Currenly I am reading 1984 by George Orwell. Last three books were Free Culture, Mac OS X Tiger for UNIX geeks and Communistic Manifesto by Carl Marx.

Anything by William Gibson or Bruce Sterling. These two are considered the fathers of “cyberpunk” and Gibson’s Neuromancer is considered the definitive cyberpunk novel. Gibson has several loose trilogy’s, one set in the distant future and one in the near future. His works deal more with the way people interact and tech is a storytelling tool, IMO. His writing style just sucks me into the world he creates and I just enjoy his works.

Sterling has a bit of a different approach, his works are also character driven with technology explored in what it could enable people to do and how this can re-shape society . Sterling also wrote The Hacker Crackdown a non-fiction book about the phone phreaks and hackers of the early 90’s, which is outdated but still entertaining. It is a free ebook, http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/101
Neil Stevenson is also good, Snow Crash is a great book that could be a cool movie if someone like Terry Gilliam were to direct.
T. C. Boyle is also great, The Road To Wellville is one of my favorite books.

I love that see spot run book… its probably my favorite ;)

I actually read Tom Clancy’s: Net Force series. I am also currently reading:

Culture Warrior – Bill O’Reilly

Power of Body Language – Tonya Reiman

with a few conservative books on the deck.

Ooo…forgot to mention two of my most favorite books, both by Ayn Rand:

The Fountainhead
Atlas Shrugged

If you want to see someone get all pissy, read Atlas Shrugged in front of a socialist or staunch union supporter.

Here’s what I’ve read recently that I’d recommend.

1. Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri (some of my favorite short stories, easy to read and very recent)
2. The Long Walk – Slavomir Rawicz (this isn’t strictly fiction, but reads like it, and it the most incredible true story I’ve ever read)
3. Mother Night – Kurt Vonnegut (my favorite Vonnegut book, not as widely read as Cats Cradle or Slaughterhouse 5)
4. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar And Six More – Roald Dahl (his best short stories in my opinion, easy to read)
5. Snow – Orhan Pamuk (its won a ton of awards and its very recent)
6. Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow (the great american novel)

Of course you’ve read Catch-22 (Heller’s other stuff isn’t as good) and 1984 (better than Brave New World IMHO). I also read the Godfather by Puzo (the movie is about as good – and thats a rare thing to say), and Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. Both good too.

Anything by Christopher Moore. I recently finished his book “Lamb: The gospel according to Biff, Christ’s childhood pal” :) Very freaking funny. Now I am reading “The Stupidest Angel” – it’s about this kid in Pine Grove, CA, who sees a guy dressed in a Santa suit being killed. He prays that Santa is brought back to life, and the “stupidest angel” does just that…except the guy comes back as a zombie :) Too funny.

Also, all the repairman Jack series by F. Paul Wilson – you can check out his books at http://www.repairmanjack.com :) Very cool…

[quote post=”2332″]i read Life of Pi recently. Wicked book (not to mention my sister in law did the cover art)[/quote]

Wow, really? That’s awesome. Small world this. Small world. :P

Small-small world, I went to the same University / College as Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi.

I’m on a bit of a Douglas Coupland kick, recently read: Microserfs, JPod.

In the technical realm, I’m working through the Definitive Guide to JavaScript, Powershell In Action, and The Old New Thing.

I just finished “Johnny and the bomb” while sitting on the [censored].
Before that I finished (of course) “Only you can save mankind” and “Johnny and the dead”. I like the 1st and 3rd book most, the book with ghosts didn’t reach the depth of the others.
After that time travel story I think I have to go diving for “Thief of time” ;)

Did I mention I love Pterry?

In parallel me and my children currently read through the whole collection of “Asterix” comics by Uderzo+Goscinny. I like the stories most where they visit Britannica and Corsica (50 BC everyone speaks latin). This is one example where the german translation is brillant; plus I don’t speak french so good that I can understand all the puns (we did read one Asterix in french lessons and it was very hard).

Oh wow. A lot of non-finction recommendations. I didn’t expect that. But then again, I might have figured that the technically minded majority over here will be reading tech related books. :)

[quote post=”2332″]This also looks like a good place to introduce Shelfari![/quote]

Cool! I haven’t seen this one. There is a dozen book related services like that but so fat none of them seemed to be the dominant one. Perhaps Shelfari will be better. :)

[quote post=”2332″]i read Life of Pi recently. Wicked book (not to mention my sister in law did the cover art)[/quote]

Wow, really? That’s awesome. Small world this. Small world. :P

[quote comment=”8467″]For the last few years I have been working on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. I recently finished up “Jingo” and have just started on “The Last Continent.” After I finish up this series, I intend to start on Ian Fleming’s James Bond books (I’m a James Bond movie nut).[/quote]

I used to be a huge fan of Discworld Novels. Like you I was reading all of them one after the other. Then at one point I stopped. I think I just got a little bit tired of the setting, the recurring characters and etc…

I haven’t touched Discworld books in a while now I still remember them fondly, I just don’t feel the urge to get all the ones I didn’t read yet. Maybe I will come back to them at some later time. :)

[quote post=”2332″]I remember the use of the word ‘grok’ now but it’s funny that I had no idea what it meant when first saw it used on the web[/quote]

Heh, same here – knew how to grok things way before I picked up the book. :P