Obligatory wiki links: Dystopian Literature. Although, some of the titles listed don't seem to fit (The Dispossessed?). Nuclear holocaust fiction, and your general apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction.

Some of the better/more popular ones:

• Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang Kate Wilhelm.
  
  
• Eternity Road Jack McDevitt. Well written, but not very insightful.
  
  
• The Postman David Brin.
  
  
• Mockingbird Walter Tevis. Great read. Think Idiocracy, with a serious take. Humanity's totally run by robots, everyone's forgotten how to read and think for themselves, and the world population's dropped to almost nothing.
  
  
• We Yevgeny Zamyatin. The inspiration for George Orwell's 1984. Not the best read IMO, but some people claim it's better than 1984. It's possible I read a poor translation.
  
  
• Island Aldous Huxley. It's a utopian island surrounded by a dystopian world. Might not fit in this list, but it's a good read if you like Huxley. I think it was his last novel.
  
  
• 1984 George Orwell. One of my favorite novels. I have a bumper sticker with the quote "War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery", which is a slogan from the book. (Also, a sticker on my mirror with "Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me"). The link points to Animal Farm and 1984.
  
  
• Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury. Another must read. Very well written, thought-provoking novel. Is it still required reading in schools?
  
  
• Earth Abides George Stewart.
  
  
• Alas, Babylon Pat Frank. Lucifer's Hammer Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle. I'm grouping these two together because they're very similar, both in setting and politics. I didn't really enjoy either. The politics were not at all subtle, and the characters fit too neatly into stereotypes, and too obviously the writer's hero fantasy. Still, they're pretty popular, so try them out and feel free to disagree with me.
  
  
• Brave New World Aldous Huxley. Really just a utopia that's rough around the edges, if I'm remembering it correctly (also called an anti-utopia, thank you wikipedia). Another must read.
  
  
• A Canticle for Leibowitz Walter Miller.
  
  
• Memoirs Found in a Bathtub Stanislaw Lem. Another favorite. I once created a text adventure based on this book. It was about as frustrating as that Hitchhiker's Guide game.
  
  
• The Road Cormac McCarthy.
  
  
• Philip K. Dick It's hard to keep track of PKD's novels, but some of them are dystopian, all of them worth reading. Favorites: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (also known as/inspired Blade Runner), Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, The Man in the High Castle.
  
  
• The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood.
  
  
• Y: The Last Man A graphical novel/comic collection. Decent art, great story.
  
  Zombies: World War Z, Raise the Dead, Marvel Zombies, Zombie Survival Guide, Day By Day Armageddon, I Am Legend.
  
  Also, just for kicks, some of my favorite dystopian movies:
  Brazil, Soylent Green, 12 Monkeys, Blade Runner, Akira, Children of Men, Dark City, A Boy and His Dog, Logan's Run, Idiocracy, Equillibrium.

She probably has all of the books you've mentioned if she really likes them, bookish people usually do... A special edition might be an idea, but I won't be able to help you with that, I go for cheap paperbacks due to money ;)

I'm tempted to recommend "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin, it's not sci-fi classic per se, but it's a dystopian classic, she would probably like it if she likes Brave New World, but again, she might already have it. Still I'm sure she'd be thrilled to get a thoughtful thank you gift from you, even if she's read it before or even has a copy... Here's a link to that book on amazon, if you want to have a look: amazon link

If she does like classic sci-fi, here are some old-school, hard sci-fi (but it's not all just spaceships and aliens) that she might enjoy and possibly even not have, since a couple of the authors aren't from English speaking countries:

• Stanislaw Lem "Solaris" amazon link
  
• Arkady and Boris Strugatsky "Roadside Picnic" amazon link
  
• Artur C. Clarke "Childhood's End" amazon link
  
• Walter M. Miller Jr. "A Canticle for Leibowitz" amazon link

Classics: Tristram Shandy, Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, The Grapes of Wrath. All wonderful in their own ways. Tristram Shandy is very 'post-modern' in feel depite being from the 1700's

I'm also rather fond of 'classic' short stories, so I can reccommend various collections like this or this or this - all collections I've read and enjoyed. Cheever, O'Hara, Chekov, Carver are all well worth your time.

Borges is fascinating and strange - a great conversation starter.

Mystery/Thrillers: James Ellroy's LA Quartet, George V. Higgins (The Friends of Eddie Coyle, etc.), Chandler's The Long Goodbye, Ross MacDonald's The Chill, Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me...

There's loads of great sci-fi out there - start with a Gardner Dozois "Best of" and branch out. Philip K Dick (Ubik is a good start). Charles Stross Accelerando. William Gibson. Collections of short stories are great: Rewired, Mirrorshades, various 'best of' collections. Swanwick, Sterling, Egan.

As mentioned Douglas R Hofstadter's stuff is great non-fiction (philosophy? linguistics? cogsci? AI?) with a decidedly playfull streak that makes it a joy to read.

If you like history, try the following.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. Utterly fascinating and extremely well written. It reads almost like a novel.

Peter the Great and Dreadnought by Robert Massie. Both excellent.

Citizens is a jaw-dropping revisionist history of the French Revolution by Simon Schama.

Night Soldiers is a superb "historical spy" novel set in Europe before and during WWII. This novel by Furst is credited with reinventing and reinvigorating the espionage genre. Think Graham Greene crossed with John le Carré.

If you like science fiction, try Hyperion by Dan Simmons. A mind-bending book that, at its core and rather incongruously, is a retelling of Canterbury Tales.

Sticking with science fiction, try anything by Iain M Banks; especially his Culture novels. You could start with Consider Phlebas, or Use of Weapons.


I have many many more suggestions if you want.


You may also like LibraryThing, a great social networking site for those who love books and like to catalogue and discuss their personal libraries. Look me up if you want. I'm "omaca" there too.

I'll skip over the classics (Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Philip K Dick) as they've already been covered.

• Peter F Hamilton is incredibly good, I'd suggest starting with the Confederation Universe series. Very long, and can get a little heavy, but in my opinion, absolutely superb hard sci fi. The universe is similar in size and scope to that of Tolkien's, the science is detailed and well constructed, the space combat is awesome, and I found the characters believable and easy to empathize with. Judging from your criteria, I have a feeling that this series may be just what you're looking for.
  
  
• As others have suggested, Alastair Reynolds is an absolute stand-out in today's sci fi line-up. His Revelation Space universe is complex, engaging and has some of the best science theory I've read. He also includes a lot of biotechnology / biological themes in his work - which is a refreshing change from the nanomachines / cyborg / tech-heavy staples that seem to dominate a lot of modern sci-fi. There's an incredible sense of tension that is maintained for the entire series, more-so than any other modern anthology I've read.
  
  
• Richard Morgan is another of my personal favorites. If you want action-heavy, quality sci fi, look no further. I'd recommend starting with the Kovacs series, (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Woken Furies) they're equal parts Noir / Drama / Action / Sci-Fi / Awesome. Not much space combat, but the ground combat is really, really good.
  
  
• If you haven't read Robert Heinlen's original Starship Troopers (Don't judge it by the movie; seriously) I'd highly recommend it. Not much you can say about it, except that the movie cut entirely too much of the thought provoking content out.
  
  
• John Steakley's Armor is superficially similar to Starship Troopers, but it's far more weighted on the psychological trauma of war; the action is almost ancillary - in fact, where Starship Troopers tends to glorify war a touch, Armor tends to question the validity and purpose of war in an advanced society.
  
  Finally:
  
  
• I'm not going to say anything other than: "Do yourself a favor and read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash."
  
  Seriously. No space combat, but without doubt one of the most entertaining fiction I've read in any genre, and a superb example of dystopian sci-fi. For god sakes, the hero - Hiro Protagonist (I know, right?!) - is a Hacker / Samurai that works for the mafia. Delivering pizzas. Trust me on this: Go with it, you won't be sorry.
  
  Hope that helps and wasn't a Great Wall of Boring Text :-)

The best book I've read in recent years.

Ready Player One

It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune--and remarkable power--to whoever can unlock them.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved--that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt--among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life--and love--in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?

I forgot, I have also started Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Read by Stephen Fry), and it is well done as well.
I remembered a couple more that I liked:

Unbroken - good (true) story about WWII pilot who was captured by the Japanese

Water for Elephants - Good book (fiction) about a circus in the depression era

Anathem - I really like Neal Stephenson, and this was a good book, but it was very long, and I'm sure I would have had a much harder time if I had to read it, instead of just listen to it

Eye of the World (Wheel of Time Book 1) - Good book, but very long and if it weren't for the different voices by the narrator, I would have gotten lost pretty easily.

Hope this helps, and hope you find some good ones!

There are some great popular anthropological works that attempt something of this sort. For a book that jumps across continents and cultures and, as you want, "highlights the truly astounding human achievements of a given society compared to the other societies existing on the Earth that didn't achieve that particular success and why or why not," I'd recommend something like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. I can highly recommend this book if that is what you are looking for.

There was also, at one point, a whole school of historical scholarship called Universal History. You can still find these books coming out today, but they are less common within the history profession, which tends to focus on more finite questions. For more info on universal history, click here - that should help you get started. Also, here is a running list of published universal histories. I don't tend to read universal histories, so I can't recommend any particular one, though apparently Isaac Asimov dabbled in this at one point and his work, found here has some good reviews.

Good luck!

Not exactly sure what you mean with Dystopian/Futuristic... Dystopian in the sense of 1984 or Brave New World? As in organic transition to near-future dystopia?

If you mean postapocalyptic, I am just going to quote myself...
Post-Apocalyptic I recommend two things:

>A Canticle For Leibowitz Brilliant novel consisting of slightly linked chapters from shortly after collapse up to new civilisational heights. Don't read the sequel, it's a bad Western.

>Wool by Hugh Howey. Really gripping, believeable world-building and decent characters. Sequels are ok, but if you can stand not getting proper conclusions stop after Wool :)

>EDIT: Aaaah, I forgot one of the most important ones - The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Depressing, low-key, believeable. The prose is stunning. If you read anything read this.


Futuristic is pretty broad, I guess you mean SciFi? Alastair Reynolds is always a good recommendation - it's kind of plausible Science Fiction on a big scale. He is pretty good at characterization, keeps the plot in sight and there are still epic space battles. Good starting point is Revelation Space.

In Search Of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin is a very readable physics and quantum physics history sketch. Might be slightly dated now, although I can't think of anything directly contradicted by recent work. Then again, I'm not actually a physicist :)

The Quark and the Jaguar is quite a bit more complicated, but still quite accessible to the layperson and has a lot of interesting stuff.

Slightly less sciency, more maths/logic/computation is Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

A Guinea Pig's History of Biology is pretty much what the title says, although there's an awful lot about fruit-flies too. Quite a good review of the history of biological experimentation, especially genetics.

H2O: A Biography of Water from a previous editor of Nature, covers water across a variety of fields. The second half of the book is mostly a rant about cold fusion and homoeopathy though, from what I recall, but the first half makes up for it.

Most general-audience things by Richard Feynman are well worth the read. He's got some great physics lectures, and his autobiography (Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman?) is fun, but more for the anecdotes than the science.

Those are off the top of my head. If its something in a particular field, I might have some other ideas I'm currently forgetting.

In the Heart of the Sea tells the true story that inspired Moby Dick, and is a great read.

If you like non-fiction, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage and The Perfect Storm are also very good.

I am glad I am able to expose many of you to these as I have been. If I had to briefly describe them I would have to say satisfyingly dark, plenty of violence and great fight scenes. The characters is what makes this stand out though. Hate them or love them they are truly unique and greatly enjoyable, the perspectives change from chapter to chapter so you never get bored. Everyone is out for themselves and there are no good guys, many betrayals and twists. This is truly the most entertaining books I have read.

Here is the amazon link for those interested in more reviews.

After the trilogy takes place there are 2 stand alone novels taking place in the same world. The first roughly 4 years after the trilogy titled Best Served Cold, the second roughly 8 years after the trilogy is The Heroes.


If you are someone that has been searching for that truly violent epic that doesn't hold back, with a cast of amazing characters and a non stop energy that just flows through the entire set then check these out, It will not disappoint!

Use of Weapons and, everything else by Iain M. Banks. Amazing stuff. Trust me.

The Blade Itself and the rest of that series by Joe Abercrombie.

Altered Carbon and the rest of that series as well as Thirteen and The Steel Remains, and it's sequel (still waiting on book 3) by Richard K. Morgan. He's pretty amazing.

That would keep you busy for a long time and are all pretty amazing. Seconding Dune, which is amazing, and the Name of the Wind which is great but very popcorn.

But really, if you were to read everything by Iain M. Banks you would be a better person.

Edit: The Sparrow

I know I must be missing some, but these are all that I can think of at the moment.

Fiction:

Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

White Noise by Don Delilo

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by DFW

Infinite Jest by DFW

Of these, you can't go wrong with Infinite Jest and the Collected Fictions of Borges. His Dark Materials is an easy and classic read, probably the lightest fare on this list.

Non-Fiction:

The Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy

Chaos by James Gleick

How to be Gay by David Halperin

Barrel Fever by David Sedaris

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris

Secret Historian by Justin Spring

Of these, Secret Historian was definitely the most interesting, though How to be Gay was a good intro to queer theory.

It is good but I almost got annoyed by the amount of nostalgia/references it makes. I kind of wonder how much I would have liked it had it not thrown around all the references. It was entertaining though. I think I liked Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson better to be honest (except the ending).

Bonus for some: I got the audio book from audible read by Wil Wheaton...so if you're a nerd that might be your cup of tea.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is my favorite. Swan Song is good. I'm reading The Last Survivors series by Susan Beth Pfeffer. It's pretty good but it's more like a young adult/teen series. I am Legend was great. So much better than the movies. Alas Babylon and On the Beach are Post nuke novels that gave me nightmares. If you need more check out this List

Yes, Diamond Age is such a great spiritual successor to Snow Crash. Where Snow Crash has that frantic pace and hyper compressed events, Diamond Age takes its time and describes every molecule of the beauty in the book's events. These two works are such great testaments to Stephenson's skill because it's obvious he worked really hard to make them describe similar themes, but also compliment each other.

Have you seen the new covers? I like them, they do a good job of presenting them as companion pieces.

Snow Crash

Diamond Age

Africa: A Biography of the Continent by John Reader

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

Both cover some of the same concepts as GG&S, but in a much more rigorous fashion. Both are better reads with a less self-congratulatory tone and much more interesting information. GG&S is a kids book compared to these works, which is fine because GG&S is a great introduction to these sorts of concepts. Now you can get down to reading the good stuff.

For biography - Unbroken. For only having two books under her belt Laura Hillenbrand is a great biographer. I also highly recommend Seabiscuit. She does a great job of recreating the time and place. Unbroken is an incredible story about an incredible man's life. Amazing he made it through with his humanity intact.

Oh god I love this question. I've got some fantastic recommendations:

Fantasy Series:

• The Gentleman Bastards Sequence
  

  by Scott Lynch
  Book One: The Lies of Locke Lamora
  
  Simultaneously one of my top 5 favorite fantasy novels, and my favorite Heist story of all time.
  Suspense, Intrigue, Visceral action, and some of the wittiest, best-written dialog I've ever read in fiction make this series simultaneously dark, tense, and hilarious.
  Thank god Lynch was wondering what a swords and sorcery take on Ocean's Eleven would look like, because the thought never occurred to me before this.
  
  

• The Mistborn Trilogy
  

  by Brandon Sanderson
  Get the boxed set. Just do it.
  
  Sanderson is perhaps best known for being chosen to continue the Wheel of Time series after the passing of Robert Jordan; and this is very unfortunate. I would take Mistborn over WoT any day.
  The author's passion seems to be exotic settings, and unique magic systems with a solid set of rules. You get so attuned to what Mistborn's Allomancy can and can't do, that it seems as fundamental as gravity by the end. And speaking of endings, this one is Incredibly well thought out.
  
  -----------------------------
  I've got stuff to do, so I'll cut it off here for now, but seriously, check them out. And Please don't ask me which I'd recommend more, I don't want my head to explode.
  
  More to come, if I'm not too lazy. I'm full of these.

I absolutely love Snow Crash. Very humorous writing without becoming pure comedy. Great plot. Awesome concepts.

I would first recommend Shogun by James Clavell. It's an epic story with a great plot. I don't believe it's too accurate, but it's a good read.


If you want to continue on with historical Japanese literature you can't go wrong with Musashi or Taiko both by Eiji Yoshikawa.


Moving on to more western stuff, I recommend the many James Michener books, but they can be boring at times. My favorite of his is Hawaii.


I'd also recommend Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield about the Battle of Thermopylae.

Have you read A Short History Of Nearly Everything? It's an awesome read about, well a short history of nearly everything. From the beginning of time. It's great and Bill Bryson really does a great job of making light of topics that are usually "too dense" for non-science people.

I would either say A General Theory of Love or The Demon-Haunted World are books that I always recommend to people who want to expand themselves.

A General Theory of Love is the perfect message for those who think intelligence and self-mastery means an absence of emotions. For those of us who think being rational means not letting emotions into the decision making process, this book elucidates on why that is not healthy and also why you're probably lying to yourself if you think you are incapable of feeling emotions like "normal" people.

The Demon-Haunted World is a book for everybody. It is a philosophical book written by an astrophysicist using everyday language so nearly anybody can grasp its concepts. It brings the major philosophical question of why within the average person's conceptual grasp, without using any spiritual reasoning. I feel that when more people can contemplate that question, why, without immediately turning to the supernatural and shutting down the mundane, we will be a more level-headed species.

Eh, my two cents. ;-)

Upvote for The Lost City of Z!! Loved loved it.

Charles Mann's 1491 is wonderful.

It depends on what you're interested in, really.

Oryx and Crake. I didn't expect to like it much but I loved it.

Edit: Just finished Unbroken which is an awesome tale of survival in WW2.

Here are my personal favorite head-fucks, each one of them did something strange to my whole world when I read them:

• The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
  
  
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
  
  
• Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh
  
  
• Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
  
  
• The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
  
  
• A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
  
  
• From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
  
  
• Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross
  
  
• The Prestige by Christopher Priest
  
  
• The Invisibles by Grant Morrison
  
  But yeah, by far my favorite is the one at the top of the list, The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. There's just so goddamn much going on in that book, it's one helluva wonderful ride.

Unbroken, By Laura Hillenbrand. One of the best and most amazing true stories I've ever read. Read it before the movie comes out!

It caught me off-guard too. A buddy who also reads and loves Suarez's work, IM'd me one day asking if I got my copy yet, assuming I had pre-ordered. Needless to say I was on Amazon within 5 minutes.

If you liked Daemon and Freedom, check out Ready Player One.

I ain't so good at book descriptions but here's some stuff I really enjoyed -

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline: http://www.amazon.com/Ready-Player-One-A-Novel/dp/0307887448

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi: http://www.amazon.com/The-Windup-Girl-Paolo-Bacigalupi/dp/1597801585

The author would argue with me about this being SF - Atwood prefers the term "speculative history" I believe - but the entire Oryx and Crake trilogy is very good.
http://www.amazon.com/Oryx-Crake-Margaret-Atwood/dp/0385721676/ref=la_B000AQTHI0_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397411558&sr=1-2 the first book in Oryx and Crake, followed by Year of the Flood and Madaddam

I've been on a non-fiction kick myself.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is good. Very funny, very informative.

Packing for Mars and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Cadavers both by Mary Roach were also fun to read.

Came here to post this. Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything is a great way for the layman to become scientifically literate, and it's entertaining. I like all of Krakauer's works, but would particularly recommend Where Men Win Glory for a perspective on the war in Afghanistan as well as a portrait of Pat Tillman, a complicated man.

Some great history books:

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything
   
   
2. Stalingrad
   
   
3. The Interrogators
   
   
4. On Roads
   
   The first and last are not military history but are quite a good and different reads for someone interested in history and facts.

• David Eddings: "The Belgariad" (volume 1 and volume 2) and "The Mallorean" (volume 1 and volume 2) - these are two story arcs told across multiple novels in each volume, both are related and follow each other.
  
• Terry Goodkind: Sword of Truth - 9 book epic fantasy, completed a couple of years ago (Books 1-3, 4-6, and 7-9)
  
• Brandon Sanderson: Mistborn Series (The trilogy and the new spinoff)
  
• Brandon Sanderson: Way of Kings (book 1) - This is a new series, book 2 is expected late in 2013 (grrr!)
  
  
  But by far, my favorite series:
  
  
• S. M. Stirling: Nantucket Trilogy (book one, two, and three)
  
• S. M. Stirling: Emberverse (amazon list of the 8 books so far)
  
  The first trilogy follows the Island of Nantucket, which is thrown back to the bronze age and loses access to high-energy physics. The Emberverse is the rest of the world (though mostly the US) who stay in present day, but also lose access to high-energy physics.
  
  If you want to go more Sci-Fi, I'm currently reading and enjoying:
  
  
• David Weber: Honor Harrington (Honorverse) Series (Amazon List, 22 books!)
  
  Also on my list to read:
  
  
• Eric Flint: Ring of Fire/The Assiti Shards Series (link)
  
• Roger Zelazny: Chronicles of Amber (link)
  

Unbroken is great. It non-fiction that reads like fiction. So good!

http://www.amazon.com/Unbroken-World-Survival-Resilience-Redemption/dp/1400064163

The Abhorsen trilogy is some great YA fiction that I'm sure your son would enjoy. The books are about a decade old, and are available as a cheaper box set - but admittedly the covers on these might not be as intruiging to a 7th grader.

The Mistborn Trilogy is also great, but might be a little difficult for a 7th grader to get through. Regardless, I'd get him these if you feel that he's up to the challenge.

I haven't read that myself, but based on the description and notes elsewhere in the thread I might recommend these:

• the Newton's Cannon series by J Gregory Keyes - probably more serious than Chaos Walking but not nearly so grave as Game fo Thrones (did you like Game of Thrones?)
  
• Just about anything by Terry Pratchett
  
• Early Piers Anthony like A Spell for Chameleon, The Source of Magic, or Castle Roogna
  
• The Expendable series by James Alan Gardner (not the same story as the recent movies)
  
• The Red Lightning series by John Varley
  
• Podkayne of Mars by Robert A. Heinlein
  
• Snow Crash and Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
  
• The Princess Bride by William Goldman
  
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Eco is one of my favorite fiction and non-fiction writer, but if you enjoy conspiracies, I recommend The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

Jared Diamond - Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel

Both are great. Not at all boring. Both are favorites of mine.

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

>The astonishing [true] saga of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton's survival for over a year on the ice-bound Antarctic seas, as Time magazine put it, "defined heroism."

>Shackleton's mission failed, but the resulting adventure became one of the most celebrated accounts of man's survival against unbelievable odds.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Not only the best I read this year, but easily the best I've read in the past five years.

A few that came to mind:
The Great Influenza
Autism's False Prophets
1776
The Greatest Show On Earth
Ghost Wars
The Demon-Haunted World

How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?

I own a copy. Makes a great gift for others. As a joke.

For a more sci-fi feel check out the expanse series by James S.A Corey,
also the long price quartet by Daniel Abraham, is pretty neat as it is fantasy that isn't centered around Europe.
I would also recommend checking out the First Law series by Joe Abercrombie

the links are in order

• http://www.amazon.com/Leviathan-Wakes-Expanse-James-Corey/dp/0316129089/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375548738&sr=8-1&keywords=leviathan+wakes
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Summer-Long-Price-Quartet/dp/0765313405/ref=pd_sim_b_2
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Blade-Itself-First-Law-Book/dp/159102594X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375548876&sr=1-1&keywords=joe+abercrombie

The (mostly complete) collection of works by Mary Roach. They're pop science, but great reads.

Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. Both great books on how different cultures either became more or less powerful than others (how come large civilizations took longer to rise in sub-Saharan Africa than in Europe) and why some societies just failed completely (Easter Island).

Lies My Teacher Told Me. It shows a lot of details that a typical high school American History textbook just glosses over or ignores.

Compare Brunner's epic The Sheep Look Up with Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. (If Sheep Look Up proves to hard to find reasonably, substitute Shockwave Rider, also by Brunner.)

Or, if you're feeling really froggy compare Mark Twain's Letters From the Earth with one of his more popularly acceptable works like Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer.

Armor by John Steakley. I am not a big sci fi fan, but I picked this up at a used book store 20 years ago and loved it.

Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy is what got me back. Giver er a run, she'll treat you real nice.

Armor John Steakley. Sooo good. I wish they would make it into a show on scifi (: I know i know people are scared of that but scifi can do good shows too.

Snow Crash by Stephenson is something of a modern classic, and a very fun read. I highly recommend it!

Those two are on my to-read list; but if we're recommending these, I want to chime in with two books I've read that I think would fit in well: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage and Lost Moon, what's been since rechristened "Apollo 13" after the movie made the book even more well-known.

1491 was a great read that examined the technology and cultural developments of the Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans. One of its main conceits is to tear down the myth that they were simple people in touch with nature, when they actually actively worked to alter the landscape to fit their needs. It was one of the first history books I found so engrossing that I couldn't put down.

Collapse has a wider scope; it examines dozens of societies that have existed throughout history that for one reason or another "collapsed". It shows how combinations a society's choices and external forces caused the failure of Viking settlements in Greenland, the extinction of the people of Easter Island, to the failure of modern countries, like Rwanda. Each chapter is about seventy or eighty pages and fairly self-contained, so you can pick it up and jump in where ever you like.

Try The First Law series. Great characters, fun adventures, and it's not too fantastical. I'm just finishing up book 3 now, and I'll be sad not to be reading it.

http://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Incredible-Alfred-Lansing/dp/078670621X

I have recommend this to many and never hand anyone say anything other than "This is the best book I have ever read." Short read too.

[Blow Up: And Other Stories by Julio Cortazar] (http://www.amazon.com/Blow-Up-Other-Stories-Julio-Cortazar/dp/0394728815/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331377282&sr=1-1)
Strange, sometimes surreal but beautifully written.

Short stories by Jorge Luis Borges. [Can be found in this collection] (http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Fictions-Jorge-Luis-Borges/dp/0140286802/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331377800&sr=1-1)

As abovetheroses said: Godel Escher Bach: Eternal Golden Braid. If I was only allowed to read one book over again, that'd probably be it.

To quote it's Wikipedia, which has a wonderfully short summary:
> Through illustration and analysis, the book discusses how self-reference and formal rules allow systems to acquire meaning despite being made of "meaningless" elements. It also discusses what it means to communicate, how knowledge can be represented and stored, the methods and limitations of symbolic representation, and even the fundamental notion of "meaning" itself.

Unbroken. It's phenomenal. Basically a plane crashes and the survivors are forced to try to survive on a raft for an indeterminate amount of time. Great story of resiliency.

Flags of our Fathers. The book before the miniseries. Also phenomenal.

If you like really really detailed historical accounts, you can't do much better than The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich although I would probably recommend the audio version. It's available through audible. I got about half way through it before I had to stop, but man, it was detailed. DETAILED. If you ever wanted to know the minutiae of Hitler's daily life in part, this is it.

A memoir from a female perspective, perhaps? Well, A Woman in Berlin is your book. It's harrowing. There are things talked about here that most history books gloss over.

Just an FYI to everyone who doesn't realize: Walter Miller was one of the legends of early sci-fi--though he inexplicably stopped publishing after his masterpiece A Canticle for Leibowitz.

Jung's Red Book is the closest I can think of. There's a fascinating obsession with it among some people. If you pay out, let me know what it's like.

Some of my favorites:

• Noir - K.W. Jeter
  
• Macroscope - Piers Anthony
  
• Armor - John Steakley
  
• Protector - Larry Niven
  
• I Robot - Isaac Asimov
  
• Neuromancer - William Gibson
  
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
  
• The Fall of Reach (Halo) - Eric Nylund
  
• Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
  
• Cachalot - Alan Dean Foster
  
• Islands in the Net - Bruce Sterling
  
• Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
  
• Reality Dysfunction - Peter F. Hamilton
  
  I tried to get as many different authors as possible in there. Many of those authors have plenty of really good books you shouldn't miss.

I'd recommend 1491 by Charles Mann over Guns, Germs, and Steel. It tries to answer the same questions regarding the apparent gap in technology between new world and old world peoples without resorting to geographical determinism--which, to me at least, felt like a bit of a stretch. 1491 is a good source for learning about science/technologies that fell by the wayside as new world clashed with old world (textile technology, using fire to shape one's environment, etc.).

I don't hate it, but I quit on Hyperion a quarter of the way in. That seems to be a really popular book around r/scifi anyway. It just didn't grab me.

May not be what you are looking for but Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing redefines what it takes to be a leader when faced with the worst situation possible. A band of men stranded on ice in the middle of the ocean, trying to survive. One of the most amazing stories I've ever read and Sir Ernest Shackleton is now one of my heroes.

This might help ease the transition for you

1. Hyperion - Dan Simmons
   
2. 10/10
   
3. Science Fiction, Fantasy, Frame Story
   
4. A poetic epic that is presented in a similar style to that of Chaucher's The Cantebury Tales. Deals with many mature, emotional themes that many science fiction novels tend to shy away from. I highly recommend reading the sequel The Fall of Hyperion immediately after as they could be considered one book in two parts.
   
5. Amazon.com

There is only the one book. The movie only used the book as a premise and went off on its own. Anyone who has read the book pretty much doesn't like the movie. I don't think the 2nd and 3rd made it to theaters...
If you like bug killing adventures, look at Armor. If you like a more engrossing story look at Ender's Game.

I'll read damn near anything I can get my hands on, but I prefer fiction.


Some non-fiction books that I'm currently enjoying though are Godel, Escher, Bach and A Short History of Nearly Everything

On the fiction list right now are Foucault's Pendulum and The Broom of the System.

Me either, its hard to find. Here are some sample illustrations and here are some editorial reviews for those that might not be familiar. I don't own a copy myself but I'll likely get it in my next batch of books from Amazon and ready myself for some psychonautics.

Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. Great thesis on why different human societies have developed so differently.

• Breaking The Spell by Daniel Dennett
  
• Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman
  
• The End of Faith by Sam Harris
  
• The Elegant Universe by Briane Greene (about string theory)
  
• Just Six Numbers by Martin Rees
  
• Before The Beginning by Martin Rees
  
• Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter
  
• The Demon-Haunted World by Sagan
  

I was going to mention [Alas, Babylon] (http://www.abebooks.com/search/an/frank/tn/alas+babylon) but it was very short. I also think that A Canticle for Leibowitz was okay as well.

What about A Short History of Nearly Everything? Or Seal Team Six? Or The Magicians? What about American Gods, Hyperspace and The Grand Design

What I'm saying is 18 is too few. Get cracking.

Was going to mention Omnivore's Dilemma but a few others already have. And as for anything else, you should at least read "The Baloney Detection Kit" from The Demon-Haunted World, if not the whole book. That will make your discussions that much more interesting.

Thanks for that; I just looked up the reviews for this book on Amazon, and I am ordering a copy today!

Armor by John Steakley. I was remembering bits through it, but it wasn't until close to the end that I fully remembered reading it. It was just as good the second time.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393065677/ref=s9_simz_gw_s0_p14_t1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=062E4NHMZD4YKQ7PCAF8&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

looks amazing, just have to persuade my wife that we need it

[1491] (http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus/dp/1400032059) by Charles Mann. Talks about how amazing the Americas were pre-Columbus.

We finished reading Anathem in r/SF Book Club a couple of months ago, try there for some suggestions (reading A Canticle for Leibowitz in March).

Also this link of the top 100 sci fi books is a good place to start.

You could also try r/PrintSF.

The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges. Actually anything from the Collected Fictions would be excellent.

I finished the Mistborn Series recently, and it has a very strong female lead.

You might enjoy A Short History of Nearly Everything

I really liked Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson...

Ready Player One; you're welcome.

Everyone should do themselves a favour a get a copy of this book.

> What kinds of books could you read over and over and still love to death and even learn from?

I absolutely love The Illuminatus Trilogy, I think I've read it about 4 times now. The first 100 pages are tough but once you make it past that you won't want to put it down.

Endurance - true story about Shackleton's miraculous year on ice in the race to be first to the South Pole

Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

A Short History of Nearly Everything
http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/0767908171

PM if you are interested.

The Blade Itself (The First Law trilogy) - Joe Abercrombie

7.5/10

Low Fantasy

Exciting and fast paced with strong character building. Lacks the world building of other longer fantasy books, but it's very intriguing. Can't speak for the rest of the trilogy.

Amazon

Based on those interests, he might like 1491 or maybe Guns, Germs and Steel, I mean, not to be quick to judge, but my stereotypical image of someone that likes gardening and southern shit would probably be turned off by YA fantasy/action fare and would probably be willing to tackle a harder book that is more close to his interests. AskHistorians has a monster book list but I'm not really familiar with which of those listed are accessible.

Ready Player One. www.amazon.com/Ready-Player-One-A-Novel/dp/0307887448

Ready Player One.
http://www.amazon.com/Ready-Player-One-A-Novel/dp/0307887448/

Guns Germs & Steel by Jered Diamond

For some physics :
Penrose - Road to Reality

Gleick - Chaos

Some math/philosophy :
Hofstadter - Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Anything early by Dawkins if you want to avoid the atheist stuff though his latest is good too.

Anything by Robert Wright for the evolution of human morality.

Pinker for language and the Mind.

Matt Ridley for more biology.

Weston's A Rulebook for Arguments is clear and concise.

Heinrichs' Thank You for Arguing is more informal with lots of pop culture references.

Sagan's Demon Haunted World is a paean to science & critical thinking and Whyte's Crimes Against Logic is good as well

1. Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion - Dan Simmons
   
   
2. 9/10
   
   
3. Scifi Epic
   
   
4. Possibly the best science fiction book I have ever read due to it's Canterbury Tales-like format, incredible characterization, emotional impact, thought-provoking ideas, haunting villains and events, and truly epic scale.
   
   
5. Amazon

"You are what you do when it counts."

-Armor, by John Steakley

I read this book around age 15, and trust me when I say that this is a heavy read, from an emotional perspective. This simple phrase was one of those things that stuck with me, and I've found new depth in it over the years. I chanted it to myself before I proposed to my wife. I've used it when talking to a friend facing death, and another who was ready to commit suicide. It definitely stuck with me.

There are some images from the book on the Amazon page, albeit not many: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Red-Book-Liber-Novus/dp/0393065677/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260581788&sr=8-1

Here is the Amazon link.

Check out the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons.

You may also want to look into getting a Nook or Kindle. You can carry hundreds of books on a light weight device.

However long the list, make some room for anything by Jorge Luis Borges.

For a really short list: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis, Tertius.

If you have more time: Collected Fictions.

This?
http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469

• [Oryx and Crake] (http://www.amazon.com/Oryx-Crake-Margaret-Atwood/dp/0385721676/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333621091&sr=8-1) by Margaret Atwood.
  
  
• [Breakfast on Pluto] (http://www.amazon.com/Breakfast-Pluto-Novel-Patrick-Mccabe/dp/B004J8HWK0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333621198&sr=1-1) by Patrick McCabe.
  
  
• [Sirens of Titan] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Sirens-Titan-A-Novel/dp/0385333498/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333621276&sr=1-1) by Kurt Vonnegut

Check out Oryx and Crake by Margret Atwood.

Into the Forest and Oryx and Crake.

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Book-C-G-Jung/dp/0393065677

$105.30

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Book-C-G-Jung/dp/0393065677/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I33X7KXKLCWHQZ&colid=DEEF5LZ4R56R

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552

He used a lot of info from this book too.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

How about something from the 70's?

Illuminatus

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

http://www.amazon.com/Hyperion-Dan-Simmons/dp/0553283685/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320899206&sr=8-1

Dan Simmon's Hyperion

495 Reviews
5 star: (337)
4 star: (82)
3 star: (34)
2 star: (23)
1 star: (19)

Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash

http://www.amazon.com/dp/076536543X/

The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson.

How about this?

http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus/dp/1400032059

this one is new and on my must read list

http://www.amazon.com/Unbroken-World-Survival-Resilience-Redemption/dp/1400064163

Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa, based loosely on the life of famed swordsman Miyomoto Musashi.

It's epic in scope and follows several different points of view, sort of a Japanese Game of Thrones meets Count of Monte Cristo.

http://www.amazon.com/Musashi-Eiji-Yoshikawa/dp/4770019572

It's an epic book, based in reality. It's a fictionalized biography of Miyamoto Musashi, likely the most famous swordsman ever to have lived.

Musashi http://www.amazon.com/Musashi-Eiji-Yoshikawa/dp/4770019572 "sold 120 million copies in Japan."

Here's what I was reading at that age. It was awesome.

Either The Court of the Lion by Eleanor Cooney and Daniel Altieri or Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa.

Sort of off the top of my head:

Not Supernatural:

• The Road
  
• Lord of the Flies
  
• One Second After
  
  Supernatural:
  
  
• World War Z
  
• I am Legend
  
• Robopocalypse
  
  Often times books about survival don't need to be fiction to be amazingly interesting, so I'll add these:
  
  
• Unbroken
  
• Escape from Camp 14

I second the Neal Stephenson suggestion, and I've got to add Ernest Cline's Ready Player One. It's as much a sendup to "nerd culture" as it is an exploration of trans-humanist themes, but it's written with much attention to detail. I couldn't put it down.

You could always try the second Gentlemen Bastards book, Red Flags Under Red Skies. Not to mention his third book is supposed to be released in February in the UK.

If you like Scott Lynch and want to read a completed series try Joe Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy. Its well written, finished, and has elements of all the authors you named. He also has written 2 stand alone novels in the same universe following the events of the trilogy so if you want more you can read more without being left without closure until the next release you can.

Gödel, Escher, Bach (Amazon, Goodreads, Wikipedia )

That thing is half typography, font, indentation, ... puns and metaphors. For example this holism/reductionism joke: http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l76/orestesmantra/MU.jpg

I can't think of a way that could work on Kindle. You could try, and some things might not make sense, and some you might miss altogether, just because the font is different.

How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way? - "I think constricting anus 100 times and denting navel 100 times in succession everyday is effective to good-bye depression and take back youth."

I guess based solely off of my name:

The Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson - I believe this will go down as one of the, if not the best fantasy series of our time.

Nishigaki's How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?, of course.

How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?

I got this one:

"How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?"

http://www.amazon.com/How-Good-bye-Depression-Constrict-Everyday/dp/0595094724

How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way? by Hiroyuki Nishigaki

Unfortunately it isn't available as an ebook anymore.
Click the link under "Tell the publisher" and try to change that

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0886773687/ref=kinw_rke_rti_1

Weirdest or weirdest readable?

Weirdest book I know of is the Voynich Manuscript but I wouldn't exactly call it readable.

Weirdest book that's easily obtainable? Carl Jung's red book, kind of a dream diary.

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Book-C-G-Jung/dp/0393065677/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1302109230&sr=8-4

Hard to choose just one favorite, so here are a few of mine:

• Ficciones (Collected Fictions) by Jorge Luis Borges
  
• The Stories of Paul Bowles by Paul Bowles
  
• Night Shift by Stephen King
  
• The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories by Gene Wolfe

A quick warning first - this genre tends towards long-running series, and these are no exception (nor are many of them yet complete). However, they're well worth trying:

PC Hodgell's Godstalk series. This is a sadly underappreciated series, but is IMHO one of the best fantasy series ever. The worldbuilding is phenomenal, and the protagonist, Jame, is one of my favourite characters in any novel.

GRR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire been mentioned (and is excellent), but in a similar vein (dark and gritty high fantasy) check out Joe Abercrombie's First Law series. This is similar Martin with the cynicism turned up even further. Where Tolkein is more or less black and white, this is very dark grey vs black (and it's not entirely clear which side is which)

Thirdly, check out Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series. Vlad is (initially) an assassin and later mob boss in a fantasy empire where magic is commonplace. Unlike the others I've mentioned, you can probably start with any book as they're mostly self-contained (though there's an ongoing story), and the chronology tends to jump around a lot anyway. The one exception is Teckla, which is much weaker than the rest.

On The Beach by Nevil Shute is probably the closest I've read to that level hopeless apocalyptic scenarios.

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart is another one. It's not as dark, but it has some key things in common that you may like.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood No sci-fi or apocalypse thread is getting very far without me recommending it.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

The Selfish Gene

The Demon Haunted World

This book helped me take control of depression before depression took control of me.

1. The Illuminatus! Trilogy
   
2. 11/10
   
3. Conspiracy theory, drugs, sex, Nazi shenanigans
   
4. It's not only a rollicking good time but it's also informative on how to understand conspiracy theories.
   
5. Here ya go!

Oh, no wait, here's an inspiring book, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage.

>The astonishing saga of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton's survival for over a year on the ice-bound Antarctic seas, as "Time" magazine put it, "defined heroism". Alfred Lansing's scrupulously researched and brilliantly narrated book--with over 200,000 copies sold--has long been acknowledged as the definitive account of the "Endurance's" fateful trip.

It's the end-all be-all of getting-lost-in-the-wilderness-and-surviving-against-all-odds stories. My coworkers and I took some solace in it while working under an abusive, criminal boss who later plead guilty to nine felonies. That time period required endurance to come to work each day.