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If you had one book for your library - it would be..


New2Whiskey
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Seems like all the threads for books are over 3 years old.

My GOAL-Have my 'home bar' contain spirits ALONG with specific glass and book.

EX: My bottle of Highland Park 12 YR OLD, Glencairn Glass, and a book. (Haven't chosen one)

In other words, if I had one book for each 'main' spirit. Rum, Vodka, Absinthe, Whiskey, Brandy, etc. (I'll probably make an exception and have Bourbon its own book along with the Riedel Bourbon glass)

And beer also. Although, I think for beer I'll have 3 glasses.

But I want one book that will be a joy for others when I invite them over to look at the collection of bottles, glassware, and books and to pick up a book and be thrilled to look at it and through it.

What are your suggestions? I know its a bourbon forum, so I will ask for your 'book for bourbon' advice.

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Kind of an odd question but, oddly enough, a book immediately popped into my mind to go along with bourbon. Four books, actually: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkein,

Tim

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Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe

...Galaxy...

Yeah, if I could only have one book, this would be it. But it's a beer book.

If I could have several books, one for bourbon, one for irish, one for etc. my bourbon book would be...Dune. Hitchhikers Guide is definitely an Irish Whiskey book. Lord of the Rings is more of a Cognac book. Ringworld for Scotch. Rye: Dragonflight. Gin: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

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...Galaxy...

Notif you want all 6 books under one cover :D

Galaxy has Books 1-6 under a black leather hard cover

... and I agree...Hitchkikers is a beer book...says Ford Perfect

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wow. I really like that so far most of the responses have been sci-fi/fantasy, I'm a huge sci-fi reader. Speaker for the Dead immediately jumped into my head.

I use the top of my whiskey cabinet as a bookshelf. Currently I have copies of Gateway, Mindkiller, Hyperion, Helm, Watership Down, Jack L. Chalker's The Four rings of the Master Series, and a copy of The Dinosaur Heresies on top of the cabinet.

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Mine would be The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler which would work for bourbon or rye . . . in fact, any book by Raymond Chandler.

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Ditto's Ratcheer (Tim)......for non-alcohol reading.....LOTR...my all time favorite. Plus the Silmarillion and all of the other supplemental texts, The Hobbit etc....could keep one busy for years.

Obviously, reading selections are personal choices...some prefer mysteries, history, bio, religious etc. I like everything....I lean toward fantasy / history / science / some philosophy - religion.

P.S. If you want a series....I really enjoyed the Patrick O'Brian - Aubrey / Maturin sailing series.

I am still plodding through the loooooong Wheel of Time ..Robert Jordan...and now his successor Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn series...very good) who has just released the last of 3 books...I am on book 11....(14 total it appears....each about 700+ pages.....) They are good but a challenge.....too many characters and subplots....

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Jono, did you read the Sword of Truth or Magic of Recluse series? by Terry Goodkind and L.E. Modessit Jr. respectively.

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I have a Terry Goodkind book but I have not started it yet...so it is on the menu as well as Glenn Cook's "Chronicles of the Black Company". My brother in law has read probably 10x as much fantasy as myself and the Black Company books are one of his favorites.

Soo many others...Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, David Eddings, Tad Williams.....so much to read and so little time!

I remember discovering the "naughty" side of sci-fi / fantasy....the Blade series, Gor etc...the pulp fiction adventures of heroes, women to be rescued who were very appreciative etc...fuel for adolescent boys!

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Soo many others...Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, David Eddings, Tad Williams.....so much to read and so little time!

How true. I often feel that my life will run out long before I get through the stacks of books I wish to read. Incidentally, Isaac Asimov was once a guest at our house when I was nine or ten. My mother worked as his brother Stan's secretary at Newsday in New York, and so knew him through the family association. My recollection of him involved his commenting about the Star Trek poster I had in my room and that he helped me briefly with a model I was building of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. I still remember being intimidated by him for some reason, even though he was very pleasant. Must have been his incredible intellect that made him an imposing figure.

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UB, that is a terrific memory....have you developed a taste for his sci-fi works? He was a very good writer of both science and fiction.

He did have an intimidating appearance......probably those bushy sideburns!

If I ever hope to get through the literary classics it will probably be via audio books or other technology...I managed to get through The Brothers Karamozov that way....it would have taken far longer for me to read them.

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UB, that is a terrific memory....have you developed a taste for his sci-fi works? He was a very good writer of both science and fiction.

He did have an intimidating appearance......probably those bushy sideburns!

If I ever hope to get through the literary classics it will probably be via audio books or other technology...I managed to get through The Brothers Karamozov that way....it would have taken far longer for me to read them.

I read Asimov's "Foundation Series" many, many years ago but never made it to the "Robot Series" and "Empire Series." He was a brilliant writer but some of those novels can be difficult to slog through at times. My interest in sci-fi has been renewed by some of the posts here and I will definitely be checking out some of the suggestions. One other thing I remember about Asimov is that he had a heavy Brooklyn accent which made him an instant draw for my Uncle Willie, who grew up in the same neighborhood as Mr. Asimov. Uncle Willie liked his beer and gregariously slapped Mr. Asimov on the back a number of times while spinning many off-color jokes as he was prone to do. I'm not sure what Mr. Asimov made of the whole thing but he seemed to enjoy my uncle's "earthiness" and talking about the old neighborhood, one Russian immigrant to another.

It never even occured to me to explore the audio books of some of the literary classics. How did you find the experience of "The Brothers Karamozov" when you tried it?

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Light In August by William Faulkner would be a good one.

As I have read the first chapter a few times, it's like a good short story by itself.

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UB, if you commute via car (or travel plane/train etc)....which I did at the time....it was easy. I actually checked out the "cassette tapes" from the local library and just listened during the drive. Of course now it would be on CD or MP3 downloads etc. It was more like going to a play...the presenter did a good job of reading different characters. A good audiobook can actually enrich the experience with other sounds etc.

I have never used this site but here is an example:

http://www.audiobooks.com/

buy, rent, download, trade etc.

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re: audiobooks - one of my old friends is a truckdriver, and he loves audiobooks 'on the job'. I don't think he's ever opened a copy of P. O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin novel(s), but quotes passages at appropriate moments.

My book would be the aforementioned O'Brian Aubrey and Maturin opus, or 'Blood Meridian: The Evening Redness in the West' by Cormac McCarthy. Good stuff.

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Mine would be The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler which would work for bourbon or rye . . . in fact, any book by Raymond Chandler.

I've got to agree with Andy's vote for Raymond Chandler.

I might pick Farewell My Lovely or The Long Goodbye over The Big Sleep, but any Chandler novel or short story goes well with American whiskey. I'm blanking on the title, but one of Chandler's novels pushed me to make my first cocktail -- a rye and ginger ale. Marlowe mixed up a batch for some police officers who stopped by to make him sweat, and the drink sounded so good, I had to make my own.

Hmm . . . now that I think about it, doesn't one of the bad guys in The Big Sleep poison someone with a tainted bottle of bonded whiskey?

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As a first choice, I'd take either "The River Why" by David James Duncan or "A River Runs Through It and Other Stories" by Norman Maclean.

Thanks to a copy of "Swinger of Birches: Poems of Robert Frost for Young People" that my mother gave me me when I was very young, a book of Robert Frost's poetry is never far away. So were I to sit down and wanted less of a commitment then one of the novelas mentioned above, I'd reach for some Frost.

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A book of poetry is a good choice SippinCharlie, you can experience poetry like music over and over again.

I have The Collected Poems Of Langston Hughes, that would also be a good book for the "one book" question.

Hughes is a favorite of mine because his poems are like music.

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