Book Recommendations

[Dexman PE PMP]

False Memory was a freaky one. It was about a hypno-therapy patient and her doctor...

 

[Flyer_PE]

I've read a lot of Dean Koontz. He's usually pretty good for an entertaining story. There are a few series that I like:

Fear Nothing & Seize the Night

The Frankenstein Series

The Odd Thomas Series

 

[engineergurl]

I was into Koontz right after I got out of my King phase... John Jakes is my most recent fav, in the last three years, I've read the Kent Family set three times and the North and South trilogy probably about 6 times, along with a bunch of his other ones. Very good author if you are into historical fiction that is pretty much based on fact...

 

[Flyer_PE]

^W.E.B. Griffin was pretty good at writing historical fiction too. I think his son has taken over writing in the last few years. He ain't the writer his old man was.

 

[EM_PS]

A ways off from King, Koontz, Rand et al - the Game of Thrones series by Martin, I found really enjoyable.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

I still read Koontz out of loyalty (like I do Clive Cussler), but his best stuff was in the late eighties, early nineties. Watchers, Lightning, Strangers, Whispers, and Phantoms, were among my favorites. Intensity was probably the last one that I REALLY liked, althiugh I do enjoy all his later stuff. just not as much.

Robert McCammon wrote some great books, Wolf's Hour, Stinger, Swan Song, Usher's Passing, and They Thirst were really great, but Boy's Life was an out of the park home run.

 

[Flyer_PE]

One of the other authors that I read quite a bit is James Patterson, at least the Alex Cross series. I'll grab one of his other books on occasion but I don't bother trying to read them all.

 

[engineergurl]

Last summer, I wanted some mindless reading, so I read the entire Stephanie Plum series... she eats a lot of tastycakes

 

[Road Guy]

I read Duma Key from Stephen king last year, typical Stephen king book, very good until the last 3 pages..

Basically a former mega contractor who lost his arm in a construction accident moves to Florida, buys a beach house, hooks up with another retired Florida person, then some creepy stuff goes down....

Worth reading if you like stpehen king, I think it's one of his few books that don't originate in the north / Maine area..

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Lee Child's Jack Reacher series is pretty good. I'm currently reading The Affair.

 

[willsee]

I'm not a big reader but I made a resolution to try and read a book a month, so far so good.

I finished The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. It's a vampire book about a takeover of New York (actually it's part one of a three part series). I'm going to the library to get the 2nd part today.

 

[jeb6294]

I also became a fan of Clive Cussler especially when I'm trapped over here in the third world because most of them are series with several books each so I can load up my Kindle and have plenty to read for a while.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Clive's last good book was Cyclops until The Chase and The Wrecker came along. With the Spy, he and his ghost writers returned to suckdom.

 

[snickerd3]

The last few books i've read have been by Orson Scott card. Pathfinder...first book in a new series he is writing. They are mr snicks books but he hasn't gotten around to reading them yet...since they were laying around I read them.

Before those, the kingkiller chronicles, Name of the wind and the wise man's fear by patrick rothfuss. 3 rd book of the series is not out yet.

will likely read hunger games when I can get the books from my sister.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

I'm just about to wrap up Harry Reid's autobiography. Pretty decent reading, and it is interesting reading his views in 2008 compared to his views now.

 

[jeb6294]

Clive's last good book was Cyclops until The Chase and The Wrecker came along. With the Spy, he and his ghost writers returned to suckdom.

Hey, I'm living in a metal box in the middle of nowhere with limited TV at best...I'm not going to be picky.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Clive's last good book was Cyclops until The Chase and The Wrecker came along. With the Spy, he and his ghost writers returned to suckdom.

Hey, I'm living in a metal box in the middle of nowhere with limited TV at best...I'm not going to be picky.

You read and of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series? There's around fifteen of them now. That oughta keep you busy and they are pretty dang good reads.

Micheal Connelly's Harry Bosch series is really good as well.

Jack Du Brul (he writes for Cussler now) has a great Philip Mercer series which is far, far better than the stuff he writes for Clive.

Craig Dirgo's (another Clive writer) had a book called The Einstein Papers that was really good.

 

[Dleg]

I couldn't find a forum for books not related to engineering so I thought I'd start one. If there is one already I'll delete this one.

I read The Road this weekend. Truly one of the most disturbing things I've ever read. I can't get the images of it out of my head. Has anyone read this or any other Cormac McCarthy books? I think I'm going to read the Border Trilogy next.

I read a number of his earlier books. I only saw The Road on DVD - and it affected me badly - I still can't forget it, nor do I ever want to see it again (or even read it). You should read Blood Meridian, it's probably the closest thing of his to The Road, except set in the old west. Horrifically violent, but at the same time you get a sense of a bigger picture he is trying to paint. Very good book!

I've recently been reading a lot of non-fiction, primarily because my boss hands me books and tells me he wants me to read them, and then discuss them with him later. Tough to say no to that. Most recently he gave me two books - Einstein's Theory of Relativity (the original translation by Einstein himself), and A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.

Einstein's book is not nearly as difficult as you might think, and it makes reading anything on modern physics a lot more understandable, as everyone always goes back to relativity and some of the finer points that Einstein makes in his explanation. A Universe From Nothing was just published a couple months ago and is supposedly a summary of where modern physics and cosmology is today, especially with regards to explaining the origin of the universe and how "something can come from nothing". While the science is fascinating, unfortunately the author seems to have a bone to pick with religion, and undermines the inherent strength of his scientific content with really out of place jabs at religion and people who don't agree with his "radical athiest" point of view. It's kind of like reading a blog sometimes. He would have done far better just reporting on the advances in science and leaving out his personal opinions. After I finished the book, I checked out the New York Times review and found out that there is quite a controversy about his book among scientists and philosophers, and I was very happy to see that there were many scientists who feel the same way about his book and his views - as in, physics has absolutely not answered the question of why there is something rather than nothing.

 

[Chucktown PE]

I couldn't find a forum for books not related to engineering so I thought I'd start one. If there is one already I'll delete this one.

I read The Road this weekend. Truly one of the most disturbing things I've ever read. I can't get the images of it out of my head. Has anyone read this or any other Cormac McCarthy books? I think I'm going to read the Border Trilogy next.

I read a number of his earlier books. I only saw The Road on DVD - and it affected me badly - I still can't forget it, nor do I ever want to see it again (or even read it). You should read Blood Meridian, it's probably the closest thing of his to The Road, except set in the old west. Horrifically violent, but at the same time you get a sense of a bigger picture he is trying to paint. Very good book!

I've recently been reading a lot of non-fiction, primarily because my boss hands me books and tells me he wants me to read them, and then discuss them with him later. Tough to say no to that. Most recently he gave me two books - Einstein's Theory of Relativity (the original translation by Einstein himself), and A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.

Einstein's book is not nearly as difficult as you might think, and it makes reading anything on modern physics a lot more understandable, as everyone always goes back to relativity and some of the finer points that Einstein makes in his explanation. A Universe From Nothing was just published a couple months ago and is supposedly a summary of where modern physics and cosmology is today, especially with regards to explaining the origin of the universe and how "something can come from nothing". While the science is fascinating, unfortunately the author seems to have a bone to pick with religion, and undermines the inherent strength of his scientific content with really out of place jabs at religion and people who don't agree with his "radical athiest" point of view. It's kind of like reading a blog sometimes. He would have done far better just reporting on the advances in science and leaving out his personal opinions. After I finished the book, I checked out the New York Times review and found out that there is quite a controversy about his book among scientists and philosophers, and I was very happy to see that there were many scientists who feel the same way about his book and his views - as in, physics has absolutely not answered the question of why there is something rather than nothing.

Thanks for the recommendation on Blood Meridian. I'll definitely read that one at the beach or on the plane in the next couple of weeks. Not related to books, but related to modern physics, I've really enjoyed "Through the Wormhole" narrated by Morgan Freeman on the Science channel. There are some crazy topics and I just have the show set to record on my DVR so I can watch them when I get time.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

"Physics for Future Presidents" is a fantastic book for explaining nuclear energy, biowarfare, etc to the layman. I recommend it to anyone.