This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.
Rules:
Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please use the comment trees for genres. There is a meta thread for comments about future threads.
If you think there should be a thread for a particular genre of media, please post it to the Other Media thread for now, and add a poll to the Meta thread asking if it should be a thread every month.
Elantris and The Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson are both very entertaining. Moderately but not explicitly rationalist as the magic is systematic and the main plot revolves around investigation.
The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling.
Yes, I picked it up because it's by the Harry Potter lady; but it's hard to imagine how a book could be further away from Harry Potter. This is an ultra-realist novel for adults. By ultra-realist, I mean that not only are there no magical or science fictional elements. There aren't even any implausible elements or plot devices. (OK, maybe one involving some SQL injection, but it at least falls into the realm of the possible.) That is, this is a book about people who behave pretty much exactly like real people do; no heroes or villains here, though there are more and less likeable characters.
If Rowling's name were not on the cover, I doubt anyone would ever have suspected this book was by her. It really is that different. The language is different. The point of view is different (third person omniscient instead of Harry Potter's less common third person limited omniscient view). The novel is far more character driven than the plot-centric Harry Potter novels. There are no big reversals where you discover the good guy is the bad guy and the bad guy is the good guy. (This would be quite hard to pull off in third person omniscient, in any case.)
However, there is one thing that really stands out; and both connects this novel to Rowling, and distinguishes it from most other fiction including the Harry Potter novels. The children are equally well-drawn as characters, and equally important to the story as the adults. Although this is an adult novel, it is not one that makes the mistake of treating children as set dressing. The children here are real and significant. In LessWrong speak, everyone's a PC. There are no NPCs. Most adult novels ignore children. Most children's novels ignore adults. It is rare to find a novel that treats both children and adults as characters in their own right.
2David_Gerard
The entire Flashman series. I was pointed at it by a Hitchens piece. It's historical adventure fiction potboilers about the British Army in the Victorian age; pretty lightweight, but the author has gone to some pains to make it as historically accurate as possible, with footnotes. I'm moving house at present and it's a nice diversion between packing boxes, and an easy way to learn a bit of history.
This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.
Rules: