Give some love to the normies. What is your favorite regular (non-lightnovel) book?
To start with, I will point to my list of sci-fi books I listed out last time. Other normie books I have thoroughly enjoyed over the years:
- Hitchiker’s Guide Series - An absolute classic. I read the first book as assigned reading back in school and then went on to plow through all the rest because I enjoyed it so much.
- Catch 22 - This book is one that I didn’t fully appreciate it way back when I read it, but over time it has stuck in my brain and I have come to appreciate its brand of absurdity more and more.
- Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman - This is an autobiographical work by Richard Feynman, a famous physicist of the 20th century. If you saw the movie Oppenheimer, he was the one that played the bongos and watched the Trinity test from behind the car windshield. Both of those stories are in the book!
- Don Quixote - Often called the first modern novel, this stands as one of my favorites. I found it genuinely hilarious. It almost reads like it a long series of Monty Python sketches featuring the same character.
Damn, didn’t check if I had the topic already. :(
And speaking of Hitchhikers Guide, that reminds that I was thinking about re-reading Discworld.
I have never been a big reader so my book list is limited.
But these are the authors of some of the audiobooks I have enjoyed:
- HG Wells (The First Men in the Moon)
- PG Woodhouse (The Inevitable Jeeves)
- Phillip K Dick (Second Variety)
- Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)
A while back, I read and loved Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, so thought I would check out more of Philip K. Dick’s work. I then read Ubik and was confused as hell most of the time. I haven’t read any other of his stuff since then though. I might have to check out some of his alternate history scifi works like this one.
My favorite novels are the eternally unfinished Kingkiller Chronicles Trilogy by Patric Rothfuss. Sadly it doesn’t look like it will ever be finished so I can’t really recommend anyone to get into it.
Instead I’ll recommend the Finovar Tapestry Trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay. I think this series is what cemented my love for isekai stories long before I started to read light novels. Many of the usual isekai tropes we see today were already there 40 years ago. The only thing missing are cheat skills and video game mechanics.
[META] The good Myne seems to work this week and if we don’t get repeated topics in the coming weeks I’m happy.
