Alton Brown is the man because he teaches you something very important: how cooking works. It's very rare to see a culinary personality that doesn't just show off *coughEmerilcough*.
If I were to classify Alton Brown's proffession, it'd be thus: Cuisine Engineer.
And after seeing the premiere of Dining on Asphalt, I find it even more vital for me to take a cross-country trip next summer. But I would have to make it like a whole month, so I can go and run all the awesome backroads and mountains roads through-out the country. Driving the Tail of the Dragon and Pike's Peak as part of one trip would just be too awesome.
I'm sorry for the long list. Once I started, it was hard to stop.
Catch-22, Huckleberry Finn, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence, Emma, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, All Quiet on the Western Front, Johnny Got His Gun, Democracy in America, Brideshead Revisited, The Razor's Edge, In Our Time, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, The Red Badge of Courage, Catcher in the Rye, Childhood's End, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, The Naked and the Dead, In Cold Blood, The Big Sleep, Starship Troopers, To Kill A Mockingbird, As I Lay Dying, Absalom, Absalom, The Last Western, Earth Abides, Dies the Fire, Neuromancer, Moby Dick, The Right Stuff, Ender's Game, A Civil Action, The Fall of Reach, The Short-Timers, Silas Marner, On the Road, Once an Eagle, Fields of Fire, The Scarlet Letter, The Stainless Steel Rat series, The Foundation Trilogy, The Lensman Series, The Skylark series, Better Times Than These, The Stand, Weapons of Choice, On the Beach
I just started Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, and am halfway through Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. I'm also in the middle of reading Odd Thomas and Seize the Night, both by Dean Koontz, as well as Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick.
IsOdd Thomasgood? Have you gotten to where Heller writes about me inCatch-22?
Odd Thomas starts really slow, but it picks up. I'd only recommend it if you're already a fan of Koontz. If you are looking to get into Koontz's novels, I suggest starting out with Life Expectancy, The Husband, or The Taking. And, as far as Catch-22 goes, I've literally just started it. I'm on page ten.
With regards to Ayn Rand, I was an egoist and a libertarian before reading her and remained one after reading her. I have to admit that she's a pretty good author if heavy handed, but there are some very important areas I disagree with her about.
Right now I'm rereading the later books about the Black Company by Glen Cook, I'm on Soldiers Live right now, except I took a short break to read the first volume of Sanctuary and I'm borrowing an Exalted supplement from a friend which I'm sort of reading in parallel. After that I have a book about the Nazi economy Wages of Destruction.
As for recommendations, here's a bunch of SciFi and Fantasy recommendations from an email I sent to a friend recently.
> Carl Schroeder wrote two very good far future hard SF books, Ventus and > Lady of Mazes. > > John C. Wright wrote The Golden Age, the star of a far future SF series. > Very interesting but very exotic universe. A lot of philosophizing, > with a fair amount of that being a subtle critique of Ayn Rand, and some > people might be put off by either the "subtle" or the "critique" parts. > > Arthur C. Clark's Fountains of Paradise was my favorite of his books, > followed by Rendezvous with Rama. > > Asimov's I Robot and Foundation books were very nice. > > David Webber's Honor Harrington series. If valiant last stands against > overwhelming odds and/or very detailed and well thought out star ship > battle appeal to you. > > Ken Macleod's Fall Revolution series. Topsy turvy near future setting, > with a lot of neat ideas. If you keep a Wikipedia handy you can look up > references and learn a lot about radical UK political groups, but that > isn't necessary for the plot. > > Ian Banks you've probably already read some of, but I have to say that > all of his Culture books are worth reading - in any order. > > Charles Stross has written a lot of good things. There's the space > opera-ish Singularity Sky, there's the Cthulhu meets IT meets James Bond > Atrocity Archives, and there's the other stuff. > > Greg Egan. Distress was my favorite of his books. The overall plot was > a bit silly in retrospect, but it had a lot of good ideas and a pretty > good plot. > > Bruce Sterling is usually classified as Cyberpunk, but a lot of his > stuff has a very modern feel. Distraction was one of my favorites of > his, and had some very amusing parts to it. > > John Barnes wrote a lot of good things. Mother of storms was worth > reading. A Million Open Doors was quite good. Orbital Resonance was > really excellent, as was Sky so Big and Black. > > Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books, starting with Jhereg, are very good. > They're the story of a Mafia hitman in a fantasy universe and they're > engaging (except the middle three) and like all of Brust's books they're > just dripping with wit. > > Jim Butcher wrote the very good Harry Dresden Series about a wizard > detective living in modern Chicago. > > Other people have probably already recommended Glen Cook's Black Company > Series. Garret PI is probably also worth your time, its a fantasy > detective story like the Harry Dresden series, but a little more street > level with the main character having no magical powers but lots of > connections. > > Tad Williams's Dragonbone Chair series of high fantasy books was very > good. > > Ursela K. Leguin's Earthsea Trilogy was very good, as was The Left Hand > of Darkness. > > I like Robert Jordan, but I recommend that you wait until he finishes > the damn series before you start it. > > Terry Pratchett has written lots of good stuff. Small Gods and Thief of > Time were my two favorites but many others are good. > > Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule was worth reading, as was Stone of > Tears. Don't bother with anything after that by him. > > Anne McCaffery's books are generally pretty good, except for the fact > that they're mostly the same book. Read Dragon's Dawn at least. > > Erik Flint. I'm totally a sucker for "go back in time and kickstart the > industrial revolution" books, but I think half of my liking for 1632 is > that its also just plain good alternate history and a well told and > engaging story. > > Year's Best SciFi is a collection that seems to be actually more or less > the years best SciFi short stories. I enjoy them.
She had already read The Waterborn by Greg Keyes, so I should add that here.
For non-fiction some really good stuff includes Guns, Germs, and Steel, Freakanomics, The Art of Maneuver, The Transparent Society, Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, some book about the history of technology whose name I'll post later, and The Mystery of Capital.
I'm almost done with the Mass Effect book, Mass Effect: Revelation, and so far I'm really enjoying it. I'm really really looking forward to the game from reading this, since its supposed to be a prequel of sorts, and gives a lot of background to whats going to happen in the game. I think a large part of my enjoyment of the book, is how cool the history is that they create, since it takes place around 2160.
I'll recommend another fantastic sci-fi/fantasy author, in the person of Gene Wolfe. The best phrase I can come up with to describe his writing is "dense with meaning": there's a lot going on, with the full arsenal of literary allusion and trickery deployed at all times.
Many of his books have been republished in collections: what is probably his most famous work, The Book of the New Sun, starts with either The Shadow of the Torturer or Shadow and Claw depending on the printing. Also look for Litany of the Long Sun, The Knight, and Soldier of the Mist: each of those is the start of its own series, but I'm sure you can figure out the sequels.
Omfg, Gene Wolfe is an amazing science fiction author. I definitely recommend The Book of the New Sun, which has to be one of the most well-written series of books I've ever read. Reading his work made me realize just how terribly crappy many sci-fi and fantasy books are. This stuff is the real deal.
Edit: Damn you Alex, you beat me to it by a second!!
Wow, I haven't met many people who've actually read The Razor's Edge. Right now I'm re-reading Gulliver's Travels, and hunting down a copy of The Trial and The Brothers Karamazov. For school I was reading The Art of Intrusion and The Art of Deception, and they're both quite good. Also, I have to mention the authors Mil Millington and Jasper Fforde, of Things My Girlfriend and I have Argued About and The Eyre Affair, respectively. Also, The Hyperion Cantos is excellent, as is Magician (By Raymond Feist. It was re-released as Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master).
I like Robert Jordan, but I recommend that you wait until he finishes > the damn series before you start it.
That's getting major roflcopters here. I've been reading those since I was a junior in high school. Book 12 is set to come out sometime this year (?), and it looks like Jordan's going to have trouble tying up all of the loose ends. Also, it's not too difficult to skip books 8-10, when he gets obsessed with stretching the Aes Sedai plots. Otherwise, in the last book Mat went badass and I simply can't wait for the final chapter.
Long story behind how I started reading Stackpole but most won't find it interesting. Stackpole is my personal favorite author. Talion Revenant has a sort of Star Wars flavor about it. His best quality work consists of: The Dark Glory War Which is followed up by 3 additional books known as the DragonCrown War Cycle. I like Stackpole mostly because of his characterizations which are absolutely excellent.
My favorite books are: "Battle Royale" by Koushun Takami "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams "The Alphabet of Manliness" by Maddox "Walt Disney: The Triumph of American Imagination" by Neal Gabler The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (expecially "The Prisoner of Azkaban", "The Goblet of Fire", and "The Deathly Hallows") "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll
Has anyone read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand? What did you guys think? I already asked Jason and he thought that the book was incredibly pretentious.
I actually really really like Rand and have read most of her stuff...it appeals to me more on an ideological level than anything else and granted some of the stuff she talks about is a bit impractical, but I like the point that she tries to make in her work and so tend to agree with her philosophically most of the time. This, of course, is notwithstanding of the fact that she's an excellent author that writes a good book, even if you don't like her philosophy.
As for books: The Prince of Nothing series is quite amazing and is highly recommended for anyone who wants fantasy but in a slight deviation from the general "go slay dragon" books. I also like the A Song of Ice and Fire Series by GRRM a lot because it really focuses on plot development, which is lacking a bit in modern fantasy. Then there's The Belgariad and The Malloreon series by David Eddings, which are a bit childish and stereotypical of fantasy, but I like them nonetheless. Finally, I think my favorite books are the Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb, just because of the universe she creates and the insane plot line that the books follow.
Other stuff I have on my bookshelf (which means I consider them worth the money that I have) include Elantris by Brandon Sanderson, some Michael Crichton, the HP books, and of course some classics, like Beowulf, some Dickens, Dumas, Chaucer, Shakespeare, etc.
As a side note, we read a whole bunch of world literature-type books this past year in English, and one of them that I enjoyed a lot was One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Has anyone else read this one?
My favourite book is Harry Potter. That thing turned my life around. I just love every facet of it and the amazing Potter fandom. I have no idea why so many people on this forum don't like it; it's nice to see it get some love in this thread though. I have to agree with Li_Akahi that Deathly Hallows and Goblet of Fire are the best of the lot. People say Hitchcock is the master of suspense, but I'd give that title to Jo Rowling.
I also love anything written by Douglas Adams. The man was a genius in the true sense of the word. It seems like wit and humour just poured out of him.
A somewhat less-known series of books, The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb, is another one of my favourites. Hobb has written a lot of books since, but the Farseer Trilogy remains her best work to date. It's a really great set of books, I reccommend everyone to read it. Giving a plot summary would just detract from the greatness of the book, so I'll just leave it at that.
I like Robert Jordan, but I recommend that you wait until he finishes > the damn series before you start it.
That's getting major roflcopters here. I've been reading those since I was a junior in high school. Book 12 is set to come out sometime this year (?), and it looks like Jordan's going to have trouble tying up all of the loose ends. Also, it's not too difficult to skip books 8-10, when he gets obsessed with stretching the Aes Sedai plots. Otherwise, in the last book Mat went badass and I simply can't wait for the final chapter.
Ah, Wheel of Time ... such greatness. It's sad that we're not going to get Book 12 now. Rest in Peace, Robert Jordan.
I just finished His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. Great if you want a fantasy novel that makes you think a bit. Additionally, the Catholic church hates this book, so you know it has to be good.
I am currently reading Abraham by Bruce Feiler (author of Walking the Bible). He takes the story of Abraham and takes an interesting scholarly approach towards how it evolved over time and how each of the three faiths that use the story all tried with varying degrees of success to change everything about the story to suit their goals. It's pretty interesting.
Damn Phillip Pullman, the third book makes me cry. I strongly recommend the short series of children's books: Hex, Hex:Shadows and Hex:Ghosts was written by a sixteen year old and I read it while I was a kid. Contains a lot of themes that were very much before their time. It's about an artificial mutation that makes it possible for people to interface directly with computers.
Comments
"Simon" Necronomicon == exactly the hoax I was talking about.
And after seeing the premiere of Dining on Asphalt, I find it even more vital for me to take a cross-country trip next summer. But I would have to make it like a whole month, so I can go and run all the awesome backroads and mountains roads through-out the country. Driving the Tail of the Dragon and Pike's Peak as part of one trip would just be too awesome.
I recently read A Sideways Look at Time by Jay Griffiths which was pretty nifty.
Catch-22, Huckleberry Finn, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence, Emma, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, All Quiet on the Western Front, Johnny Got His Gun, Democracy in America, Brideshead Revisited, The Razor's Edge, In Our Time, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, The Red Badge of Courage, Catcher in the Rye, Childhood's End, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, The Naked and the Dead, In Cold Blood, The Big Sleep, Starship Troopers, To Kill A Mockingbird, As I Lay Dying, Absalom, Absalom, The Last Western, Earth Abides, Dies the Fire, Neuromancer, Moby Dick, The Right Stuff, Ender's Game, A Civil Action, The Fall of Reach, The Short-Timers, Silas Marner, On the Road, Once an Eagle, Fields of Fire, The Scarlet Letter, The Stainless Steel Rat series, The Foundation Trilogy, The Lensman Series, The Skylark series, Better Times Than These, The Stand, Weapons of Choice, On the Beach
But, there are 2.
Hitchhikers Guide
House of the Scorpion
Right now I'm rereading the later books about the Black Company by Glen Cook, I'm on Soldiers Live right now, except I took a short break to read the first volume of Sanctuary and I'm borrowing an Exalted supplement from a friend which I'm sort of reading in parallel. After that I have a book about the Nazi economy Wages of Destruction.
As for recommendations, here's a bunch of SciFi and Fantasy recommendations from an email I sent to a friend recently.
> Carl Schroeder wrote two very good far future hard SF books, Ventus and
> Lady of Mazes.
>
> John C. Wright wrote The Golden Age, the star of a far future SF series.
> Very interesting but very exotic universe. A lot of philosophizing,
> with a fair amount of that being a subtle critique of Ayn Rand, and some
> people might be put off by either the "subtle" or the "critique" parts.
>
> Arthur C. Clark's Fountains of Paradise was my favorite of his books,
> followed by Rendezvous with Rama.
>
> Asimov's I Robot and Foundation books were very nice.
>
> David Webber's Honor Harrington series. If valiant last stands against
> overwhelming odds and/or very detailed and well thought out star ship
> battle appeal to you.
>
> Ken Macleod's Fall Revolution series. Topsy turvy near future setting,
> with a lot of neat ideas. If you keep a Wikipedia handy you can look up
> references and learn a lot about radical UK political groups, but that
> isn't necessary for the plot.
>
> Ian Banks you've probably already read some of, but I have to say that
> all of his Culture books are worth reading - in any order.
>
> Charles Stross has written a lot of good things. There's the space
> opera-ish Singularity Sky, there's the Cthulhu meets IT meets James Bond
> Atrocity Archives, and there's the other stuff.
>
> Greg Egan. Distress was my favorite of his books. The overall plot was
> a bit silly in retrospect, but it had a lot of good ideas and a pretty
> good plot.
>
> Bruce Sterling is usually classified as Cyberpunk, but a lot of his
> stuff has a very modern feel. Distraction was one of my favorites of
> his, and had some very amusing parts to it.
>
> John Barnes wrote a lot of good things. Mother of storms was worth
> reading. A Million Open Doors was quite good. Orbital Resonance was
> really excellent, as was Sky so Big and Black.
>
> Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books, starting with Jhereg, are very good.
> They're the story of a Mafia hitman in a fantasy universe and they're
> engaging (except the middle three) and like all of Brust's books they're
> just dripping with wit.
>
> Jim Butcher wrote the very good Harry Dresden Series about a wizard
> detective living in modern Chicago.
>
> Other people have probably already recommended Glen Cook's Black Company
> Series. Garret PI is probably also worth your time, its a fantasy
> detective story like the Harry Dresden series, but a little more street
> level with the main character having no magical powers but lots of
> connections.
>
> Tad Williams's Dragonbone Chair series of high fantasy books was very
> good.
>
> Ursela K. Leguin's Earthsea Trilogy was very good, as was The Left Hand
> of Darkness.
>
> I like Robert Jordan, but I recommend that you wait until he finishes
> the damn series before you start it.
>
> Terry Pratchett has written lots of good stuff. Small Gods and Thief of
> Time were my two favorites but many others are good.
>
> Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule was worth reading, as was Stone of
> Tears. Don't bother with anything after that by him.
>
> Anne McCaffery's books are generally pretty good, except for the fact
> that they're mostly the same book. Read Dragon's Dawn at least.
>
> Erik Flint. I'm totally a sucker for "go back in time and kickstart the
> industrial revolution" books, but I think half of my liking for 1632 is
> that its also just plain good alternate history and a well told and
> engaging story.
>
> Year's Best SciFi is a collection that seems to be actually more or less
> the years best SciFi short stories. I enjoy them.
She had already read The Waterborn by Greg Keyes, so I should add that here.
For non-fiction some really good stuff includes Guns, Germs, and Steel, Freakanomics, The Art of Maneuver, The Transparent Society, Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, some book about the history of technology whose name I'll post later, and The Mystery of Capital.
Many of his books have been republished in collections: what is probably his most famous work, The Book of the New Sun, starts with either The Shadow of the Torturer or Shadow and Claw depending on the printing. Also look for Litany of the Long Sun, The Knight, and Soldier of the Mist: each of those is the start of its own series, but I'm sure you can figure out the sequels.
Edit: Damn you Alex, you beat me to it by a second!!
Gulliver's Travels is good. Don't forget Frankenstein.
The book that will probably always be my favorite is The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More by Roald Dahl.
Long story behind how I started reading Stackpole but most won't find it interesting. Stackpole is my personal favorite author. Talion Revenant has a sort of Star Wars flavor about it. His best quality work consists of: The Dark Glory War Which is followed up by 3 additional books known as the DragonCrown War Cycle. I like Stackpole mostly because of his characterizations which are absolutely excellent.
"Battle Royale" by Koushun Takami
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams
"The Alphabet of Manliness" by Maddox
"Walt Disney: The Triumph of American Imagination" by Neal Gabler
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (expecially "The Prisoner of Azkaban", "The Goblet of Fire", and "The Deathly Hallows")
"Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll
As for books: The Prince of Nothing series is quite amazing and is highly recommended for anyone who wants fantasy but in a slight deviation from the general "go slay dragon" books. I also like the A Song of Ice and Fire Series by GRRM a lot because it really focuses on plot development, which is lacking a bit in modern fantasy. Then there's The Belgariad and The Malloreon series by David Eddings, which are a bit childish and stereotypical of fantasy, but I like them nonetheless. Finally, I think my favorite books are the Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb, just because of the universe she creates and the insane plot line that the books follow.
Other stuff I have on my bookshelf (which means I consider them worth the money that I have) include Elantris by Brandon Sanderson, some Michael Crichton, the HP books, and of course some classics, like Beowulf, some Dickens, Dumas, Chaucer, Shakespeare, etc.
As a side note, we read a whole bunch of world literature-type books this past year in English, and one of them that I enjoyed a lot was One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Has anyone else read this one?
I also love anything written by Douglas Adams. The man was a genius in the true sense of the word. It seems like wit and humour just poured out of him.
A somewhat less-known series of books, The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb, is another one of my favourites. Hobb has written a lot of books since, but the Farseer Trilogy remains her best work to date. It's a really great set of books, I reccommend everyone to read it. Giving a plot summary would just detract from the greatness of the book, so I'll just leave it at that.
Ah, Wheel of Time ... such greatness. It's sad that we're not going to get Book 12 now. Rest in Peace, Robert Jordan.
I am currently reading Abraham by Bruce Feiler (author of Walking the Bible). He takes the story of Abraham and takes an interesting scholarly approach towards how it evolved over time and how each of the three faiths that use the story all tried with varying degrees of success to change everything about the story to suit their goals. It's pretty interesting.
I strongly recommend the short series of children's books: Hex, Hex:Shadows and Hex:Ghosts was written by a sixteen year old and I read it while I was a kid. Contains a lot of themes that were very much before their time. It's about an artificial mutation that makes it possible for people to interface directly with computers.