Looking for a book recommendation.

I need something that will test me, not being a very well read person, whilst not being so boring I just dont read it. Primary reason for reading is too improve my literacy and written english, too long just talking slang with friends has taken its toll.

If possible, I would like it too not be fictional, possibly similar to the Backroom Boys.

Anyone got any recommendations?

What subjects do you find interesting?

Engineering and technology are my main interest areas.

You might like a book called "The World Without Us" which describes what might happen if all humans just disappeared. It's sort of science-(non)fiction.

i didnt like the world without us...something about it, meh...

What I don't like about those shows (and a few of them all came out within the same year or so span) is that they often extrapolate a long way beyond what even they themselves say will happen, as if essentially it didn't happen. "New York will be irradiated by the collapse of a nuclear power plant within two years ... lions and deer will swarm through central park in giant battling herds." It's like they go down through a list of things without working together their effects on each other, just for oohs and aahs.

Thanks for the recommendation, 7 pounds on amazon seems a bargain.

Although it's not as au courrant as it once was, I think you would probably enjoy Thomas Bass's _The Eudaemonic Pie_ (1985), the story of some California grad students trying to cash in by developping a computer that will fit in a shoe in order to track the Las Vegas roulette wheel's spin. They failed, of course--but it's a great story, and what's implicit in their narrative is that they were unwittingly laying the framework for the desktop computer and all that followed. (So don't let anyone tell you that gambling hasn't made social contributions.)

Another interesting non-fiction book of that period, James Gleik's _Chaos_ (1987), briefly alludes to this attempt to break the bank by tracking the wheel and explains why it was doomed.

But if you are really looking for beautiful style and want to find it in non-fiction, then the nature-writer Annie Dillard is the author for you.

I didn't think it was that great in general, but totally agree about the ending. I also felt strangely unmoved, but maybe I'm emotionally dead

Picked up the Alchemist because all the hype makes it seem like the undoubted best book of all time. I thought it was a bit rubbish tbh and gave up 100 pages in. I don't really see what is so special about it

It makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside once you finish it and then you get it and go "oooh, I understand it now, I feel good about my life."

okay so in the last few days I've finished up Franzen's "Corrections" which was amazing. I highly recommend it. It was supposed to be for the book club here but that never took off. I've been looking for people to discuss this with.

After that I read "On Writing" by Stephen King. I've never read any of his books but I was interested in what he had to say about writing as a career. I enjoyed the book and will probably check out some more of his stuff.

Today at the bookstore I picked up some books:
Phillip Roth - Our gang
Phillip Roth - Letting Go
Phillip Roth - Portnoy's Complaint
Dave Eggers - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Ray Bradbury - Zen in the Art of Writing.

Can't wait to dive into some of these.

ttthomas, I start this thread off with a review of King's On Writing, and the discussion continues intermittently through the first and second pages, if you want to see another opinion on it.

I liked it, but I dont see why its so revered. Good story but not epic by any means.

thanks, going back now.

Finally finished Super-Cannes by J G Ballard.

I enjoyed it. His analysis of the modern business/socialised world and how it differs from what humans may have evolved 'naturally' to do was very interesting; his talent seems to be producing convincing yet unpleasant near-future worlds, and this was certainly one of those. The book picked up speed as you got further through it, so I'm glad I didn't give up after what I judged to be a few relatively slow early chapters. I read in a review somewhere the phrase 'decadence of modern capitalism', and that seems to sum it all up quite well. His style of writing was always easy to read but would throw surprisingly stark realizations into general descriptive/conversation passages very well. Characters were very memorable, particularly Halder, the single black security guard in the whole place who was the focal point for a lot of the book's analysis of the super-rich in the executive/business/paradise/hell the book is set in, and how people one step removed (both in terms of wealth, employment and race) from those in charge view their 'superiors'.

Definitely a good read, anyway.

However, with all that positive stuff said, I objected to his suggestion that things like consensual s&m are synonymous with, say, going into a city with baseball clubs in order to beat up and kill prostitutes or anyone unlucky enough to get in your way. Seems beyond absurd to the lump the two together like he appears to under the idea of "deviant behavior". The sociology student in me wonders if perhaps he'd fallen behind on the categorization of such things? (probably nsfw link, actually, even if it is just wikipedia...)

Just finished Dune. Great book, but sort of tilting that, outside of space travel and a few other neat-o inventions, humanity doesn't really seem to have progressed that much in 8k years. Just seems weird that there's a caste system and everyone's knife fighting that far into the future.

I'll still def be reading the rest of the series, though.

In his day, having long hair or listening to rock and roll were called deviant behaviors, and among a sizeable amount of people not going to church was thought of as one, so you can hardly blame him.

Catch-22

It's been really good. Not like super super riveting, but it's well written and I've genuinely laughed out loud a few times and that's pretty rare for me.

Heh, this is a very good point. Just surprised me that he seemed very socially/psychologically aware in some areas, but not others.

I never really got into Dune, though not from lack of trying. While I think it's pretty well written, I just can't take the setting:

I think attempts to do things like feudal empires in space are both unrealistic and a little bit silly. Existing off a planet is immensely different from being confined to a single world. Vastly greater difficulties in communication, transport, trade and the rest of it (and higher living costs/requirements) are going to produce an automatically decentralizing effect (barring some miracle faster-than-light discovery). Self-sufficiency within any kind of space habitat is immeasurably more important than it is for a single nation on Earth and the hold of any corporation/state is going to be infinitely more tenuous because of it if the habitat/planet doesn't need their assistance. Trying to put political systems that evolved on our effectively 2-dimensional world (ie flat land and borders) into 3d space irks me. Any future space technology is going to move people into looser social structures, not back in time to feudalism

Then again, I'm probably going to be doing my dissertation on something like this, so maybe I'm biased.

Oh, yeah, and the knives thing is almost as bad as lightsabers

So I gave up on Snow Crash. I just couldn't really get into it. Meh, another day maybe. I thought the setting and world had a lot of potential.

Finished "Invitation to a Beheading" by Nabokov a little while ago. It was pretty good (his son apparently did the translation), but, like Lolita, it kind of drags in places, though again, like Lolita, the language and strangeness of it is pretty compelling and compensating. I'm sort of looking forward to that unfinished work that is supposed to be released some time later this year.

Reading "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man" by Joyce. It's good so far. The only other Joyce I've read is Ulysses (thinly veiled brag imo) and I have inkling this might be an easier read.

Also thinking about lining up some David Foster Wallace for the near future. I don't really want to tackle Infinite Jest, but I hear his essays are pretty good.

Edit: Also, I loved Dune but I feel like if I reread it, not so much this time.

just finished vol 6 of the walking dead. so far ive been unable to put them down. which isnt great, cuz i keep buying them at retail price. my wallet doesnt like this.

Finished The Old Man and The Sea and Breakfast of Champions recently. Enjoyed Old Man and disliked Breakfast quite a bit. Definitely my least favorite book I've read so far in my reading experiment.

Invisible Cities next, I'm slowly going through The Ancestor's Tale simultaneously as well.

about to finish 'bones of the hills', the third book in the genghis khan series by conn iggulluen (sp?). really enjoy these books.

about to start 'the good rat' by someone, cant remember. i think its about mob stuff though, new york, etc...crime stuff that i enjoy.

Just read 1776. Very good history book about the events of the year 1776 and the American Revolution.