Good books to read while commuting...

Seggy

Well-Known Member
I would like to get a thread going about suggestions for us to read while commuting. I am going to get it started.

machnumber let me borrow and am curretly reading...

'I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell' by Tucker Max
 
I would like to get a thread going about suggestions for us to read while commuting. I am going to get it started.

machnumber let me borrow and am curretly reading...

'I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell' by Tucker Max

Check out the thread I started in the lav called "Island of The Sequined Love Nun." Some good discussion on books.


Also, you might look into a John Burdett novel called "Bangkok 8." It's an outstanding book, and there are two sequels. Really interesting take on the detective novel.
 
I would like to get a thread going about suggestions for us to read while commuting. I am going to get it started.

machnumber let me borrow and am curretly reading...

'I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell' by Tucker Max

Or his new book and quality reading material at that, coming soon to a bookstore near you: @$$holes Finish First
 
Ok, I'll ante up........although I know they've been suggested many times over.

Flying the Line, Vols. 1 & 2. If you haven't read them, and you're a 121 pilot, shame on you. Great reads and it details why the industry is the way it is....and what we have to do to take the profession back!!!!
 
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On my last couple of DHs I was reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Stephen Hawking's a Brief History of Time. Drew some interesting looks from passengers.
 
What do you like Seggy? Fiction? Non? Etc.??

Authors I've been reading are Vince Flynn & Brad Thor....good, fiction books.
 
Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson never disappoints. I read it every couple years or so and it remains fresh. To my mind it was his greatest book.

Without Remorse by Tom Clancy is insanely fun to read. Pure revenge killing/meanness.

Shogun was a bestseller years ago, but few today have read it. I enjoyed the book, and it can be useful like Sun Tzu.

Just thinking about paperbacks that you can leave and come back to without losing much. Trying to find layover books that aren't too deep and not heavy.
 
Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson never fails to disappoint. I read it every couple years or so and it remains fresh. To my mind it was his greatest book.

That is a very good book. Have you read his really early book, "The Rum Diaries?"
 
'I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell' by Tucker Max

That book is awesome. One of my favorites. His new book doesn't come out until late 2009 or early 2010 now. It was supposed to be out this fall.

The PostSecret books are also entertaining.
 
I like fiction and nonfiction.

Really am a fan of Dan Brown, that type of stuff.

Argh! Dan Brown is a hack!

(sorry, sorry....don't mean to offend people here...)

If you like the kind of thing Dan Brown writes, you need to step up to the master of the Medieval-Modern mystery thriller and read just about anything by Umberto Eco - "Foucault's Pendulum" comes to mind. It's a fascinating book, but it's hard to read. Eco is an utterly brilliant writer.

"Cryptonomicom" by Neal Stephenson is probably the most fun I've had with a book in 10 years. I've read it several times and keep coming back to it every few years. Takes about 200 pages to REALLY get going but it positively kicks arse. It's got a little bit of everything.

"Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon. I'll bet you a case of beer that you can't finish this one on your first try. It's a bet I made and lost the first time I tried to read it. It's almost painful, but amazing that someone writes the way he does.

Any of the "Star Wars" books written by Timothy Zahn. In my opinion, the best of the fan-fic writers out there.

"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. One of my all-time favorites. Beautiful story about a child genius who is bred for war. Major themes about love, generosity, genocide, loyalty. Stunning book.

Honestly, the Harry Potter books are fine reading, too. Enjoyed all of them.

Dean Ing's "The Ransom Of Black Stealth One" - techno thriller about a guy who steals a very special stealth aircraft. Not quite what you'd expect, but fun.

Charles Stross's - "The Atrocity Archives" - sorta like Hellboy meets The Office. Very cool, very funny.

"Moonlight" or "Madhouse" by Rob Thurman - vampire/detective novels. Sex, violence, brotherly loyalty and mystery. Cool books.

Peter F. Hamilton's "The Night's Dawn" trilogy. This is comprised of six books, actually, starting with "The Reality Dysfunction." Think of it as a giant space-opera. The scope of his work is impressive. Lots of fun. Space ships, aliens, physics, supernatural zombie-type-stuff, economics, sex, violence, faith, redemption, biotech...the list on these goes on. Unbelieveably fun to read. I've been known to stay at home on a weekend and do nothing but read these.

I could keep going, but these are mostly favorites. You're also welcome to come by my house and borrow anything I've got.
 
Argh! Dan Brown is a hack!

(sorry, sorry....don't mean to offend people here...)

If you like the kind of thing Dan Brown writes, you need to step up to the master of the Medieval-Modern mystery thriller and read just about anything by Umberto Eco - "Foucault's Pendulum" comes to mind. It's a fascinating book, but it's hard to read. Eco is an utterly brilliant writer.

"Cryptonomicom" by Neal Stephenson is probably the most fun I've had with a book in 10 years. I've read it several times and keep coming back to it every few years. Takes about 200 pages to REALLY get going but it positively kicks arse. It's got a little bit of everything.

"Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon. I'll bet you a case of beer that you can't finish this one on your first try. It's a bet I made and lost the first time I tried to read it. It's almost painful, but amazing that someone writes the way he does.

Any of the "Star Wars" books written by Timothy Zahn. In my opinion, the best of the fan-fic writers out there.

"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. One of my all-time favorites. Beautiful story about a child genius who is bred for war. Major themes about love, generosity, genocide, loyalty. Stunning book.

Honestly, the Harry Potter books are fine reading, too. Enjoyed all of them.

Dean Ing's "The Ransom Of Black Stealth One" - techno thriller about a guy who steals a very special stealth aircraft. Not quite what you'd expect, but fun.

Charles Stross's - "The Atrocity Archives" - sorta like Hellboy meets The Office. Very cool, very funny.

"Moonlight" or "Madhouse" by Rob Thurman - vampire/detective novels. Sex, violence, brotherly loyalty and mystery. Cool books.

Peter F. Hamilton's "The Night's Dawn" trilogy. This is comprised of six books, actually, starting with "The Reality Dysfunction." Think of it as a giant space-opera. The scope of his work is impressive. Lots of fun. Space ships, aliens, physics, supernatural zombie-type-stuff, economics, sex, violence, faith, redemption, biotech...the list on these goes on. Unbelieveably fun to read. I've been known to stay at home on a weekend and do nothing but read these.

I could keep going, but these are mostly favorites. You're also welcome to come by my house and borrow anything I've got.

Sci-fi wise, I always like anything by Stephen Baxter, or Alistair Reynolds, cheezy space opera action and the like, always fun to read.

I'll have to finish Cryptonomicon then, its been sitting on my bookshelf stuck at page 150 or so for about 3 years, just can't break through there.

As for commuting books, I tried to read the classics when I was commuting to Kodiak this summer from anchorage, and while I was in the "crew base" (mechanics couch) down there. I reread the iliad, odyssey, most of the aeneid, then picked up paradise lost, and the art of war. Lately I've been kind of on a math kick (I know, I'm a nerd) and just read Flat Land (Edwin Abbot, really cool, it will blow your mind) and a couple of Dover press books about Number theory which tend to quickly put me to sleep.
 
"Call Me Ted" by Ted Turner.

I'm not a big Ted Turner or liberal fan, I'm a major conservative. But I read the book and it was very fascinating to see his point of view. Enjoy, Seggs.
 
Call me irresponcible, but just plunked down for a first of Brian Shul's Sled Driver. I'm not gonna bring that on a trip though.

Strange as it may be, Faulkner is a challange still, and I find that more time consuing than the top 10 best seller list. Although lately, it's been guitar tabs/ books.. trying to move from rock to blues, so the scale is slightly diffrent, as are the adaptations/modifications.

TSA still thinks my Traveler Guitar is a rifle ;)
 
I noticed Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" mentioned.

I recommend the rest of the series. Keep in mind, the original series had four books that followed Ender. Alter, he wrote four or five "Shadow" books detailing the rest of the kids from Battle School.

Finding out what happens to Bean, Petra, Achilles, "Hot Soup" and the rest made for a fun read.

I also recommend Heinlein.

Robert Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress", "Stranger In A Strange Land", and "Time Enough for Love" are masterworks. Must reads.

For the more worldly-

I STRONGLY recommend "Freakonomics". It blew my mind. I look at alot of things differently in a big way now because of this book.
 
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