I’ve finished all my recent book recommendations, and I don’t really like wandering around Powell’s with no game plan, so I figured I’d ask here.
I’d love some sci-fi or mystery, as long as the book is self-contained. There’s nothing I hate more when on vacation than finding out I’ve just read book three of a series, or (worse) the book doesn’t wrap up at the end and I have to go buy the next one [sub](grumble grumble Ilium).[/sub]
Non-fiction is OK too as long as it’s interesting.
For perspective, here’s the last few books I’ve read and enjoyed:
Marching Powder - Rusty Young
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
At The Tomb of the Inflatable Pig - John Gimlette
A Most Wanted Man - le Carré
Lewis and Clark - Ambrose?
Also, most mainstream authors I’ve already read, so the more obscure the author the better. Hopefully I’ll like him / her and start reading their other stuff.
The SF author I always have to recommend to everyone is Lois McMaster Bujold. Yes, her Vor books are a series, but not a really tight one; every book is self-contained. With that said, so as to minimize your confusion you should start either with Shards of Honor or The Warrior’s Apprentice (the former is further back chronologically; the latter is better written; both are fine places to start). It is very plotty and very character/world-driven and very good, and satisfies my longings for both good SF and good mysteries. She also wrote a fantasy, Curse of Chalion, that might interest you. (She’s written a couple of others in the same universe, but that’s the one to read first.)
Vernor Vinge writes very good hard SF (less on the characters, more on the science). I would recommend starting with A Fire in the Deep. That would definitely keep you busy for your flight. However it is not clear to me from your post how much you are into hard SF.
Ted Chiang is an amazing SF short-story stylist. Stories of your Life and Others, his short story collection, is well worth picking up if only for the title story.
Cordwainer Smith is my absolute favorite SF author that no one else I know has read. He might be a little too obscure, though, to find his stuff.
This is neither SF nor mystery, but your mention of Jonathan Strange made me think of the Octavian Nothing books (MT Anderson) which are marketed as YA. The style is very much like JS&MN, though the content is extremely different (and if I say anything about it I’m afraid of spoilers). Note that it is a two-book sequence.
Thanks for the suggestions - I will definitely check out Bujold. I am very open to hard SF, but I’m reluctant to start a new series and they all seem to be series based. Another problem I have with SF is remembering titles, which is why I didn’t include any in my list.
Example: the very last book I read involved a race of people that lived underground, and mankind discovered their tunnles under the oceans and started using them for intercontinental travel, which made the underground people go to war with humanity. Scholars started to realize that all the myths of Satan were actual encounters with these creatures over the centuries. IIRC one early discoverer of the tunnels was held down there so long that he actually started turning into one of them and became sort of the ambassador. Great single book; no clue what it was called. (It wasn’t A Gnome There Was, although undoubtedly inspired by it).
I love Cordwainer Smith - when Henry Kuttner won his Smith award I sought him out.
Have you read “The Ladies of Grace Adieu,” also by Susanna Clarke? It’s a collection of short stories set in the same world as Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and Strange shows up for a significant portion of the title story.
Ah! If you like Cordwainer Smith (and, wow! always happy, and surprised, to find someone else who’s read him!), maybe try (if you haven’t already… seems like you know about the good old stuff) Alfred Bester, The Stars my Destination. He also wrote Demolished Man, which I personally don’t like quite as well, but tastes vary. Another one I like rather a lot is Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar, which comes with the caveat that it is extremely, utterly negative and depressing. Also, I kind of love Brunner’s Traveller in Black (fantasy). Of all those, only Zanzibar is probably long enough to keep you on a long plane flight.
I understand the hesitation to jump into a series, but Shards of Honor (which is probably too short for a long plane ride, IMO) and Warrior’s Apprentice really do stand alone, and it’s kind of an organic series (by which I mean that it just so happens that she has more stories to tell with the same characters; it will end whenever she decides she doesn’t want to tell stories about those characters any more). And Fire on the Deep isn’t part of a series at all (Vinge has another book set in the same universe, but I didn’t even know that until many years after I read Fire).
Another thought I had: have you read Possession (A.S. Byatt)? It’s mainstream fic, but gorgeous (I learned about it from a ringing endorsement from Year’s Best Fantasy many years ago, actually, even though the book contains no fantasy-- that’s how good it is), and would last you through a 5-hour plane ride.
It’s novel-length altogether, but it’s entertaining and a faster read than Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, due to fewer footnotes. I just re-read it a few months ago and it took me a few nights to complete it, so if you read at my pace, it would last you the whole flight but not any longer than that.
Janet Evanovich’s series of Stephanie Plum mysteries are perfect for planes. Yes, I know you didn’t want a series, but the books are self contained, and you don’t have to read them in order.
The books are about Stephanie Plum an inept bounty hunter, and her wacky friends. They are funny books, and the pacing is very quick. Get the books on tape and you can listen in the airport and block out all the people screaming on the cell phones.
Three great fiction books are “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” (Betty Smith and any of her other three novels), “Rebecca,” (by Daphne-Du-Maurier) and “Mailman” by J. Robert Lennon, this was so good, I stayed up till 5:30am to finish it.
A very, I mean very funny, non-fiction book is called “How To Remodel A Man,” By W Bruce Cameron. He also wrote " 8 Simple Rules for Marrying My Daughter" which is also really funny.
Thanks for the updates everyone! I think I’ve got a pretty good list together now. Marxxx, my wife likes Stephanie Plum so I’ve read a few of those, and I’ve definitely read Rebecca many years ago, but I’ll check into the others.
Powell’s has five of the ones suggested: Warrior’s Apprentice, A Fire in the Deep, Ladies of Grace Adieu, The Stars My Destination, and Possession. I love Powell’s. Off to the bookstore!
