Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with books and book

Please tell me what to read!

Janta — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:22:54 -0800

Book-recommendation-filter: Can you help me find something to read? Parameters to follow. I'm desperate for new reading material. I typically read SF/Fantasy and some mysteries (innovative and edgy, I know), and lately I've found myself reading more non-fiction, simply because it seems like most of the SF/F out there has a lot of hackneyed, overblown prose and predictable plots. What I'd really like to find is SF/Fantasy that plays with the genre's conventions a little bit, I think -- actually, I'm interested in any book that twists the conventions of its genre. Additionally, I prefer books with a good deal of action, and absolutely love it when the characters engage in "witty banter" (it should be genuinely smart dialog, though). I'm not super-fond of hard/military SF, though if it focuses on the people more than the science and tech, I'll give it a try.

SF/F that I've enjoyed recently: everything by Terry Pratchett, most of Lois Bujold's books, Scott Lynch, John Scalzi, John Varley, Charles Stross, Guy Kay, George Martin, and Ken Scholes.

Bonus-round: I just re-read Soon I WIll Be Invincible; do you know of any books that mess around with the whole superhero/supervillain/metahuman concept?

Thanks, MeFites!

p.s. -- I've done the usual googling, looked at past questions, tried BookSeer and What Should I Read Next, and haven't had much luck.

Help me find a good exercise book to listen to on my trip.

whoaali — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:00:54 -0800

My exercise routine is not yielding me results. I want a book (preferably one that I can download on audible) that will fill in the many gaps in my excercise/fitness knowledge. For about the past nine months I have been attempting to lose about 15 - 20 pounds and tone up. I'm a 27 year old female. BMI hovers around 25, but basically healthy weight.

I initially did a lot of power yoga (very intense classes which worked me harder than I've ever worked before). They left me starving and sore. After about 4 months of this I had lost no weight and could only see minimal results. I switched to going to the gym and doing primarily cardioand this has been more successful. My appetite is under control and I've lost about 7-9 pounds, but I feel as flabby as ever.

A month and a half ago I sprained my ankle really badly and couldn't exercise at all, however the weight loss continued at the same (possibly faster?) pace as when I was going to the gym. This leads me to believe my current exercise regime is doing nothing for me (I've been losing weight by counting calories) and I want to learn what I'm doing wrong and how I can have a more effective workout. Granted I am not naturally athletic at all, but I still think I could be getting some tangible results from all the hours of exercise I've put in.

I'll be driving about 15 hours over the next week and want to download a book or 2 that will help fill in my exercise knowledge. Here is a rough idea of what I'm hoping to learn.

- How to exercise efficiently.
- Cardio vs Weight Lifting
- Supplements, are they even worth it?
- Eating before and after exercise (and how does this mesh with a low calorie diet approx. 1500 calories a day)
- Is there any point in building muscle if it's covered in fat?
- Weight lifting - reps, weight etc

I'm particularly interested in books that have a practical approach and are aimed at beginners. I'm not looking to become a weight lifter or a world class athlete, I just want to jiggle less!

Looking for books where a person or people are searching for a long lost person.

reenum — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:41:37 -0800

Looking for books where a person or people are searching for a long lost person. I loved Hunting Eichmann and would like to read more books about a person or a group of people banding together to find a long lost person.

I'd prefer nonfiction, but well written fiction will work too.

Thanks!

Please recommend books similar to Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball

reenum — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:44:05 -0800

I love Bill Simmons' "The Book of Basketball". What should I read next? I'm in the middle of Simmons NBA opus, and it fascinates as to how he's able to pack in so much info, yet have the book remain accessible. I especially love how he makes fun of and injects humor into the various characters and events in the NBA's history.

Are there other books that are basically all encompassing, sprawling accounts of a particular entity, field, event, etc., yet remain fun to read?

I know some folks might suggest Mary Roach, but I just couldn't get into her stuff.

I prefer nonfiction, but well written fiction would work too.

Thanks!

Do I ask the publisher for a new copy or would that be stupid?

trixare4kids — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:57:55 -0800

Book Collectors: Is my new signed collector's edition book more or less valuable with a cutting machine error? I received a wonderful present: A signed collector's edition of "Under the Dome" by Stephen King. It also came with a set of collector cards. The set came directly from the publisher. So I'm not really a book collector, but I'm delighted to have this copy.

I noticed that there are about 10 pages that were cut wrong. The cutting machine left a triangle shaped tag on the top corner of these pages.

I took a picture so you can see what the error looks like.

Do I ask for a new copy or is it better to keep this one -- just in terms of future value?

Back when it was OK to read fantasy novels in English class....

otolith — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:02:32 -0800

Okay, fantasy novel ID two-fer. Book One: people live in villages that are suspended on the side of an enormous cliff and a girl is born who has wings. Book Two: set in a world made up of bits of earth suspended in a void, cape-fighters, a spider-god.... I read both of these books sometime around 1992-93.

More on book one: specifically, the villages are attached to the cliff by the roots of enormous plants or trees. The axiom "measure twice, cut once" is used when setting up the plot, to underscore the precision it takes to engineer the support system for the villages out of these roots. The title of the book may have been something like "_____ Descends" or "_____ Falls", where the blank is the name of the winged, female protagonist. I seem to recall that the book had sort of a "Ursula LeGuin" feel, rather than a more standard fantasy novel.

More on book two: the bits of earth suspended in the void are of varying sizes, some are big enough to hold whole cities. The plot involves a thief stealing something of great value from a castle or mansion, then trying to escape with it. In the void surrounding the floating earth are "vampires", which, in this book, are small parasitic creatures. There is a character who is a "cape-fighter", who fights using a weighted cape that maybe has some blades on it. There is also some kind of spider-god who lives on one level of the void and I seem to remember the book ending on his "world". This book definitely had the feel of being a book in a larger series and I recall that it maybe wasn't very well written.

I was reminded of the first book over a year ago while reading about the hanging coffins in China and then the second book popped to mind as something I read at about the same time. It's been killing me that I can't track these down.

Please suggest books, movies or shows like Bel Canto

reenum — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:44:26 -0800

I loved the plot of Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Any recommendations for similar books, shows, or movies? I loved how Patchett's book showed hostages and hostage takers forming a sort of community within their besieged compound.

I also remember an essay with a similar theme by P.J. O'Rourke. It involved him being stuck in a hotel with a bunch of foreign correspondents during a bombing and talked about how they coped.

Any suggestions?

Perhaps a chair coated with glue?

BitterOldPunk — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:09:03 -0800

With NaNoWriMo looming ever nearer, I would like to hear your best tips, tricks, habits, and techniques for staying chained to the keyboard. Realizing that the point is to get 50,000 words written, I've jettisoned all illusions of producing quality, publishable prose. My only goal is to finish without having to copypaste "All work and no play makes BOP a dull boy" five thousand times. I have a (rather vague) outline, I have some preliminary character sketches, and I have every expectation that the first ten thousand words will flow fairly quickly. But. I suck at follow-through. I have the attention span of the common housefly. So, writers: how do I stick with it, fight through discouragment and ennui, and produce 50,000 reasonably coherent words?

Note: I'm not looking for tips like "prepare moar" or "work your plan". I'm looking for how to stay motivated when the fun stuff stops and the hard work begins.

Are there any authors like Cormac McCarthy?

Bacillus — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:11:26 -0800

Which author comes closest to Cormac McCarthy? I am a great fan of Cormac McCarthy. I only read one book and instantly became a fan. I read a few more and loved his style.

Can anyone suggest an author who's like him?

PS. If anyone has a hardcover good copy (1st printing would be nice) of his "Blood Meridian" (Not book club edition) they would like to sell, please let me know.

What hilarious book should my book club read?

indiebass — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:56:12 -0800

BookClubfilter: I'm tasked with picking the next book. I have some ideas, but could use the Hive's help. It's a group of pretty literary folks (English teachers and the like) and only about eight of us. We've read some heavy stuff lately and I'd like to switch gears to something lighter, and preferably funny. We've read, in reverse order:

Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson
Mother Night, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates
Last Night at the Lobster, by Stewart O'Nan
Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo
A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

So we just did Sci-Fi (Snow Crash), so I def want to avoid the genre. I was considering "The Coup" by Jamie Malanowski, "Boomsday" by Christopher Buckley and "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.

If anyone has any experience with any of these books OR can recommend a modern, humorous book that'd be good for discussion I'm all ears. I can answer any questions, of course. Thanks hive mind!

What well-known novels lack any character description aside from names?

odinsdream — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:05:32 -0800

What well-known novels lack any character descriptions aside from names?

October book suggestions

CZMR — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:52:42 -0800

Woohoo, it's October! Lets get some Autumn/Halloween reading suggestions! There was this from last year and I thought it was a decent thread but hopefully we can get a few more suggestions.

I'll start off with a few -
Dracula - Bram Stoker
House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski - Although the Leaves in the title doesn't relate to autumn, I kept envisioning it taking place during the fall. And not to mention it is a terrifying novel that will scare you for the Halloween season.

Books are Rad, Let's Spread the Word!

micklaw — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:46:34 -0800

DonatingTextbooksInAustraliaFilter: How would I go about donating a heap of recent secondary school textbooks to worthy causes. I'm in Melbourne, Australia. My aunt (actually) has a whole stack of textbooks that my cousins no longer need (having recently finished school) and they can't sell back to the school as new editions have come out.

There are textbooks on a whole range of subjects (English, Maths, Geography, Physics, French etc) and they are all in excellent condition.

They are looking to donate them to an organisation that could distribute them overseas or even within Australia to those who might not be able to easily access these books. The oldest book would only be 4 or 5 years old and most are very recent.

My question then is who could we pass these books on to to get the most out of them

What happened to the H.M.S. Terror, a la Dan Simmons? Please?

taz — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 02:16:10 -0800

Please help me understand aspects of the ending of the novel "The Terror" by Dan Simmons! Super spoiler-icious details inside (definitely don't read unless you've read the book, or are sure you never want to)... It's driving me crazy! Who sailed the Terror 200 miles south of it's original ice-locked position near the Erebus? Who was the rat-toothed corpse in Crozier's bunk?

Am I wrong in understanding that the top-deck hatches had been nailed shut from the outside? And this would indicate that the (apparently) single remaining seaman aboard had been locked inside either for the protection of others, or for his own protection?

Failing the possibility that the mystery corpse was one of a party of rescuers (and I reject this theory because the ships were never found in real life), logic dictates that he would have had to be one of the three - Reuben Male, Robert Sinclair, and Samuel Honey - who set out cross country to return to the Terror. Simmons is specific that the corpse in the bunk is about the height of Crozier, but elsewhere, Reuben Male (the more significant character of the trio) is described as shorter than Crozier, and there is almost no mention or development in the novel at all regarding Robert Sinclair or Samuel Honey (who is not Honey, the carpenter, but a blacksmith with the same last name who is basically never mentioned except for being included in that group that chose to try to return to the Terror).

However, one detail seems to suggest that it wasn't one of those three: the corpse is swathed in heavy clothes and blankets, which puzzles Crozier, since if the three had managed to make their way back to the Terror, it would have still been summer. (I mention this because it's specifically pointed out in the narrative. In fact, since this discovery happens 2+ years later, they could have returned, sailed the ship out during summer, and then this individual could have died at a later time.) Earlier, much was made of checking every nook and cranny of the ship before abandoning it, which seems to have been explicated especially to put aside any notion that whoever the corpse was (and whoever sailed the ship and nailed the hatches shut) weren't sailors who had surreptitiously stayed aboard. The constant head-counting by Crozier also indicates that nobody is unaccounted for after the crew leaves the ship.

Simmons is also quite specific that the Terror was anchored in a place that didn't make any sense; instead of harboring in the shelter of the various nearby inlets, it is anchored in open water (later, ice), leaving it exposed to the terrible storms. Was this, again, an effort to isolate the one left on board? Or was it just an indication of extreme incompetence? (Wouldn't pretty much any sailor know to seek some kind of safe harbor?)

And wtf, the rat teeth?

It also makes me crazy that Simmons writes this:

How Terror could have ended up here, almost two hundred miles south of where she had been frozen fast near Erebus for almost three years, was beyond Crozier’s powers of speculation.

He would not have to speculate much longer.

eh? Why not? He doesn't seem to have reached any conclusion (or none that were shared with us poor readers) about this after inspecting the ship.

It just doesn't make sense to me that Simmons would have put all these extremely specific details/clues - not to mention the relocation of the Terror at all - just to leave it all as a hanging mystery. Why? Why? What am I missing?

Book ID: Painters trap their subjects in paintings by using bodily fluids.

snoogles — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:20:15 -0800

IDThisBookFilter: I'm looking for a fantasy book by several authors which features a family of painters who can trap people in a painting if they mix their bodily fluids in with the paint. The author(s) must have names in the second half of the alphabet, if I remember my library's old filing system correctly.
There's a scene where painters who make paintings as a way of recording contracts/transaction have an argument over what kind of style is most appropriate. I think there might be a girl who becomes a painter even though it's usually a man's job... (oh, the feminism of fantasy novels).

(I think the word gold or golden might be in the title, but it's a big stretch).

Intellectual histories of the natural sciences?

shivohum — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:18:03 -0800

Any recommendations for books giving a general history of any of the natural sciences, with a particular attention to how the great biologists, botanists, and zoologists, etc. approached problems of classification and conceptualization of their phenomena (e.g. like how Linnaeus came up with his taxonomy)? Not looking for great technical detail so much as how these scientists thought and responded to each others' thoughts.

I want to see more bad people

reenum — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:48:37 -0800

Please suggest movies, TV shows and books that feature unrepentant, amoral characters I was a big fan of Seinfeld when it was on, and now love It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Eastbound & Down.

The common thread running through these shows is a character or group of characters who are often selfish at best, amoral at worst and unrepentant about it. Also, the characters don't seem to have an epiphany that makes them "good", like the case with many movies and books. For example, I loved the movie Roger Dodger until the ending.

I want more of this. I'd love suggestions on TV shows (except Weeds), movies, and nonfiction books or biographies. I've read about such characters in fiction, so don't need recs on those sorts of books.

Thanks!

Diamonds in the souls of their eyes

baggers — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:37:44 -0800

I'm looking for a book that a friend remembers reading as a child, but she only has vague memories of it. The book features dwarfs as miners who use diamonds as eyes. The book:

1) Takes place in Germany
2) Festures Dwarfs are miners
3) They mine diamonds
4) They use the diamonds for their eyes

I KNOW! Sounds totally creepy and interesting and I want to read it.
According to her she didn't re-imagine Snow White, and I've looked at the
Andrew Land and Charles Perrault but can't find anything. If you have any thoughts about what the book could be called, or more specifics, I'd appreciate it!

Is there a book in the same vein as Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, only covering history instead of science?

wordsmith — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:58:05 -0800

Is there a book in the same vein as Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, only covering history instead of science? Something that's fairly light and fun(ny?) to read, not dense and textbook-like.

Is there a good book about the Reagan administration out there?

orange swan — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:31:11 -0800

Can anyone recommend a solidly researched and well-written book that critiques Ronald Reagan's administration? Last Sunday during the Swan family Easter do at my place my brother and his 21-year-old son opined that Ronald Reagan was one of the three best U.S. presidents, that he ended the Cold War, and that his administration was good for the economy, etc.. Anything I tried to say to the contrary was dismissed as "leftist propaganda" by my nephew. So, I would like to give my brother a book on the topic for Christmas. I need something readable that comes across as very reasonable and fair-minded. Title suggestions, please?

A drop in the river

Toekneesan — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:08:23 -0800

How many books (titles, not editions or book pages) are available on Amazon? I'm looking for the number of titles Amazon currently lists. I'm not interested in how many they've sold or how many total products the site has. I don't care if they're in or out of print, new or used (though a breakdown of those categories would be awesome), I'm just looking for how many titles are listed on their US site. Google produced bupkis, Amazon's Media Center, even their annual report does not seem to mention the number of titles listed. Anyone got an educated guess or better yet, a cited figure?

Finding new books

TrashyRambo — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 10:53:48 -0800

How do you discover new books and authors? Netflix tells me what I'd enjoy watching and Pandora helps me find new music. But beyond the slightly random "Amazon Recommends..." I depend on word of mouth to pick my next read. This is slow and unsatisfactory. What's a better way?

Any book out there similar to Ramona the Pest??

lynnie-the-pooh — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:01:05 -0800

What great children's books are there for little girls beginning kindergarten. Ramona the Pest is a book about a girl in Kindergarten and I like that one. Are there any other smart, funny books out there relating to kindergarten? If not, do you know a really good book for a four year old girl? My daughter is beginning to read small words, but I read most books to her.

Thanks,
Lynn

Stand-Alone Fantasy Novels?

Jaybo — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:46:02 -0800

Stand-alone fantasy book recommendations? So many fantasy books are parts of series so I'm looking for suggestions of fantasy books that are engaging, stand-alone works.

Bonus points if they have medieval settings and characters who use magic.

Finally, although it *is* part of a series, the person I'm asking on behalf of cites "Ink Death" as an example of the type of book they're looking for.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a manuscript must be in want of reference materials.

headspace — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:40:24 -0800

Can you please recommend some books on daily life, home life, and general society in the UK and the US in the 1840s - 1880s for me? I already have What Jane Austen Ate, and What Charles Dickens Knew and An Elegant Madness. It doesn't have to be specifically on daily life- creative nonfiction like Larson's The Devil in the White City or Johnson's The Ghost Map are awesome, too.