What Books really rock/shock your world?

reply to post by Silcone Synapse The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom.It is remarkable.

Originally posted by SilverStar33
reply to post by Silcone Synapse

 

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom.It is remarkable.

Loved that book.

Originally posted by Taupin Desciple

Originally posted by Kody27

The Diary of a Drug Fiend - by Aleister Crowley

That was a wild ride wasn't it? I picked mine up at a used book store in Scottsdale. Too many years ago to remember exactly, at this point.

"The Stand" never gets old though.

Yes it was. Although mentioning Crowley and Stephen King in the same sentence is like talking about Nostredomus or Edgar Cayce and then mentioning Miss Cleo...

I think Orwell's 1984 was one of the first books that made me really stop about think about the government and future. I read it on my own thankfully, so school didn't have a chance to jade it. Did you know that 1984 was banned in Russia, with the exception of Russian leaders? I guess a little bit of planning was being done....

Three series fro Piers Anthony:

1. The Blue Adept
2. Incarnations Of Immortality
3. Bio Of A Space Tyrant

Loved the game in Blue Adept and would love to see that in today's cgi world. Movies, miniseries, whatever. Incarnations starts off with a guy killing Death and having to take over his job. Death, Time, War, Nature, Fate, God and Satan are the seven jobs that people hold, it's a wild series.

Mysteries Of The Unexplained - A TImeLife book from years ago that opened my eyes to a lot of weird stuff in this world.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Just rips everything in our lives, basically, and is so darn funny that it will make you look foolish in public when reading. He and Vonnegut are great at showing how ridiculous our world is.

Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game. So true nowadays. Read a couple others in the series but nothing came close to that first one IMO.

Not just the Dark Tower series, but all the other books and shorts that go along with it. It's really quite extensive.

Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. My favorite of his. Also ties in with some other novels of his which I forget the names. The Cat Who Walk's Through Walls I believe is one.

Some mentioned earlier: The Little Prince. Hated it immensely. Maybe I was too young but maybe the worst thing I've ever read except for The Lord Of The Rings. As boring a fantasy series as there ever could be. They walk for three books then throw a ring into a fire. Could have been done much better as one book. I never even finished it and I've read lots of fantasy but that was so boring I just put it down one day thirty years ago and never picked it back up.

Surprised no one has mentioned Brave New World from Aldous Huxley.

Like previous poster said, Moon is a Harsh Mistress by R. Heinlein. It lays out, in 1960s, how a hierarchy of revolutionary "cells" works. Also, how a revolution is undertaken through use of a higher intelligence, making it unknowable to We The People. It fits what we may be experiencing in the world now.

reply to post by Silcone Synapse

WOW! I’m so glad I saw your link when last you posted in the Etna thread. I was wondering where to share the book I’m reading now (for the third time) and here it is!

I couldn’t say enough about this book. It’s absolutely fabulous. The writing is enough to have you re reading pages at a time before proceeding with the story line. The insight is cruel and wonderful and... Just wow.

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

Just read it - don't bother with the review at the above link because frankly it stinks. I'll look for a better review later.

I rarely if ever label something as a 'do not miss' - but if I was to do so THIS book would be it.

Great thread! I look into getting the 'Swan Song'. Not sure how as I can't get anything in English (here) and almost never do I find anything on Italian Ebay - but I'll look!

Thanks again!

~ gracie

I've just started reading 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King.

reply to post by silo13


Nice one Silo,not heard of that one-its now one my list!

reply to post by The_Truth_Seeker

Salem's lot reminded me of another well known creepy tale-I would be interested to see if it does the same for you.

As others have mentioned:
Anything Kurt Vonnegut
Anything Chuck Palahniuk
Anything Tom Robbins...specifically Jitterbug Perfume
Anything Hunter S Thompson
and for a lil Horror:
author Brian Keene. His zombie novel The Rising is the best zombie fiction bar none, but all of his novels are just shy of flawless, and he likes to share characters and universes between books.

edit
Should also mention Heinlen, Stranger in a Strange Land, as well as
another Horror genius: A man called David Moody has a zombie series titled Autumn. One of the most interesting and well written takes on a zombie outbreak I've ever read.

So many, but to name a few.

1. The Red Lion
www.scribd.com...
Originally published in 1946 in Hungary, this ambitious and relentlessly arcane novel reshapes the stuff of legend into a compelling, if ponderous, philosophical melodrama. Subtitled ``The Elixir of Eternal Life,'' it recounts the harrowing adventures endured, over a span of four centuries, by Hans Burgner, a 16th-century alchemist's apprentice who murders his master in order to possess a potion rumored to confer the gift of immortality. Having drunk this elixir, Burgner is condemned to be repeatedly reborn, century after century, as a cursed visionary who sees, but is powerless to prevent, the injustices and cruelties that lie in wait for his fellowmen. Eventually purified by his sufferings, Cornelius (Hans's final incarnation) fulfills his destiny: to prophesy, to a world ravaged by war, the reappearance of the Messiah. The Red Lion, a bulky mixture of biblical, alchemical, and historical lore (which rather resembles Eugene Sue's epic romance The Wandering Jew), nevertheless explores with passionate intensity its deeply flawed hero's passage from sin and error, through a world more flawed even than he, to a paradoxical state of grace.

2. Stone Junction
This book is a mix between Lord of The Rings, Huckleberry Finn, On the Road and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I loved it! I recommend this book to anyone who liked the above books, and also people who need books to move fast or end up reading books in short spurts (on the bus) or work a job where they need to leave the world for a while and get totally absorbed. I couldn't put it down and the writing is smart, the characters are just as memorable as anything that Krauss could write- minus any sentimental crap. Stone Junction contains plenty to think about, if you're the thinking type. There's Oedipal stuff, ethical quandaries, obsession, betrayal, outlaws (not to be confused with criminals, as distinguished later), and even a heist. And so on. Basically, Daniel Pearse is being trained by the best in all the dodgiest, sketchiest outlaw arts, in order to get some sweet revenge. And also to steal a huge diamond. Daniel, the main character, goes through a series of teachers for the first part of the book, who teach him a number of skills that flirt with the supernatural. Mystical is probably an appropriate word. And these teachers dispense knowledge in all sorts of pithy little lines. But the tricky part of having a whole bunch of wise teachers or gurus in your book is that you have to be as smart as all of them. Dodge's aphorisms are spot on, though, which is really cool.

3. Shantaram
"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured."

So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear.

Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.

As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power.

Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas---this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based on the life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature.

4. Cosmic Banditos
Mr. Quark is a down-on-his luck pot-smuggler hiding out in the mountains of Colombia with his dog, High Pockets, and a small band of banditos led by the irascible Jose. Only months before, these three and their fearless associates were rolling in millions in cash and high-grade marijuana, eluding prosecution on “ridiculously false” drug and terrorism charges. But times have quickly grown lean, and to liven up their exile, Jose decides to mug a family of American tourists.

Among the spoils are physics texts, which launch Mr. Quark on a side-splitting, boisterous adventure north to California, where he confronts the owner of the books with his own theories on relativity, the nature of the universe, and looking for the meaning of life in all the wrong places….

5. Vineland
A group of Americans in Northern California in 1984 are struggling with the consequences of their lives in the sixties, still run by the passions of those times -- sexual and political -- which have refused to die. Among them is Zoyd Wheeler who is preparing for his annual act of televised insanity (for which he receives a government stipend) when an unwelcome face appears from out of his past.

An old nemesis, federal prosecutor Brock Vond, storms into Vineland at the head of a heavily armed strike force. Soon Zoyd and his daughter, Prairie, go into hiding while Vond begins a relationship with Zoyd's ex-wife and uses Prairie as a pawn against the mother she never knew she had.

Part daytime drama, part political thriller, Vineland is a strange evocation of a twentieth-century America headed for a less than harmonic future.

reply to post by Silcone Synapse



- Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Goldhagen

- The Decision to use the Atomic Bomb by Gar Alperovitz


Compelling and haunting reads both.

mein kampf
5 equations that changed the world by michael guillen
behold a pale horse
the art of war

There was my understanding of the global stage before I read this book and then there was my understanding of the global stage after I read this book. Everyone should read it. I cannot recommend it enough.

For pure entertainment, I heartily recommend Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's "The Cabinet of Curiosities". If you haven't read it, congrats on hearing about it here! The series it's an early part of has extended to over half a dozen books.

Going back some years, when I was younger I really got into Bradbury, Burroughs' Mars novels (Bradbury said Burroughs was the best writer of the 20th century, and there is ample argument for that), Doc Smith's stuff (although I can't recall much of it now), and you've got your Heinlein and Asimov thrown in. Later in life, Robert Anton Wilson's complete body of work, some of McKenna's (although I like his lectures better than his writing style), and too many more to mention.

reply to post by GoodDocGonzo

GoodDocGonzo
As others have mentioned:
Anything Kurt Vonnegut
Anything Chuck Palahniuk
Anything Tom Robbins...specifically Jitterbug Perfume
Anything Hunter S Thompson

Someone just gave me Jitterbug as a gift! Thanks for reminding me - I've been looking for a good read!

reply to post by The_Truth_Seeker


Do not read it at home alone. For a while after reading it I was scared to be alone in the house by myself, take showers or even sleep when my wife was not home. For some reason that book really stuck with me.

For me, it's anything by R.A. Salvatore, Ender's Game, The Sirens of Titan, The Passage, The Sorcerers Ring series, and the Shannara books.

ETA: Many thanks to all who posted for giving me so many new books to add to my list!

I recently finished reading the "Earths Children" series by Jean M Auel.
Big thanks to ATS member Cranial Sponge for the reccomendation!
This is book one:



www.amazon.co.uk...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397231361&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Clan+of+the+Cave+Bear

I shall try to explain a bit about the story without any spoilers:
The story follows the life,trials and loves of Ayla,a young Cro Magnon girl who loses her family, all her people,her everything in an earthquake,and is taken in by a tribe of Neanderthal people 35 000 years ago during the last ice age.

Although I have a few minor critisisms of the series(mentioned below)-it is unlike anything else I have ever read,and ticks the boxes to be in this thread-the books really did rock my world.

I dreamt many times(still do)about the world as it was in these books,where giant cave lions,mammoth,aurochs,and all manner of ancient beasts shared the ice age european landscape with early humans.A land where hunter gather tribes lived in small camps surrounded by a natural bounty,eden like that is almost impossible to imagine in todays mess we call civilization.

The author travelled the globe to learn all about the ancient people and animals during the ice age-she learned a lot from dig sites all over europe,where some of the earliest known burial grounds,settled caves,forms of art are found.She learned of ancient herbal medicine,and of foraging and flint knappingAnd with all this knowledge she made among the greatest stories I have ever read.

Now for my critisisms,but don't let them put you off.
The books do reapeat quite a bit of info from their previous episodes-I put this down to the fact the books were written over 25odd years,so she has to remind readers of certain stuff.I only noticed this as I read the lot in 2 months.
The sex scenes,while they are needed for the story,do seem like a page filling tactic after a while.
The last book,while still good,doesn't really seem to do the series justice,but many may disagree with me here.

Please,don't let that put you off,these books are on the whole an awesome adventure-they left me feeling I know the characters personally,and with almost real memories of that distant and amazing time in our history.
Highly reccomended.

It's very cliche but Breakfast of Champions

Also, Hyperspace by Kaku...it basically was responsible for getting me into theoretical physics

Tao Te Ching

Zen and the Art of Happiness however was probably the biggest one

Existential Psychology really blew me away and changed who I was as a therapist