Book suggestion thread

I've not heard of Guy Gavrial Kay but Ecco is fantastic. What of Kay do you suggest?

I can't suggest the Name of the Rose enough. To me this is the perfect murder mystery. Of course this site has Atheism as its inspiration but I still find the rituals and the twisty thoughts of the sort that attached mystical importance to actions, gems, days, dates numbers etc... to be an incredible human achievement and a work of creativity. Then for an analytical mind, Ecco, to recreate this world, a paradigm lost, and set a story in the time when Aristotelian thinking began to creep back into Europe was a beautiful idea. Ecco does this while maintaining a respect for creative superstition. I'll always be grateful for this book. Those glasses... what an amazing choice for Ecco to use these glasses. I'm lucky to have not yet needed glasses. But, I've seen how careful people can be with them. These are the tools one needs to be able to see the world clearly, to work properly, to have a better idea if danger is headed your way. But this monk with the glasses has this tool and it is practically unheard of in Europe in those days. Optics?... all but a few still thought you saw because light emanated from the eyes. How could he replace these glasses if they broke? So, this scientific monk is among other monks, in a dark place full of folk who are quietly reading and writing all day. He has this tool of enlightened science in his pocket while these monks, most of them mediocre and can't think outside doctrine, and he must protect these fragile bits of glass just as he must protect the library and the rare knowledge there, just as he tries to protect the life of those living in the monastery and just as an Inquisitor is headed in their direction to focus all that is bigoted, blind and hateful in the Church at the small bit of free thought the monastery is home to. Great freakin story.

Then for the same man to bring Foucault’s Pendulum into the world... You know, when I see someone reading the DaVinci Code I always tell them to tear it up, piss on it and throw it into a gutter. I know they won't do it. This thing is like book-crack. You know its bad for you, you stop caring about food or sleep and you can't put the damn pipe down. It turns you into a dribbling caricature of a human being. After reading that book people walk away amazed at all they learned, "Wow, you mean, like the Holy Grail may not be a cup? You know, I thought Jesus was like a Ken doll or something but the DaVinci Code says he might have had a baby". Anyway, I always tell people to throw that thing out and get Foucault’s Pendulum. This is a great book about conspiracies centered on the Templars, the Masons etc... and the way the story spirals back onto the main characters is incredibly clever.

I tried reading Baudolino and loved it for a while but then I lost track of it in the last third of the novel. I literally lost the story, and the book. I suspect it was a subconscious act. This is very strange for me to do something like this and I've not yet understood why it happened but I would suggest the book as far as I got.

As you can tell I agree with the Ecco suggestion. I would add "On a winters night a traveler" by Italo Calvino only because reading up on Ecco brought Calvino to my attention and this is another very good read. Very clever thesis to this novel about the search for a story that turns out to be like an onion. You begin to read this novel and it is about you buying the novel. As you turn the pages (think also of stripping off layers of an onion) and the novel begins again as a different story. Also like an onion, as more layers of the stories are stripped, the closer you come to the core, the less you can possibly use.

Many Miles, Many Shoes
BoNo

I've only read Foucault's Pendulum, which is definitely one of the best I've ever read. The Name of the Rose is on my shelf, but I haven't read it yet - I intend to read it soon, but when I intend to read a book soon, it means there's a 1 in 3 chance I'll read it in the next 12 months.