FOFC Book Club

[Blackadar]

We've done this from time to time, but given it'll be winter for another month or two and the Holidays are over, it's time now to sit down with some good books. What's your suggestion?

Mine is Beach Music by Pat Conroy. Highly recommended to anyone who has matured in their tastes. It's also one of the best books-on-tape that you'll find.

From the publisher:

Beach Music tells of the dark memories that haunt families in a story that spans South Carolina and Rome and reaches back into the unutterable terrors of the Holocaust. Beach Music is about Jack McCall, an American living in Rome with his young daughter, trying to find peace after the recent trauma of his wife's suicide. But his solitude is disturbed by the appearance of his sister-in-law, who begs him to return home, and of two school friends, who want his help in tracking down another classmate who went underground as a Vietnam protester and never resurfaced. These requests launch Jack on a journey that encompasses the past and the present in both Europe and the American South and that leads him to shocking and ultimately Eberating truths. Told with deep feeling and the unmistakable brand of Conroy humor, this powerful novel adds another masterpiece to the legendary list of classics that his body of works has become.

[sachmo71]

I would recommend On Writing by Stephen King. If anyone has any interest in writing at all, you should read this book. It's enteraining and imformative at the same time. It's a quick read, too. I couldn't put it down, and finished it in one night. I have yet to actually start writing anything "real", but I feel that I am now armed with the basics of writing, where before I only had a ton of questions. THUMBS UP!

[Qwikshot]

I would recommend A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons, which is kind of a sequel to his book Summer of Night but not needed to have been read to understand. It's a nice quick little book to digest and its cheap now in paperback.

Also, Our band could be your life by Michael Azzerad (sp?) which details many of the 80 and 90 indie bands and their labels...I recommend it just for the Butthole Surfers chapter which is absolutely priceless comedy if it is true (there is a guest cameo by a former president in it). The bonus is each chapter is a band, so you can finish a chapter, walk off, and come back later without losing your place.

The SNL book that is out uses quotes from the majority of the members (it points out the Eddie Murphy refused to help contribute, but he's not the only cast member missing). It's a nice read on SNL's evolution, but it's done by quotes so it may be hard to follow for some, but it is nicely done, and some funny flashbacks...you find out everyone mainly hated Chevy Chase...

That's my picks for now...

[strait8]

Beach music is a phenomenal read, by the most lyrical wordsmith in American literature. Godd choice Blackadar.

My taste runs to historical Fiction. I will give you two books and two series of books that have given me many hours of enjoyable reading.

The First Man of Rome A series of novels by Colleen McCullough. This tale spans 6 books and chronicles the lives of Gaius Marius, SSulla and most importantly Julius Caesar. The scholarship is wonderful, the stories woven around them even better. If you are a fan of Roman history or just want to learn about those incredible times this is a must read.


A Brood of Eagles Jack Whyte A series of novels that adds plausibility to the Arthurian legend. it chronicles Roman soldies leaving Britain and the foresight of British Born Roman soldiers to establish their own defences and recruit soldiers. The town of Camolud is born and so are Arthur and Merlin. great story telling that follows them to adulthood.

The Gates of Fire Steven Pressfield A novel that tells the true story of the 300 Spartans and 1000 other Greeks that held the pass called the Gates of Fire against 1 million Persian soldiers.
This was the Battle of Thermopolaye and we would all be different today if the Persians were not held here and Greece fell.
The best single story I read this last year. Soon to be a movie directed by Michael Mann, starring Bruce Willis and George Clooney.

The Last of the Amazons Steven Pressfield his latest novel about the Amazon warriors of Macedonia. According to Homer these women warriors sacked Athens. This is a novel that looks at their culture and this war. This novel is being made into a movie by Titanic director James Cameron. I do not know this cat. i would think there will be some Juicy female roles. Where is Xena now?

[sabotai]

I tried reading The Gates of Fire already. I don't know, I just couldn't get into it. It wasn't really what I expected since it seemed to spend a lot of time on the childhood of the squire.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and Shogun by James Clevell for those who have not read them already.

Oceanspace - By Allen Steele. The latest novel I read. A very good read.

[Go-Buckeyes]

I got The Junction Boys as a Christmas gift. I have to tell you, after seeing the movie on ESPN, the book was so much more in depth. It was one of the best reads I've ever devoted time to. I think I read the book, in like 5 days. After reading it and seeing the movie, Paul Bryant is my hero. His dedication, and what he put those boys through, and his sense of hard work and self-discipline under even the most grueling conditions, can make anyone believe that anything is possible if you don't give up on it.
Well worth the time and the cost!!!

[Leonidas]

I highly recommend Pat Conroy's My Losing Season. If you are a Pat Conroy fan this book ties everything about him together. The truths behind his books are explained. The book is also a great read for anyone who played on an under-achieving sports team. Might be his best book.

[Shkspr]

strait8, have you read Michael Curtis Ford's The Ten Thousand yet? It's the story of Xenophon's command in Greek history.

Another more recent title is Emperor: The Gates of Rome, which is a little more "Last Days of Pompeii" than the more sober historical tiles already mentioned. Good for folks who like their history a little more sensational.

Since there are so many SF/F readers here, I'll also throw out Thomas Harlan's Shadow of Ararat series. It's late Roman Empire but with the added twist that Egyptian necromancy worked. It's still a genre fantasy coming-of-age story, but there are some nice bits of scholarship in the reading and the author deserves points for trying something a bit different.

[Qwikshot]

Originally posted by sabotai
I tried reading The Gates of Fire already. I don't know, I just couldn't get into it. It wasn't really what I expected since it seemed to spend a lot of time on the childhood of the squire.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and Shogun by James Clevell for those who have not read them already.

Oceanspace - By Allen Steele. The latest novel I read. A very good read.

I did enjoy Enders Game...Shogun definately looks a book worth the price...I like big thick books long as the story is worth following...

[sabotai]

Qwik, Shogun is definatly worth it. I still consider it my favorite novel. The ending....I've heard some people say they didn't liek the ending. Some say it's anti-climatic. But, for me, the ending was just awesome. I'm not kidding when I say I had a smile on my face for a good hour after I finished reading Shogun. The ending was that good, imo (and my opinions are very excentric, as many here know. )

I also suggested The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. So I'll suggest that here too. It's a good read as well.

[Lathum]

The Celestein Prophecy. It will change your life

[Chief Rum]

I don't know whether to actually recommend this book just yet, but here we go: Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson.

The reason I don't know if I should recommend it is because I haven't finished it yet. It is a Clancy-esque-sized tome that has three main story lines going at once. I am around page 700, but it ends up at around 1150 or so. So this was is quite a reader.

It basically has three different story lines (two of which occur during WWII, sachmo and other fans of which take note). The stories have for the most part only been somewhat linked at the fringes so far, so it's kind of like reading three novels at once. How I rate it, of course, will probably have a lot to do with how the author finally ties it all together.

Obviously, though, you may need to enjoy an intelligently-written book to get into this, though, and have a malleable mind for the switching storylines as well. This may come out as saying "you're stupid if you don't enjoy this", but that's not true at all. It just takes more digestion, as the concepts trotted out are often thought-provoking, even brain-intensive. And one of the three main characters has a unique perspective that may or may not make it very difficult to follow his thinking (although you get used to it).

But basically, all three story lines are intriguing and very well-written. The dialogue is great in most circumstances, especially in the modern storyline, but the gist of the story and its direction is not hard to grasp at all. And the characters in the book are very well drawn out and colorful (although they should be with that many pages to fill).

Just for info's sake (so I don't come off as too vague): the first story line revolves around an American codebreaker during WWII, and his hand in both codebreaking and hiding that fact from the Axis nations during the war years; the second story line revolves around a WWII Marine Raider and early war hero who gets transferred to a special grunt-level unit that does a lot of the field work for the codebreakers mentioned in the first storyline; and the third storyline revolves around one of the founding members of an American telecommunications company that is working on a plan to basically network the Phillipines--and dig up Japanese war gold, while they're at it).

lol...that description took longer than I expected.

Chief Rum

[Shkspr]

Cryptonomicon is a big festering hunk of fiction. In a good way.

[Samdari]

Seriously, Shkspr, did you not like it? I saw this in the store yesterday and thought it looked awesome. I did not get it as I was buying an 800 pager already, but it immediately jumped to the top of my "going to read" list. If you have some criticism, I'd love to hear more detail.

And you guys like Pat Conroy? And you're ..... men?

[dolfin]

I recommend Timeline, by Michael Crichton.

Here is a synopsis from http://www.crichton-official.com/tim...ne_books.shtml:

Michael Crichton's new novel opens on the threshold of the twenty-first century. It is a world of exploding advances on the frontiers of technology. Information moves instantly between two points, without wires or networks. Computers are built from single molecules. Any moment of the past can be actualized -- and a group of historians can enter, literally, life in fourteenth-century feudal France.

This book started my infatuation with quantum physics.

Very interesting stuff.

[sachmo71]

Originally posted by Chief Rum
I don't know whether to actually recommend this book just yet, but here we go: Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson.

Chief...is this book part of a series, or a stand alone novel? I looked at it the other day and thought about picking it up, but the last thing I need right now is ANOTHER series!

[Shkspr]

Oh, I liked it; that's why I added the 'in a good way' part.

I do, however, have a hard time finding folks to recommend the book to. Stephenson's earlier work appeals to the SF/cyberpunk fan, but there's very little here that's 'sexy' to someone used to William Gibson (whose new novel came out yesterday, BTW) and Bruce Sterling. At the same time, the WWII buffs that would appreciate the setting and plot can be immensely turned off by the experimental approach Stephenson uses in writing the book.

For those who haven't read Crypto, Stephenson writes in a nice easy style for the bulk of the book, but every hundred pages or more, he'll shift the literary style of the book to something peculiar. For instance, at one point our hero, the mathematician, is secreted away in a room doing vital work to destroy the Nazis. However, he has a crush on a young lady that causes his mind to wander. As a logical man, he thinks about the problem and devises a logical solution. With graphs and charts. I loved the scene; I think several of the readers here will as well. The average joe coming in off the street looking for a book to read thinks "WTF?" and puts the book down.

In another little scene, the action intentionally slows to the point where Stephenson uses three pages of narrative to chronicle the preparation and consumption of a bowl of cereal. It's the sort of aside that makes a book club salivate with the metatextual possibilities, but it's another WTF moment for someone reading along just looking for plot and story. There are others.

In short, it's a rewarding read, but it's also a departure from the norm, whether you're a historical buff, a cyberpunk fan, or a lover of lierary fiction. Only folks who have an interest in all three areas are going to get the most out of Cryptonomicon, from what I've seen trying to sell it. Personally, I am still looking forward the the release of Ouicksilver, Stephenson's next book due this summer.

[strait8]

Another great author who is an excellent story teller is Wilbur Smith. His novels River God and Warlock are stories of ancient egypt. He also has two series on South Africa and Rhodesia. They are well drawn characters on the vast panoramas of Africa. My favorite in this group was Birds of Prey.

I also agree that Cryptonomicron is excellent.

Shkspr thanks for the lead on those books I will seek them out.

[Chief Rum]

sachmo, to my knowledge, Cryptonomicon is not a part of a series, but there's enough text in it that it can practically be considered a series contained entirely within one tome .

I don't have much more to add than Shkspr. He seems to hit all the points. I think many of the readers here will get quite a kick out of reading this, both for the story and for the style of reading and for the well-graphed-out stories and yes, for Stephenson's quirky breaking-of-style in writing, where he goes experimental on you. The mathematician Shkspr mentions (with the graphs and stuff) is the one character I was referring to who might be hard to figure out at first (reading his perspective, that is), but once you do you should be okay. For example, that horniness vs. productivity thing the math guy did that Shkspr is referring to isn't annoying at all, because I'm used to it and it's fun to see how his mind works. When he was doing it for an old organ in the tone he grew up in, though (the first time he really went into that mode, that I can recall), I had to struggle through it because I wasn't used to it yet.

Not all of Stephenson's breaks from a normal style are done in this manner, though. For example, one of my most enjoyable was one I read just yesterday. The modern day protagonist went on at length in an email to his business associates at the telecom company about his trip into the jungles in the middle of Luzon in the Phillipines with the eccentric father of the object of his affections. It was absolutely hilarious, and written with many of the kinds of little things you see in an email (and printed in a computery-style font). But I suppose it's another part someone not so inclined to enjoy such might throw it in the trash.

sachmo, I think you'll love it just for the WWII references and scenes. They're all over the place--Pearl Harbor, the Phillipines before, during and after the war, Guadalcanal, New Guinea, North Africa, Italy, and I haven't even read the last 400 pages of the book yet.

Chief Rum

[cthomer5000]

out of curiousity, has anyone here read the Mission Earth series by L. Ron Hubbard?

[cthomer5000]

guess not.

[Bee]

Originally posted by cthomer5000
out of curiousity, has anyone here read the Mission Earth series by L. Ron Hubbard?

I read the first couple books a few years ago, but lost interest and gave up. I didn't think they were all that great.

[cthomer5000]

Originally posted by Bee
I read the first couple books a few years ago, but lost interest and gave up. I didn't think they were all that great.

The same thing happened to me 5 years ago, I stopped pretty far through though, like book 7 or 8.

I'm currently re-reading the series, and just finished book 8. At it's best the books are excellently written, but overall there are a few story lines that should have been dropped entirely. And so many things happen that are incidental to the story, that it can really bogg things down at times. Also in book 8 the book twists from one narrator to another, which definitely changes the style of the writing as well. I'm probably only going to finish the series out of a sense of obligation.

[Butter]

Originally posted by sabotai
I also suggested The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. So I'll suggest that here too. It's a good read as well.

It's a terrific read. I would also recommend The Mars series by Kim Stanley Robinson... Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars... he tends to fall in love with his descriptions of the Martian landscape at times, but it's a compelling story spread over 3 substantial books.