Book recommendations?

[rowyn]

I biked to my local library yesterday. For a few years, Lut and I used to go to the library regularly: we'd go online, request  books to be delivered to the nearest branch and placed on hold, then pick them up when we were emailed that they were in. The interlibrary loan system was sufficiently good that it was rather like ordering books on Amazon, except that you didn't have to pay and you had to go a few miles to get them instead.

 

I am not sure why we stopped going. Maybe we exhausted the backlist of books we knew we wanted to read. But as I was biking past the library a few weeks ago, I thought Hey, maybe I should check out some of the books I'm too cheap to pay  $9.99 for from Amazon.

 

So yesterday, I finally brought my ID with me on a bike ride and acquired a new library card.  I promptly went through and placed holds on the books I could remember being interested in, which was largely "Books by howardtayler's Friends". I am not sure why those are the books I could recall off the top of my head.

 

But I am looking for more book recommendations!  Recommendations for inexpensive e-books not likely to appear in the library are also welcome; I don't mind paying a few dollars for a book.  And classics that are in the public domain are also good: I finished rereading all the Austen novels, which is part of why I am jonesing for more books. For genres, I like sf, fantasy, and romance. I am happy with the various sub-genres of those (urban fantasy, supernatural, etc.)  I prefer books that are generally upbeat -- I am okay with the occasional pivotal character who gets killed or horribly traumatized, but I like stories that have protagonists with whom I sympathize and who get mostly-happy endings.

 

Any suggestions?

Comments

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Sharing Knife: starting to suspiciously resemble Little Home on the Prairie or something like that! I lost interest on the recent ones.

Beyond that, as long as you're digging into the library, you might see if you can find:

David Gerrold's "Chess with the Dragon"
Anything by big name SF authors - Heinlein, Harry Harrison, Asimov, Bradbury, plus Vernor Vinge, Robert L. Forward, Charles Sheffield...

The Liaden books should, referring to above recommendation, particularly appeal to your love of SF and romance, since love does feature strongly into many of the books, as does a courtly manner of speech.