I have been struggling to find something captivating to read. I'm in need of something amazing.
I hear The Old Testament is thrilling. Lot's of conquest, gore, violence, genocide, romance, sex, rape, incest, adulteries, scandals, plagues, murder mysteries, magical sorcerers, talking donkeys, talking snakes, and much more authored by an all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful god. They say it's a nail biter and a number one best-seller.
Lot's of great bookd.
East of Eden
Shogun
The Razor's Edge
The Persian Boy
Les Miserable
The Unincorporated Man
Bicentineal Man
Crime and Punishment
A Tale of Two Cities
Lost Horizen
Moby Dick
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
I often go lookign for best book lists and lists of classics. I especially liked lists of 'banned books". You can fidn all kinds of recommendations on the internet.
capone [ biography] stunning stuff . the real story behind america's woes
@MustardSeed
He has become one of my favorite authors. I also listened to The Water Knife, The Drowned Cities, and Ship Breaker.
I've recommended this book a couple times on this site but I enjoyed it that much and it relates to the site ethos I guess.
The God virus
I'm currently reading "missing microbes" can follow me I always post what I read.
Have you ever read, "The Case for Peter Cottontail?"
If you enjoy speculative fiction/Sci-Fi, anything by Octavia Butler. She was an incredible word-smith.
If you haven't yet read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, it's definitely worthwhile. Imagine that all of the gods of all religions were actually real, and their power was dependent on how many believers they had. The main protagonist is a human who ends up getting a job as chauffeur, bodyguard, gofer, and XO to Odin, who manifests on earth as a disheveled older middle aged guy.
Neal Stephenson's novel Reamde is also outstanding. It's a complex story involving video games, "gold farmers," terrorists, the Russian mafia, online laundering, MI6 SIS, and just about everything else you can think of.
If you like humor, social satire, and profound philosophy that is thinly disguised as fantasy, the entire Discworld series, by Sir Terry Pratchett is brilliant.
If you prefer non-fiction Pop-Sci., I'll second someone else's recommendation of The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene," and especially "The Extended Phenotype," and any of the collections of columns from Natural History by Steven Jay Gould (many of which are rather dated now, but still rewarding reading), and Daniel Dennett's 1995 book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea."
If you really want to stretch your brain, David L. Hull's (1988) "Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science" and Douglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" are books that require you to keep a notebook handy while you read.
If you can tell me a few books that you've read in the past and enjoyed, I can recommend some similar ones.
"Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan. And then the rest of his books. They're all amazing.
There are so many! I'm a horror/fantasy/sci fi nerd so fair warning, but here are a couple of my go-to books..
Anything by Thomas Harris. He makes me completely uncomfortable and I like exploring that.
For fun, anything by Terry Pratchett or Robert Asprin.
Illusion by Paula Volsky - think french revolution meets sci fi.
The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elisabeth Moon
To read to my kid: The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall or The Last Unicorn, Peter S Beagle
Swan Song by Robert McCammon and Cold Comfort by Dan Simmons...