Non-fantasy/SF recommendations thread (literary, non-fic etc)

[Howling Mad]

If you ever wanted to know what its like to witness a human skull crack like a hard boiled egg read The Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan. Really this is one of the best books I have ever read. Its a fascinating period piece and O'Nan's narrative regarding the fire itself will haunt you for days. Its a great look in time at the circus, public safety (law, fire, EMS), hospital care, body ID, social services, insurance, law, entertainment.

[kiyoaki]

Try Yakuza - Japan's Criminal Underworld by Kaplan and Dubro and The Japanese Mafia - Yakuza, Law and the State by Hill for in-depth sociological analysises. A bit on the dry side, though.

EDIT: To add some spice, Karl Taro Greenfeld's Speed Tribes is an entertaining semi-fictional look at Japanese delinquent subcultures. It's a bit old now, though, and shouldn't be taken all that seriously.

[Howling Mad]

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman is a great treatise on the de-evolution of western society in the media age. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

[Ylva]

T.C. Boyle - When the Killing's Done

Basically, you have a biologist trying to safe rare species on the Channel Islands in California from species that men brought with them (rats, pigs, etc.), and a hardcore animal rights activist who is against killing animals under any circumstances. Boyle handles this conflict very nicely, and the book reads like a thriller in some sections, especially towards the end.

Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day

An old English butler is looking back at his life in service of an English Lord, and especially on the events during the 1920s and 30s. This is an amazing book about life, morals and regret.

[Brother Darkness]

Cormack mcarthy's Blood Meridian is the best book I have ever read. It is a fictionalised account of a boys life as he runs away and ends up with the Glanton gang and the truly horrifying Judge Holden. It has to be read to understand just how good it is but is has been called the greatest modern novel.

[Rorshach]

I'd like to mention one of my favourites: Black Book by Orhan Pamuk.

I've read most of his books, and love him as an author. Black book is his best work, imo

[Lady Lann]

One of my favourite still is Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. It has little to do with the Disney film and is severely more mean-spirited towards its characters, but then, most of them aren't very good people and might deserve it. Aside from Esmeralda, who can be a bit on the boring-perfect side, and a baffling chapter about the history of church architecture that stops the story dead in its tracks for a couple dozen pages, it's a great book, funny, colourful and sad, with ambigious and complex characters.

[Elder Sister]

I don't know how I missed this thread, but I did. Okay, here's a list of my favorites.

*A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. It won the Pulitzer for the author, although he had committed suicide. The book is one of the funniest, quirkiest, strangest things I've ever read. It's set in New Orleans. I read it every year and still laugh my butt off.

*Lonesome Dove] by Larry McMurtry. It's been so long since the first time I read this book....I had actually forgotten about it and saw someone else recommended it. There are parts of this book that make me sob like a baby, I've probably read it ten times.

*Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. This book makes me want to be a better person. Eleanor is so forthright, so noble...I love her.

*True Blood series by Charlaine Harris. Okay. Yes, it's utter fluff but it's really funny, and sometimes scary as hell. And Sookie in the book is fantastic. Pretend the show never existed and trust me on this.

*No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. I loved this book. It's my favorite of McCarthy's works. It's not a coincidence that it's the least dark. His books generally make me want to kill myself.

*Jackson Brodie Mysteries by Kate Atkinson. These books(I think there are 5 or 6) are so fantastic. Kate Atkinson is a genius with plot, and Jackson Brodie is an unbelievable character. He's a total mess, but you will fall in love with him.

[The Answer]

*The Count of Monte Cristo* by Alexandre Dumas.

There are mulitiple editions ranging from a 300 page to 1400+ page edition.

I recommend the large edition, for the same reason everyone on these forums would most likely reccommend the ASoIaF novels over the HBO series.

It takes place in France, circa early 1800s. The main character, 19 year old Edmond Dantes, seems to have everything any young man can ask for. The perfect girl, the perfect job, and an unlimited amount of expectations. Until of course jealousy and greed in those around him take what he earned in the blink of an eye. With the help of an old preist, and a fortunate turn of events, a newly educated and inspired Edmond Dantes dedicates his life to revenge on those who conspired against him, while also giving back to those few who remained loyal to his cause.

Also, the movie is an insult to the masterpiece of a novel.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

Can anyone recommend a book(s) dealing with the workings and traditions of the Japanese Yakuza.

Fiction or non-fiction, it doesn't really matter. Anything that shines a light...

It isn't quite what you're asking for but Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein is really good. The author was the a crime reporter for the Yomiuri Shinbum and the first American to work for a Japanese newspaper as a Japanese Language reporter.

[Bronson]

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo . it the story of young soldier Joe Bonham who get hit by an artillery shell, blows off his arms , legs and his face. Other then touch and feel, has no way of knowing whether he's alive or dead. Through much the novel he has flashbacks of events prior to his getting wounded and once he figures out his situation , he tries to communicate with those around him. One of the greatest antiwar novels ever written. It's great book.

[HouseLark]

Cormack mcarthy's Blood Meridian is the best book I have ever read. It is a fictionalised account of a boys life as he runs away and ends up with the Glanton gang and the truly horrifying Judge Holden. It has to be read to understand just how good it is but is has been called the greatest modern novel.

I'll second this, it really is a wonderful book. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's the greatest modern novel but it is terrific and is McCarthy's best book. A word of caution is needed though, since it is also the most harrowing work of fiction that I have ever read. It's loosely based on the true life recollections of one of the Glanton gang and it provides an account of the 'cowboys and indians' era that you won't find in most popular media.

[James Arryn]

Just read Kalimantaan by C.S. Godshalk.

Her first novel, 20 years in the making, is above all interesting. It's a thinly disguised depiction of James Brooke and the White Rajah period, replete with realized real-life characters under other names.

And there's the rub. It flirts with greatness, but it is sooo full of characters which flit through, are richly colored and then abandoned, picked up 200 pages on with the assumptrion that your catalogue is up to date. It blends elements of Dunnett, Conrad and even a little Ondaatje, and while it at times fascinates, I am left with a sense of elusive greatness. It's texture is amazing, the plot ephemeral, and the aforementioned characters so overflowing it probably begged 2 novels while the style would never have allowed it. It's almost poetic at times, and reality and illusion drift gracefully amongst each other's trails...love, passion, murder, sex, power, war, trade, torture, gardening, birth, death and flora and fauna abound, and while I cannot say it's a read for everyone, I can say that I am going to reread it at some time with the hopes that the elusive proves easier to attain that way round.

[Stevonicus]

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammet. It's one of the classic noir detective stories with all the requisite manly detectives, beautiful dames, double crossings and a whole host of shenanigans.

[davos]

A Peoples' Tragedy by Orlando Figes - The best single overview of the Russian Revolutionary period starting with the events that lead to the 1905 revolution through Lenin's death. Figes manages to effectively convey the course of a complex series of interconnected events and social changes while at the same time not loosing sight of the people involved, including the average citizens swept up in history. Its a well-balanced narrative that impressively deals with a expansive topic in a single work. There are other sources that go into more details and offer more incisive, penetrating analysis and reflection, but if one wants to read one work that will give them a good handle on what happened in Russia during its revolutionary period and why, this is as good as it gets.

The Harvest of Sorrow and The Great Terror, both by Robert Conquest - Neither are easy reads but just as we should never forget the holocaust, we should also never forget the horror of Stalin's rule. The former details the collectivization, relocation and engineered famine in the late 1920's that resulted in millions of deaths, primarily in the Ukraine. The latter chronicales Stalin's systematic repression of any potential contrary force in Soviet society that results in the deaths of millions more during the 30's. These events receive far less attention than the Nazi Holocaust, which should not be. Again, they are difficult reads for the horror of the material they relate, but are well worth it, if only to understand that Stalin truly was as evil a man as Hitler.

[Bronson]

Night Has a Thousand Eyes by Cornell Woolrich , a Noir about a detective trying to rescue a man from a doom foretold by a fortune teller. This book is a spectacular read by one of the great nor writer of all time. :cool4:

[Devaki Khanna]

I'd like to mention one of my favourites: Black Book by Orhan Pamuk.

I've read most of his books, and love him as an author. Black book is his best work, imo

Personally, I loved his My Name is Red, about the confrontation of Islamic and Western schools of art.

[ShadowRaven]

*The Count of Monte Cristo* by Alexandre Dumas.

There are mulitiple editions ranging from a 300 page to 1400+ page edition.

I recommend the large edition, for the same reason everyone on these forums would most likely reccommend the ASoIaF novels over the HBO series.

It takes place in France, circa early 1800s. The main character, 19 year old Edmond Dantes, seems to have everything any young man can ask for. The perfect girl, the perfect job, and an unlimited amount of expectations. Until of course jealousy and greed in those around him take what he earned in the blink of an eye. With the help of an old preist, and a fortunate turn of events, a newly educated and inspired Edmond Dantes dedicates his life to revenge on those who conspired against him, while also giving back to those few who remained loyal to his cause.

Also, the movie is an insult to the masterpiece of a novel.

I loved the movie. Wonder how the books are.

http://www.bol.com/nl/p/the-count-of-monte-cristo/1001004001825261/

Is this the correct book? It has 1312 pages??

[ShadowRaven]

Or this one?

http://www.bol.com/nl/p/the-count-of-monte-cristo/1001004001349530/

[Devaki Khanna]

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob van Zoet by David Mitchell

Vividly recreates late Tokugawa Japan (1799 and the early 1800s), the impact of Dutch learning on the Japanese, the crumbling feudal society as well as the impact of the Enlightenment and French Revolution upon the Dutchmen living on the island of Deshima, off Nagasaki. Worth a read or a listen.