Books

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This has not been updated in a long time. Tastes change.

Contents

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Caveat Lector

Because of the preponderance of trilogies and series in my favoured genres of literature, recommending books can be hard. If the middle book in a series is the weakest link, should one list it regardless for completion's sake? Or should one just recommend the strongest points and let the reader fill in the blanks as they will?

My recommendations are largely based on one criterion -- would I like to re-read the work in the near future myself or not? The definition is toughened for whose work I adore and relaxed slightly for those who have written immortal classics that don't quite match my palate.

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Recommendations

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Space Opera

  • Isaac Asimov
    • Foundation
    • Foundation and Empire
    • Caves of Steel
    • The Naked Sun
  • Ian M. Banks
    • Use of Weapons
  • C.J. Cherryh
    • Foreigner
  • Frank Herbert
    • Dune
  • Dan Simmons
    • Hyperion
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Hard Science Fiction

  • Egan, Greg
    • Axiomatic
    • Distress
    • Diaspora
    • Luminous
  • Niven, Larry
    • Integral Trees
    • Ringworld
  • Robinson, Kim Stanley
    • Red Mars
    • Green Mars
    • Blue Mars
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Soft Science Fiction

  • Mary Gentle
    • 1610
  • Robert Heinlein
    • Stranger in a Strange Land
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High Fantasy

Tolkien sucks. Bite me.:)

  • Erikson, Steven
    • Gardens of the Moon
    • Deadhouse Gates
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Steampunk/Urban Fantasy

  • Gaiman, Neil
    • Neverwhere
  • Mieville, China
    • King Rat
    • The Scar
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Comic SciFi/Fantasy

I was sufficiently incensed by Robert Rankin's The Witches of Chiswick to curse the names of both Rankin and Tom Holt rather than recommend their books. Holt suffers from similar faults as Rankin, but not to quite the same extreme.

  • Douglas Adams
    • Hitchhiker's Guide
      • Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
      • Restaurant at the End of the Universe
      • Life, the Universe, and Everything
      • So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
    • Dirk Gently Books
      • Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
      • The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul
  • Lewis Carroll
    • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
  • Mary Gentle
    • Grunts
  • Rob Grant
    • Colony
    • Incompetence
    • Red Dwarf (as "Grant Naylor")
  • Terry Pratchett
    • City Watch Series
      • Men at Arms
      • Feet of Clay
      • Jingo
    • Rincewind Series
      • Science of Discworld
    • Other
      • Small Gods
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Literary Fiction

I enjoyed Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things and Yann Martel's Life of Pi. The reason I am not recommending either is that I am not overwhelmed with desire to reread either myself. The books below, OTOH, are worthy of being read multiple times.

  • Joseph Heller
    • Catch-22
  • Oscar Wilde
    • The Importance of Being Earnest
  • P.G. Wodehouse
    • Code of the Woosters
    • Much Obliged, Jeeves
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Poetry

  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    • Kubla Khan
    • Rime of the Ancient Mariner
  • John Betjeman
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Non-Fiction

  • Douglas Adams
    • Last Chance to See
    • Salmon of Doubt
  • Richard Dawkins
    • The Selfish Gene
  • Jared Diamond
    • Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
  • Carl Sagan
    • Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
    • Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
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