Total Motorcycle Community Forums

This is just a thread about books you have read that you think other people should read.

In other words, a suggested reading list. doesn't have to be motorcycle related, and can be on any topic... I personally like reading controversial books, so I would especially like to hear about those

It would be interesting to know why you recommend the book tho, whatever it is -

I just got done reading "The Turner Diaries" for an anti-terror program that I'm enrolled in.

This is a boook filled w/ a bunch of racist stuff about the superiority of the white race, and it details an in-depth (fictional) terror and guerilla campaign against the US Government in order to root out and exterminate all people of non-white origin and to create a government completely apart from "Jewish Influence". Buing this book online will probably get you put on some kind of list, and there is still active movement to get the book banned in America.

Anyway, I recommend the book, because I also think it portrays pretty accurately what eventually happens to a country when bureaucratic processes take the place of commonsense rule of law and the citizenry becames so fat and lazy that they don't care what happens to them as long as they have McDonalds, Beer and TV.

Highly political book tho. Unless you like to get into arguments w/ people, don't take it out in public w/ you...

Tom Clancy - Hunt for the Red October
It's a fantastic book, which is woven with more tension & suspense than I've ever read in any other book

Terry Pratchett / Neil Gaiman - Good Omens
Combines a satirical view of the world, with plenty of humour, and a dark steely style

Stephen Pile - Heroic failures
Reminds us that we're only human, and not as unlucky / stupid as these people

C.S. Lewis - The Chronicles of Narnia
I think this is where I learnt my moral judgement when I was young

The Population Explosion

I Was Sadams Son


Makes me glad sadams reign was taken down, weapons of mass destruction or not. Just for the record i still think bush is a screw up and a corperate fat pig lier.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Part WWII story, part modern day mistery, part love story. Takes place in 2 differant times, with 3 main characters and ties them all together. WONDERFUL read. about 1200 pages or so. And all of Dan Brown's books (Da Vinci code being #1 of his imo). Also, Rober Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series if you're into fantasy books.

I have read several books, and some of my favorites are "Investment Biker," "Sacajawea," The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "The Discoverers," and "The Media Lab." Two, like "Investment Biker" and "The Media Lab" are somewhat
dated, but are still a good read.

"Pattern Recognition" by William Gibson. Anything by Gibson is good, but this book is his masterpiece. If you've read other things by him then you know he's the father of the cyberpunk genre. This book is a break from his previous works because it isn't cyberpunk, but is still stylistically Gibson.

I'm not sure if we're counting graphic novels, but if so then Powers 1-4, by Brian Bendis, are amazing in both story and art. Also, though it's a bit dated, The Watchmen by Alan Moore is incredible! Definitely a must read for everyone, period.

Memorable books from my reading in 2005...

- "Newjack" by Ted Conover. A writer for the New York Times, this is an account of his year as a correction officer at Sing Sing prison.

- "Love in the Driest Season: A Family Memoir" by Neely Tucker. A writer for the Washington Post, this is the harrowing story of a year as a foreign correspondent in Africa, the effects of AIDS in Zimbabwe, and the struggle that he and his wife went through in adopting an orphan girl.

- "The Not So Big House" by Susan Susanka. Susanka is an influential American architect that advocates smaller homes designed with quality, efficiency and modern living needs (i.e., the antithesis to McMansions). I also recommend her other books: Creating the Not So Big House, Home by Design, and Inside the Not So Big House.

- "Charlie Wilsons War" by George Crile. A 60 Mintues producer, Crile lays out the secret efforts of this former Congressman and his CIA contact to arm, train and fund the Afgans fighting Soviet occupiers. A movie is in the works.

Well, have to agree about Pattern Recognition, Pin_Cushion. Brilliant book, and Gibson's best.

H Rider Haggard's She. It sent shivers down my spine when I read it as a kid and it still does the same. Haggard is often a lousy writer, but what an imagination!

Thornton Wilder's Bridge of San Louis Rey. (not sure if I've spelled that right). It taught me loads about the human heart.

Destructive Emotions. It reports a cross cultural conversation between the Dali Lama and a group of Western scientists and philosophers about the origin, nature and management of emotions that can destroy people's lives and wellbeing.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. One of the funniest, cleverest books I've read.

The Asti Spumante Code. A brilliant p1ss take of the Da Vinci Code. (Dan Brown's other book, Angels and Demons, is undoubtedly the most deranged and the silliest book I have ever read.)

The Last of the Just by Andre Schwarz Bart. A gut wrenching novel about the experience of a Jewish community in centrel europe up to the second world war. Everything that is human and inhuman about us is here.

Almost anything by Noam Chomsky. I'm not wholly in sympathy with his anarchist politics, but his books are one of the best sources of carefully researched information about current events that I know.