I'm looking for books to read, since I have more free time than I used to and I want something to do that I don't feel weird mentioning to my family when they ask what I'm doing to keep busy. Ideally fiction or relatively non-serious nonfiction, so this isn't a request for theory, though I might read it if you recommend it. I'm cool with whatever genre wise, but at least give a brief description. Ideally I should be able to get it at my local library, but if it's too obscure for that I'm fine with using other methods.
Have you read any Terry Pratchett? They're light but smart and very well-written, and there's a million of them. Pretty likely your library would have them too. Maybe skip the first couple where he was still finding his feet, Mort or Small Gods might be good ones to start with.
Guards! Guards! is also a good starting point if you don't mind the main characters being cops. I also liked Going Postal or Monstrous Regiment as starting points
Discworld reading order flow chart: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Discworld_Reading_Order_Guide_3.0_%28cropped%29.jpg
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I did but it mostly seemed like theory. I'm looking for more escapist stuff primarily.
I just started reading "Cloudsplitter," which is a historical fiction novel based on the life of John Brown told through the perspective of one of his sons. It's pretty good so far.
Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson is an alternate history novel where John Brown wins and the South becomes socialist
Sounds interesting, think I might have to check that out! Thanks for the recommendation
If you're into SF and feel-good literature, try The Culture series. It's basically Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism: The Book Series.
The first book I read in the series had not even a trace of fully automated luxury communism , and I felt cheated. It was basically just James Bond in space.
Pretty sure the book was The Use Of Weapons.
Granted, this one is a little less FALGSC. Try maybe Look to Windward or Surface Detail (perhaps my favourite) if that's the part that interests you the most.
George Saunders is pretty great, mostly a short story author and available at most libraries.
His most well-stocked collection is Tenth of December, but if they have In Persuasion Nation that's his best in my opinion. Most of his stuff is great, though. He just wrote Ghoul, which you can read or listen to him read here which is among his best work I think.
He's furious at the cruelty of Western society, but lib-friendly. I'd best describe him as a mixture of Vonnegut and Black Mirror, but he's a better writer than Vonnegut (don't @ me I like Vonnegut :vonnegut:). I also think Black Mirror sucks, he's just similar somewhat in form as he often sets stories in the near future and turns up the volume on specific contradictions.
Read the Culture Series. It's about Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism.
My favorite piece of fiction is A Confederacy of Dunces. It's the story of a Large Son(TM) just trying to make his way in the world. Really tragic story about the author as well.
relatively non-serious nonfiction
i give thee:
The Return of Martin Guerre. Absolute classic of historical literature. There's even a movie for when you finish.
I'll recommend We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. It's about a teenage girl living with her sister and uncle in an estate in Vermont, secluded from the mistrustful townsfolk. It's very goffic.
I haven't read fiction in a long time. The last fiction books I read for fun were Orson Scott Card's Enders Game and Homecoming series. They're also the only fiction books I've read not made for children. I've since moved on to history books and they're just as fun and more useful.
Enders Game itself is a classic. Humans have united after alien invasions. The whole world is reorganized under a semi-fascist global confederacy that controls everything down to birth rates to keep humanity ready for war. All children are monitored and screened for the army. The book follows one of them.
There's some sequels that follow his story. They get weirder. Metaphysics, more alien species, etc.
Other sequels and prequels follow side characters as they get wrapped up in the post-war politics of Earth. The global government collapses immediately and these super genius child protegies, now teenagers, end up at the center of the conflict.
Then the Homecoming series is separate. It starts with a human society on another world, colonised by refugees of a nuclear war on Earth. A satellite acts as a god, working to prevent any similar abuse of technology. When it starts failing, it leads some chosen people on a journey and they end up establishing a new society. It's heavily inspired by the Bible, but still interesting.
He also has other works, like a short story of elephants using biological warfare to destroy humanity and create a new genetically engineered master race of humanoid elephants.
Some common themes with his work:
He's Mormon, but controversial in his community. Religion is present in the books and taken seriously, but it's not pushing Mormonism or ever portraying religion as true. Instead it's often recreating religious themes in whays that could be seen as blasphemous. Definitely an interesting thing to analyse. Examples include a Catholic fertility clinic that has a whole warehouse of frozen embryos, because discarding them would be murder; the aforementioned satellite deity; an AI god thing; human beings conjured by force of will; and Catholic missionaries preaching to alien groundhogs.
He also has a way of saying things brazenly. The type of anti-woke, evolutionary sociology you'd expect from 'enlightened' conservatives. This is kind of common in sci-fi because of the whole colonizing thing requiring births from a small starting population. Homecoming has a gay character who's expected to mary and procreate, and has to work out some sort of relationship with his assigned wife. One of the Enders Game sequels has a discussion about how you could just use a machine to make and raise embryos and then women would be worthless. This sort of stuff never defines the entire book. In fact, it's relatively minor. It's just clear he's trying to address these topics when it's not necessary and he doesn't have much to contribute.
Even if I don't agree with any of it, there's something refreshing in seeing a gritty, stark aproach to sci-fi that at least tries to grapple with geopolitics, culture, religion, etc. both within human society and with aliens.
Enders game is hilarious because he's such a chud and wrote such a left wing book, it definitely played a part in my leftist indoctrination as a kid
