Books!

[Noodles]

Do you know Jasper Fforde's books? I really enjoyed the "Thursday Next"-series, the protagonist works for jurisfiction, a police unit ensuring the smooth run of reading, because books can be altered by persons entering them. It plays in an alternate London. The books are full of literary hints and I laughed quite a few times reading them. His "Nursery Crime"-books are fun too, about a detective trying to solve the murders of nursery rhyme protagonists.

Ooh, yes, these are really good and funny. THere's also The Last Dragonslayer which is ... fantasy, I guess? and hard to categorise. It's about a hedge-wizard who's been drafted as a dragonslayer and Stuff Happens.

[ParanormalAndroid]

Ooh, while we're on fantasy I'd also like to recommend The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, it's a beautiful little tale/metaphor about life and memory.
*blithers*

[Mélusine]

Ooh, while we're on fantasy I'd also like to recommend The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, it's a beautiful little tale/metaphor about life and memory.
*blithers*

The name remembers me something... ah. Never let me go.

[Silent Fox]

Do any of you know of any Scandinavian travel books (since we're all obsessed with "the north" here)? I'll take any Nordic country, but I'd like something written either by someone passing through (a la Paul Theroux) or the daily life of someone who lives there (a la Frances Mayes). Something in that vein? All I can find on the internet are old books that are surely out-of-print or tourist guidebooks. GAH!

Behold! I can partially answer my own question! Browsing through Barnes and Noble online for eons I have come upon:
The Fellowship of Ghosts by Paul Watkins- in my hands right now, really good so far.
Riding With Reindeer by Robert M. Goldstein- A very fun read! Definitely recommended. *_*
I also remember there being a few more, but they were all only Nook (e-reader) books.

[Sunflower]

This IS "an old book surely out of print," but may I suggest "Letters from Iceland" (1937) by W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_from_Iceland

It's in somewhat disjointed sections of prose and verse, so you can dip into it wherever you like. 
Auden loved geography, so of course he loved Iceland (except maybe the food). 

A poem from the book:

Journey To Iceland
by W. H. Auden

Each traveller prays Let me be far from any
physician, every port has its name for the sea,
the citiless, the corroding, the sorrow,
and North means to all Reject.

These plains are for ever where cold creatures are hunted
and on all sides: white wings flicker and flaunt;
under a scolding flag the lover
of islands may see at last,

in outline, his limited hope, as he nears a glitter
of glacier, sterile immature mountains intense
in the abnormal northern day, and a river's
fan-like polyp of sand.

Here let the citizen, then, find natural marvels,
a horse-shoe ravine, an issue of steam from a cleft
in the rock, and rocks, and waterfalls brushing
the rocks, and among the rock birds;

the student of prose and conduct places to visit,
the site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag,
the bath of a great historian, the fort where
an outlaw dreaded the dark,

remember the doomed man thrown by his horse and crying
Beautiful is the hillside. I will not go,
the old woman confessing He that I loved the
best, to him I was worst.

Europe is absent: this is an island and should be
a refuge, where the affections of its dead can be bought
by those whose dreams accuse them of being
spitefully alive, and the pale

from too much passion of kissing feel pure in its deserts.
But is it, can they, as the world is and can lie?
A narrow bridge over a torrent,
a small farn under a crag

are natural Settings for the jealousies of a province:
a weak vow of fidelity is made at a cairn,
within the indigenous figure on horseback
on the bridle-path down by the lake

his blood moves also by furtive and crooked inches,
asks all our questions: Where is the homage? When
shall justice be done? Who is against me?
Why am I always alone?

Out time has no favourite suburb, no local features
are those of the young for whom all wish to care;
its promise is only a promise, the fabulous
country impartially far.

Tears fall in all the rivers: again some driver
pulls on his gloves and in a blinding snowstorm starts 
upon a fatal journey, again some writer
runs howling to his art.

[Silent Fox]

This IS "an old book surely out of print," but may I suggest "Letters from Iceland" (1937) by W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_from_Iceland

It's in somewhat disjointed sections of prose and verse, so you can dip into it wherever you like. 
Auden loved geography, so of course he loved Iceland (except maybe the food). 

A poem from the book:

Journey To Iceland
by W. H. Auden

Each traveller prays Let me be far from any
physician, every port has its name for the sea,
the citiless, the corroding, the sorrow,
and North means to all Reject.

These plains are for ever where cold creatures are hunted
and on all sides: white wings flicker and flaunt;
under a scolding flag the lover
of islands may see at last,

in outline, his limited hope, as he nears a glitter
of glacier, sterile immature mountains intense
in the abnormal northern day, and a river's
fan-like polyp of sand.

Here let the citizen, then, find natural marvels,
a horse-shoe ravine, an issue of steam from a cleft
in the rock, and rocks, and waterfalls brushing
the rocks, and among the rock birds;

the student of prose and conduct places to visit,
the site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag,
the bath of a great historian, the fort where
an outlaw dreaded the dark,

remember the doomed man thrown by his horse and crying
Beautiful is the hillside. I will not go,
the old woman confessing He that I loved the
best, to him I was worst.

Europe is absent: this is an island and should be
a refuge, where the affections of its dead can be bought
by those whose dreams accuse them of being
spitefully alive, and the pale

from too much passion of kissing feel pure in its deserts.
But is it, can they, as the world is and can lie?
A narrow bridge over a torrent,
a small farn under a crag

are natural Settings for the jealousies of a province:
a weak vow of fidelity is made at a cairn,
within the indigenous figure on horseback
on the bridle-path down by the lake

his blood moves also by furtive and crooked inches,
asks all our questions: Where is the homage? When
shall justice be done? Who is against me?
Why am I always alone?

Out time has no favourite suburb, no local features
are those of the young for whom all wish to care;
its promise is only a promise, the fabulous
country impartially far.

Tears fall in all the rivers: again some driver
pulls on his gloves and in a blinding snowstorm starts 
upon a fatal journey, again some writer
runs howling to his art.

Ugh, that is so good! Thank you; I shall keep it in mind.

[Laufey]

Oooh! This poem is amazing, and I love how it references Icelandic history:

the student of prose and conduct places to visit,
the site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag,
the bath of a great historian, the fort where
an outlaw dreaded the dark,

The bishop probably refers to Jón Árason.
Bath of a great historian = Snorralaug, the natural spring Snorri Sturluson had fashioned into a bath for himself. Snorri is known for f.ex. writing down Edda and loads more of Icelandic history.
Outlaw who dreaded the dark: Grettir Ásmundarson.

remember the doomed man thrown by his horse and crying
Beautiful is the hillside. I will not go,
the old woman confessing He that I loved the
best, to him I was worst.

The first two lines refer to Gunnar af Hlíðarendi who knew he'd die if he stayed in Iceland. Yet when his horse threw him down and he saw his home far behind he couldn't go.
The second person is Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir, who gave this answer to her son when he asked which one of her men (she was 4 times married) she had loved the most. The trick is that the man she treated the worst was none of them.

[Sunflower]

Oooh! This poem is amazing, and I love how it references Icelandic history:

The bishop probably refers to Jón Árason.
Bath of a great historian = Snorralaug, the natural spring Snorri Sturluson had fashioned into a bath for himself. Snorri is known for f.ex. writing down Edda and loads more of Icelandic history.
Outlaw who dreaded the dark: Grettir Ásmundarson.

The first two lines refer to Gunnar af Hlíðarendi who knew he'd die if he stayed in Iceland. Yet when his horse threw him down and he saw his home far behind he couldn't go.
The second person is Guðrún Ósvífursdóttir, who gave this answer to her son when he asked which one of her men (she was 4 times married) she had loved the most. The trick is that the man she treated the worst was none of them.

I am thrilled to learn this!  I took a course in Auden (and some other 20th C. poets, but mostly Auden) in college <namedrop> from Joseph Brodsky, the Russian emigre poet and essayist who later became U.S. Poet Laureate and won the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Back in the late '80s he was just a shabby-looking guy who smoked a lot, and I was the youngest and by far least qualified student in his seminar. </namedrop> From him, I picked up a real appreciation for Auden... in part because Auden liked history so much.

[DiscoMonster]

For all who, like me, are still sad about Ian (M.) Banks passing way earlier than I'd hoped he would: I'm reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

That's a great book. If you like Banks, then I think you might enjoy Hannu Rajaniemi's books. He's Finn based in Edinburgh and his stories are astonishing. A bit like the Leckie book and lots of Banks' work in that the tech is wonderful and the characters not always aware of their true purpose or real past(s), not to mention all the personal and political intrigue and detective work. It's also a bit like Minna's work in that he throws in Finnish names and words as well as words from other languages to tell stories within stories and name objects that would otherwise require whole sentences in English. Start with The Quantum Thief.

[Tap10lan]

That's a great book. If you like Banks, then I think you might enjoy Hannu Rajaniemi's books. He's Finn based in Edinburgh and his stories are astonishing. A bit like the Leckie book and lots of Banks' work in that the tech is wonderful and the characters not always aware of their true purpose or real past(s), not to mention all the personal and political intrigue and detective work. It's also a bit like Minna's work in that he throws in Finnish names and words as well as words from other languages to tell stories within stories and name objects that would otherwise require whole sentences in English. Start with The Quantum Thief.

Thanks! That's a great recommendation - and since I'll be on vacation soon, I was beginning to ponder what to bring (I have a bunch of classics I mean to read, but "I WANT CANDY!" .

[DiscoMonster]

Thanks! That's a great recommendation - and since I'll be on vacation soon, I was beginning to ponder what to bring (I have a bunch of classics I mean to read, but "I WANT CANDY!" .

It's candy! It drops you in the story and tech, so it's a bit bewildering at times but then the penny drops and you're in his world.

[Tap10lan]

It's candy! It drops you in the story and tech, so it's a bit bewildering at times but then the penny drops and you're in his world.

W000t! OK, checking best way to get my paws on this ASAP! NOW!

[Den som er skjult]

From page 355 of Stand Still Stay Silent:

All this about cats and especially cats belonging to a military crew made me think to an author I love since the seventies: Cordwainer Smith.
I wonder if Minna has read something by this author.

http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/
There is a short story (The Game of Rat and Dragon) in which telepathic cats are used to fight space monsters they see as huge rats while humans see them as dragons:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29614/29614-h/29614-h.htm

There is also a character named C'Mell (C because she not a human woman but a cat girl). Better read Cordwainer Smith than read my description which would be poor and inaccurate.

The series of short stories is known under the name: The Lords of Instrumentality (I read it in French for the first time back in the previous century, Les Seigneurs de l'Instrumentalité).

[Hrollo]

Hey, so, you people of reading of books, I have a request.

My next project is going to be a fantasy story… except I haven't read any fantasy since high school, and nothing really recent.


So could you recommend to me some relatively recent, well written high fantasy/epic fantasy/heroic fantasy with a rather bright/optimistic/idealistic outlook? Basically I'm looking for the stark opposite of Game of Thrones... the setting itself doesn't really matter.

Thank you in advance.

[Mélusine]

My next project is going to be a fantasy story… except I haven't read any fantasy since high school, and nothing really recent.

What were you reading in fantasy in high school ? I'm difficult in fantasy now but I can try to find something