So which books ....

NatCh · 08-31-2006, 12:23 PM

I was going to wait until I put together a list of my own, but that could take a while, so ....

A user over on Make's forum posted a time-passer question that we could kick around too. (I don't know if any of us frequent Make or not...) I don't mind borrowing good ideas, but I do want to make sure they get credit.

The basic question is what books do you see as being your ideal e-reader library? Not just books that are available electronically, but any books. What is your personal top choice reading list?

I suppose we ought to put some sort of limit on it to keep it from getting too huge. That'll make it harder for me, personally, to come up with a list, of course, but there you go. Let's say top 10, so as not to make it too hard to narrow down.

Yeah, it's similar to the "what will you read first" but it's a different exercise, and maybe it'll give us each some new titles/authors to consider in the future.

yvanleterrible · 08-31-2006, 02:12 PM

I've got about 5,500 waiting for some kind of e-reader.

First thing I'll try is to work all 6 formats I have books in to see if they work and I will sci-fi myself to sleep to the faded sun trilogy by CJ Cherryh.

I'm really looking forward to see how long my eyes can last on that thing.

doctorow · 08-31-2006, 02:33 PM

Now that is hard because I might want to take a whole library and could do so if you let it a SD card for the Sony Reader. In the spirit of the question, though, I'd pick the following (the first 3 I already read but would always read again):

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (all trilogy in one book )
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (excellent cyberpunk)
Dune by Frank Herbert (again, I'd consider it a single book)
Some kind of survival guide
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman (everyone says it's an excellent book on globalization)
The Odyssey by Homer
Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide by O'Reilly (because I always wanted to learn more about Web design)

NatCh · 08-31-2006, 03:12 PM

Okay, confining myself to fiction, here's most of my list. I've tried to think of books that have been important to me for a long time, and/or that I have re-read frequently.

In no order of precedence:

1) Enders Game by Orson Scott Card, has to be on the list.
2) The Princess Bride by William Goldman is another one that has been a recurrent reading for me.
3) The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey is a bit of a cheat, as it's a 3 in 1 mega-tome, but it may be the most re-read book I own.
4) Asimov's I, Robot was highly formative to me, along with 75% of the rest of the world.
5) Her Majesty's Wizard, by Christopher Stasheff. It's become the first in a series, but it was written as a stand-alone. I think it's also the best of the series, as first ones often are.
6) In Fury Born by David Weber. Weber has to be on my list, but most of his writings are parts of series. While I think that most of his "series" books stand alone just fine, I couldn't bear to be without the rest of them, so I choose a stand-alone, that I've read twice in perhaps two years. Well, I should say I've read Path of the Fury (the core of this book) twice, I haven't read the new version, but if I had to choose, the expanded is what I'd go for. The Excalibur Alternative and The Apocolypse Troll were close runners up.
7) John Ringo's There Will Be Dragons makes this list, because Ringo also mostly writes in series (this being the first of one of those, for anyone who doesn't know), and I think of his series books, this one is pretty self contained. I did consider Princess of Wands and Into the Looking Glass, which aren't (yet) series...es, but I just like Dragons better. (shrug)
8) Talion: Revenant by Michael Stackpole. It's just a really good read.
9) I think I should put L. Ron. Hubbard's Battlefield Earth on the list. it's Huge, at 1,066 paperback pages, so it lasts a while per read, and unlike the recent movie which shared the title, a few character names, and some plot points, the book is actually good. It's been criticized over the years as clichéd, but is it really a cliché if your doing something first?
10) The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I checked it out of the library some 20-odd times in Junior High, so I guess it qualifies as "formative."

Holmes is still among my favorite characters.

I wanted to put Timothy Zahn on the list, because I really enjoy his writing, but his non-series books tend to have big twists at the end, which means they're not the best choices for frequent re-reading. (sigh) And there are many other authors who I'd like to cram in there, but, alas.

I suppose we could start another list of ten current favorite authors, but I think mine would be largely the same folks, so there you go.

Like yvanleterrible, I've got a much larger list of want-to-reads than that, but I think that's probably my top-shelf for fiction.

@doctorow -- Have you read William Gibson's Neuromancer? I almost put it on my list, but it's a bit too harsh for me to want read too frequently (though I do re-read it occasionally).

doctorow · 08-31-2006, 03:19 PM

NatCh,

I did read Neuromancer. I think I read most of Gibson's books. Excellent works, if you like the style.

Among your books, I'd be most interested in Enders Game. It's one of the Sci-Fi sagas I've never came about to read. Since my PDA is out of e-books right now, I might just well get this one on.

NatCh · 08-31-2006, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by doctorow

Among your books, I'd be most interested in Enders Game. It's one of the Sci-Fi sagas I've never came about to read.

How did you manage that?!?

Nevermind, you're in for a treat. If you enjoy it, I'd also recommend the Shadow books (Enders Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, etc.) in the same series. They are truer to the original's spirit, in my opinion, than the actual sequels (Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide & Children of the Mind), which I thought were okay, but not really as good as E.G. However, if you like Zen-oid stuff, you'd probably like them better than I did.

Kosst Amojan · 08-31-2006, 03:31 PM

Wow, the Ender series is also on my list, all I've read so far is the 1st short story. There are also the Star Trek SCE series of books, most of those have been released only in e-book format.

NatCh · 08-31-2006, 03:43 PM

Remember, we're dreaming here -- don't just limit to things actually available as e-texts.

Maybe the Pubs will somehow get the word that we want other stuff, even older stuff as e-texts.

Like I said, we're dreaming, so dream big! Go where you wish you could to go.

paulkbiba · 08-31-2006, 04:00 PM

1. Burton's unabridged Thousand and One Nights (this is available as an ebook)
2. Churchill's History of the Second World War (this is available as an ebook)
3. Lord of the Rings
4. Complete collection of Anthony Trollope's works
5. Complete collection of Dickens' works (this is available as an ebook)
6. China Mieville's Perdido Street Station
7. Complete Sherlock Holmes
8. The Annotated Alice
9. Complete collection of Michael Moorcock's works
10. Will & Aerial Durants History of the World

NatCh · 08-31-2006, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulkbiba

4. Complete collection of Anthony Trollope's works

Do they make SD cards that big?

That is an epic list, paulkbiba.

tofuman · 08-31-2006, 07:31 PM

1. The Baroque Cycle trilogy by Neal Stephenson
2. V./Vinland/Gravity's Rainbow/Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
3. Scanner Darkly/The Penultimate Truth/VALIS/Ubik/Time Out of Joint/Flow My Tears, the Policeman said/... by Philip K. Dick
4. Little, Big/Aegypt by John Crowley
5. House of Leaves
6. Gödel, Escher, Bach
7. The Complete New Yorker
8. Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
9. Top Ten series/From Hell by Alan Moore
10. The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

Well. More than 10 books, but...

randyman · 09-03-2006, 01:55 PM

What great lists! I'm reminded of when I first got my Rocketbook, and filled it with public-domain works I ordinarily might not have read. The result was a profoundly rewarding reading experience.

paulkbiba's list mentions Dickens... I'm almost through "Our Mutual Friend", which I picked up solely because it was mentioned on "Lost".

And from tofuman's list - I stalled out at halfway through Stephenson's "Quicksilver"; I'd love to have that trilogy - and the Pynchon, AND the Dick, AND the Gaiman... well all of the above. Now I'm getting excited.

tofuman · 09-05-2006, 02:08 AM

Stephenson's trilogy is a must-read, in my opinion. The last one is especially good.

pdam · 09-07-2006, 06:21 AM

I agree with randyman - the public domain stuff already gives me a chance to read a lot of the classics I promised myself I should read - and I also find it a very rewarding experience. Conrads' I'm finding really interesting at the moment, together with Blackmore's Lorna Doone (as I've just been to Exmoor for the first time).
I'm a lazy reader and generally graze, buying books in airports from the top 50 (or adjacent stands!)
Another list:
- Current top 50 in bookshops
- Complete works of Graham Greene
- All of Douglas Adams stuff
- Dilbert books
- Lonely Planet Guides

08-31-2006, 12:23 PM	#1
NatCh Gizmologist Posts: 11,615 Karma: 929550 Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Republic of Texas Embassy at Jackson, TN Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3	So which books .... I was going to wait until I put together a list of my own, but that could take a while, so .... A user over on Make's forum posted a time-passer question that we could kick around too. (I don't know if any of us frequent Make or not...) I don't mind borrowing good ideas, but I do want to make sure they get credit. The basic question is what books do you see as being your ideal e-reader library? Not just books that are available electronically, but any books. What is your personal top choice reading list? I suppose we ought to put some sort of limit on it to keep it from getting too huge. That'll make it harder for me, personally, to come up with a list, of course, but there you go. Let's say top 10, so as not to make it too hard to narrow down. Yeah, it's similar to the "what will you read first" but it's a different exercise, and maybe it'll give us each some new titles/authors to consider in the future.

08-31-2006, 02:33 PM	#3
doctorow Guru Posts: 914 Karma: 3410461 Join Date: May 2004 Device: Kindle Touch	Now that is hard because I might want to take a whole library and could do so if you let it a SD card for the Sony Reader. In the spirit of the question, though, I'd pick the following (the first 3 I already read but would always read again): Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (all trilogy in one book ) Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (excellent cyberpunk) Dune by Frank Herbert (again, I'd consider it a single book) Some kind of survival guide The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman (everyone says it's an excellent book on globalization) The Odyssey by Homer Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide by O'Reilly (because I always wanted to learn more about Web design)

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08-31-2006, 02:12 PM	#2
yvanleterrible Reborn Paper User Posts: 8,616 Karma: 15446734 Join Date: May 2006 Location: Que Nada Device: iPhone8, iPad Air	I've got about 5,500 waiting for some kind of e-reader. First thing I'll try is to work all 6 formats I have books in to see if they work and I will sci-fi myself to sleep to the faded sun trilogy by CJ Cherryh. I'm really looking forward to see how long my eyes can last on that thing.

08-31-2006, 03:12 PM	#4
NatCh Gizmologist Posts: 11,615 Karma: 929550 Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Republic of Texas Embassy at Jackson, TN Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3	Okay, confining myself to fiction, here's most of my list. I've tried to think of books that have been important to me for a long time, and/or that I have re-read frequently. In no order of precedence: 1) Enders Game by Orson Scott Card, has to be on the list. 2) The Princess Bride by William Goldman is another one that has been a recurrent reading for me. 3) The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey is a bit of a cheat, as it's a 3 in 1 mega-tome, but it may be the most re-read book I own. 4) Asimov's I, Robot was highly formative to me, along with 75% of the rest of the world. 5) Her Majesty's Wizard, by Christopher Stasheff. It's become the first in a series, but it was written as a stand-alone. I think it's also the best of the series, as first ones often are. 6) In Fury Born by David Weber. Weber has to be on my list, but most of his writings are parts of series. While I think that most of his "series" books stand alone just fine, I couldn't bear to be without the rest of them, so I choose a stand-alone, that I've read twice in perhaps two years. Well, I should say I've read Path of the Fury (the core of this book) twice, I haven't read the new version, but if I had to choose, the expanded is what I'd go for. The Excalibur Alternative and The Apocolypse Troll were close runners up. 7) John Ringo's There Will Be Dragons makes this list, because Ringo also mostly writes in series (this being the first of one of those, for anyone who doesn't know), and I think of his series books, this one is pretty self contained. I did consider Princess of Wands and Into the Looking Glass, which aren't (yet) series...es, but I just like Dragons better. (shrug) 8) Talion: Revenant by Michael Stackpole. It's just a really good read. 9) I think I should put L. Ron. Hubbard's Battlefield Earth on the list. it's Huge, at 1,066 paperback pages, so it lasts a while per read, and unlike the recent movie which shared the title, a few character names, and some plot points, the book is actually good. It's been criticized over the years as clichéd, but is it really a cliché if your doing something first? 10) The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I checked it out of the library some 20-odd times in Junior High, so I guess it qualifies as "formative." Holmes is still among my favorite characters. I wanted to put Timothy Zahn on the list, because I really enjoy his writing, but his non-series books tend to have big twists at the end, which means they're not the best choices for frequent re-reading. (sigh) And there are many other authors who I'd like to cram in there, but, alas. I suppose we could start another list of ten current favorite authors, but I think mine would be largely the same folks, so there you go. Like yvanleterrible, I've got a much larger list of want-to-reads than that, but I think that's probably my top-shelf for fiction. @doctorow -- Have you read William Gibson's Neuromancer? I almost put it on my list, but it's a bit too harsh for me to want read too frequently (though I do re-read it occasionally).

08-31-2006, 03:19 PM	#5
doctorow Guru Posts: 914 Karma: 3410461 Join Date: May 2004 Device: Kindle Touch	NatCh, I did read Neuromancer. I think I read most of Gibson's books. Excellent works, if you like the style. Among your books, I'd be most interested in Enders Game. It's one of the Sci-Fi sagas I've never came about to read. Since my PDA is out of e-books right now, I might just well get this one on.

08-31-2006, 03:31 PM	#7
Kosst Amojan Addict Posts: 207 Karma: 19597 Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Northern Virginia Device: Nook Glowlight Plus	Wow, the Ender series is also on my list, all I've read so far is the 1st short story. There are also the Star Trek SCE series of books, most of those have been released only in e-book format.

08-31-2006, 03:43 PM	#8
NatCh Gizmologist Posts: 11,615 Karma: 929550 Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Republic of Texas Embassy at Jackson, TN Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3	Remember, we're dreaming here -- don't just limit to things actually available as e-texts. Maybe the Pubs will somehow get the word that we want other stuff, even older stuff as e-texts. Like I said, we're dreaming, so dream big! Go where you wish you could to go.

08-31-2006, 04:00 PM	#9
paulkbiba Connoisseur Posts: 84 Karma: 45 Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: United States Device: Nokia e61i, iPhone	1. Burton's unabridged Thousand and One Nights (this is available as an ebook) 2. Churchill's History of the Second World War (this is available as an ebook) 3. Lord of the Rings 4. Complete collection of Anthony Trollope's works 5. Complete collection of Dickens' works (this is available as an ebook) 6. China Mieville's Perdido Street Station 7. Complete Sherlock Holmes 8. The Annotated Alice 9. Complete collection of Michael Moorcock's works 10. Will & Aerial Durants History of the World

08-31-2006, 07:31 PM	#11
tofuman Enthusiast Posts: 34 Karma: 12 Join Date: Jun 2005 Device: iLiad/ipaq3970	1. The Baroque Cycle trilogy by Neal Stephenson 2. V./Vinland/Gravity's Rainbow/Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon 3. Scanner Darkly/The Penultimate Truth/VALIS/Ubik/Time Out of Joint/Flow My Tears, the Policeman said/... by Philip K. Dick 4. Little, Big/Aegypt by John Crowley 5. House of Leaves 6. Gödel, Escher, Bach 7. The Complete New Yorker 8. Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany 9. Top Ten series/From Hell by Alan Moore 10. The Sandman by Neil Gaiman Well. More than 10 books, but...

09-03-2006, 01:55 PM	#12
randyman Enthusiast Posts: 34 Karma: 8851 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Bristol, RI Device: Now, iPad!	What great lists! I'm reminded of when I first got my Rocketbook, and filled it with public-domain works I ordinarily might not have read. The result was a profoundly rewarding reading experience. paulkbiba's list mentions Dickens... I'm almost through "Our Mutual Friend", which I picked up solely because it was mentioned on "Lost". And from tofuman's list - I stalled out at halfway through Stephenson's "Quicksilver"; I'd love to have that trilogy - and the Pynchon, AND the Dick, AND the Gaiman... well all of the above. Now I'm getting excited.

09-05-2006, 02:08 AM	#13
tofuman Enthusiast Posts: 34 Karma: 12 Join Date: Jun 2005 Device: iLiad/ipaq3970	Stephenson's trilogy is a must-read, in my opinion. The last one is especially good.

09-07-2006, 06:21 AM	#14
pdam Groupie Posts: 199 Karma: 100 Join Date: Aug 2006 Device: iLiad, iPaq, Psion5&7, Blackberry	I agree with randyman - the public domain stuff already gives me a chance to read a lot of the classics I promised myself I should read - and I also find it a very rewarding experience. Conrads' I'm finding really interesting at the moment, together with Blackmore's Lorna Doone (as I've just been to Exmoor for the first time). I'm a lazy reader and generally graze, buying books in airports from the top 50 (or adjacent stands!) Another list: - Current top 50 in bookshops - Complete works of Graham Greene - All of Douglas Adams stuff - Dilbert books - Lonely Planet Guides

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