@iLost: Wuthering Heights is good. It's one of the few books concerning romance which I've enjoyed immensely. Although Emily Bronte would be horrified to hear that Stephanie Meyer was utilising her quotes for the Twilight series. Seriously, Meyer. Attempting to depict a teenage relationship as romantic and idealistic by comparing it to two horrible people ruining each other's lives =/= smart.

Anyway, I think I'll continue my trend of recommending "old" books. This next book is something that I doubt many Americans would have read, unlike some Brits and Australians. It's a quirky book called Oscar and Lucinda.

Written by Peter Carey, it has been highly acclaimed, winning the 1988 Booker Prize and the 1989 Miles Franklin Award. Hell, it was even a finalist for The Best of the Booker. Since the Booker Prize is supposedly a big thing in the Commonwealth, Carey is considered a modern staple within British and Australian literary circles.

Oscar and Lucinda has an interesting premise: a naive, young priest (Oscar) travels from 1830s England to Australia as self-wrought penance for his increasing gambling addiction. On the boat to Australia, he meets a young Australian heiress (Lucinda), who is a wealthy feminist and very independent. The awkward Oscar and quirky Lucinda seem to be opposites, but they soon discover that they share an obsession with gambling. The two eventually make an outrageous bet (involving a glass building and Lucinda's inheritance), which changes their lives.

The novel shines through its portrayal of the two, central protagonists. Oscar and Lucinda are both considered outsiders in the rather rigid Australian community. Their relationship is fascinating and moving, especially because of the humour and tragedy inherent in their situations. Indeed, Carey somehow makes his characters real and engaging to modern readers, even though he is depicting societies from decades ago.

The writing is dense and presents a unique experience. Anybody who's ever read Peter Carey's material would be divided: some think that Oscar and Lucinda has an evocative feel, while others would claim that it's like ploughing through mud. The ending is also controversial, according to some.

However, the love story is extremely peculiar, and the snipes at Australian society - and any Western community which is closed minded - are amusing. Plus the book possesses some vivid images: a glass church floating down a river, Oscar's nervous first visit to a racecourse, and of course, the first time he met Lucinda.

Love it or hate it, Oscar and Lucinda definitely won't be a book that you'd forget easily. In fact, it reads better the second time. I found myself enjoying it more the second time I read it, finally "getting" why my high school teachers were orgasming so much over Peter Carey.

tl;dr, read it. It's considered a staple and classic of Australian-British writing for a reason.

 

Two recommendations:

Earthweb by Marc Stiegler

Free legally here, directly from the publisher, along with a summary.

Worlds Apart by fuckifIcanfindhisname

Self-published, available for free on his website.

One of the best space operas I've ever read.

 

For those of you interested in some of those classics you skipped in high school and other non-SFF stuff, I'd like to pimp my 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die challenge again. (And remind those of you who signed up that you oughta post a review one of these days, eh?)

And yeah, I read Wuthering Heights as one of my books. But The Kreutzer Sonata was much more of a mindfuck.

 

Borges. Everyone should get a collection of Borges's stories and read them. Some of the best literature I've ever read. Inverarity has a more thoughtful review here.

 

And if you like Borges, I highly recommend Borges and the Eternal Orangutans, which is not only essentially Borges fan fiction, but Borges RPF. (But written by a real author.)

 

Hm, there's a reading challenge? For the classics? Why am I only hearing about this now? I better join. =O

Anyway, I'm here to pimp Lois Lowry's The Giver. It's a children's book, but some of the ideas present are extremely interesting. Lowry knows how to blur the lines between utopia and dystopia in a subtle but disturbing manner. One could understand why so many people loved it (and so many parents banned it. XD).

The ending is love-it-or-hate-it ambiguous. Personally, I thought it was awesome, but many others will disagree.

 

101 things to do before you die, or some sort of equivelent. Since I bought it, I take it whenever I go on holiday (or back and forth between Uni/Home), as you never know when you'll get the chance to do one. Also, it has its own list of (I think) 101 books inside it to read.

Some (maybe most) of the things inside aren't something I'll ever achieve. But it is something to try and do.

 

Can someone tell me whether The Alloy of Law (a Mistborn continuation) is as good as the other three novels? I was a rather big fan of the fantasy/heist hybrid in the books and Sanderson's writing has always been well done, but it seems to be heading for a steampunk like sub-genre and I've never been one for that. I'll continue to poke around for reviews elsewhere but DLP always has the most high quality and flavorful responses.

And just realized that the post itself was not a recommendation in the least bit- throwing caution to the wind and thinking that it has already been recommended or is well known enough that it isn't necessary, I'll say for my money Mistborn is one of the better books I've ever read. The series is very good but the first book alone is worth a day or two sequestered in your room with only a light and rations. Oceans 11 meets Lord of the Rings meets London circa early 1700s.

 

As far as I can see, it's not actually released for another month or so, so I doubt it (there are a couple of sample chapters, which I've been avoiding, but that's not much to go on anyway).

 

It's probably been recommended before, but the Gentleman Bastards series is so awesome that it needs continual pimping.

The series is projected to have 7 books; the two that have been published are The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies (the latter of which I'm a third of the way through but is shaping up to be great so far). There's another one coming out later this year, I think.

The basic story follows the adventures of a prodigious thief named Locke Lamora who leads his gang of Gentlemen Bastards through fantastic heists and "confidence games", all the while trying to defend against extremely nefarious enemies. The world is great, the writing is great...basically everything is great.

So read it.

 

Lynch is pulling a George Martin with the release of his new book. When was Red Seas released? 2007?

I understand though that Lynch has been going through personal difficulties though so I can't fault him too much.

 

@ MistbornI found the first one great but Elend destroyed the later books for me. His idealism was unbearable for me, especially when it affected Vin. It was still a nice read but nothing worth the hype.
I thought that there is enough Fantasy/SciFi in here so I thought I would try something new.

Battle Royal by Koushun Takami is a Action/Dystopian book and reads like the hardcore variant of "The Hunger Games":

The plot:
A class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing.

I liked the action scenes and the character development is also quite nice in my opinion. It may be not the best book you will read but it is still a good read. I read it in German and had no problem with the translation but I heard that the English translation is not the best so be prepared for that.

 

Going with the earlier theme of old books, I'd like to suggest Alexander Dumas. Specifically his novel The Black Tulip. Unlike the majority of his works, it is pretty short and very engaging, it's a romance and adventure novel.

If you want something really complex and long and haven't already read it The Count of Monte Cristo is superb.

 

The 3 Mass Effect books by Drew Karpyshyn are pretty good. I think they are a must read for anyone who's really into the ME universe, as they expand on the ME canon and introduce a bunch of new things not seen from simply playing the games.

They really held me over (briefly) after I finished ME2 while waiting for ME3 to come out. ME3 still is like forever away (or so it seems), but reading the books are a good way to pass the time. They are pretty short though; each one only took me about 5-6 hours to read. I'm a fast reader though and a big ME fanboy, so it might not be like that for everyone.

 

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente.

Yes, it's a children's book. Read it anyway. Valente is ten times the writer Rowling is, and shows more imagination on one page than Rowling does in an entire book. (I don't usually diss Rowling, but in the "magical world kidlit" department, Valente just plain eats Rowling's lunch.)

 

Battle Royale, or if you prefer the Japanese, Batoru Rowaiaru(I love engrish), is pretty terrific. Another good Japanese book is All You Need is Kill, by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Groundhogs Day meets Starship Troopers.

I just finishedBrains: A Zombie Memoir by Robin Becker. It a quick little novella, which basically has the protagonist from White Noise zombified in the zombie apocalypse. It's a bit self indulgent, but anyone who can use the phrase 'beasital brainullingus' is alright by me.

 

Just finished Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns. A "revenge fantasy" in a post-post-postapocalyptic medievalist world.

This is the best book I've read in the last six months, and for those who know how much I read, that's as glowing a recommendation as you could get from me.

I haven't been this impressed by a debut since The Left Hand of God, which I would rate only a point below The Name of the Wind.

 

You actually liked that book? I thought it was pretty terrible, it just came across as trying way too hard to me. I found the whole premise to be just...bad.

 

For those who like more of a realistic yet fantasy mix, I'd recommend the Temeraire series. Napoleon's warmongering and dragons.

Some of the characters can be a bit bothersome after a while but a damned good read. Fairly realistic as far as dragons and british colonialism is concerned.

 

It was cliched as fuck, and not brilliantly written, but it had a couple of neat ideas and credit where it's due, it sucked me in. I started reading it one evening and next thing I knew it was 1.30 in the morning and I'd read half the book. Finished it the next evening.

That said, I won't be picking up the sequel.