The book I've probably most re-read is Swords Against Death, part of the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series by Fritz Leiber, I probably started reading him because of playing Dungeons & Dragons, and since I actually have some of my 1970's D&D rule books under my desk at work FWLIW here's Gygax on what tales helped inspire Arneson and Gygax to create Dungeons & Dragons
"....those who don't care for Burroughs'
Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find Dungeons & Dragons to their taste."
-E. Gary Gygax
Tactical Studies Rules Editor
1 November 1973
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
"The most immediate influences upon AD&D were probably de Camp & Pratt, REH, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, HPL, and A. Merritt."
-Gygax
16 May 1979
I was really impressed by the tales in Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others, especially by Hell Is the Absence of God
I quite enjoyed The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics by Daniel Abraham, which I've read many times and is in a few anthologies I've bought, Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories is the one I keep near.
After more than a century I still think The Time Machine
An Invention by H. G. Wells holds up.
Susanna Clarke's short stories collected in The Ladies of Grace Adieu, I've re-read many times, her long novel Jonathan Strange & Mr.Norrell waa good and probably worth a re-read.
Larry Niven's The Flight of the Horse was great and others of his short story collections are usually fun.
Josie and the Elevator by Thomas Disch is a short story that I read as a child and then again at 21, and it's haunted my imagination for decades, it’s in the collection The Man Who Had No Idea
The Mabinogion (a collection of Welsh myths translated into English by Gwyn and Thomas Jones I've read from a few times.
Grimm's Fairy Tales I've read from a bunch of times.
British (and to a lesser extent Irish) fairy and folk tale collections I've read many of, probably the two I've most re-read are British Folktales and The Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, & Other Supernatural Creatures both collected by Katharine M. Briggs
I've read many different collections of Greek Myths, the one I have nearest on hand is The Penguin Book of Classical Myths by Jenny March.
I've tried reading Norse myths and the Bible a few times, but just couldn't get into them, the exception is The Book of Job from The Bible, The Book of Job : a biography by Larrimore, Mark J. was a good commentary on it.
For longer form works there's
The War Hound and the World's Pain by Michael Moorcock is probably the novel I've most re-read, it's about a German mercenary soldier in the thirty years war who finds that Lucifer and Hell are real, he is damned, but Lucifer wishes to be reconciled with God and believes that possession of the Holy Grail may allow this, and he promises the soldier his soul (which Lucifer already has claim of) in return for the soldier bringing him the Grail, which the soldier agrees to if Lucifer also free's the soul of a witch the soldier has fallen in love with. The Dukes of Hell aren't keen on this and rebel, hijinks ensue. I've also read and re-read many of Moorcock's other works.
The Broken Sword, and Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson I've re-read
Equal Rites, Lords & Ladies, and Mort by Terry Pratchett I've all read more than once.
The Martian Chronicles and Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury I re-read decades apart.
And like most here I've re-read Tolkien's The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings.
For non-fantasy fiction there's In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, and (most recently) Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (1900) [a novel of a coward sailor’s quest for lost honor and redemption] that are all novels I've re-read.
Stoner (1965) by John Williams [a “mainstream literature” novel, once-upon-a-time I would have ignored this as a story of an “adulterous academic”, but I found it incredibly moving, relatable, and sad]
For non-fiction there's
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford that I dip into from time-to-time to remind myself that all is not rosier in the white-collar world.
The Big Strike by "Mike Quin" (Paul William Ryan), an account of the 1934 San Francisco general strike that I've read twice,
plus there's
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England and The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer which I re-read now and then.
Some other interesting/useful books that I’ve read these last two years:
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment And How It Can Help You Find-And Keep-Love by Amir Levine, M.D and Rachel S. F. Heller, M.A. (2010) [Recommended by both my lovely roommate, my therapist, and a woman who walked by my table in a restaurant, recognized the book cover, said “That’s my favorite book!”, then sat down at a nearby table with a gentleman, and then loudly told him a long list of details about her life, including her sleeping with a co-worker, which was followed by her much quieter lunch companion asked her “Isn’t he married?”, and then they left! Such a cliffhanger!]
Love Signs: A New Approach to the Human Heart by Linda Goodman (1978) [This is vintage 1970’s (when more people actually coupled) astrology, which has no logical basis, supposedly in it’s “system” birthtimes may show why a ‘Gemini’ acts more like an ‘Aries’ (or whatever), just ignore that and ignore birthdates and times and regard it as a description of 24 different personality types (12 different types of men and 12 different types of women) regardless of nominal “signs” and how they interact, works pretty good that way and it’s kinda a poetic way of describing the relationships of different couples)
The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman (1992) [marriage advice from a counselor and pastor]
The Re-marriage manual: How to Make Everything Work Better the Second Time Around by Terry Gaspard (2020) [nothing new covered here but a great collation of other authors advice/findings plus some couples therapy anecdotes, I find this very worthwhile reading]
Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Decide Whether to Stay In or Get Out of Your Relationship by Mira Kirshenbaum (1996)
Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free by Wednesday Martin (2018) [basically tells of how it’s very unlikely for a woman to stay romantic in-love with a long-term monogamous partner, especially one she’s legally married to, even if she still loves their partner it will be as a sibling, no longer a lover, and how much more than men do women crave a variety of lovers]
p
The book I've probably most re-read is Swords Against Death, part of the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series by Fritz Leiber, I probably started reading him because of playing Dungeons & Dragons, and since I actually have some of my 1970's D&D rule books under my desk at work FWLIW here's Gygax on what tales helped inspire Arneson and Gygax to create Dungeons & Dragons
"....those who don't care for Burroughs'
Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find Dungeons & Dragons to their taste."
-E. Gary Gygax
Tactical Studies Rules Editor
1 November 1973
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
"The most immediate influences upon AD&D were probably de Camp & Pratt, REH, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, HPL, and A. Merritt."
-Gygax
16 May 1979
I was really impressed by the tales in Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others, especially by Hell Is the Absence of God
I quite enjoyed The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics by Daniel Abraham, which I've read many times and is in a few anthologies I've bought, Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories is the one I keep near.
After more than a century I still think The Time Machine
An Invention by H. G. Wells holds up.
Susanna Clarke's short stories collected in The Ladies of Grace Adieu, I've re-read many times, her long novel Jonathan Strange & Mr.Norrell waa good and probably worth a re-read.
Larry Niven's The Flight of the Horse was great and others of his short story collections are usually fun.
Josie and the Elevator by Thomas Disch is a short story that I read as a child and then again at 21, and it's haunted my imagination for decades, it’s in the collection The Man Who Had No Idea
The Mabinogion (a collection of Welsh myths translated into English by Gwyn and Thomas Jones I've read from a few times.
Grimm's Fairy Tales I've read from a bunch of times.
British (and to a lesser extent Irish) fairy and folk tale collections I've read many of, probably the two I've most re-read are British Folktales and The Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, & Other Supernatural Creatures both collected by Katharine M. Briggs
I've read many different collections of Greek Myths, the one I have nearest on hand is The Penguin Book of Classical Myths by Jenny March.
I've tried reading Norse myths and the Bible a few times, but just couldn't get into them, the exception is The Book of Job from The Bible, The Book of Job : a biography by Larrimore, Mark J. was a good commentary on it.
For longer form works there's
The War Hound and the World's Pain by Michael Moorcock is probably the novel I've most re-read, it's about a German mercenary soldier in the thirty years war who finds that Lucifer and Hell are real, he is damned, but Lucifer wishes to be reconciled with God and believes that possession of the Holy Grail may allow this, and he promises the soldier his soul (which Lucifer already has claim of) in return for the soldier bringing him the Grail, which the soldier agrees to if Lucifer also free's the soul of a witch the soldier has fallen in love with. The Dukes of Hell aren't keen on this and rebel, hijinks ensue. I've also read and re-read many of Moorcock's other works.
The Broken Sword, and Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson I've re-read
Equal Rites, Lords & Ladies, and Mort by Terry Pratchett I've all read more than once.
The Martian Chronicles and Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury I re-read decades apart.
And like most here I've re-read Tolkien's The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings.
For non-fantasy fiction there's In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, and (most recently) Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (1900) [a novel of a coward sailor’s quest for lost honor and redemption] that are all novels I've re-read.
Stoner (1965) by John Williams [a “mainstream literature” novel, once-upon-a-time I would have ignored this as a story of an “adulterous academic”, but I found it incredibly moving, relatable, and sad]
For non-fiction there's
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford that I dip into from time-to-time to remind myself that all is not rosier in the white-collar world.
The Big Strike by "Mike Quin" (Paul William Ryan), an account of the 1934 San Francisco general strike that I've read twice,
plus there's
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England and The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer which I re-read now and then.
Some other interesting/useful books that I’ve read these last two years:
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment And How It Can Help You Find-And Keep-Love by Amir Levine, M.D and Rachel S. F. Heller, M.A. (2010) [Recommended by both my lovely roommate, my therapist, and a woman who walked by my table in a restaurant, recognized the book cover, said “That’s my favorite book!”, then sat down at a nearby table with a gentleman, and then loudly told him a long list of details about her life, including her sleeping with a co-worker, which was followed by her much quieter lunch companion asked her “Isn’t he married?”, and then they left! Such a cliffhanger!]
Love Signs: A New Approach to the Human Heart by Linda Goodman (1978) [This is vintage 1970’s (when more people actually coupled) astrology, which has no logical basis, supposedly in it’s “system” birthtimes may show why a ‘Gemini’ acts more like an ‘Aries’ (or whatever), just ignore that and ignore birthdates and times and regard it as a description of 24 different personality types (12 different types of men and 12 different types of women) regardless of nominal “signs” and how they interact, works pretty good that way and it’s kinda a poetic way of describing the relationships of different couples)
The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman (1992) [marriage advice from a counselor and pastor]
The Re-marriage manual: How to Make Everything Work Better the Second Time Around by Terry Gaspard (2020) [nothing new covered here but a great collation of other authors advice/findings plus some couples therapy anecdotes, I find this very worthwhile reading]
Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Decide Whether to Stay In or Get Out of Your Relationship by Mira Kirshenbaum (1996)
Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free by Wednesday Martin (2018) [basically tells of how it’s very unlikely for a woman to stay romantic in-love with a long-term monogamous partner, especially one she’s legally married to, even if she still loves their partner it will be as a sibling, no longer a lover, and how much more than men do women crave a variety of lovers]
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