Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with reading and recommendation

Help me find my Fringe Reading Companion

duckus — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:11:09 -0800

I just started watching Fringe. I'm only about three-quarters of the way through Season 2, so please no spoilers. What I'm looking for is companion reading material. What I like about the show are it's dynamic character relationships and the very cool alternate reality stuff. I'm looking for books that are more literary and character-building and really play on alternate realities.

This is what I've liked that I feel have played on similar themes and have the right kind of balance for me between literary and speculative reality. They also have contemporary settings, which I also prefer.

Lev Grossman Magician books
Time Travelers' Wife
Connie Willis - The Passage

I've not liked:

Anything else by Connie Willis
Diana Gaboldan's series
George R.R. Martin

I've seen this. I like the gory, horror-y stuff a lot less than the parallel universe stuff.

Looking for a book recommendation that combines art and philosophy

Chichibio — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 06:50:26 -0800

Students of art, lovers of philosophy, can you recommend a book I can buy as a gift for a friend? I'm looking to buy a very good friend of mine a book for his upcoming birthday, but I'm having a hard time deciding which one.

Here are two salient facts:

1) He's an artist, and reads philosophical books in his spare time. He has most likely read all the standard dudes that get thrown about at art school, i.e. the Frankfurt School, all the French folks since Satre like Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Lyotard, etc. I know for a fact that he's reading Badiou right now.

So I think a philosophy text would be great, but it doesn't have to be specifically about aesthetics or art appreciation (a la Danto).

2) My friend explained to me that he reads philosophy like one would a novel, so I'd like to buy something fresh and engagingly-written. It's not like he understands set theory, so I think he's breezing by those bits and hunting for delicious turns of phrase.

fryman's suggestion of Quentin Meillassoux is intriguing but it doesn't really click to me. I would prefer getting something that has been published in the last ten years or so, but don't hold back if you have better suggestions from the 20th century.

As always, thank you Ask!

Help Feed My Reading Elephant's Kindle

dragonplayer — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:40:59 -0800

Can you recommend something to read from the Kindle Owners' Lending Library? I have trawled through there for ages this month and last month and I'm having trouble finding something good that I haven't read before. My preferences mainly run to history, fantasy, literary fiction and science fiction. Thanks.

What epic book should I read next?

drjimmy11 — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:37:31 -0800

What epic book should I read next? Yes, I know there are many "recommend a book" questions, but this one is mine. I just finished the fifth "Game of Thrones" book and I'm looking for something to tide me over until Murakami's 1Q84 comes out in October.

I love epic stories, but I confess to being a bit of a literary snob. I love Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones because I feel like they hold up as literature, not just "good for their genre." I can't hack most other sci-fi or fantasy, but if there's someone out there who writes as well as Tolkien or Martin, I'd love to know about them. I already read The Magicians and The Magician King by Lev Grossman (loved both); same goes for the "His Dark Materials" books. No interest in Harry Potter.

I also enjoy books about adventure and exploration, fiction or non-: I heard about Dan Simmons' The Terror from another thread and loved it (Not really a "horror" fan but the horror/exploration/history combo worked for me). Also loved Shantaram. Everything by Jon Krakuer is amazing too.

A Supposedly Fun Novel I'll Read Again And Again

the NATURAL — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 03:46:48 -0800

ReadingListFilter: What is the most unmissable novel of the past decade? I prefer nonfiction. When I dip into fiction, I want the books I select to be impressive and canonical.

Recently, I've been reading Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself. Though I haven't mustered up the courage to read Infinite Jest yet, I've always been awestruck by DFW, and I think that IJ would probably be a unanimous pick for the most unmissable (not necessarily best, or most innovative, etc) novel of the 90s.

So, with that in mind, what's the most unmissable novel of the 2000s?

Fellow literature nerds, help me out here

Lobster Garden — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:13:34 -0800

Yet another reading recommendation request. Fellow literature nerds, help me out here. Specific requirements inside. I am a recently graduated English major who is excited to finally have the time and energy to read any kind of literature I choose at my leisure. So right now I want to read nothing but my favorite: 19th century British novels.

I've already read a few of the major canonical novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; Dracula; Tess of the d'Urbervilles; Picture of Dorian Gray; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; all of Jane Austen; etc. I've also read a handful of random, less well-known works: Lady Audley's Secret; The Moonstone; In a Glass Darkly; the wonderfully creepy ghost stories of M.R. James.

I haven't read any Charles Dickens due to not liking him very much in high school, but I'm willing to give him another go if there is one or two particularly must-read novels of his. Oh and no Joseph Conrad please.

What other novels (or short story collections) should a person with an unhealthy obsession with 19th century literature be obliged to read? They don't have to be canonical, they just have to be entertaining. Density of prose is no concern; I'm also a big fan of Marcel Proust.

Enlightening and lovely literature on libraries.

mrhaydel — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:46:30 -0800

Books about libraries, and books/essays about the future of them? While looking at this book, I came across *this* book, and it got me wondering.

I'd like to read a book (or two) on libraries and their role throughout history. I'm not sure if "Libraries of the Ancient World" is what I'm after, but it did pique my interest.

I love what have been referred to as mono-histories, so I'd like to find something in that vein: tracing the earliest form of libraries in history, their role in society, all the way up to their current incarnation.

There seem to be any number of them out there on Amazon, but I'd like to hear from someone (maybe a librarian even??!) who can recommend a good read here.

I don't necessarily want library porn, so no coffee table books with pictures of beautiful libraries (unless of course, it also doubles as a history of them to some degree) - I guess I'm just kind of after the "Salt" of the library world, ya know?

Now, the second part of my question: have there been any good publications about the future of libraries? The SO and I were discussing how it used to be, to us at least, the library was a place we'd go to get research done for term papers and such for school.

While libraries are still ultimately just trying to provide access to a wealth of information, it seems that students in junior high or high school may not necessarily use them the same way as how we might have used them pre-internet. Maybe they do, but, I'm still curious as to what the prevailing thoughts are as to what libraries may be like in another 10-15 years, and how they can continue to live as public institutions.

A little Googling turned up an NPR story, and a smattering of other mildly informative things, but again, I'd prefer something a little more in depth.

If both of my questions happened to be answered in the form of one book, then that'd be just swell.

What should she read?

christy — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:14:12 -0800

Help me find a book for someone who doesn't like to read. I'm looking for book (novel really) recommendations for a friend of mine who doesn't really like to read. She has a fairly short attention span and gets bored with most books quickly. She's interested in medicine (she was pre-med and will being going to medical school in the near(ish) future) so books in that vein would probably go over well and hold her attention. She's very intelligent, so no need to shy away from 'hard' (whatever you want to take that to mean) suggestions.

Readings on how to communicate requirements to our developers?

GrumpyMonkey — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 08:46:54 -0800

ChangingRolesAtWorkFilter: I am moving from a pure development role into more of an integration/product manager role. I need advice on things to read that will help me learn to write requirements documents. [more (requirements?) inside...] We, as a company, have done a very poor job doing this in the past. Generally passing requirements to the dev staff consists of a short email from sales or client services with “We need a new X to do something important and we would like it yesterday” so dev builds X and it does something important and much more but when the client sees it we find that really it needed to do a small thing that is either completely different or could have been added to the product with a few small tweaks.

I know that this is typical for many technology companies and it was fine for the first few years here since we were a start-up but now it is a hindrance and it is time for us to grow up. My job will in part be changing the way we do things to make sure that we do not spend so much time spinning our wheels due to poor specs. We are an ASP and not a thick client app if that makes a difference.

It is going to be an interesting time because I am basically going to be trying to change the way that people work here and force them to actually plan things and think about what they really need and how important it really is and I am sure that there will be a lot of resistance at first.

With that said, I would love to hear about anything that you have read that will help me to create a requirements gathering process and then write coherent documents that clearly communicate the need to the dev team.