Here are 100 books that Great River of the Abyss fans have personally recommended if you like
Great River of the Abyss.
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One of the reasons I love my job as a Space History Curator at the Smithsonianās National Air and Space Museum is that I am fascinated to learn how people think about space, the cosmos, and their human connection with the universe. I am always eager to get beyond questions of what we know and how we know it and ask: Why do we ask the questions we ask in the first place? The books Iāve listed here all explore our relationship with space and how we engage personally or collectively with space exploration.
This science fiction novel, written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck under the pen name James S. A. Corey, was the beginning of the Expanse series (now totaling 9 novels and additional stories). It is one of the best space science fiction novels of the 21st century and became the basis for one of my favorite TV/streaming series, The Expanse.
The books dive deep into the political, social, and cultural complexities of sending humans to live on the Moon, Mars, and the asteroid belt, and itās a nuanced reflection of our current ideas and ambitions when it comes to spaceflight. I am particularly drawn to the depiction of humans who, after multiple generations off Earth, consider their primary identity to be Martian.
Humanity has colonized the planets - interstellar travel is still beyond our reach, but the solar system has become a dense network of colonies. But there are tensions - the mineral-rich outer planets resent their dependence on Earth and Mars and the political and military clout they wield over the Belt and beyond. Now, when Captain Jim Holden's ice miner stumbles across a derelict, abandoned ship, he uncovers a secret that threatens to throw the entire system into war. Attacked by a stealth ship belonging to the Mars fleet, Holden must find a way to uncover the motives behind theā¦
Having spent thirty years working as a chef, I was always going to have working-class heroes in my stories. When someone said this is uncommon in science fiction, I didnāt believe them. But then I couldnāt think of any. I started searching through my bookshelves, and still, I couldnāt find enough to fill this list. I asked on socials and eventually found five books.
It would seem natural that in a science fiction world of adventure and exploration, the professionals would be at the forefront. But I am pretty sure that the toilet cleaners on the Death Star would still have a story or two to tell.
It became obvious to me early in this book that Nophek Gloss was written by someone who works with their hands. Not only in how the action was choreographed but also in how the world was described.
This brings a real world feel to the writing as we join Caiden helping his father with the menial tasks that keep a farming community running. Soon after, his whole world is destroyed. But as Caiden escapes and throws in with a ragtag bunch of aliens and a ship with a conscience, we can appreciate his point of view as someone who has seen so little of the universe but is suddenly exposed to multitudes of new and unusual things as he adventures into the unknown.
This book is for sci-fi fans who enjoy great worldbuilding, interesting aliens, and action throughout.
'AN EXCEPTIONAL DEBUT . . . READS LIKE A BECKY CHAMBERS NOVEL CROSSED WITH FIREFLY' Michael Mammay, author of Planetside
'A SUCKER PUNCH TO THE SENSES . . . A KILLER STORY WITH REAL HEART AND SOUL' Alastair Reynolds
In this dark, dangerous, roller coaster of a debut, a young man sets out on a single-minded quest for revenge across a breathtaking multiverse filled with aliens, mind-bending tech, and ships beyond his wildest imagining. Essa Hansen's is a bold new voice for the next generation of science fiction readers.
Caiden's planet is destroyed. His family gone. And, his only hopeā¦
Having spent thirty years working as a chef, I was always going to have working-class heroes in my stories. When someone said this is uncommon in science fiction, I didnāt believe them. But then I couldnāt think of any. I started searching through my bookshelves, and still, I couldnāt find enough to fill this list. I asked on socials and eventually found five books.
It would seem natural that in a science fiction world of adventure and exploration, the professionals would be at the forefront. But I am pretty sure that the toilet cleaners on the Death Star would still have a story or two to tell.
This book comes with all the fun and banter that you expect from Scalzi. Jamie, the main character, is from our Earth but gets a job on a parallel Earth where nuclear-powered Kaiju are the order of the day.
The fantastical and far-fetched plot is a lot of fun, but there is a much deeper point to this book, calling out late-stage capitalism and tech-bro culture. This book is a wild adventure and a condemnation of the morally corrupt individuals who have so much power in our own world.
The Kaiju Preservation Society is John Scalzi's first standalone adventure since the conclusion of his New York Times bestselling Interdependency trilogy.
When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls āan animal rights organization.ā Tomās team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on.
What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not hereā¦
Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: āAre his love songs closer to heaven than dying?ā Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard itā¦
Having spent thirty years working as a chef, I was always going to have working-class heroes in my stories. When someone said this is uncommon in science fiction, I didnāt believe them. But then I couldnāt think of any. I started searching through my bookshelves, and still, I couldnāt find enough to fill this list. I asked on socials and eventually found five books.
It would seem natural that in a science fiction world of adventure and exploration, the professionals would be at the forefront. But I am pretty sure that the toilet cleaners on the Death Star would still have a story or two to tell.
This book resonates with Golden Age sci-fi vibes. Set in the wonderfully described frontier that is the Mars colony, Ballingrad captures the difficulty and hardship experienced by people who venture to the edge of civilisation in hopes of a better life and reminds us that it is these hardworking people that build the foundations for everything that comes after.
Annabelle is a young girl who embarks on a journey seeking justice after bandits steal the last recording of her mother's voice. On her quest she falls in with a gang of neāer-do-wells while all communication and transport from Earth mysteriously ceases.
If you enjoy space westerns and the bygone era of classic sci-fi, this book is for you.
Ray Bradbury meets The Martian in this chilling page-turning tale of Mars' first colony, fallen to madness after all contact with Earth ceased, perfect for fans of Jeff VanderMeer.
Anabelle Crisp is fourteen when the Silence arrives, severing all communication between Earth and her new home on Mars. One evening, while she and her father are closing their diner in the colony of New Galveston, they are robbed at gunpoint.
Among the stolen items is a recording of her absent mother's voice. Driven by righteous fury and desperation to lift her father's broken spirits, Anabelle sets out to confront theā¦
I am a Wiltshire-based writer with a passion for historical and literary fiction and a fascination for the role of āmemoryā in the autumn of our lives. My own novel was inspired by conversations with my late grandfather in his final years. But as a journalist for more than 20 years, I had many rich opportunities to talk to the elderly members of our communitiesāmost memorably, taking a pair of D-Day veterans back to the beaches of Normandy. In many ways, memories are the only things we can take with us throughout our lives, carrying both the burden of regrets and the consolation of those we have loved.
The novel tells the story of a group of friends who have taken it upon themselves to carry out the ālast ordersā of their drinking partner, Jack Dodds, to deliver his ashes to the grey seas of Margate. As they drive to the coast, their errand becomes a poignant journey into their collective pasts.
Swift described it as an homage to William Faulknerās As I Lay Dying, and it follows a similar narrative structure, with chapters titled with the names of the seven key characters, with a shifting narrative perspective to follow the story from each of their eyes.
As a reader, you naturally find your favourite narrative viewpoint. For me, it was Ray, āLucky Ray,ā the obsessive gambler, which for me was the real centre of the novel.
The classic edition of one of the 20th Century's finest novels
Four men once close to Jack Dodds, a London butcher, meet to carry out his peculiar last wish: to have his ashes scattered into the sea at Margate. For reasons best known to herself, Jack's widow, Amy, declines to join them . . . On the surface a simple tale of an increasingly bizarre day's outing, this Booker-prize winning, internationally acclaimed novel is a resonant and classic exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary lives. Intensely local but overwhelmingly universal, faithful toā¦
I have been a runner for 50 years and a coach for 30 years. From 2001-2016 I was the coach of Team USA Minnesota Distance Training Center. During that time I coached 24 U.S. National Champions, including an Olympian & 2 USATF Running Circuit Champions, at 1500 meters, 3000 meters, and 10,000 meters on the track; the mile, 10k, 15k, 10 miles, half-marathon, 20k, 25k, and marathon on the road; 4k, 6k, 8k and 10k in cross country. Athletes I coached qualified for 30 U.S. national teams competing in IAAF World Championships in cross country, indoor track, outdoor track, and road, and achieved 73 top-three finishes in U.S. Championships.
A non-runner begins running in prison and discovers its therapeutic benefits that help him do his time and start him on a journey of self-discovery. Having been an early morning runner for many years, I appreciated the protagonistās descriptions of frosty early morning runs, which I think are some of the best in literature.
Perhaps one of the most revered works of fiction in the twentieth-century, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a modern classic about integrity, courage, and bucking the system. Its title story recounts the story of a reform school cross-country runner who seizes the perfect opportunity to defy the authority that governs his life. It is a pure masterpiece. From there the collection expands even further from the touching āOn Saturday Afternoonā to the rollicking āThe Decline and Fall and Frankie Buller.ā Beloved for its lean prose, unforgettable protagonists, and real-life wisdom, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runnerā¦
After World imagines a not-so-distant future where, due to worsening global environmental collapse, an artificial intelligence determines that the planet would be better off without the presence of humans. After a virus that sterilizes the entire human population is released, humanity must reckon with how they leave this world beforeā¦
Iām a sociologist who studies American family life. About 20 years ago, I began to see signs of the weakening of family life (such as more single-parent families) among high-school educated Americans. These are the people we often call the āworking class.ā It seemed likely that this weakening reflected the decline of factory jobs as globalization and automation have proceeded. So I decided to learn as much as I could about the rise and decline of working-class families. The books I am recommending help us to understand what happened in the past and whatās happening now.
LeMasters hung out at a tavern in Wisconsin from 1967 to 1972, talking to factory workers who held well-paying, unionized jobs in the heyday of American industrial production. Working-class lives are so different now that I wish I could enter a time machine and travel back to the 1960s and talk to working-class men then. LeMastersās book is as close as one can get to doing that. He describes the outlook of the tavern regulars on their work, their families, and the world around them. Despite their prosperity, they express attitudes about public life that, in some respects, would not sound out of place in a focus group of working-class adults today.
āLeMastersā book is a valuable and popularly written source of information on the attitudes of working class men and women. Highly recommended.āāLibrary Journal
Blue-Collar Aristocrats is a major statement about a group of Americans too little understood and too long ignored by by the country's decision- and policy-makers. Thanks to the work of E. E. LeMasters, we now have a rare and human insight into the lives, feelings, attitudes, and problems of America's blue-collar aristocratsāone that has the potential both to add to our knowledge and to contribute toward solutions to some of our nation's broadest social problems.
Though I was born in the U.S., I didnāt wind up living here full-time till I was almost 10. The result? I have always been curious about what it means to be an American. In one way or another, the books on my list explore that question. More than that, all (well, nearly all) insist that black history is inextricably intertwined with American history and that American culture is a mulatto culture, a fusion of black and white. After years of making my living as a journalist, editor, and book reviewer, I left newspapers to write fiction and non-fiction, exploring these and other questions.
I still remember reading James Alan McPhersonās book for the first time. I was a senior in high school, one of a handful of black students in what had been an all-white private school. I closed the book, thinking, āFinally. Somebody understands.ā
Like me, McPherson had gone from an all-black school, college in his case, to a majority-white school, in his case, Harvard Law. He began to write fiction there. It was the mid-1960s, but instead of hewing to familiar tropes of the time, black student unrest, black self-segregation, and black victimhood, McPherson cast an unflinching eye on blacks and whites interacting for the first time as equals.
He also depicted blacks in their own world lovingly but without sentimentality. I knew these people. McPherson taught me to see and appreciate them afresh.
The classic debut collection from Pulitzer Prize winner James Alan McPherson
Hue and Cry is the remarkably mature and agile debut story collection from James Alan McPherson, one of Americaās most venerated and most original writers. McPhersonās characters -- gritty, authentic, and pristinely rendered -- give voice to unheard struggles along the dividing lines of race and poverty in subtle, fluid prose that bears no trace of sentimentality, agenda, or apology.
First published in 1968, this collection includes the Atlantic Prize-winning story āGold Coastā (selected by John Updike for the collection Best American Short Stories of the Century). Now withā¦
Curious about Ancient Rome and especially about gladiators, I asked myself, who were the backstage team of the Colosseum? The more I searched for the team, the more I realised there was hardly any mention of them. If there were hundreds of animals, dancers, singers, gladiators, criminals, and more about to be shown off to an audience of 60,000, who was planning and managing it all? And so I created the Colosseumās backstage team ā a retired centurion called Marcus and his scribe Althea, along with a motley crew of slaves, a prostitute, a street boy, even a retired Vestal Virginā¦ they came alive for me while researching and I eventually created a four-book series.
A superb title and an irresistible page-turner. I could have filled whole novels with the jobs described here. Each role was interesting in its own right but also collectively built up really interesting cultural insights. A very strong sense of daily life in all its fun and messiness and a brilliant book to engage not just adults but (with a bit of redaction!) older kids too.
Vicki Le?n, the popular author of the Uppity Women series (more than 335,000 in print), has turned her impressive writing and research skills to the entertaining and unusual array of the peculiar jobs, prized careers and passionate pursuits of ancient Greece and Rome.
From Architect to Vicarius (a deputy or stand-in)-and everything in between-Working IX to V introduces readers to the most unique (dream incubator), most courageous (elephant commander), and even the most ordinary (postal worker) jobs of the ancient world. Vicki Le?n brought a light and thoughtful touch to women's history in her earlier books, and she brings theā¦
Forsaking Home is a story about the life of a man who wants a better future for his children. He and his wife decide to join Earth's first off-world colony. This story is about risk takers and courageous settlers and what they would do for more freedom.
I vividly recall learning about public libraries as a kid: if I signed up for a library card I could take ANY of these books home to read?! From the first, I loved books as physical objects on library shelvesāsavoring their covers and carefully reading their spines as clues to the stories within. I ended up as a professor of literature who does not just study the words, or texts, of novels (my specialty), but how stories are made into books and circulate in the culture. Everything from graphic design to price can influence our interpretation of a story, even before we read the first word...
This book simply changed the way I do business as a historian and a reader. I love the groundbreaking use of diaries, census records, workerās memoirs, and library registers to sketch a detailed picture of real books read by real peopleānot just the official academic record of fine editions with countless mentions of that nameless creature, the ānineteenth-century reader.ā
It inspired me to pursue the stories behind the names and comments scratched into abandoned books that find their way onto eBay and the dusty shelves of second-hand bookstores.
Now in its second edition, this landmark book provides an intellectual history of the British working classes from the preindustrial era to the twentieth century. Drawing on workers' memoirs, social surveys, library registers, and more, Jonathan Rose discovers which books people read, how they educated themselves, and what they knew. A new preface uncovers the author's journey into labor history, and its rewarding link to intellectual history.