Books or Lit-r-cha Recommendations

I think The Dresden Files might suit your needs, altough the series only gets really good from book 3 onwards

The Chronicles Of Amber are chock-full with plot twists. Reccing that.

Hi...I'm new here. I'm usually in the MLP forums but I'm here. Does anybody know of any psychological thrillers or fictional stories about relentless depression?

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai is the one that comes to mind immediately.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a famous novel about the experience of depression. I did not enjoy it much, but it's very powerful.

The Wallander books are incredibly depressing mystery novels, which might be closest to your psychological thriller request.

Try the short story "The Depressed Person" by David Foster Wallace.

I'm doing a personal research project for fun. I've noticed a slight trend involving gender differences in the protagonists of teen/children books. Can you name any books that have a female protagonist that practices a form of martial arts? Not just the specific kind in this book, but martial arts in general. Also, it has to play some kind of role in the story, not just a minor reference.

EDIT: Never mind, I found a small list. However, if you have any ideas, please send them to me.

edited 28th Jan '15 4:01:03 AM by MiscellaneousSoup

Teen Power Inc. by Emily Rodda. Sunny does martial arts.

Thanks!

Any reputable and interesting books in American history?

You might want to be more specific. There's the Dear America series.

Yes, are you looking for an overview of American history, a specific time period, a particular subject focus? Or just books about anything in American history?

That last one. Maybe this was a dumb question to ask.

In that case, I'm just going to point you to my reviews of history books, and let you browse from there. (You'll need to page down a bit before the first one with U.S. history as the focus.) http://www.skjam.com/tag/history/

Any recommendations for lighthearted, humorous fantasy books akin to Discworld?

Try "Too Many Curses" A. Lee Martinez. A bit darker than most Discworld novels, but very funny.

Two kinds of things I'm looking for:

I've read the Flashman books, and am interested in something similar in the sense of humorous historical/adventure fiction (but hopefully somewhat less proudly politically incorrect). Historical mysteries are cool too.

Also, interested in stories that involve a crew with humorous interactions among them- Specifically thinking of Space Pirate or Sky Pirate groups, but could be broader than that.

Thanks.

I'm looking for detective fiction, focused on a male and female set of partners who have a strictly platonic relationship. Any ideas? The ones I've read and enjoyed are Kovac/Liska by Tana French and Donaghue and Stainer by Michael J. Mc Cann (a Canadian import).

Also looking for something similar to the Kenzie and Gennaro series by Dennis Lehane. Male lead with Action Girl partner (or reversed, but I'm being realistic here), pretty dark and gritty and fairly violent.

Would you read children's novels? I've read books that might fight the criteria, but they're all aimed at kids.

Lighthearted fantasy books... to be honest, I can't think of much that is 'like Discworld', because Discworld is a class of its own IMO.

But you could try the Dealing With Dragons books by Patricia Wrede, or maybe some of the works by Dianna Wynne Jones like The Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin.

Are there any books, preferably biographies or autobiographies, about living in Vietnam in the 20th Century?

I'm interested because I know for a majority of the 20th Century it was a not a good time to be alive as a Vietnamese person.

edited 31st Mar '15 2:51:05 PM by Worlder

for the female and male detective partners with a platonic (at best) relationship—have you tried the Cool and Lam books by A.A. Fair (aka Erle Stanley Gardner)? The protagonists barely get along at times, let alone have romantic emotions towards each other.

So yeah, I'm starting to draft my summer reading catalogue again and I'd welcome all additions. I'm trying to be less picky, so I'm here again with another generic request. Name a book that you thought was GREAT. I don't want good books or OK ones. The ones you thought were exceptional. Standard clause about avoiding the most popular stuff out there applies.

Anything by Brandon Sanderson is awesome, but he's got a whole long metaplot going, so that might not be the best place to start. For mostly stand-alones, there's Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain. It's cheap as an e-book, and it's seriously great enough that sometimes I'll finish reading it and start right over from the beginning again five minutes later.

Donna Tartt's The Secret History.

• I know I keep on recc'ing Frances Hardinge, but: The Lost Conspiracy, Fly by Night, Cuckoo Song
• Elizabeth Wein's Code Name Verity
• The fairy tales of Oscar Wilde
• James M Cain, Double Indemnity
• Keigo Higashino's Detective Galileo novels, if you're into mystery: The Devotion of Suspect X, Salvation of a Saint