Trending Science Fiction Books
The Vegetarian (Released: January 2007)
Author(s): Han Kang, Deborah Smith (Translator)
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 3.54 (373 Ratings, 69 Reviews)
Pages: 188
Winner of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Publisher's Weekly • Buzzfeed • Entertainment Weekly • Time • Wall Street Journal • Bustle • Elle • The Economist • Slate • The Huffington Post • The St. Louis Dispatch • Electric Literature Featured in the New York Times selection of "15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century" A beautiful, unsettling novel about rebellion and taboo, violence and eroticism, and the twisting metamorphosis of a soul Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams—invasive images of blood and brutality—torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself. Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.
Genre(s): Fiction, Psychological, Women, Korea (South), Dystopian, Science fiction, Vegetarians
The Fountainhead (Released: None)
Author(s): Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff (Afterword)
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 3.48 (248 Ratings, 14 Reviews)
Pages: None
None
Genre(s): Science fiction, Classics, Dystopian
Infinite Jest (Released: January 1996)
Author(s): David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers (Forward)
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.25 (217 Ratings, 39 Reviews)
Pages: 1079
A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human - and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.
Genre(s): Fiction, Science fiction, General, Classics, Friendship, Humor, Dystopian
The Crying of Lot 49 (Released: January 1965)
Author(s): Thomas Pynchon
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 3.84 (192 Ratings, 25 Reviews)
Pages: 288
When her ex-lover, wealthy real-estate tycoon Pierce Inverarity, dies and designates her the coexecutor of his estate, California housewife Oedipa Maas is thrust into a paranoid mystery of metaphors, symbols, and the United States Postal Service. Traveling across Southern California, she meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self-knowledge.
Genre(s): Classics, Fiction, Science fiction, General, Poetry, Politics
White Noise (Released: January 1985)
Author(s): Don DeLillo, Richard Powers (Introduction)
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 3.80 (181 Ratings, 21 Reviews)
Pages: 337
White Noise is the story of Jack, his wife, Babette, and their four ultramodern offspring. They live in a college town where Jack is Professor of Hitler Studies (and conceals the fact that he does not speak a word of German), and Babette teaches posture and volunteers by reading tabloids to a group of elderly shut-ins. They are happy enough, until a deadly toxic accident and Babette’s addiction to an experimental drug make Jake question everything. White Noise is considered a postmodern classic and its unfolding of themes of consumerism, family and divorce, and technology as a deadly threat have attracted the attention of literary scholars since its publication.
Genre(s): Classics, Fiction, Science fiction, General, Dystopian, Literature
Cosmos (Released: January 1980)
Author(s): Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson (Foreword), Ann Druyan (Introduction)
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.48 (133 Ratings, 9 Reviews)
Pages: 450
This book is about science in its broadest human context, how science and civilization grew up together. It is the story of our long journey of discovery and the forces and individuals who helped to shape modern science, including Democritus, Hypatia, Kepler, Newton, Huygens, Champollion, Lowell and Humason. The book also explores spacecraft missions of discovery of the nearby planets, the research in the Library of ancient Alexandria, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, the origin of life, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies and the origins of matter, suns and worlds. The author retraces the fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution that have transformed matter into life and consciousness, enabling the cosmos to wonder about itself. He considers the latest findings on life elsewhere and how we might communicate with the beings of other worlds. ~ WorldCat.org
Genre(s): Classics, Science fiction, Space, Science, Astronomy & Space Science, Cosmology
Tenth of December (Released: June 2012)
Author(s): George Saunders
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.05 (128 Ratings, 23 Reviews)
Pages: 272
One of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story, and Tenth of December is his most honest, accessible, and moving collection yet. In the taut opener, “Victory Lap,” a boy witnesses the attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with a harrowing choice: Does he ignore what he sees, or override years of smothering advice from his parents and act? In “Home,” a combat-damaged soldier moves back in with his mother and struggles to reconcile the world he left with the one to which he has returned. And in the title story, a stunning meditation on imagination, memory, and loss, a middle-aged cancer patient walks into the woods to commit suicide, only to encounter a troubled young boy who, over the course of a fateful morning, gives the dying man a final chance to recall who he really is. A hapless, deluded owner of an antiques store; two mothers struggling to do the right thing; a teenage girl whose idealism is challenged by a brutal brush with reality; a man tormented by a series of pharmaceutical experiments that force him to lust, to love, to kill—the unforgettable characters that populate the pages of Tenth of December are vividly and lovingly infused with Saunders’s signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation. Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human. Unsettling, insightful, and hilarious, the stories in Tenth of December—through their manic energy, their focus on what is redeemable in human beings, and their generosity of spirit—not only entertain and delight; they fulfill Chekhov’s dictum that art should “prepare us for tenderness.” ([source][1]) [1]: http://www.georgesaundersbooks.com/tenth-of-december/
Genre(s): Classics, Fiction, Science fiction
One Shot (Released: January 2005)
Author(s): Lee Child
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.05 (114 Ratings, 9 Reviews)
Pages: 498
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • THE BLOCKBUSTER JACK REACHER SERIES THAT INSPIRED THE STREAMING SERIES REACHER “Pure, escapist gold . . . Mr. Child’s tough talk and thoughtful plotting make an ingenious combination.”—The New York Times Six shots. Five dead. One heartland city thrown into a state of terror. But within hours the cops have it solved: a slam-dunk case. Except for one thing. The accused man says: You got the wrong guy. Then he says: Get Reacher for me. And sure enough, ex—military investigator Jack Reacher is coming. He knows this shooter–a trained military sniper who never should have missed a shot. Reacher is certain something is not right–and soon the slam-dunk case explodes. Now Reacher is teamed with a beautiful young defense lawyer, moving closer to the unseen enemy who is pulling the strings. Reacher knows that no two opponents are created equal. This one has come to the heartland from his own kind of hell. And Reacher knows that the only way to take him down is to match his ruthlessness and cunning–and then beat him shot for shot.
Genre(s): Adventure, Fiction, Science fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Detective and mystery stories
When We Cease to Understand the World (Released: January 2019)
Author(s): Benjamín Labatut, Adrian Nathan West (Translator)
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 4.07 (122 Ratings, 17 Reviews)
Pages: 192
SELECTED FOR BARACK OBAMA’S SUMMER READING LIST ‘A monstrous and brilliant book’ Philip Pullman ‘Wholly mesmerising and revelatory... Completely fascinating’ William Boyd Sometimes discovery brings destruction When We Cease to Understand the World shows us great minds striking out into dangerous, uncharted terrain. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger: these are among the luminaries into whose troubled lives we are thrust as they grapple with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, they alienate friends and lovers, they descend into isolated states of madness. Some of their discoveries revolutionise our world for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear. With breakneck pace and wondrous detail, Benjamín Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to break open the stories of scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.
Genre(s): Fiction, Science fiction, War
Bad Luck and Trouble (Released: January 2007)
Author(s): Lee Child
Ratings and Reviews from Hardcover
Rating: 3.93 (102 Ratings, 8 Reviews)
Pages: 477
From a helicopter high above the empty California desert, a man is sent free-falling into the night…. In Chicago, a woman learns that an elite team of ex–army investigators is being hunted down one by one.... And on the streets of Portland, Jack Reacher—soldier, cop, hero—is pulled out of his wandering life by a code that few other people could understand. From the first shocking scenes in Lee Child’s explosive new novel, Jack Reacher is plunged like a knife into the heart of a conspiracy that is killing old friends…and is on its way to something even worse. A decade postmilitary, Reacher has an ATM card and the clothes on his back—no phone, no ties, and no address. But now a woman from his old unit has done the impossible. From Chicago, Frances Neagley finds Reacher, using a signal only the eight members of their elite team of army investigators would know. She tells him a terrifying story—about the brutal death of a man they both served with. Soon Reacher is reuniting with the survivors of his old team, scrambling to raise the living, bury the dead, and connect the dots in a mystery that is growing darker by the day. The deeper they dig, the more they don’ t know: about two other comrades who have suddenly gone missing—and a trail that leads into the neon of Vegas and the darkness of international terrorism. For now, Reacher can only react. To every sound. Every suspicion. Every scent and every moment. Then Reacher will trust the people he once trusted with his life—and take this thing all the way to the end. Because in a world of bad luck and trouble, when someone targets Jack Reacher and his team, they’d better be ready for what comes right back at them…
Genre(s): Fiction, Adventure, Science fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, American fiction, Ex-police officers