book. I had seen the movie several times and thought it interesting, but it does little justice to the book.

Probably going to start on something in your list soon, Carleas. Thanks for all the recommendations.

C’mon folks, some of you out there have got to read something other than people pissing and moaning on internet forums.

Well, after such an emotional appeal, I guess I should not hold back. But which book to recommend?

I was thinking about books that menat the most to me, or that helped me mentally evolve to a certain understanding.
So, I will recommend:

  1. Jippus et Jannica’. For all of you in need of an easy book to start your Latin with.
  2. Kritik der reinen Vernunft’ by Immanuel Kant for those of you looking for an insight into critical thinking.
  3. The Language of the Self’ by Jacques Lacan. For all of you looking to move from Kantian philosophy into psycho analysis.

I hope someone will benefit from it.

[size=150]Lexica[/size] - especially for those who can’t get rid of Google and Wikipedia.

I’m reading an auto biography of Lawrence of Arabia: “Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East”.

It’s less dense than it sounds as actually he was a very interesting guy, and it also sheds light on many of the complicated political factors operating in the middle east at this time. The author has managed to make it feel a lot more like a story than a history book, which is good, so I’d recommend it.

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_Cradle

Poems, Jozsef Attilla, Dunabia Press, London 1937

I’ve been meeting up with these 2 old ladies who are going through a bunch of books by a dude named Daniel Robinson, one is called, “wild beasts and idle humours”, and the other, which they’re about to start is called, “praise and blame” or something like that. The 1st one has been pretty good so far, but it’s a bit like reading Turd Ferguson in that it’s way more history than is needed to make the philosophical points that it wants to make. He wants to explain how the insanity defense from its origins to it’s current state, which is ok, but he’s bouncing all around history and not going in any kind of straight line. Turd Ferguson would have a field day with him, and so Turd…if you’re reading this, you’re not invited to our little book reading circle at the restaurant. I’ll keep you posted on the 2nd one once they get started. I think it’ll be better.

This guy…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_N._Robinson

A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Phillip K. Dick

Next up in the series of Robinson books that we’re reading is one called, “how is nature possible?”. Should be a good one.

The Troy Game, by Sara Douglass:

(The Troy Game: Wikipedia)

You might say this is fiction, mixed with a little history. If you enjoy fantasy, you might want to check out one of these books by Douglass. I read the second novel in the series (God’s Concubine. Even though I hadn’t read the first book in the series, I had no trouble following the plot. It is decidedly anti-Christian, so it’s obviously not for some people. What impressed me about Douglass’ writing is how she builds suspense, and keeps that suspense running high throughout the whole novel. Whereas most authors build the suspense very gradually, and it is only near the end of the novel that one is finally on the edge of one’s seat, waiting to find out what happens next, Douglass had me on the edge of my seat for almost the entire novel.

Ubik, by Philip K. Dick

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An excellent read. Very fun and mind bending book.