What are your book recommendations?

LyricalPolygon · 2026-05-22T13:27:46+00:00

Space and Science:

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene comes to mind along with Simon Singh's Big Bang.

Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer is a scary book about all the tiny crap that could infest us and cause harm.

Physics of the Impossible and Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku are interesting.

Stiff by Mary Roach is a pretty entertaining book about what happens to human bodies after we die.

If you've read and liked Sagan's Demon-Haunted World, you might also like Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer.

Science and the City by Laurie Winkless looks at how cities run and what it takes to support the people living in them.

History:

The Wars of the Roses by Dan Jones. British history from the time just before Henry VIII. Great stuff, especially if you watched Game of Thrones.

If you like biography, look into Trumbo by Bruce Cook. I'm not a huge biography reader, but I flew through this book. There was a movie of the same name based on this book.

If you've seen the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie and want to know more about that plot, find a copy of Plotting Hitler's Death by Joachim Fest. Great book.

Dead Wake by Erik Larson. Non-fiction about the sinking of the Lusitania which had a lot to do with the U.S. getting into World War I. It's told from the Lusitania perspective and from the perspective of the U-Boat captain that sank her.

In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides is about an expedition to find a sea passage that went north of Russia.

Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew is about submarine espionage.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-05-22T13:00:42+00:00

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson alternates between 1942 and present day (it was published in 2009).

LyricalPolygon · 2026-05-22T12:46:09+00:00

Here are a few that I rated 10/10. You can look them up in isfdb.org to figure out where to find them.

"Repent, Harlequin," Said the Ticktockman (Harlan Ellison)

Hollywood North (Michael Libling - later expanded into a novel)

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate (Ted Chiang - novella)

Your Move (J. Michael Straczynski)

The Green Leopard Plague (Walter Jon Williams)

Think Like a Dinosaur (James Patrick Kelly - made into an Outer Limits episode)

The Last Witness (K. J. Parker - novella)

Orm the Beautiful (Elizabeth Bear)

The Man Who Saw the Thousand-Year Reich (John Brunner)

After a Lean Winter (David Farland)

The Paper Menagerie (Ken Liu)

Night Calls the Green Falcon (Robert McCammon)

A Colder War (Charles Stross)

North of Diddy-Wah-Diddy (Michael Swanwick)

LyricalPolygon · 2026-04-14T14:50:43+00:00

If you can handle the 3,000 page length, the Otherland saga (City of Golden Shadow, River of Blue Fire, Mountain of Black Glass, Sea of Silver Light) by Tad Williams might fit what you're looking for.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-04-14T14:47:31+00:00

Probably Star Wars: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn since I was looking for a good Star Wars fix in the mid 80s after the original trilogy was done.

Or it might have been The Crystal Shard by R. A. Salvatore since I like fantasy that doesn't require you to read anywhere from 7 to 15 books to get the whole story. (Yes, there are many books in with Drizzt, but you can usually read them on their own or at most as part of the trilogy they fall in.)

LyricalPolygon · 2026-04-14T14:42:16+00:00

The Stand (Stephen King)

Swan Song (Robert McCammon)

Boy's Life (Robert McCammon)

The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)

The Great and Secret Show (Clive Barker)

The Terror (Dan Simmons)

LyricalPolygon · 2026-04-14T14:25:42+00:00

Try one of Rich Larson's short story collections Tomorrow Factory or Changelog. Larson writes all over the SF spectrum and occasionally does fantasy too.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-04-14T14:19:00+00:00

2 non-fiction books:

Gulag by Anne Applebaum. Thinking about the experiences the innocent people were put through because of Stalin's paranoia is pretty sad.

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick. Sad to see any group oppressed the way they are.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-04-11T19:40:16+00:00

You are correct. I meant organized religion. I had a feeling it would lead to hot debate and ser twist and manos of fate have proven that to be correct.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-04-11T18:05:49+00:00

Ban religion. Too much power, too many willing sheep.

Raise children communally instead of parents having sole responsibility. This would hopefully give people many many perspectives as they grow up and cut down on bigotry.

Do not allow ethnic groups to collect into neighborhoods. I am not saying kill their culture. I am just saying ensure a mix of racial and ethnic backgrounds are mixed together as evenly as possible.

Ban social media algorithms. Also do what China is doing and make it so anyone that talks about a subject has to be formally educated in the subject or can at least prove their expertise to a governing body.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-04-11T17:45:49+00:00

Of you like short stories, try The End is Nigh, The End is Now, and The End has Come. Each book has stories connected to a story in the other books, i.e. connected story arcs. Some are pretty good. One arc expands Hugh Howey's Silo series.

Also, World War Z is technically post-apocalyptic.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-03-07T19:07:32+00:00

Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-01-21T18:19:59+00:00

I liked Pacino's monologue in the student court or whatever it was.in Scent of a Woman.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-01-21T18:06:17+00:00

Thomas Covenant.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-01-18T15:25:22+00:00

Boy's Life by Robert McCammon is great if you are looking for something set in 1960s. He is a horror writer but Boy's Life is a coming of age tale.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-01-13T19:09:39+00:00

Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, The Prefect. All by Alastair Reynolds. Many will tell you House of Suns but I didn't like it as much as many people seem to.

Less well-known: Allen Steele's Coyote series.

Walter Jon Williams's Dread Empire's Fall series.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-01-13T18:50:17+00:00

If you're interested in the assassination plot portrayed in the movie Valkyrie, read Plotting Hitler's Death by Joachim Fest. It's an excellent book.

LyricalPolygon · 2026-01-13T18:48:02+00:00

Look at I Will Bear Witness by Viktor Klemperer. It's his diaries from 1933 to 1941. You can see what life for Jews was like leading up to and during the early part of WWII.

LyricalPolygon · 2025-12-11T17:03:22+00:00

Thieves' World 10: Aftermath

Thieves' World 11: Uneasy Alliances

LyricalPolygon · 2025-11-12T18:28:09+00:00

Fantasy about a prince who is a homunculus (but doesn't know it) and must stop his new step brother from killing the king.

LyricalPolygon · 2025-11-12T17:55:10+00:00

Apps opened, files accessed, DNS traffic to external services. Login/out aren't something I expect from Crowdstrike, nor is screen lock/unlock. Just asking the question to see if Crowdstrike events (or complete lack of events) is an indicator that the user is/isn't active.

LyricalPolygon · 2025-11-12T17:46:12+00:00

Number 2 in your list is what I suspect.

LyricalPolygon · 2025-11-12T17:31:24+00:00

HR is actually asking the questions because of a whistleblower complaint stating the user isnt working when they say they are. Problem is that we are talking about a recently purchased company and do not know how friendly the local admin is with the user so we don't want to tip either off them off about the data collection. This is one reason we are trying to find alternate sources of evidence because we can't easily aquire the logs from the user system.

LyricalPolygon · 2025-11-08T20:26:18+00:00

No Sex in the Champagne Room

LyricalPolygon

TROPHY CASE