$90 for books, recommend me something good!

Well, in my family and circle of friends I'm known for my love of reading. So this Christmas it seems everyone has decided to get me gift certificates for book stores (I don't know if that's a sign of knowing me well or just being lazy on their part). $90 is a lot of spending case for books and I really can't think of more than 2-3 books that I really want to read right now. So I'm turning to the TWC to see what they recommend. My primary love is historical fiction, but I will read anything with a great story or a well structured narrative (if we are talking strictly historical non-fiction). So what are peoples recommendations?

The Picture of Dorian Gray .

For historical fiction, Memoirs of Hadrian?

Fiction
Catch-22
Lord of the Rings series
I Am Legend
Godfather/Any other Puzo books
Rigante series
Any Dickens

History
Anything by Goldsworthy
Anything by Keegan

Historical Fiction
Emperor series
Boudicca series
Troy series

Originally Posted by Shyam Popat

Fiction
Catch-22
Lord of the Rings series
I Am Legend
Godfather/Any other Puzo books
Rigante series
Any Dickens

History
Anything by Goldsworthy
Anything by Keegan

Historical Fiction
Emperor series
Boudicca series
Troy series

We have a similar taste in books. You pretty much recommended all the books I would recommend to someone. What did you think of the Boudicca series? I found that it started out decent enough but got itself caught up in the mystical far too much in the later books.

EDIT: Unrelated to the above, has anyone read "The Upside of Down" by Thomas Homer-Dixon? Someone mentioned it to me a couple of months ago but I never really looked into all that much. It seems to be a fairly popular book with glowing reviews.

Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

hmm historical fiction -- Christoph Ransmayr - The Dog King, 1997, translated by John E. Woods, ISBN 0-679-76860-2

(It's the end of WWII and the Allies are in an unforgiving mood -- dystopic romp through a world in which the western allies are vengeful at the end of WWII.)

Otherwise -- go medieval -

Read -- Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, Nibelungenlied, Njal's Saga, Egil's Saga, Laxdaela Saga -- etc.

(p.s. Hadrian's Memoirs is an excellent recommendation.)

Historical fiction:

"Gates of Fire" by Steven Pressfield (about the battle of Thermopolae)

History:

"Mysteries of the Middle Ages" by Thomas Cahill
"How the Irish Saved Civilization" by Thomas Cahill
"1066: Year of Conquest" by David Howarth
"Waterloo" by David Howarth
"The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman

Actually, if you like a good narrative history, you will not be disappointed by anything from these three authors. Howarth, in particular is a delight to read...especially "1066".

...also, I have to recommend "Skeletons on the Zahara" by Dean King. This book is brilliantly written and the story is wonderful. It is the true story of a merchant ship from Middletown, Connecticut that gets shipwrecked off the coast of the Canary Islands in 1814. You will not be able to put it down.

Have you read Collen McCullough's Masters of Rome series?, fantastic books!! that are historically accurate to boot.

Mr. Goat, disregard everything everyone here is saying and pick up a copy of World War Z by Max Brooks.

Originally Posted by Juno

Mr. Goat, disregard everything everyone here is saying and pick up a copy of World War Z by Max Brooks.

Seconded. But pick up the audio book version with it, because Alan Alda does one of the voices, and Alan Alda is God.

WWI, WWII (they are two books) - John Keegan

Face of War - John Keegan (master piece)

The Spanish Civil War - Antony Beevor

Berlin, the Downfall 1945 - Antony Beevor

Stalingrad - Antony Beevor

Anything Goldsworthy.

A book about Charles I?

Originally Posted by King Edward III

A book about Charles I?

I've been looking and looking and have yet to find anything that looks half decent on the Stuarts.

Ireland, A novel is a good historyish book. Read up some reviews on amazon if it sounds interesting, I don't have time to summarize it now

Nothing by Tuchman or Cahill -- I don't know the other guy -- but those authors are to history as a Sponge Bob coloring book is to DaVinci -- sure they're both art -- and in a way Tuchmann and Cahill write history, the same way SpongeBob is art.

Originally Posted by Oswald von Wolkenstein

Nothing by Tuchman or Cahill -- I don't know the other guy -- but those authors are to history as a Sponge Bob coloring book is to DaVinci -- sure they're both art -- and in a way Tuchmann and Cahill write history, the same way SpongeBob is art.

Well, if you like a dry history textbook, you probably will not enjoy them. I recommended books that were in line with what DG was asking for. Your Sponge Bob comparison is hardly fair. If you are going to bash authors at least say something of substance, rather than using some arbitrary analogy that didn't really make a whole lot of sense anyway.

By the way, Barbara Tuchman did win a Pulitzer for "The Guns of August," so there are at least some people who disagree with you.

harry potter ...............nuff said

*laughing my ass off*

harry potter is gay

Originally Posted by kura_mi_qnko

harry potter is gay

Harry's not. But the head wizard (forgot his name) is.

Edit: Or you mean the books which are crap.

They are crap to me... You are right.