Books
What follows is a selection of the books I have read that I
recommend others to read. The purpose of this could for instance be
that if you have read some of these books and enjoyed them, there is a
chance that your tastes are similar to mine, and that would mean that
you would probably enjoy some of the other books from this list.
In each category I have sorted the authors from the outstanding
down to the very good. Similarly, for each author I have sorted the
titles from the excellent down to the extremely readable. Links among
the book titles refer to places where the actual content of a book can
be found on-line.
Science fiction:
Vernor Vinge: Across Realtime, A Fire Upon The
Deep, A Deepness In The Sky, True Names.
Greg Egan: Axiomatic, Permutation City, Diaspora, Distress.
Iain M. Banks: Excession, Look to Windward, Consider Phlebas.
James P. Hogan: Code of the Lifemaker, The Immortality
Option.
Greg Bear: Blood Music, Queen of Angels, Forge of God.
Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash.
Marc Stiegler: The Gentle Seduction.
David Brin: The Uplift War with sequels, Otherness.
Carl Sagan: Contact.
John McLoughlin: Toolmaker Koan.
Douglas Adams: The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy with
sequels, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency with sequel.
Robert L. Forward: Dragon's Egg, Rocheworld, Camelot 30K.
Larry Niven: Integral Trees, The Smoke Ring, The Mote in
God's Eye.
Fantasy:
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings.
Terry Pratchett: Interesting Times.
Piers Anthony: On a Pale Horse, Bearing an
Hourglass.
Non-fiction:
Douglas R. Hofstadter: "Gödel, Escher, Bach".
K. Eric Drexler: Engines of Creation.
Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker.
Ed Regis: Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition.
Of course, there is also a list of books that I haven't read,
but intend to, and this list
probably contains some good stuff as well. I keep my list
at Amazon.com for convenience: Here.
If you found this list useful and agree with me on many of my
choices, please send me an email
with your favourite authors and books. If I can find just one
more author that is worth reading, I will be grateful.
 Obligatory
quote:
(Achilles has just explained to
Tortoise what a haiku is.)
Tortoise: Such compressed poems with
seventeen syllables can't have much
meaning . . .
Achilles: Meaning lies
as much in the mind of the reader as in the
haiku.
- Douglas R. Hofstadter: Gödel, Escher, Bach
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