Books You Can't Shut Up About

[thesummerqueen]

Ever come across a book that you can't stop trying to hand over to your friends, or convincing them to buy, or listen to, or at least listen to you go on and on about it?

My most recent one is "The Night Circus".

On the recommendation of a handful of friends, and several book podcasters, I picked up the audiobook with a refreshed Audible membership, and now I'm listening to it for the second time.

This book is one of the most sensuous (and subtly sensual) and beautiful and fantastical books I've ever read. It grabs you by the feels in that child-like wonder sort of way, and seduces you with nostalgia, and it's horribly bitter and achingly sweet all at once.

The only way I can succinctly describe the feeling you get when you read it, and return to it, when explaining to people who've never cracked it open, is to ask if they've ever seen the original Willy Wonka movie. Gene Wilder opens the doors to the inner sanctum of the factory and says softly, "Close your eyes...make a wish...count to three."

This is the book you want to read on a sharply frosty night, with a cup of the finest cocoa, maybe drizzled with caramel to complement the many mentions of it throughout the story. But also, you want to hear it read out loud, because the narrator is brilliant. He left me shivering.

Anyone got one they want to plug?

[downbeatplumb]

Small World by Dominic Green. It was free on Kindle as well.

[thesummerqueen]

[snorts] is that all the vouching we get about it?

[abaris]

One would be "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote.

Another one would be a German satire called "Er ist wieder da" (He's here again). It's about Hitler rising from the grave in our day and age and making a career in the media business.

[vorlon13]

"The Changing World of Mormonism" is a fascinating look at just how TOTALLY fucked up old Joseph Smith's church started out and STAYED for almost 200 years.

The hierarchy knows it's a pile of shit too, and they've ALWAYS known.

[The Valkyrie]

Anything by Terry Pratchett.

[TheRealJoeFish]

The one I seem to be constantly telling people about and recommending to all of my friends and family is Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. Whenever someone talks about something "meta", or some new piece of literature/film comes out that incorporates sort of "nested storytelling" elements (such as the novel House of Leaves or the film The Grand Budapest Hotel), I always tell them that, if they enjoy that device, Pale Fire is the modern trope codifier.

(Of course, in the same vein is Don Quixote, which I read in college, and was probably the trope originator. It was fantastic. But Pale Fire's... well... shorter, for one...)

[Alex K]

Difficult since I usually assume that people around me don't have the same taste, and I read mostly nonfic. I often go on about aspects of Stanislav Lems Solaris.

[thesummerqueen]

I usually assume that people around me don't have the same taste

People don't have to like the same books you do. I'm always willing to try something if someone makes a good argument for it, even if it's out of my normal genre style.

[Alex K]

Well, in that case the arguments are the following - unique atmosphere which is created from the setting: four people on a space station floating on top of a vast sentient ocean. There are two different kinds of day, red day and blue say, from the double star system. Furthermore, we learn about the decades long history of mankind trying to comprehend the incomprehensible depths of a mind so vast and different from ours that one is forced to wonder - what would understanding it even mean. Plus, a cool organic ocean which has thoughts which manifest as weird mile high shapes. Anyways... Not to spoil more