Recommend A Book

[StarHalo]

Recommend ONE BOOK every THREE MONTHS.

If you have more than one book to recommend, post one now and wait three months to post another. Include a description; pictures and links welcome.

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My recommendation for this season: Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls; True Stories of Castaways and Other Survivors



This nonfiction compendium tells the stories of maroons and castaways from the 1500s to the present, with lengthy analysis of survivors ranging from psychoanalysis to providence. The book begins in 1540 with Pedro de Serrano's ship sinking off the coast of Peru; the Spaniard was washed ashore onto a small island wearing only basic underclothes and a knife, but this island had no trees or vegetation whatsoever - it was just a giant sandbar. How would survival be possible in the middle of the ocean with no land resources? Read and find out..

[Imon]

I don't read fiction like I used to when I was younger so I'm going to recommend a nonfiction book as well.

Here's a book I read many years ago.

Genie: A Scientific Tragedy by Russ Rymer



This is the sad story of Genie, which is her pseudonym, who was a feral child isolated from the world for the first 13 years of her life by her father.
Her discovery and the documentation of her life afterwards would help us to further understand human cognitive development.
A heartbreaking story ... makes you wonder what it means to be human.

[Chrisdm]

Great thread idea, thanks... I guess ill start with my favorite book of all time, Lonesome Dove. A loosely fictional western saga, but based on the lives of Charles Goodnight and other real western pioneers, set in the actual locations these men made their mark. If you havent read it but are considering it ill tell you what my mom told me: You gotta give it 150 pages before giving up on it. It takes that long to set up the compelling saga. Any fan of the west must read this book.

[angelofwar]

Hmmm...for me, this season...Walden, by Thoreau. Great book that puts alot of perspective on your life, and open your eye's to alot of stuff...and, it not loaded down with modern political agenda stuff either, since it was written early 1800's. Read it, and see just how SIMPLE your life really can be. Oh, and it's a true story, kind of like an auto-biography of his years at Walden Pond. With out giving out TOO much info, my favorite section is when he talks about how it was qucker to walk to Boston than it was to take a train. Lots of good insight on simple LIFE issues.

[TedTheLed]

what an odd book to be recommended by someone like, well, angelofwar...

Walden Two might interest you. By B.F. Skinner. Supposedly Thoreau's ideas, among others, applied to a community..a utopian community..

[blasterman]

Although I typically stick to high brow Sci-Fi, I did read a really facinating book by Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis a few years ago; Dancing Naked in the Mind Field.

When Nobel winners get a chance to ramble on about aliens, surfing, the scientific establishment, even recreational drug use it's pretty interesting to say the least. One thing I've taught myself over the years is always listen to somebody smarter or more succesfull than myself and take their writing seriously no matter how goofy it sounds. Can always do the 'sifting' later, and I have to admit I didn't do a lot of sifting here.

[chmsam]

There are a few authors who always make good reading for me but lately I think I need to read something by Walter Mosley.

For a different philosophical twist on heaven and hell, his Tempest Tales is about an average black man who was shot and died. He is supposed to be sent to Hell but refuses to go. Assigned an angel to look over him he is sent back. What the angel sees and experiences is not what you would expect.

If that's not appealing try one of his mysteries or sci-fi novels. The Denzel Wahington/Don CHeadle movie, "Devil in a Blue Dress" was made from his book of the same name.


Other authors to look at:

Henning Mankell (mysteries) -- his mysteries are said to be a bit like those of Stieg Larsson but not really. Just good detective stories that happen to be set in Sweden. His other novels are also good.


Richard Feynman (physics and his autobiographies) -- Even I can understand a lot of the physics as he explained in his lectures. His explanation of what caused the Challenger disaster makes it seem obvious but that started uncovering why the equipment providers and technicians ran into problems with NASA and vice versa.

[PapaLumen]

A bit dark but a very interesting read... i couldnt put it down.

[dudemar]

I don't read fiction like I used to when I was younger so I'm going to recommend a nonfiction book as well.

Here's a book I read many years ago.

Genie: A Scientific Tragedy by Russ Rymer



This is the sad story of Genie, which is her pseudonym, who was a feral child isolated from the world for the first 13 years of her life by her father.
Her discovery and the documentation of her life afterwards would help us to further understand human cognitive development.
A heartbreaking story ... makes you wonder what it means to be human.

What a sad and tragic story. I was formerly an ABA therapist and I worked with children diagnosed with ASD and developmental disabilities. Genie's story reminds me of one child in particular I worked with. Maybe because they were around the same age and they were under similar circumstances. Basically I noticed he was being abused by his mother. Think of it like a puppy being slapped around just because the owner can do it. I told my boss about it, but she seemed to be resigned to that fact.

I worked with him 5 days a week, Mon-Fri. Weekends were off. I was making good progress with this child, and I even potty trained him to the point where he could #2 on his own (on a consistent basis). He constantly defecated in his underwear because his mother always made him wear diapers. Some of his negative behavior included pulling my hair, trying to hit or slap me, running away from me, etc. In a nutshell he was emulating what his mother was doing to him.

By the end of the week we (my client and I) would make some progress, only to come back after the weekend to find he regressed. Basically time away from therapy meant inconsistency with at-home treatment. In other words his mother wasn't running the programs we had implemented. This defeated the purpose of why we were there in the first place. It goes without saying his mother was a jerk. Not just to her child but to everyone. She was always angry and embittered. I knew I had to do something for that child. No one else was.

When the time came he could no longer qualify for funding, we had to end our services. I can only wish he could get out of that situation, but as long as he lives with his mother he will continue to regress and end up in an adult group home facility. I gave him my best shot. Anyways much of what I read about Genie reminded me of this child. I'll give this book a read, hope they carry it at my local library.


Getting back to book recommendations, I'm currently reading Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr. and just for fun Real Ultimate Power by Robert Hamburger. That last book is a joke, but I had to throw in some humor after this post.

[Imon]

What a sad and tragic story. I was formerly an ABA therapist and I worked with children diagnosed with ASD and developmental disabilities. Genie's story reminds me of one child in particular I worked with. ...

Some people just shouldn't be parents.
She probably became a parent "on accident" and resents having a child.

[angelofwar]

what an odd book to be recommended by someone like, well, angelofwar...

LOL! Let's just say I'm well versed, and a rare beast...

[TedTheLed]

..the rarer the better for my taste..nothing personal..just professional..

[nbp]

I recommend the Bible. It's actually made up of 66 smaller books. So that's 198 months of reading, that's like 16 years. But some books are pretty short. If you just read about three chapters a day, you can be done in a year. It's worth it.

[guiri]

I will start my first post by recommending a write instead.

I've read something like 23 of his books and they're great. Most are based on real stuff and real history but it's never boring. They are novels but he writes mostly about africa (except for some of his "individual books").
He was two series. One about the the Courtney family starting around 1859 and going up to roughly 1974 or so.
The other one is the Ballantyne family which is almost as long and equally great.

A good one to get your feet wet with is the Power of the sword from the courtney series. I THINK this was the first one I read and I was hooked and went back and started the whole
series from the beginning.

Note, since I read the series, he has added another 5 books to this series (courtney) which I haven't read.

Thriller, intrigue, adventure. I'm not sure how to list it but do look at his site.
http://www.wilbursmithbooks.com/books

He's been writing for 50 years and apparently his books sell an average of 3 million copies and unlike say Stephen King,
most of his stuff is based on history which to me is probably much harder to write about as you have to do a lot of research.

For any "african americans" here, this should be very interesting. The guy is white but born and raised and still lives in Africa.

Also available as ebooks

George

[StarHalo]

Walden, by Thoreau.

Just finished reading it, thanks for the recommendation. I think it'd be more popular if it were titled "Guy Builds A Cabin And Lives In It." He struck me as kind of ponderous at first, yet we always seemed to come to the same conclusions (though not so much in the final chapter; it's good that he is so self-reliant, but not everyone can pull that off..) And his observation that one day there will be railroad/telegraph everywhere, yet no one will have anything more to say, certainly hits the nail on the head of this social media era.

I recommend the Bible.

For just sitting and reading it, with as much comprehension as possible, check out the Zondervan NIV Study Bible; without question the most thorough and exhaustive book on any topic I've ever seen..

[flashflood]

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes remains the best book I have ever read, on any subject. And competition truly runs the gamut -- The Federalist Papers (Madison, Hamilton and Jay), The Hot Zone (Richard Preston), On Intelligence (Jeff Hawkins), Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith), Soul of a New Machine (Tracy Kidder), Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (William L. Shirer), The Andromeda Strain (Michael Crichton), Lord of the Rings (Tolkien), Democracy in America (Tocqueville), Slaughterhouse Five (Vonnegut), Parliament of Whores (P.J. O'Rourke), The Mythical Man-Month (Brooks), ... all of which I highly recommend, but none of which are as special to me as this book.

The Amazon.com review puts it well: "If the first 270 pages of this book had been published separately, they would have made up a lively, insightful, beautifully written history of theoretical physics and the men and women who plumbed the mysteries of the atom. Along with the following 600 pages, they become a sweeping epic, filled with terror and pity, of the ultimate scientific quest: the development of the ultimate weapon. Rhodes is a peerless explainer of difficult concepts; he is even better at chronicling the personalities who made the discoveries that led to the Bomb."

Most accounts of the Manhattan Project make no real attempt to explain the science beyond an eighth-grade level -- usually because the author himself is not capable of going there. This is very different: the first half of the book is a brilliant exposition of the century of physics and chemistry that made the bomb possible. This is necessary preparation for the second half, where Rhodes takes you through all the practical problems with building a working device, and how they were solved -- including the many ideas that were tried but didn't work.

I cannot overstate how gripping this work is. I found myself in tears when Ernest Rutherford died, because Rhodes had brought him back to life. I was completely absorbed in the crackling energy of the Cavendish lab under this incredible scientist, mentor, and leader; news of his demise hit me like I was one of his students.

The book is extremely well-researched and footnoted, sweeping in scope, deep in technical detail, rich in human drama... and above all it is just a fantastic story that happens to be true. An utterly engrossing page-turner that you will never forget.

[StarHalo]

ACTION! ADVENTURE! SURVIVAL! A true story: March 29th, 1943, on the clear and snowy coast of Toftefjord, Norway; twelve men sip coffee and read newspapers on the modest 75-foot fishing boat Brattholm, but only eight are fishermen - four are experienced British commandos who have been sent to head inland and prepare a local guerrilla training program to subvert a German airfield. The registration number on the boat is fake, and machine guns and grenades are hidden everywhere on deck, including under the commando's coats. Below decks, top secret transmitters sit next to documents on a primer with a timed fuse - in case anything goes wrong. The rocky fjords and rugged terrain surround this tiny bay making it invisible from sea patrols and unnoticeable from air surveillance. Suddenly a shout from the decks, "Germans! Germans!", and machine gun and deck gun fire pours forth from a massive German warship barreling straight for the Brattholm..

[jhc37013]

A book released last month by a relatively new author James M. Tabor called The Deep Zone about a female scientist and soldier who must go deep into the earth to find a cure for a deadly epidemic. Tabor is great new author and this story seems like it could happen real world anytime, great for anyone interested in topics like caving, epidemics, or just adventure novels with real world implications.

My favorite of the past year and half which I highly suggest anyone who like's a bit of SiFi check out a trilogy by author Patrick Lee, the first book in the series is called The Breach followed by Ghost Country then to end the trilogy is Deep Sky.

It's sort of difficult to summarize but here is a little summary of the first book..

30 years ago in a remote location deep in a underground facility something goes wrong, a doorway (Breach) is opened to some unknown world or place where strange technological devices pass through and what happens when we do or don't use these devices and who or what is sending them.

Sexy female scientist, tough ex-con/cop, secret government facility's, doomsday, advanced technology via strange artifacts sent through a gateway. Plenty of action in this techno thriller, let me know what you think I loved them and these book's was my first experience with Amazon's Audible which I'm hooked on now as long as you get one of the good narrator's.

[nfetterly]

A book released last month by a relatively new author James M. Tabor called The Deep Zone about a female scientist and soldier who must go deep into the earth to find a cure for a deadly epidemic. Tabor is great new author and this story seems like it could happen real world anytime, great for anyone interested in topics like caving, epidemics, or just adventure novels with real world implications.

My favorite of the past year and half which I highly suggest anyone who like's a bit of SiFi check out a trilogy by author Patrick Lee, the first book in the series is called The Breach followed by Ghost Country then to end the trilogy is Deep Sky.

It's sort of difficult to summarize but here is a little summary of the first book..

30 years ago in a remote location deep in a underground facility something goes wrong, a doorway (Breach) is opened to some unknown world or place where strange technological devices pass through and what happens when we do or don't use these devices and who or what is sending them.

Sexy female scientist, tough ex-con/cop, secret government facility's, doomsday, advanced technology via strange artifacts sent through a gateway. Plenty of action in this techno thriller, let me know what you think I loved them and these book's was my first experience with Amazon's Audible which I'm hooked on now as long as you get one of the good narrator's.

Found a book by Tabor called "Blind Descent...."

The 3 books by Patrick Lee were an interesting read.

Favorite book though was "Unbroken - a WWII story of survival..." by Lauren Hillenbrand. Sorry for recommending a best seller, but true almost unreal story and the writing style was really good (I've never noted this before about a book).

[Mathiashogevold]

If it was translated to English, i would have recommended a book called Mengele Zoo by a Norwegian author, Gert Nygårdshaug. A fantastic book about a butterfly hunter in latin-americas rain forests, and after being a witness to great imperealism, and after this, he becomes one of the most wanted terrorist on earth. The book deals with topics like north-south conflicts, imperealism, enviromental protection etc.

Tip: Learn Norwegian and read the book. It's almost worth the time to learn Norwegian, just to read the book.

[jhc37013]

Found a book by Tabor called "Blind Descent...."

The 3 books by Patrick Lee were an interesting read.

Favorite book though was "Unbroken - a WWII story of survival..." by Lauren Hillenbrand. Sorry for recommending a best seller, but true almost unreal story and the writing style was really good (I've never noted this before about a book).

Tabor has to previous non fiction novels about caving and one short story but The Deep Zone is his first fiction novel. Oh wow yes Unbroken is fantastic and and I felt the same about the writing style, defiantly painted a picture for every scene.

I was hopeful the three Patrick Lee novels would continue on I thought there was room for a longer series but crazy enough I actually emailed back and forth with Patrick a couple times and the third book was definitely the last of that saga but wow was it cool. He said he is working on something else I should enjoy if since I liked The Breach trilogy so much..can't wait for that.

[chaoslee]

What Every Body is Saying

[Monocrom]

"1984"

by: George Orwell.

Worth re-reading. A cautionary tale that some world leaders unfortunately used as a "How To" manual. (Also, for some bizarre reason, the ending in the movie version is odd as Hell. Plus, is completely different from what's in the book. Probably the worst adaptation of a Classic, ever!)

[M@elstrom]

"1984"

by: George Orwell.

Worth re-reading. A cautionary tale that some world leaders unfortunately used as a "How To" manual. (Also, for some bizarre reason, the ending in the movie version is odd as Hell. Plus, is completely different from what's in the book. Probably the worst adaptation of a Classic, ever!)

That book was compulsory reading back in my High School days... most disturbing, and yet we move ever closer to globalisation

[Monocrom]

Very true.

The book even tells the reader exactly what the future holds . . .

[angelofwar]

Just finished reading it, thanks for the recommendation. I think it'd be more popular if it were titled "Guy Builds A Cabin And Lives In It." He struck me as kind of ponderous at first, yet we always seemed to come to the same conclusions (though not so much in the final chapter; it's good that he is so self-reliant, but not everyone can pull that off..) And his observation that one day there will be railroad/telegraph everywhere, yet no one will have anything more to say, certainly hits the nail on the head of this social media era.

Got a chuckle-out of that!

One of my favourite parts of the book is where he compares the true cost of things...like taking the train to Boston. The ticket was, say, $17, which was two weeks of wages...yet you could walk there in 6 days...so, it was actually more efficient (cheaper) to walk to Boston than ride the train. Good stuff...I will read, and re-read that book every few years for the rest of life. Glad ya liked it though!

[angelofwar]

I recommend the Bible. It's actually made up of 66 smaller books. So that's 198 months of reading, that's like 16 years. But some books are pretty short. If you just read about three chapters a day, you can be done in a year. It's worth it.

Ditto. The King James version makes for a nice read...the old english...very poetic. Some of my favourite reads are the Book of Job, The Psalms (Songs), Proverbs, and Revelations, of course.

[FadetoBlack]

New here but thought I'd pop in and recommend "On Combat" by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. Undoubtedly many of you are familiar with it, but I just finished it a few weeks ago and it's definitely a view changer. He breaks down the "sheepdog" concept, the effect that violence in our media and culture has had on the latest generations of children, and basically lays out a history of the development of combat training and the effect it has had on the efficiency of soldiers over time. Well worth reading.

[HardmixS]

Here are 3, the first 2 are fiction and the last non-fiction, all 3 are great reads.

Gold Coast Nelson Demille
Kane and Abel Jeffrey Archer
Unbroken Laura Hillenbrand

[sniper]

+1 for Wilbur Smith! One of his books I enjoyed was River God, about ancient Egypt. Patrick O'brian's series of 17 books, featuring Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin, starting with Master and Commander are also good. Three of his books were the basis for the movie, "Master and Commander", which my wife even enjoyed.