BOOKS! Need recommendations

[jetpack_monkey]

I'm traveling on a train to Vividon in August -- 43 hours there and 43 hours back. Exciting! I have some stuff planned to occupy my time. I'm going to put a few choice movies on the iPad and I've downloaded some board games to play with echan. However, I also want to do some reading!

I know my friends' list is fully of savvy book lovers and I want to get some recommendations from you folks. Novels, non-fiction, etc. If it's available for Kindle or in the iBook store, all the better.

Fiction I like: Hitchhiker's Guide (only read the Adams books -- are the later ones any good?), Discworld, Vorkosigan, Dresden Files, Game of Thrones (halfway through book 2 now), 1984, Brave New World, The Running Man, the first Hunger Games book (yes I like dystopia, what of it), Frankenstein, Edgar Allan Poe, Rebecca (du Maurier), Ender's Game, Flannery O'Connor.

Tried getting into Honor Harrington and the military strategy/tech stuff just went right over my head. Might give it another shot.

Non-fiction I like: Books on movies, mostly. More toward the academic/analytical end of things, but given my vidding, I want to start looking at technical stuff related to editing as well. Most of my books are horror-related for obvious reasons and I'd like to branch out from that, although I am still obsessed with genre as a concept and its eternal chicken/egg struggle.

Also, John Green's Crash Course series on Youtube is making me more interested in world history, so if there's any really great reads there, let me know. Ooh and anything on the War of the Roses. I want to compare and contrast it with Game of Thrones.

Comics: Marvel tends to have more deals in the Comics app on the iPad, so I've been reading a metric ton of their stuff lately. I'd like to switch to DC and get some digital trades from the Kindle store. Any really good DC comics or independent series/storylines lately (by lately, I mean in the last eight years)?

Comments

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

Comment posted before I actually finished... In addition to that book (thuviaptarth and laurashapiro rec too) I'm reading Octavia Butler’s Parables book series. It sounds like it'd be right up your alley. It didn't grab in with the first chapters, but I'm really into now. For comics, I always suggest Fell, even though the series is unfinished.

That's cool. Will the train have plugs for an iPad? I've never thought about that.

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

Trains have electricity, according to Echan, but no Internet. So I'm loading up so I don't have to go "Oh wait... I wanted x". The nice thing about living in a digital world is that, in years past, this would've meant a duffel bag of books, games, and other sundry entertainments. Now it's all in one device.

[airawyn.livejournal.com]

Trains might have wifi. The LA-San Diego one does. If it's Amtrak, check the website and it may tell you if your train has wifi. However, the LA-SD one blocks streaming video and large downloads (for bandwidth reasons) and drops out in some places. So it's good for tweeting, reading and possibly chatting but you don't want to depend on it to keep you entertained for the whole trip.

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

Echan took this particular train last year and it did not have Internet then, so I'm not going to be counting on it.