What are the best books you've read in the last 2 years? (1 Viewer)

[Julie K]

Nope. I found the books to be quite tedious and I had to force myself to finish them. I enjoyed the movies immensely though, and like Andrew think Jackson did a wonderful job of keeping the good bits of the story and pruning the rest. There's only so much hobbity songs and hobbity cuteness that I can take before my head explodes.

Keeping with the fantasy theme:
I'll second the recommendation of A Song of Ice and Fire but I can no longer place it as the best. That award now goes to Steven Erikson's The Malazan Book of the Fallen. The first book Gardens of the Moon is now available in the US although 5 (of a planned 10) books are available elsewhere.

(BTW, as an antidote to hobbity cuteness, I'll mention the books Grunts by Mary Gentle. It's a lot of fun.)

Edited to fix book title - see, just thinking about hobbity cuteness made my brain explode!

 

[James_Kiang]

I'll second Julie on Steven Erikson's Malazan series. I'm re-reading Gardens of the Moon right now and it is just an excellent book. Loads of well-developed characters, engaging dialogue, and a very well-defined backstory/culture elevates this series over Martin for me as well right now.

Having said that, I would also highly recommend Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. I may place Erikson over him right now, but that series is one of the best out there.

 

[David Williams]

Not the only one. I enjoy reading Shakespeare, but in comparison, the high-flown language in LOTR was just too much. I swear I read the word 'alas' more than 4 times on one page alone! Love the movies, didn't love the books.

 

[Jason L.]

Years ago, I read about 100 pages of it before I lost interest.

I remember thinking that the character of the antagonist's girlfriend was by far the most brain dead character ever written.

I've thought about trying to finish it, but I look at it in my bookshelf the way a mountain climber looks up at Everest, and I say "ahh, forget it".

 

[Gregg Shiu]

There's a series of books called A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R.R. Martin. It's an excellent series, and my favorite has to be book 3, A Storm of Swords. I know a long time ago I started reading the entire Redwall series, and I thought it was fantastic. It's not exactly difficult reading, but then again, neither is Harry Potter, and that didn't hurt it from being immensely enjoyable, to most people anyway.

*A quick edit, I didn't really enjoy the previously suggested Ken Follet book, Pillars of the Earth to be all that, but I did really like his "A Dangerous Fortune."

 

[Max Leung]

Nonfiction:

Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human by Matt Ridley, who is also the author of The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature and The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. All great books.

You've read Parasite Rex right? I'm still in awe over that book.

You might also want to check out Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. I hear good things about it...

Fiction:

I just finished China Mieville's followup to his Perdido Street Station, The Scar. Good book!

 

[Daniel J.S.]

I haven't read a fiction book in AGES. Most of what I'm listing I've recently read or currently am reading (although I've read plenty of journal articles and essays from collections, I haven't read a great deal of entire books lately).

Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia by Boris Schwarz--A VERY thorough (if dry) account of the various composers in Soviet history. Especially valuable for it's account of musical life during the Stalin era.

In the Houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music by Susan Fast--An academic book on Led Zeppelin? That alone makes it worthwhile; it considers the cultural implications of Zeppelin's music and the performances thereof. Topics include ritual, gender, exoticism, race, etc. BTW, Fast is one of my professors at McMaster University and I've been a TA for her as well.

Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity by Judith Butler--Guys, don't be scared off by the word "feminism," you can get much out of this book too. Considers the ways in which ideas about gender are culturally mediated and argues that gender is not biological but performative. The writing is quite abstruse, but well worth the effort.

Feminine Endings: Music, Gender & Sexuality by Susan McClary--A watershed book in musicology; musicology tended to deal with positivistic topics like performance practice and such. This was one of the first books to bring gender studies into the discipline. McClary demanded that musicology consider the cultural significance of music. Very controversial when first published, and still mind-blowing.

Classical Music and Postmodern Knowledge by Lawrence Kramer--Another important book to argue that music, both composition and performance have social meaning. Not all of his interpretations are totally convincing, but still a significant text.

The History of Sexuality Volume 1 and Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault--Foucault is one of the most important thinkers of the 20th Century and revered by post-modernists such as myself. His works will really make you think about the way issues like sexuality and prison reform facilitate the power structure.

 

[Stacey]

The origional Dune series. I've re-read the whole thing almost 10 times now and always keep getting more and more out of it.

The Great And Secret Show by Clive Barker is another great read though the follow up book is not quite as great it's still quite interesting.

 

[John Watson]

Quote from Daniel JS : "Feminine Endings: Music, Gender & Sexuality by Susan McClary--A watershed book in musicology; musicology tended to deal with positivistic topics like performance practice and such. This was one of the first books to bring gender studies into the discipline. McClary demanded that musicology consider the cultural significance of music. Very controversial when first published, and still mind-blowing."

"I felt so I almost cried
and then he kissed me"?

I'm sure the Marxists wanted cultural significance on the Agenda.

 

[Daniel J.S.]

I don't get it.

 

[Max Leung]

Wow Daniel, my non-fiction book collection and yours are diametrically opposed. I guess biologists have completely different views of gender than the authors of your books.

We should swap books.

 

[Steve_Tk]

The Stand and It , both by Stephen King

 

[John Watson]

The quote is from the Crystals' 1963 or so pop song. Perhaps my misquote - omission of "happy" threw you off, "I felt so happy I almost cried"

Anyway, it was in response to your brief account of an author's work in "cultural significance of music".

I find it hard to believe that it was ever controversial to interpret music sociologically, at least not since the deliberate management of music under communist "cultural revolutions".

 

[Adam.Heckman]

I'll second The Stand. Only recently de-throned by the Fountainhead.

Jason, there was a reason that she was the way she was. You have to finish reading it to understand it.