Book recommendation: something that blew your mind

minnow

Hi
I'm looking for a book recommendation. Something different to the run of the mill. I'm asking here rather than the literature forum because I am looking for something different and excitng with new ideas.
It can be fiction/non fiction and be any genre, main thing is it had a huge effect on you when you read it.
Thanks

Scráib

This is an easy one for me! I cannot recommend this lad enough: David Gemmel.

He writes fantasy novels, swords and sorcery stuff. What makes him stand out by a mile compared to other authors is his ability to explore the greyness of the human condition, the distinction between what is good and what is evil. You end up questioning your own decisions in life reading one of this books somehow!

What also makes him exceptional is that he researches everything completely. He knows weapons, swordplay, his battle descriptions are brilliant, and it goes right down to things like how they manages the horses and what characters eat and wear, it's all fantastically accurate.

He wrote about 20 books before he passed away. They're ridiculously easy to read so they only drawback of his books is that you'll fly through them all at nearly the rate of a book a day, because you'll not put the book down all day long. Read any of them, I recommend starting with Legend or Sword in the Storm.

enda1

The Author which affected me the most is an New England American guy called Richard Russo.

His ability to capture the subtlety of the male mind and its extraordinary complexity in how it deals with relationships and exterior emotions is awe inspiring and led me to quite an amount of introspection.

Well worth reading, especially I found The Risk Pool and Empire Falls. But really every one of his books is a masterpiece in itself.

Genre is probably best described as contemporary American drama.

Mackman

Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything".
It covers pretty much the entire history of Science, the Universe, and the Earth. Fantastic read. It covers all the major discoveries, and the people who discovered them. What i loved most about it was, he goes into detail about who these people were, what they were like etc. Definatly worth reading

Ozziej

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
The Road, Cormac McCarthy

moonshinerocks

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jun/10/featuresreviews.guardianreview15
"This Book Will Save Your Life" by AM Homes. Don't worry it is not a self help book. Please read the review from the guardian by following the above link, it should peak your interest.

charlie1966

For non fiction
Edward De Bono - The use of lateral thinking (The first intellectual book I volunteered to read)
Clyde W Burleson - The Jennifer Project (Because truth is weirder than fiction)
John Gribbin - Stardust (It was free with a magazine but I think it is a very interesting read)
Robert Charles Alexander - The inventer of stereo, The life and works of Alan Dower Blumlein (It's relevant to what I do and his story is amazing and sad to say, is unappreciated)

For fiction
Arthur C Clark - The Rama series. (I like science fiction)
Robert Ludlem - The Bourne Trilogy (The 1st 3 books were written by him, the rest in the series were ghost written and not as good. Also much better than the film, though I do like the films too. Any of the other novels he has written are enjoyable too)

Zombienosh

Bill Hicks -Love all the people
Or
Henry Rollins - Black Coffee Blues trilogy.

life changing.

lil_lisa

"As the Future Catches You" by Juan Enriquez was a big eye opener for me. Very interesting and easy to read. It's not written like a regular book, its difficult to explain. Have a look at the first few pages here

Fragglefur

Times Arrow Martin Amis

68508224

An experiment with time - J.W. Dunne .. mind boggling and brilliant

Ever wondered about the nature of time? Life after death? the meaning of dreams? then this is for you.. totally original thinking , and from an Irish author too.. might have to request it from your library though as it may prove hard to find

minnow

Thanks for all the recommendations to date. I suppose it's unfair for me to ask the question without giving my own favourites:

Fiction:
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson (great read for tech buffs)
The Information - Martin Amis (to my mind the best of his novels)
The Untouchable - John Banville (beautiful, beautiful writing)

Non-fiction:
I enjoy maths/economics related themes, so really enjoyed -
The Origin of Wealth - E Beinhocker (the rejection of Traditional Economic theory, making the case for the role of Complexity Economics and Evolution in economic systems)
The Black Swan - NN Taleb (risk)

Mat the trasher

Fiction
The Millennium Trilogy, by Stieg Larsson

http://www.stieglarsson.com/Millennium-series

Selected

68508224 wrote: »

An experiment with time - J.W. Dunne .. mind boggling and brilliant

Ever wondered about the nature of time? Life after death? the meaning of dreams? then this is for you.. totally original thinking , and from an Irish author too.. might have to request it from your library though as it may prove hard to find

It's a book that, once read, you must own.

Just as a matter of interest, how did you come by such a book?

ger vallely

Animals People, set in India, brilliant story. Crossroad- Niccolo Aminiti- fantastic,gritty Italian story-fabulous characters and amazing descriptions. The Red Tent- Anita Diamond, biblical story(I'm not christianly religious but this is a beautiful story.)Clan of the cave bear-Jean M Auel,a wonderful, gripping tale, the sequels are a tad glossy for my liking but this is addictive. I truely hope you try some of these,fine reading in them.

ger vallely

Almost somehow nearly forgot Neil Gaiman- American Gods and Nick Cave- The death of Bunny Monroe. Both entertaining in totally different ways. Bunny Monroe is wrong in so many ways, I loved it! American Gods is a book to get stuck into, another one to own.

legallybrunette

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. It's semi-autobiographical, about an ex-con's life in India. Absolutely brilliant book, shows you a fresh way of looking at a lot of things. I work in a book shop and the amount of customers who recommend this book to me is crazy! It's a big book but well worth the read!

Major Lovechild

Imajica by Clive Barker. There is nothing else to say.

Pookah

minnow wrote: »

Fiction:
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson (great read for tech buffs)

I was going to recommend Neal Stephenson's ''Baroque Triliogy'' for you.

Historical fiction; it runs from about the year 1650 to 1720, with a host of historical characters and a few fictional ones thrown into the mix.

The scope of the authors intellect and range of subjects he covers are astounding. And he can spin a yarn.

Not for the faint-hearted at 3000+ pages, but very rewarding.

roosh

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

"Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" — and find that there is no death"

"Nothing out there will ever satisfy you except temporarily and superficially, but you may need to experience many disappointments before you realize that truth"

"...words in themselves are not important. They are not the Truth; they only point to it"

"Don't get stuck on the level of words. A word is no more than a means to an end. It's an abstraction. Not unlike a signpost, it points beyond itself"

Power of Now quotes

Pookah

Pookah wrote: »

I was going to recommend Neal Stephenson's ''Baroque Triliogy'' for you.

That should have read 'The Baroque Cycle'.

Another auther that blew my mind, was the Canadian Robertson Davies. It's a toss up between the 'Cornish Trilogy' and the 'Deptford trilogy'.

If you want something to really blow your mind, read any of Robert Anton Wilson's non-fiction.

Coriolanus

Red Mars or Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Shenshen

Non-Fiction :

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
I found it a very good read, and quite an eye-opener to a bigger picture of earth, mankind and its history

Shenshen

Ozziej wrote: »

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

I'm just reading his next book, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, just as brilliant as Cloud Atlas

Gary L

Beyond Good and Evil- Neitzsche

If you want crazy ideas look no further than this sex starved, bitter, profound, genius and eventually insane old German.

jkforde

if into science fundamentals, John & Mary Gribbin's classic Deep Simplicity can't be faulted (btw, Jim al-Khalili's BBC4 series The Secret Life of Chaos covers most of the same ground, the final episode is esp. class with the chaotically evolved animations, unreal)

DS333

minnow wrote: »

Hi
I'm looking for a book recommendation. Something different to the run of the mill. I'm asking here rather than the literature forum because I am looking for something different and excitng with new ideas.
It can be fiction/non fiction and be any genre, main thing is it had a huge effect on you when you read it.
Thanks

"Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. I know she's pushing her philosophy but they're both a damned good read, different to anything else I've read.

d4v1d

DS333 wrote: »

"Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. I know she's pushing her philosophy but they're both a damned good read, different to anything else I've read.

i also found 'atlas shrugged' to be a great read. i'm now a proudly greedy person

in the science fiction category i'd say 'vurt' by jeff noone. it was written before years before the likes of the matrix was released and was the only book i ever read where i had to call in work to say i was sick as i was just to engrossed in the book to put it down.

'city of god' was another book that stood out. the movie based on it did not do it justice.

'trainspotting' by irvine welsh. i've read this seven or eight times and still today would pick it up and re-read some of the stories within.

roald dahl wrote several books of short stories that are very different from his more famous childrens stories. he's got quite a strange sense of humour and can certainly tell a tale.

BuddyBassett

Zombienosh wrote: »

Bill Hicks -Love all the people
Or
Henry Rollins - Black Coffee Blues trilogy.

life changing.

Ill second that! Also Junky by William S Burroughs!!

s8n

Catcher in the rye by JD Salinger. Amazing read.

Carl Sagan

Pookah wrote: »

That should have read 'The Baroque Cycle'.

I'm hoping to get that for my birthday. Can't get it in the library