Melidan's reading list

[Melidan]

Must reads! (In no special order..)

Non-Fiction:
Flyboys (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Flyboys/James-Bradley/e/9780316159432/?itm=2)
Flags of our Fathers (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Flags-of-Our-Fathers/James-Bradley/e/9780553111330/?itm=2)
America Alone (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/America-Alone/Mark-Steyn/e/9780895260789/?itm=2)
Team of Rivals (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Team-of-Rivals/Doris-Kearns-Goodwin/e/9780684824901/?itm=1)
Manhunt (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Manhunt/James-L-Swanson/e/9780060518509/?itm=2)
Guests of the Ayatollah (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Guests-of-the-Ayatollah/Mark-Bowden/e/9780871139252/?itm=7)
Mayflower (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Mayflower/Nathaniel-Philbrick/e/9780670037605/?itm=4)
Black Hawk Down (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Black-Hawk-Down/Mark-Bowden/e/9780451203939/?itm=1)
Mexifornia (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Mexifornia/Victor-David-Hanson/e/9781594032172/?itm=1)
Carnage and Culture (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Carnage-and-Culture/Victor-Davis-Hanson/e/9780385720380/?itm=2)
The Soul of Battle (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Soul-of-Battle/Victor-Davis-Hanson/e/9780385720595/?itm=8)
Ripples of Battle (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Ripples-of-Battle/Victor-Davis-Davis-Hanson/e/9780385721943/?itm=11)
An Autumn of War (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Autumn-of-War/Victor-Davis-Hanson/e/9781400031139/?itm=13)
Between War and Peace (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Between-War-and-Peace/Victor-Davis-Davis-Hanson/e/9780812972733/?itm=14)
Band of Brothers (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Band-of-Brothers/Stephen-E-Ambrose/e/9780743224543/?itm=3)
House to House (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/House-to-House/David-Bellavia/e/9781416574712/?itm=5)
Cosmos (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Cosmos/Carl-Sagan/e/9780345331359/?itm=1)
A Short History of Nearly Everything (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/A-Short-History-of-Nearly-Everything/Bill-Bryson/e/9780767908184/?itm=1)
Hatred's Kingdom (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Hatreds-Kingdom/Dore-Gold/e/9780895260611/?itm=1)

Fiction:

Arc Light (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/ARC-Light/Eric-L-Harry/e/9780515117929/?itm=26) **GET THIS BOOK NAO!
Invasion (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Invasion/Eric-L-Harry/e/9780515128420/?itm=2)
Red Storm Rising (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Red-Storm-Rising/Tom-Clancy/e/9780425101070/?itm=1)
1984 (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/1984/George-Orwell/e/9780451524935/?itm=1)
Animal Farm (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Animal-Farm/George-Orwell/e/9780451526342/?itm=1)
Alas Babylon (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Alas-Babylon/Pat-Frank/e/9780060741877/?itm=1)
World War Z (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/World-War-Z/Max-Brooks/e/9780307346605/?itm=1)
The Cruel Sea (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Cruel-Sea/Nicholas-Monsarrat/e/9781580800464/?itm=1)
Infantry Combat (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Infantry-Combat/John-F-Antal/e/9780891415367/?itm=15)
Fortunes of War (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Fortunes-of-War/Stephen-Coonts/e/9780312969417/?itm=1)

What i'm currently reading...

Lone Survivor (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Lone-Survivor/Marcus-Luttrell/e/9780316067591/?itm=2)
The Looming Tower (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Looming-Tower/Lawrence-Wright/e/9780375414862/?itm=2)

What I want to read soon...

The Last Best Hope (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/America/William-J-Bennett/e/9781595550552/?itm=4)
Liberal Facism (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Liberal-Fascism/Jonah-Goldberg/e/9780385511841/?itm=1)


Feel free to add your own lists!

[Imperial]

1984!

http://www.thecartorialist.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/1984bigbrotherposter_nazi.jpg

[The Corporal]

I don't read much non-fiction beyond science encyclopedias, George Carlin, The Prince, and The Physics of Star Trek. But for fiction:

Ringworld series
Firestar series
name a Tom Clancy book
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the first four are necessary, Mostly Harmless not so much)
The Count of Monte Cristo
A Canticle For Leibowitz
The Forever War (and its sequel)
The Guns of the South
The Zombie Survival Guide
Lamb: The Gospel According To Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
2001 series
all of the Halo books (except for the newest one, haven't gotten that yet)
the two Star Trek Mirror Universe volumes
The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth
The Good That Men Do (continues from the last episode of Star Trek: Enterprise)
I Am Legend
Stranger In a Strange Land
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.
The Videssos Cycle series
Snow Crash
The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century compilation
The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century compilation
Starship Titanic
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
I Will Fear No Evil
Harry Potter
The Cylon's Secret (I have yet to read the other one or two new BSG books)

While I am not quite finished with Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth, I have many more to go:
The Best Time-Travel Stories of the 20th Century compilation
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Cat's Cradle
Slaughterhouse 5
How Few Will Remain (and its three sequels, American Front, Walk In Hell, and Breakthroughs)
Call of Cthulu
Cryptonomicon
reread the Chronicles of Narnia

I could name maybe 5 or 10 more that I should read but don't have yet - I'm sure some of those I'll see listed here...

Edit: I also wanted to make a note, based on Melidan's list, of how truly awesome Tom Clancy's The Bear and the Dragon is. You don't necessarily have to know the rest of the Jack Ryan series to understand Russia and the U.S. coming together to beat down China when China invades Russia because of Siberia's untapped mineral wealth...

[Assarax]

I haven't had a lot of time to read lately but some of my favorite books:

1984
The Kite Runner (it's really good)
The Odyssey
Animal Farm
The Winter King series (It's about King Arthur)
The Halo books
The History of Farting (got it for a buck at a used book store)
The Communist Manifesto (Currently reading. I'm not a communist, but I've just wanted to read it for some time)
Mien Kampf (dont know how to spell it, but you know, the book Hitler wrote)

[Jan Liqua]

The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

Reading it right now, it really messes with what you learned in high school and maybe even college. It's very focused on the minorities, immigrants, and women of American history and is uncompromising to the establishment. Currently in the chapter I'm reading he's ripping into the Patriots of the Revolutionary War for using liberty rhetoric to control people much like the British.

I'll second Lamb by Christopher Moore
Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Art of War by Sun-Tzu (haven't read it all, but the 60% or so of it I've read has been very good)

[ParkerBaby]

o/ Green eggs and ham ^_^

[The Corporal]

Oh yeah, forgot to list books I read in school:
1984
Animal Farm
A Time to Kill
The Most Dangerous Game (I heard this short story was the inspiration for paintballing)
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Grapes of Wrath - ha ha, just kidding, this was total crap ;)

I've also read and found interesting:
The Fascist: His State and His Mind
The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler
The Boy Mechanic
Recovery and Refining of Precious Metals (go to hell, I'm a Materials Engineer :P )

I spent $50 online at Barnes and Noble today, picking up a lot of Heinlein and Arc Light. I think I also have The Art of War, but I have a couple dozen books to get through before then...

[Melidan]

I spent $50 online at Barnes and Noble today, picking up a lot of Heinlein and Arc Light.


YESsir! You won't be disappointed, I promise!

[Jan Liqua]

Pretty much anything involving Sherlock Holmes is worth reading. Sure in comparison with the British literature of the time they weren't fantastic, but damn they sure beat all the crap detective series of the 20th century. Nancy Drew? Bitch, please.

Frankenstein (read for Brit Lit last year, really liked it. From ethics to gender to guilt...a lot of stuff can be culled)
Dave Barry's books. They're all hilarious. His writing style is just so bluntly funny.
Tintin. Sure they're comics, but they're really clever and intelligent comics. If you read about Hergé, the author, you realize that it's one of the few photo-realistic series. Everything in his books was researched meticulously.
The Westing Game
Borgel by Daniel Pinkwater
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

[ClockworkOrange]

Reccomended
The Devil in Amber & Vesuvius Club - Mark Gatiss [Very good spy/adventure thrillers]
Love all the people - Bill Hicks [Most of his routines]
Mortal Engines Quadrilogy - Philip Reeve [Steampunk Fiction]
World War Z - Max Brooks

[b]To be read
Story of my life - Moshe Davan [Israeli war hero with a hell of an eye patch - looks like a Bond villain]
The Naked jape - Jimmy Carr [Comedy dissected]
1984 - George Orwell [Been half read for about 9 months]

[Hepoco]

* Hepoco doesn't enjoy reading

[Lincongrad]

Recommended:
A Song of Ice and Fire (Series) by George R.R. Martin (About as high as fantasy can get)
Joan D'Arc by Mark Twain (He considered it his greatest work)
The Face of Battle by John Keegan (or anything by John Keegan, actually)
Three Cups of Tea (provides a wonderful insight into northern Afghanistan)
Just Another Soldier (Hilarious blog transcribed into book form by a soldier)
The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell (Another book from the war, this time serious)
Secret Commandos by John Plaster (Best Vietnam Special Forces book ever written)
Shooter (NOT related to the movie. I've always been fascinated by snipers and this is the best one to have ever lived)
Finest Hour by Stephen Ambrose

Currently Reading:
The Second World War by John Keegan
War with the Newts by some polish dude who's name i cant spell
A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
Rubicon by cant remember who
Howard Zinn's book. High school AP history does that.

[mhawk]

Lone survivor was an excellent read. Should probably be mandatory.

[Toga]

im prepaired to go on record as saying



"Meh"

[mhawk]

im prepaired to go on record as saying



"Meh"

Another excellent read.

[Toga]

to be fair im not a huge reader. I do like Andy McNabb books though, and Chris Ryan

[Melidan]

Lone survivor was an excellent read. Should probably be mandatory.

Agreed.. I'm about 3/4 of the way through. I love the way he continually pounds home the code of the SEALs and why we are fighting over there. Required reading indeed.

[Colonel Scorpion]

Tom Clancy
Ilkka Remes - pretty much the Finnish equilant of the above
Daniel Forsythe - read Afghan earlier this year
Mika Waltari - The Egyptian and the Roman Empire books highly recommended
Douglas Adams - besides his other work, the Hitchhiker "trilogy" is a must, despite probably being the most depressive books ever written if the plot itself is to be judged; you're more likely to die laughing your ass off, though
Albert Camus


There's a few I could think of...

[The Corporal]

...
Albert Camus...

The Stranger made me want to light myself on fire in the middle of class we were reading it in...

[darkdemon1]

* darkdemon1 doesn't know how to read............
XD
I read anything by Dan Brown and Stephen King
The Art of War
That's it for now XD
I haven't read anything in a while


Books to stay away from:
My Life - Bill Clinton
The Little Red Book - Mao Zedong
An Inconvenient Truth - Al Gore
Basically anything that has to do with Commies XD

[Melidan]

[action=darkdemon1]

Books to stay away from:
My Life - Bill Clinton
The Little Red Book - Mao Zedong
An Inconvenient Truth - Al Gore
Basically anything that has to do with Commies XD

:awesome:

[Duke of Cool]

Since graduating, I finally get to read what I want!!! I'm reading a book right now about the prisoners at Guantanamo. Read a book called The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Am also reading an autobiography of Alexander Hamilton. I started The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but lent it out. I have The Peloponnesian Wars on deck, and my pre-Opening Day ritual of reading Ball Four by Jim Bouton will trump everything!!

[Lincongrad]

Anyone who hasn't red High Fidelity should. I just finished it. It's amazing, hilarious, depressing, and above all SO DAMN TRUE!

[Aporime]

Candide is my personal favorite.

[Franklin]

:o 1984! Suuuuuuuuuuch a cool book, READ IT NOW!

[CptMcArthur]

Just finished "The Forgotten Solider" by Guy Sajer

[Great Lakes Union]

All I ever read is old legal rulings...:icon_sad:

[ClockworkOrange]

If you're into comic books/open minded I heartily reccomend Watchmen. Another okish read is The Kite Runner

[Isaac of Trek]

What I have:
the Source (again)
Mexico
poland
the sum of all fears
the book theif
the godfather

recently finished red alert

[Imperial]

Mel, you should add the Communist Manifesto. I'm reading it right now. I think they're drinking glasses of water but could be mistaken! :psyduck:

[Melidan]

Mel, you should add the Communist Manifesto. I'm reading it right now. I think they're drinking glasses of water but could be mistaken! :psyduck:

LMFAO! :D

This radio show I listen to everynight on Sirius the guy reads from the Communist Manifesto almost daily. He is always comparing it to the Democrat agenda, lol.. But yes, I do need to pick it up.. it sounds fascinating.

[The Corporal]

I forgot to mention that I finished Arc Light and it was friggin' awesome. I also polished off Farnham's Freehold, which more people should read even though the subject matter is pretty sensitive. I'm currently reading Slaughterhouse Five and not enjoying it at all like I did Arc Light or any other book I've read in the last 6 months....

[Melidan]

I forgot to mention that I finished Arc Light and it was friggin' awesome.

I'm currently reading Slaughterhouse Five and not enjoying it at all like I did Arc Light or any other book I've read in the last 6 months....

Lmao, told you dude! I love that book!

[Genghis]

I've just finished a series of novels that you Legion folk would like, Emperor by Conn Iggulden.

It's a set of 4 novels; Gates of Rome (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Emperor/Conn-Iggulden/e/9780385336604/?itm=2), Death of Kings (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Emperor/Conn-Iggulden/e/9780385336628/?itm=10), Field of Swords (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Emperor/Conn-Iggulden/e/9780440240969) and Gods of War (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Emperor/Conn-Iggulden/e/9780440241607). Great read about Julius Ceasar from when he is roughly 10 years old until...well you know how it ends.

It's fiction but with some historical fact thrown in so don't expect it to follow the history books exactly, but it is well written and made me laugh out loud and shed a tear once or twice.

Conn's next series is about Genghis Khan; I knew I liked him for a reason. :icon_biggrin:

[The Corporal]

Another good one for Legion sort of folk is the Videssos Cycle series by Harry Turtledove - The Misplaced Legion, Emperor for the Legion, The Legion of Videssos, and Swords of the Legion. It's about a Roman legion (well, three cohorts) and a Celtic guy who are magically transported to another world and their shenanigans there.