The Book I Buy for Others

[kitsunealyc]

I know a few people who have a book like this, the book that they buy and give to others. It's the book that is so amazing, that you think has so much to recommend it to *anyone* who reads it, that you'll put your money on the table, betting for the book's cross-audience appeal

Comments

[drydem]

Mine is Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins(though I've given away Still Life With Woodpecker in a pinch). Jitterbug Perfume is my book.

[kitsunealyc]

I'm not terribly familiar with this one, but from the little I know about it, I'm not surprised *at all*! But I'm curious for your reasons as to why this book?

[drydem]

Jitterbug Perfume is a philosophical text masquerading as a novel. It's both fun and philosophical.

[moonandserpent]

Doesn't that describe most of Robbins' work?

<--sucker for another Roadside Attraction.

[anonymous]

I don't have one of those books.

I just have books that only I have read which I keep trying to get other people to read so I'll have someone to talk to about it and be excited about it with.

Still haven't gotten anyone to read any of those.

Mine is a lonely life full of sadness, and conversation with myself about books only I've read. *sniff sniff* Oh the humanity.

Tony

[kitsunealyc]

Well, list a few here, you doof! The only one that springs to mind that might be on this list is World War Z, and maybe the Hyperion books (which are on my list!). If you list them, maybe someone here will read them, and then you won't be lonely.

Of course, I sympathize with your pain. You're the only person on this planet who I think truly understands my desire to write HK-47/GLaDOS True Romance-style blind-date fanfic.

Man, the killing sprees! The violence! The robotic crazy! The cake-seeking meatbags will know pain in the name of science! Was there ever a more perfect crossover pairing?

[anonymous]

Mostly yeah, World War Z, the Hyperion Cantos, and another Dan Simmons series that doesn't have a convenient name like the Hyperion books do, Ilium and Olympos. Ilium and Olympos are really just one long book split into two books.

And just to peak your interest about them, once I finished them they gave me an idea for a Changeling character which, had I known general themes about the Changeling game before it started, and I had I read these books before then (although I don't think they were published yet) I would have played this character instead of Saadiq as it would have fit perfectly with a lot of the overall story of the Changeling game.

Tony

[moonandserpent]

Dude, the Hyperion Cantos is awesome.

[moonandserpent]

When I was younger, that book was Steve Purcell's Sam & Max: Surfing the Highway.

In college it was Kyle Baker's Why I Hate Saturn or Adams' Watership Down or Grant Morrison's first volume of the Invisibles.

Currently, it's Bruce Sterling's Shaping Things if the person in question has any interest in making things, the internet, or material culture.

I still burn through copies of Watership Down at the drop of a hat, so that might be the overall winner.

[d_c_m]

"Sunshine" by Robin McKinley. Flat out that's it. I've bought tons of copies of that. Best vampire book Evar!! So good. :)

Hey how have you been? :)

[dillochan]

I've given that book away, too!

Not sure it's the best EVAR, though. I've been enjoying the Vampire Huntress books a great deal. (One Foot in the Grave, halfway to the Grave, and At Grave's End)

[d_c_m]

Hmm.... I shall give those books a try. :)

[dillochan]

I tend to give away the graphic novel 'Crecy' by Warren Ellis. It's well written, well researched, and a damn fine story all around.