Recommend an author

BDBoop

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Jul 20, 2011
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Don't harsh my zen, Jen!
Even if they are from WAY the hell back in the day. For instance; Anne Rice. I've never read her works. Any fans? Dean Koontz? Stephen King? I've got a Kindle gift certificate, and I want to branch out from my usual fantasy fare.
 
240px-Victor_Hugo_circa_1880.jpg

Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo was devastated when his oldest and favorite daughter, Léopoldine, died at age 19 in 1843, shortly after her marriage. She drowned in the Seine at Villequier, pulled down by her heavy skirts, when a boat overturned. Her young husband Charles Vacquerie also died trying to save her. Victor Hugo was traveling with his mistress at the time in the south of France, and learned about Léopoldine's death from a newspaper as he sat in a cafe.[2] He describes his shock and grief in his poem À Villequier:

Hélas ! vers le passé tournant un oeil d'envie,
Sans que rien ici-bas puisse m'en consoler,
Je regarde toujours ce moment de ma vie
Où je l'ai vue ouvrir son aile et s'envoler !

Je verrai cet instant jusqu'à ce que je meure,
L'instant, pleurs superflus !
Où je criai : L'enfant que j'avais tout à l'heure,
Quoi donc ! je ne l'ai plus !

Alas! turning an envious eye towards the past,
unconsolable by anything on earth,
I keep looking at that moment of my life
when I saw her open her wings and fly away!

I will see that instant until I die,
that instant—too much for tears!
when I cried out: "The child that I had just now--
what! I don't have her any more!"

:clap2:

He wrote many poems afterwards about his daughter's life and death, and at least one biographer claims he never completely recovered from it. His most famous poem is probably Demain, dès l'aube, in which he describes visiting her grave.

Les Miserables made a huge impact upon my young mind. His poetry as well.
 
Even if they are from WAY the hell back in the day. For instance; Anne Rice. I've never read her works. Any fans? Dean Koontz? Stephen King? I've got a Kindle gift certificate, and I want to branch out from my usual fantasy fare.

You could do a lot worse than to check in to Harlan Ellison. He writes a lot of short stories, some of which are science fiction, some are creepy, some are downright funny as hell.

But, no matter what the vehicle he uses (fantasy, science fiction, real life, etc), all his writings have a unique perspective on the human condition.

If you can find it, I recommend "Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung Up Generation".

That was my first Harlan Ellison book, and it turned me into a rabid fan.
 
One author you can't get on kindle you should trot on down to the bookstore and buy anyway is Robert Graves. If you get nothing else, get I Claudius.
 
Herman Wouk
Winds of War
War and Remembrance

A back in the day author. These 2 books are not read in a day nor in a week. You want a taste of what the war in Europe was about and how it affected the people, these 2 books are a must read. I like thick books and the characters here become a part of your life from the very beginning.
 
The Communist Manifesto and Capital : a critique of political economy by Karl Marx
The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism by Max Weber
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life by Emile Durkheim
The Structure of Social Action by Talcott Parsons
Social Theory and Social Structure by Robert K. Merton
Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society by Ralf Dahrendorf
The Sociological Imagination by C. Wright Mills
The Polish peasant in Europe and America by William Isaac Thomas
Coming of age in Samoa by Margaret Mead
The Social Construction of Reality by Peter L. Berger
A Social History of Anthropology in the U.S. by Thomas C. Patterson
Myth and Meaning by Claude Lévi-Strauss
 
Even if they are from WAY the hell back in the day. For instance; Anne Rice. I've never read her works. Any fans? Dean Koontz? Stephen King? I've got a Kindle gift certificate, and I want to branch out from my usual fantasy fare.

Why People Believe Weird Things, by Michael Shermer. Helps explain the echo chamber. Can't be read in one sitting or fully grasped in one reading.

One of my favorite page turners is Shogun ,by James Clavell.
 
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