The Bookshelf (AKA Reading Rainbow)


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Curious what books you guys think might appeal to TLD fans.

Just post one per a post, so conversations are easier to track, give a short description.

I'll start :-)

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One Second After, by William R. Forstchen

A story about survival in a semi suburban rural area after an EMP.

It gives you great info on what you can expect to work/not work, and how thin our veneer of civilization is when people become hungry, tired, and displaced.

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Aha! Took my idea and ran with it. ;D I like. No really.

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Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing

Wikipedia said it best: The book recounts [...] the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by Sir Ernest Shackleton in its attempt to cross the Antarctic continent in 1914 and the subsequent struggle for survival endured by the twenty-eight man crew for almost two years.

If you're looking for how dire things can become when you're stuck out in the middle of an environmental hostile environ (on ice!) - check this book out.

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Good thread idea. We've got a bit of a wait 'till this game comes out after all.

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My contribution is The Remaining by D.J. Molles. It's a fantastic book that has since spawned into a series. The author JUST got signed by a publisher, so for the time being it's kindle only as far as I know, but paperbacks at your local bookstore should be showing up sometime in the next year-ish.

From the book description on Amazon... In a steel-and-lead-encased bunker 20 feet below the basement level of his house, a soldier waits for his final orders. On the surface, a plague ravages the planet, infecting over 90% of the populace. The bacterium burrows through the brain, destroying all signs of humanity and leaving behind little more than base, prehistoric instincts. The infected turn into hyper-aggressive predators, with an insatiable desire to kill and feed. Some day soon, the soldier will have to open the hatch to his bunker, and step out into this new wasteland, to complete his mission: SUBVENIRE REFECTUS. TO RESCUE AND REBUILD.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Remaining-D-J-Molles-ebook/dp/B0070B0JW6

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The first survival book I ever read. Set in Canada, no less: Hatchet

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From Amazon: Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is on his way to visit his father when the single-engine plane in which he is flying crashes. Suddenly, Brian finds himself alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but a tattered Windbreaker and the hatchet his mother gave him as a present—and the dreadful secret that has been tearing him apart since his parent’s divorce. But now Brian has no time for anger, self pity, or despair—it will take all his know-how and determination, and more courage than he knew he possessed, to survive.

Absolutely loved this book as a kid.

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I've never heard of On The Beach, but after reading a bit about it the book is now definitely on my to-read list. Hatchet is an amazing book, even if it is for kids. It made me think of another book I read a long time ago.

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A description from the books wikipedia page: Set in the Midwestern USA, the story is in the form of a diary written from the first-person perspective of sixteen-year-old Ann Burden, who has survived a nuclear war and nerve gas through living in a small valley with a self-contained weather system.

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This is now a 5 Star App on the iTunes/Google Play Stores as well.

John "Lofty" Wiseman is a British author and survival consultant, and a former member of the Special Air Service (SAS), the British special forces unit.

In 1959, at the age of eighteen, Wiseman became the youngest person ever to pass selection for the SAS, joining from the Parachute Regiment, which he had joined a year earlier. He went on to serve in the SAS for 26 years, rising to the rank of Sergeant Major

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This one is a bit different.

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The World Without Us. It's a thought experiment that explores what would happen to the civilized and natural world if humans, for whatever reason, were to magically disappear overnight. It's a really cool book, and had a lot of surprises in it for me. Well worth the read if the synopsis intrigues you even a little.

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If you like The Road, I bet you will enjoy

Lost Everything

by Brian Francis Slattery. It is very much in the same spirit, except with proper grammar, a larger character cast, and more of a plot.

@Don_Reba I haven't read that one yet, but Liberation: Being The Adventures Of The Slick Six After The Collapse Of The United States Of America is one of my favorite books.

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I suppose I should add that this book is fantastical and wandering and riddled with references.

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This is one that comes to mind from when I was in high school It had that looming sense of dread and hopelessness, but for some reason I really enjoyed the self-reflection and how the individuals handled the impending doom.

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This and Day of the Triffids are my 2 most favorite books ever.

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I think it's time to read them again it's been a while.

This is a great thread, I will defo read many of the other linked here.

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A EOTWAWKI survival guide cleverly disguised as a novel. Complete economic collapse causes the loss of all government services and utilities.

Lots of good information, and a pretty good story-line.

America faces a full-scale socioeconomic collapse in the near future. The stock market plummets, hyperinflation cripples commerce and the mounting crisis passes the tipping point. Practically overnight, the fragile chains of supply and high-technology infrastructure fall, and wholesale rioting and looting grip every major city. As hordes of refugees and looters pour out of the cities, a small group of friends living in the Midwest desperately try to make their way to a safe-haven ranch in northern Idaho. The journey requires all their skill and training since communication, commerce, transportation and law enforcement have all disappeared. Once at the ranch, the group fends off vicious attacks from outsiders and then looks to join other groups that are trying to restore true Constitutional law to the country. Patriots is a thrilling narrative depicting fictional characters using authentic survivalist techniques to endure the collapse of American civilization. Listening to this compelling, fast-paced novel could one day mean the difference between life and death.

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  • 1 month later...

Just finished "This is not a Drill" ~ Just another Glorious day in the Oilfields by Paul Carter. He wrote the book Don't Tell Mum I Worked on the Rigs, She Thinks I'm A Piano Player In A Whorehouse . . . . Non-Fiction and trues stories from him. Very funny and being a Aussie i can relate to him very well, and understand his humour.

Im now reading Cmdr Chris Hadfield's "An Astronaut's Guide To Life" who is/was the Canadian Astronaut that went up top the I.S.S and did experiments and had them on YouTube and he Tweeted every day. Very good so far, and i do like my Non-Fiction book and Biography types.

I need to zoom through this, as i just got handed Stephen King's "Doctor Sleep" which is the follow on from "The Shining" and little 5yr Old Danny who now is all grown up. Scary stuff or as he says in the Authors Notes, "scaring the begeebies out of everyone" lol

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So I finished The Day of the Triffids and The Chrysalids yesterday, I have to say while both of them were good books, I preferred The Day of the Triffids over the Chrysalids as I enjoy more of the recent aftermath books.

"but this was an enemy they would not survive, it was not wanton smashing and willful burning that they waited for this time: it was simply the long, slow, inevitable course of decay and collapse."

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Just finished Earth Abides and I've got to say that it wasn't for me. The main problem I think I have is

just how much time the narrator spends reflecting on how stupid his tribe is and how much he feels that they look to him as a god.

The Road - Amazing

The Dog Stars - Really good

One Second After - Good, but so realistic it can be a little dry

Currently taking a break from survival, but I may come back soon.

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  • 1 month later...

Just started reading this book called the Wendigo, by Algernon Blackwood. I was doing some research into HP Lovecraft, as Guillermo del Toro is adapting one of his books, and came across this guy, Blackwood, and his book the Wendigo for free in the Kindle store. I'm not super far into it, but it's about these guys in the Canadian hinterlands (they actually use the word at one point) who are hunting moose, but something else starts to show itself to them.

Anyway, haven't gotten super far, but atmospherically it's kind of what I imagine TLD to be dipping into. Check it out. It's freeeeee.

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Also, I was starting to wonder if any of the devs have read it and if it's been an influence at all. Tonally it can be very cold. but some of the writing is just gorgeous and really captures, for lack of a better phrase, "the human condition" and how people think, act and react and...whatever, i'm getting all worked up about it now. About to go to bed and read some more of it right now.

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  • 3 months later...

Well I'm reading again, Raymond E Fiest's Rift War Saga which now consists of 7 books, starting with Magician, and ending with Magicians End.

I bought it on iTunes and reading on my iPad Mini and reading the Forward, Raymond said when he first gave the book to his publisher, being his 1st book, they asked him to remove 50-80 000 words, so he did, and now he has put it all back in, and what was originally 1300 odd pages is now over 1500 and I'm so looking forward to getting into it again.

Reading about Pug the Magician excites me, and the reason I'm reading it again, is because they 6 books never really finished anywhere, even though Pug grew to be over 200yrs old, and now he has written Magicians End, it just the excuse I need to hunker down on a cold winters day, and read a few hundred pages, and let it take me back to this magical land that is Midkemia . . . ..

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