Need new book ideas.

I need new books to read. I just started reading for enjoyment not too long ago (maybe I'm growing up?) and I need some suggestions. I loved "The Road," "Cell," and "Eight Men Out" and I'm trying to find books kind of like the first two to add to my list. So far I have:

Any Cormac McCarthy book,
Watchmen
World War Z

Any ideas?

The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll
The Toy Collector by James Gunn (this is out-of-print so inter-liberty loan is likely needed)
R Is For Rocket by Ray Bradbury
Different Seasons by Stephen King

Black Monday - Bob Reiss. I really liked this book. It's smart, entertaining, and actually has a good amount of realistic tone to it, will make you wonder what people would REALLY do during a worldwide crisis.

BarcaRulz wrote:Black Monday - Bob Reiss. I really liked this book. It's smart, entertaining, and actually has a good amount of realistic tone to it, will make you wonder what people would REALLY do during a worldwide crisis.

They eat, panic, eat again, whine, eat some more and finally, they die.

Face it, the average person wants their McDonalds no matter how bad the financial system gets.

Buscemi wrote:

BarcaRulz wrote:Black Monday - Bob Reiss. I really liked this book. It's smart, entertaining, and actually has a good amount of realistic tone to it, will make you wonder what people would REALLY do during a worldwide crisis.

They eat, panic, eat again, whine, eat some more and finally, they die.

Face it, the average person wants their McDonalds no matter how bad the financial system gets.

True, but what they want and what they get are two very different things. The book basically deals with oil issues, and how we rely on it too much.

Anyway, and on that point, i shall leave you and go to McDonalds..

I've read two pretty good novels lately W.

"The White Tiger," by Aravind Adiga about how a kid from the slums of India rises, by what ever means necessary, to become a rich and powerful man. Just won the Man Booker prize which is one of the most prestigious in litereature.

"Q & A," by Vikas Swarup, which is the source novel for Slumdog Millionaire. It's a great book and I highly recommend it.

I'm not usually a big non-fiction person but I finished not too long ago:

Gang Leader For A Day by Sudhir Venkatesh. He was a grad student of sociology and infiltrated Chicago's Robert Taylor Home projects, and did it as an experiment. It's quite a book. I think it also just came out in paperback so that's good.

So many I could recommend but here is a smattering -

Anything by Terry Pratchett, but specifically Good Omens (Pratchett and Neil Gaiman) is excellent.

Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash or Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash is more futuristic while Cryptonomicon is historical. Both books are excellent, but HUGE (they are deceptively small in softcover...).

Iain M. Banks - Look to Windward, If you like sci-fi at all (and I really don't) you will probably like this one. Its very kind of quiet and inrospective but mind blowing.

Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game, an oldie but a goodie

And a couple of Non-fiction:
Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner - Freakonomics, and awesome and unorthodox way of looking at statistical trends.

Malcolm Gladwell - Blink: The power of thinking without thinking (he also has a new book called Outliers which I am quite keen to read). This book is really eye opening to how we drastically adjust our behavior based on subconscious cues - without knowing we are.

Read... err... Listened to Freakonomics already. I couldn't understand the controversy surrounding it when it came out. The Sumo part is great as is, "Why do drug dealers still live with their mothers."

I'll probably start with "Black Monday".

W wrote:Read... err... Listened to Freakonomics already. I couldn't understand the controversy surrounding it when it came out. The Sumo part is great as is, "Why do drug dealers still live with their mothers."

I'll probably start with "Black Monday".

Woohoo. You won't regret it. I picked it out by random and was very happy that i did.

Not sure if you might be interested in these but throwing them out there. Going through an Indian Lit phase at the moment. The others I'm sure most of us have read - they're classics.

Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhubwala

Fire on the Mountain by Anita Desai

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

also recently reread Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (because of the tv show NBC put on)

Off the top of my head:

IV - Chuck Klosterman ; if you enjoy music, you'll love it. Its also a very fast read. very funny.

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett ; the Apocalypse done right. If you like Hitchhikers Guide, you'll enjoy this one

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison ; its pretty gritty and different, but good.

Damn, Aly, looks like we share the same taste in authors...I've read the first two on your list and loved both. All of Chuck Klosterman's books have been good so far.

W, you should check out the book of I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson. It's got the title story, and some other short stories with it. I'm finishing the shorts now. It's good, and in the vein you're looking for. Reading the book will show you how much better I AM LEGEND could've been...

yeah mfrendo - I LOVE klosterman, i tend to laugh out loud while reading his books - I can't decide if I like IV or Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs better.

I would have to go with Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, if for no other reason than the essays on John Cusack and the Left Behind series. Though, I do love the part in IV when he says, the least smart member of Radiohead is smarter than all three Beastie Boys and two of the Strokes combined. Funny, funny stuff. His other two, Fargo Rock City and Killing Yourself to Live are great too.

For the dead genius category read A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The book is hilarious with some of the better one liners I have read in a while. After getting fired from a job the MC replies to his mother "My excellence confused them."

For more Alan Moore goodness read the graphic novel of From Hell. It is brilliant. The movie pales in comparison to the horror that the book shows as the Ripper.

Stephen King's last novel called Dumas Key was fucking awesome. I think it may be his best novel (I am rereading the Stand to verify my thoughts).

My favorite book (or one of) is Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. The best anti-war novel ever. EVER!

Orson Scott Card is famous for Ender's Game but I loved his Seventh Son series. Perfect blend of fantasy and folklore in pioneer times.

I loved Johnny Got His Gun as well. The Enders Game series is awesome (I read all 9 so far...unless new ones came out), so Seventh Son sounds interesting.

Never read Confederacy of Dunces, and haven't read King's stuff in years.

Anything by Dashiell Hammett although I heartily recommend Red Harvest and The Glass Key as his best works.

And if you liked Stephen King's last novel, you should really check out his new collection of short stories too. I actually prefer his short stories to his longer novels.

TheJman wrote:Anything by Dashiell Hammett although I heartily recommend Red Harvest and The Glass Key as his best works.

I thought that The Thin Man movie was way better than the book... I do like his stories though

They need to do a Thin Man update. Meanwhile, I honestly thought at first that Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist was going to be a modern-day Thin Man update. Then I found out that it was anti-gay crap with the guy from Juno.

Buscemi wrote:They need to do a Thin Man update. Meanwhile, I honestly thought at first that Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist was going to be a modern-day Thin Man update. Then I found out that it was anti-gay crap with the guy from Juno.

Agreed! And I totally thought that too when I first heard the name.

A_Roode wrote:And if you liked Stephen King's last novel, you should really check out his new collection of short stories too. I actually prefer his short stories to his longer novels.

Reading it now.

For the hard boiled noir I prefer Raymond Chandler but Hammett is great also.

If you like Jason Bourne type super spies read some of David Morrell's earlier work. The Brotherhood of the Rose, The Fraternity of the Stone, and The League of Night and Fog and excellent. Saul would beat Bourne's ass bloody. LOL

And if you haven't read them in a while (or ever) read Lovecraft or Poe. They are masters if horror is your thing.

For an off-kilter detective novel check out Eric Garcia. He has a series of novels named Casual Rex and Anonymous Rex about a dinosaur detective living in our world in disguise. It is as weird and as funny as it sounds. You all know this guy as the writer of Matchstick Men and he is great.

And as a standby read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series if you have not. It does not get any better than that.

I remember reading David Morrell...jeez, that was like back in 7th grade or something. I remember Frat of the Stone, Fifth Profession, and a few others (I think I read First Blood too, which he wrote). Man, been awhile since I thought of his stuff...

What's some good Chandler to start with? BTW, Donte, we should trade stories sometime. I just finished a full length screenplay (doing final editing now) that I could shoot to you, and you could send me a story or two...always good to get some feedback and/or inspiration. I will warn you, my screenplay is not for the light of heart. I got it read by one film co. reader, and she said her studio wouldn't deal with the subject matter.