Listen Fat, President Trump makes me want to be a better man.
Naysayers may laugh, but it's how I feel in my heart.
He makes me want to work harder. Learn more. Become stronger. Expand my talents. Think Big. Fight. Not waste my time. Never give up. Become great and leave a legacy.
I got to thinking, during this time of quarantine when many of us have extra time, rather than fritter it away, like doing Meth with male hookers in hotel rooms, reach out to my caterpillars here on .win to tap into this infinite well of knowledge for things we can be doing to MAGA by Making Ourselves Great Again, because after all, what is America? It's not the magic dirt. It's us.
Suggestions for personal, spiritual, family, health, career, education, leisure, and any others are welcome. We may never become as great as Donald Trump, few ever have or will, but let us die trying.
Brace yourself.
The Sparrow. May Doria Russell - hard to pigeon hole this one but it's one of the best books that a lot of people have never heard of. Sci Fi with a spiritual twist.
Consider Phlebas. Ian M. Banks - hard, thought provoking sci fi
Certain Prey. John Sandford - police procedural. If you are sick of flu news and want to escape for awhile. Sandford's books are great. Kind of like watching Hill Street Blues, but set in Minnesota.
Station Eleven, can't remember the author off hand If living through an actual pandemic isn't enough for you, this is a post apocalyptic novel about something very similar to what's happening to us right now. Unusual take. I found the writing beautiful. I wouldn't read this if you live in Manhatten.
Forever, by Pete Hamill. I would read this one if you live in Manhatten. Kind of historical fiction with a mystical element. I love this book. Also, Snow in August by Hamill.
On more, for no particular reason.
Night Over Water, Ken Follet. Haven't thought of this book in ages but something made me think of it, just now. There must be a mental link to current events. WWII probably.
Also, you have inspired me. I'm going to make a post about the best apocalyptic novels of all time. Spoiler, #1 is Alas Babylon by Pat Frank.
Tell me three books you like and I'll tell you three books you might like.
oooh only three...
ill have to go by best of genre for more than three
Most Beloved in Lit
disgrace by coetzee / idiot by dostoyevsky / master and commander by obrien / daisy miller by henry james / dead souls by Gogol / THE BRONTES EVERYTHING / All Vonnegut / Catch-22 by Heller
(note but I do enjoy lighter lit like McCall-Smith, Flannery O'Connor, Maugham, Trollope, Flaubert, Mark Twain, not so much Austen)
most reviled (lit category)
Heartbreaking work of staggering genius (Eggers) / Atlas Shrugged (full of herself and pretentious and she wasted my time) / david copperfield (too much style and immersion, not enough substance to the plot) / Anything by John Updike / Margaret Atwood
Most Beloved SciFi
Count Zero by W Gibson, and about 2/3rds of Gibson was good. Some were meh... / SNOW CRASH YEAHHHH / Hard Wired by Walter Jon Williams / Foundation Series / Dune
SciFi Reviled
Most of Phillip K Dick / Ray Bradbury / Phillip K Farmer
Action / Cop / Mystery / etc loved:
Agatha Christie / Some Clancy / Georges Simeon / Lillian Jackson Braun (shut up idgaf) / Godfather books / Some Grisham
Not so much: Earl Emerson / Books that read like i'm 5 / PD James / Nelson DeMille
Notable Mentions: I loved the Twilight series (tyes i can explain myself on that), I love Dave Barry, I love Douglas Adams. I hate Terry Pratchett. I thought LOTR was ok. I thought Once and Future King was pretty decent, but not my writing style. I adore Diana Wynne Jones.
Reading right now: My son has been badgering me to read his Eragon series, so I'm reading that.
Next up unless I change my mind: Anna Karenina.
Was that too much? I can't help it I am a huge book nerd. What I hate most: Nasty endings with an emotional toll, like The Old man and The Sea, White Oleander, East of Eden, etc. But if its a black nasty ending dripping with irony its OK.
edit: also hate multi-generational books. I do NOT want to drop characters partway through and pick up new ones, like the Narnia series or whatever.
This Tender Land, William Kent Krueger. Best book I've read this year.
Bernard Cornwell, The Archer's Tale. I've read all of his, but this was probably my favorite series. It was called Harlequin in the UK, I think.
Dan Simmons, Hyperion. Like Snow Crash, it's a sci fi classic. It didn't start a genre, but similar to Gibson and Ian m. Banks, I think it's prescient. Also, did you know that Elon Musk likes to name his space craft and recovery vehicles in the manner of Bank's Culture ships.
Much of Martin Cruz Smith's stuff is beautifully written. I wrote about ten thousand words on something one day, then read a bit of Polar Star that night and wanted to cry because his writing seemed so effortless.
An off the wall suggestion for you is Lawrence Block. When The Sacred Ginmill Closes, A Walk Among the Tombstones, all of the early Scudder books are gritty and real, and his Bernie Rodenbarr books are fun and light cozy mysteries in the style of Christie but more fun and less murder.
Enjoy, I'm going to check out Gogol and Diana Wynne Jones from you list, as I haven't read them.
i love these reccs, all of these are getting hunted down and read, hyperion first. yuuuuge TY!!
My pleasure. Hyperion is one of my top three favorite Sci Fi books. Along with Speaker For the Dead and Peter F. Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction. I'm kind of into sentient ships.
Dune is awesome, and Diana Wynne Jones is awesome. I don't usually see too many mentioning her.
Any Lovecraft love on this group, by the way?
Lovecraft love here. I have a jillion Lovecraft audiobooks if you're interested.
That's neat! Where did you get them from? I'm interested in Lovecraft audios.
The Eragon books were fun. You sound like a homeschooler.
i am now! I think its good for kids to go to school for the social aspects, but we have always done supplemental lessons at home because the teaching is inadequate.
It's not easy when your kids grow up to stay bonded over common interests, so I read the books they like and I got them all into Magic the Gathering early on, so we all have something to do together as they grow older.
I homeschooled my kids and have long believed that all responsible parents home school their kids whether they send them to school or not. I would have friends who taught their kids every bit as much as I taught mine claim they could never homeschool full time like me. The social aspects were never an issue for us because my kids were is no many activities. That can be difficult depending on where you live, lifestyle, personalities etc...
And once you've read Consider Phlebas you also realize it's just an introduction to the world and you get to read, like, nine more books. Excession, Matter, and Surface Detail are tremendous.
I'm sure you know this, but just in case:
SpaceX has two operational drone ships and has a third under construction as of early 2018. Just Read the Instructions operated in the Pacific for launches from Vandenberg; Of Course I Still Love You operates in the Atlantic for launches from Cape Canaveral. A Shortfall of Gravitas is under construction. As of 17 February 2020, 38 Falcon 9 flights have attempted to land on a drone ship, with 30 of them succeeding (81%).
It's always fun to see this generation of sci-fi fans putting references to the current contemporary canon into other creative works, but it's definitely something even better to see everything the SpaceX team is accomplishing!
I suppose they're saving Killing Time and Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints for future, spicier ships :)