I'm reposting something I posted a couple of years ago:

Well, perhaps the most famous recent post-apocalyptic novel was McCarthy's The Road. Quite a bleak book, and very characteristic of McCarthy's spartan prose, this became a huge international best seller and a successful Hollywood movie. I certainly recommend it, but it's not really an uplifting book and has several confronting scenes. Still, very good.

The other obvious recent "literary" PA novels would be Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake" trilogy. They start with Oryx and Crake, are followed by Year of the Flood and conclude with MaddAddam. These are very good books with strong feminist and ecological themes (a good thing!). Highly recommended.

The Dog Stars is yet another recent PA novel which garnered a fair bit of praise (I picked it up after hearing a segment on the novel on NPR's Fresh Air). I enjoyed it, despite the cliched "Survivalist" aspects and occasional far-fetched coincidences. A good, fun read; especially if you're a dog lover. :)

Other recommended titles (which I won't link to directly for time reasons) include Justin Cronin's The Passage trilogy (kind of a mash up between post apocalypse and horror), Stephen King's The Stand (ditto), A Canticle for Leibowitz, Earth Abides and Alas Babylon (the triptych of classics of the genre).

Good luck. I love these books even though I'm a positive optimistic guy! :)

EDIT: I overlooked Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven (fun, action packed but accused by some of racist undertones), The Postman by David Brin (so so so very much better than the movie it spawned. So much better), The Year of the Plague by someone I forgot (rather original PA novel with nano-technology rearing its head) and even Blood Music by Greg Bear (though most people consider this full on science fiction, it does feature an apocalypse... or a sort. :)





 



 




 



Since then, I've thought of (or read) a few more. Perhaps one of the most famous is Station Eleven. It garnered a fair bit of media attention and mainstream critical acclaim a couple of years ago. It's a bit of a slow burner, and whilst it's not my favourite post-apocalyptic novel, it's certainly worth picking up. The Girl with All the Gifts was a recent hit. Set in the UK, it tells the story of a band of British scientists and soldiers searching for remaining survivors, as they bring along a very strange and very dangerous survivor of the recent plague. It's great fun and was made into a movie recently. I believe the author recently published a sequel (The Boy on the Bridge?), but I haven't read this.

Wastelands is a collection of short-stories. Some really good stuff here, and if you're not feeling up to a full length novel or comptemplating the end of humanity, it's well worth a look.


Let me know if you want more. It's a favourite genre of mine. :)

Oh that's awesome! I wanna see both of those so bad! I loved Despicable Me, it was so cute and such a fun concept anyways! I also watch a lot of superhero and fantasy adventure stuff, but only in the past few years have been getting into scifi/fantasy and it's been so great, I don't know why I let myself miss out on so much gold! My favorites are Total Recall and The 5th Element. I even hadn't seen it when I had hair just like Leeloo's! *Doh!! :)

I'd recommend the GoT books if you ever want a good series or just something to take up a lot of time. It's far more interesting than the tv series can even begin to cover! But I'm not huge into reading that type of stuff so it's been a bit of challenge for me too. Definitely not for the faint of heart hehe. And the 3rd season is just... INSANE. BUT SO GOOD. I never thought I'd get super into GoT like I have been, especially after I saw the first season, but...ohmigosh I kinda freak about it now, haha!! There's a website that has pretty good quality collections of shows for streaming, just google project free tv, it should be fairly obvious which link it is, and they have all the GoT seasons on there and you don't have to do the risky torrenting. Although you sound pretty busy so I'm sure you might not even have time for more tv, hehe!

The Road is actually a 2006 novel, you're correct, I think my friends just qualified it as a "classic" because they were super into the genre when it came out, and I even had a few friends say they read it in school, so perhaps it'll be one for the "newer classics" haha.

Also, I absolutely adore that you like the videogames movies, Mortal Kombat and SMB are great, haha! I didn't realize they had made a DnD movie though!!! Is it actually good!?!?!!! <insert mindblown.gif here>

And yeah I love Bastion!! It's so pretty yet so fun and I can only WISH someone followed me around to narrate my life in the awesome way Rukus does it!! :D

Couple of suggestions:

• Stephen King: The Dark Tower (series)
  
• Derren Brown: Tricks of the Mind
  
• Simon Singh: The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets
  
• Mark Hadden: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
  
• J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter
  
• Mark Leigh: Pets with Tourette's
  
  Don't what your interested in, but the above is pretty good all round list.
  
  The Dark Tower books are an amazing read. Fantasy fiction. 7 books in the series, with an 8^th written latter that is kinda supposed to be in the middle somewhere. It is an addictive read, and yet I haven't finished it yet. I'm not very good at describing books, and I don't want to ruin it at all. So I'm afraid you'll have to look up reviews. But they are brilliant, and I really must finish them!
  
  Derren Brown is (if you don't know) a British illusionist with an absolutely unbelievable set of skills. He is constantly de-bunking psychics, and magic in general, while at the same time making you believe he is magic (even if you have absolutely no belief in magic at all)! This book explains some of the tricks he does, and how to perform a lot of things. From simple disappearing coins, to insane memory capabilities. Very interesting read. Another one that is really hard to put down.
  
  The Simpsons Mathematical Secrets book is something I found accidentally while being really nerdy and watching this video. It turns out that a lot of The Simpsons writers are mathematicians. These guys slip nerdy Easter Eggs into the episodes, and Simon goes through them all. The video linked talks about how numbers should be difference for the Simpsons, as they only have 4 fingers (3 and a thumb) where as we have 5. This makes us use a base 10 number system, they should use a base 8 number system. Fundamentally changing things like Pi. The writers knew this. But there is one, and only one, character in The Simpsons who has 5 fingers (4 and a thumb), and so this is why they live in a decimal world - The only character is God, and he controls the number system for some reason.
  
  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is a book I had to read in school. It is an amazing diary like "murder mystery novel like no other". It is narrated by a 15 year old boy with Asperger's Syndrome. It has been a while since I read this, so I don't remember a lot about it, but I remember reading it a couple of times before the rest of my class got around to finishing it. Not a long book, but a very good one!
  
  I included Harry Potter, because its an obvious choice. It's also the only one from the above that I've finished (other than The Curious Incident). I've finished all 7 books. But never got around finishing the others (only got the Simpsons one for Christmas). If you haven't seen the films, read the books first. They are 100 times better. Seriously. But the films are like icing on the amazing cake that is HP, so don't avoid them either. This isn't just a kids book/film like some people assume.
  
  Pets with Tourette's is a picture book. Not for kids. The things these pets say sometimes, disgraceful.
  
  
  
  
  Can't think of any others, but probably because it is 4am here. Hahaha.
  
  
  EDIT: Grammar and formatting errors.

Autogenerated.

Discussion Megathread: Leah Remini A&E Special + AMA Announcement for Cedars and Steve Hassan!

The long-awaited special will be airing at 9PM ET/PT on Tuesday November 13th, 2018. It will air on the cable channel A&E in the US.

We'll be trying to keep this post up to date with links/details on how to watch Leah's A&E expose as we get them in, so please comment below if you know of a way to watch that isn't listed.

• Here is the Trailer/Discussion of that Trailer.
  
• Here is Who Will be on the Panel
  
  Do you want to Thank Leah? Do that here! A few Folks are organizing a Twitter Storm to thank Leah on November 14, which you can read all about here, or see u/patlynnw:
  
  ​
  
  Watch in Canada on Optik/Teleus
  
  How to Watch in the UK Sun Nov 18th, 7pm
  
  (Possibly) Watch Online, after the fact:
  
  
• The A&E Website
  
• Hulu
  
• Amazon Prime
  
• You can also try your luck with the A&E App.
  
  ​
  
  

  Special AMA Details!!
  

  
  To ease your cult expose hangover, we will also be hosting TWO Special AMAs. Please give a massive thanks to both Cedars and Steve Hassan who have reached out and accepted our AMA invitations! Here is when all that is going down:
  
  ​
  
  Cedars, AKA the inimitable Lloyd Evans- Friday November 16th, 2018. Starting 8AMEST for appx. 24 hours.
  
  Guys, it's Cedars!! Join us as we offer the chance to Q&A one of the most prominent activists in the EXJW community. Lloyd is best known as the Founder of JW Survey and the John Cedars Channel He has also recently authored a book, which is part of a greater wave that is making public the struggles of those in the EXJW community. Lloyd, if I've missed anything (as I am sure I have), let me know. :) For the rest of you, watch this space for the sticky, where you will be able to ask your quesetions!
  
  ​
  
  Steve Hassan- Monday November 19th, 2018. 9AM EST, for appx 24 Hours.
  
  Let's have a round of applause for everyone's favorite cult deprogramming expert! Steve Hassan is the founder of Freedom of Mind, and a leading figure in the movement to define how cults operate and combat their effects. His book "Combating Cult Mind Control" is a cult favorite (no pun intended) among EXJWs and will be having its 30th anniversary this week. Here is an excerpt from his website, with more information:
  
  >"Steven has helped thousands of former cult members and their families, clergy, psychologists and fellow cult experts over the years. He co-developed “Ending the Game”, a non-coercive curriculum designed to educate and empower commercial sex trafficking victims, and has spoken out about the effects, mechanisms, and signs of undue influence in its many forms on 60 Minutes, CNN, NPR, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Larry King Live, Oprah, and many other programs, as well as being featured in People Magazine, USA Today, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, and dozens of other major publications and websites."
  
  Watch "Hot" sort for the sticky next Monday where you can ask Steve whatever you'd like! You won't want to miss this chance.
  
  ​
  
  PS- Sorry we had to clump it all together. Reddit only gives us two stickys.
  
  ​
  
  
  -----------------------------------------------------------
  
  IamAbot_v01. Alpha version. Under care of /u/oppon.
  Comment 1 of 1
  Updated at 2018-11-12 08:24:51.091331
  
  Next update in approximately 20 mins at 2018-11-12 08:44:51.091368

Alain de Botton's Essays on Love (2006) is an insightful and playful anecdotal narrative that is, according to a review, "profound [in its] observations ... of the pain and exhilaration of love."

It isn't a runaway romance novel, however, though they surely have their place in a desperate share of youthful readership, I feel that they immaturely incite erroneous romantic notions in those inexperienced with love. So if you feel that this factors into how your sister views relationships, this novel is a good check against whirlwind romances, replacing it with a healthy perspective of realism.

And although I don't think that it will appeal via the "tough love" sensibility you're looking for, it does reassuringly articulate the subtleties of relationship dynamics in a very entertaining and palatable way. (It is the only book that I've eager restarted promptly after finishing, should that attest to its readability.) As the novel transitions from discrete stages of the author's relationship from beginning to end, it does feel very much like you're experiencing it, surely in some abstracted form, but one in which the wisdom translates almost unaffected.

In a way, that may be a more forgiving approach to use in guiding her in the right direction, otherwise a "get-your-shit-together" book, as well-written as it may be, would come across as overbearing and consequently diminish the effectiveness of the effort.

Although I am a 20-year old college guy, I feel that my suggestion should merit the credibility equal to the thoughtfulness with which it's written. (Justification. In case my age doesn't reflect my maturity.)

Though perhaps, the similarity in age to your sister would count as a reassuring factor in how the novel would be received by her as well.

Anyways, tell me how it goes.

At a 24-hour-long party that my friends throw every year, a gorgeous woman walks in on crutches and I'm thinking "holy crap, she'd never be in my league if she didn't walk funny". I offer to bring her a plate of food and we start talking. She wants to teach French and learn Basque; my BA was in linguistics. She has more favorite books than favorite movies; we discover we have a mutual top-ten favorite other than HHGTTG. We talk all night, crash on adjacent parts of the living room (if anyone stayed up past 3am, they were quieter than our exhaustion would wake us to), continue the conversation during breakfast, and I blurt out something like "You're smart, you love languages, you love books... this may be a bit premature but will you marry me?" >><<recordscratch>><<

...a pin drops and everyone hears it... and the living room was carpeted...

She handles it like a champ, says "Well, we just met, you should probably wait at least a year."

We keep in touch by email. I drive a few hours across the state to pick her up for a weekend (because she doesn't know how to drive) and show her my city. Within a few months she moves in and we're loving it.

At the same party, one year later... well, would YOU have waited any longer than necessary?

TLDR: Later this month we'll celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary. If I can afford it, her anniversary present is going to be hand controls for our car so that she can learn to drive. Life is sweet.

Not that things are this point in your situation, but if they become so or are for someone else, please check out Combatting Cult Mind Control. It's an excellent book on why cults are successful, what tactics they employ, and how loved ones can work against them to help get their family members back. In general it's an interesting read and great for keeping you aware of what to look out for if you are investigating a religion to join, and may be useful in conversations with your mother if she's flirting with the idea of joining Scientology.

Thursday Next from "The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde (and the five or six other books in the series) is a very well written character.

Brilliant hilarious books, and she's one of the more complicated, conflicted characters around. Plus, she does in fact punch lots of stuff and shoots lots of stuff.

Basically, if you grew up on Harry Potter and then decided to major in English Lit at college but your sense of humor got irreparably warped by all the absurdist British comedies, then Thursday is your gal.

The Eyre Affair is one of those types of books I always carry around a couple of copies to give to anyone who comes across as interesting or funny or smart. Everyone love love loves it. It's the first in a series. All Fforde's other series are great too.


https://www.amazon.com/Eyre-Affair-Thursday-Next-Novel/dp/0142001805/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499829090&sr=8-1&keywords=the+eyre+affair

Incredibly late to the party... but right now I'm reading The Atrocity Archives - by Charles Stross. If you like well written sci-fi, Lovecraftian interdimensional horrors, and computer science, this is the book for you.

One of his other novels, Glasshouse, might be my all time favorite book. It's pretty easy to read sci-fi, has some awesome new concepts, and surprisingly really delves deep into gender issues. The last part kinda threw me but it's really well done and a very well presented.

Yes. I had a couple come over and do a "Bible study" for a couple of months. They were very nice folks and were knowledgeable about a very narrow slice of the Bible, which was a peculiar interpretation of their New World Translation.

They will not go to Mass with you. If you offer them reading materials, they will gladly accept them (but they are instructed to destroy those materials immediately afterword).

Bible verse ping-pong is a fruitless endeavor with them, though it will give you a chance to further investigate for yourself the solid claims of the Catholic Church and Her authority.

The best results I had with them was after reading up on cults and mind control, especially Stephen Hassan's Combatting Cult Mind Control, which will help you identify the tactics they use on their members and prospective members (such as love bombing).

If you have the skills to engage with them on critical thinking, then do so. I had some success with them on this front. You'll have to do so without bringing up the Bible, for once you get into that they go into JW mode.

If they are converts to JW, ask them about their lives before. This often causes them to snap out of JW mode.

You can also learn about them through the ex-JW subreddit, though you'll have to realize that there are a lot of hurt folks -- many of whom are completely turned off to religion and, especially, organized religion, which is understandable considering the nature of JW and the Watchtower Org.

Know that they are probably more prepared for you than you are for them. They spend hours and hours readying themselves to be a pioneer. And each week they will prepare extensively for your "Bible study."

Be kind. Be patient. Invite them into your home for a safe place to sit and take a load off. I find them to be friendly and trustworthy. I would trust any JW with my wallet, but not my salvation.

> Maybe someone needs a book but really most people dont " need" a book about Jehovas witneses ( maybe 100 Best Door Slaming Techniques) See what I mean

I DO see what you mean, and I agree completely! I mean, I've got this library of SGI books and out-of-print books about the SGI, and there's only ONE that I've found anyone to have any independent interest in - Hirotatsu Fujiwara's "I Denounce Soka Gakkai" - and that was simply whether I thought it was the authors siggy inside the front cover! I'll pull out a few paragraphs from these, maybe, but I certainly don't expect anyone else to go to the investment of time and energy to read the damn things!

Reading entire books is the stuff of college courses and grad school, not an anti-cult activism/cult escapee support site!

>the question what is sgi is misleading any way as sure the cult itself love to have a neat little introductory book So dont give the culties ideas

They've already got that O_O

>101 uses for A Dead Ikeda

OMG! YAAAS!! Or at least some scenes reminiscent of "Weekend at Bernie's"! I think I could actually do that - I'll need to brush up on my Photoshop skillz. Stay tuned - probably not today, but perhaps this week.

>I am kind of thinking getting a UK British ex sgi facebook page or something I would like to meet other ex sgi and exchange thoughts / support other people escaping

Well, over here, there's a "Meetup" site where you can advertise for people to get together, and they contact you through that site and confirm so you can get it all set up - that's a pretty easy way to do it, I suppose. wisetaiten back in the day tried, but there was only one person who responded and wasn't close enough, so she didn't try again. Facebook's a good resource, though - why not? And I don't think there's any worry about copyright or anything - don't worry, they'll let you know if there is, but there's plenty of SGI stuff on Facebook. wisetaiten even set up an SGIWhistleblowers Facebook page, but I can't get into it now...

>You do that Brilliantly here on whistle blowers

With YOUR help!

>I do also think some Drs mental health psychologist are needed for some explanations for some people .

"Religious trauma syndrome" is a pretty new definition; I believe the field of psychology is still in catching-up mode as far as cult damage goes. I don't know of any book about cult effects from the medical perspective; for now, Steve Hassan's "Combatting Cult Mind Control" (updated 2015) remains the gold standard; I'd follow that up with Margaret Thaler Singer's "Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace" - while I have not read either of these (prolly should, yo), I've used excerpts from them that I've found online and I believe wisetaiten read the Steve Hassan book and posted here about it. The Thaler Singer book is from 2003 and while it includes some cult specifics (Aum, Moonies, among others) it doesn't seem to identify SGI specifically - the Ikeda cult is just that irrelevant. That's another reason that writing such a book is an unappealing prospect - there just isn't much demand for it outside of this little group. Look at our subscriptions - thus far, we're less than 900. There are pages on reddit with millions of subscribers! THEY should write books!

>its deadly serious shit the mental fuck up sgi produces

It certainly is. I know people are often flippant, even silly, around here, but I hope we demonstrate how seriously we take the effects and communicate that appropriately to our visitors.

>like you cant actualy be real unless you go over to hall 1 and bang out load of chanting for 30 minutes before you start activity

Gotta get you in that compliant, gullible, obedient, cooperative trance state first!

>spend 10-20-30 years beliving that stuff and then find out its all a crock of shit if that dont mess ya mind up what will ?

I know. Some say we should just forget all about it, leave it behind like used toilet paper and not give it any more thought than that wad of used toilet paper, but people's minds don't work that way. Of course our SGI critics want us to shut up and they try everything, like shaming us for "focusing on what's in the past, maaaan".

>what is sgi ?

>buncha money grabbing croocks A organised crime syndicate a slick propaganda machine Its just horible organisation

And THERE ya have it, folks!

I think it's awesome that you want to hear from all sides before coming to your own conclusion. That's the sign of a mature person in my opinion. I'm not very familiar with the Mormons so I can't point to specific doctrines but I can recommend a very good book that has helped many Jehovah's Witnesses who have left their religion.

Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan

In the book, which was written by an ex-Moonie so it's not specifically about Mormons, he outlines warning signs of dangerous religious groups. It might be helpful to go through the checklist and see if any apply to your situation.

What it all boils down to though, in my opinion, is do you care if your beliefs are true or not? If you do care, then the question is how can someone tell if their beliefs are true? And the answer is verifiable evidence.

Also you asked for a book. Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan is an excellent book!! The beauty of this book and the author is that Steven is not or was ever a JW. He was associated with the Moonies in the 70's.

JW's believe anyone who was ever a JW and is no longer is an "apostate." JW's view "apostate's" as enemies of "God's Organization" and thus are commanded to never talk to them, read anything the publish, or listen to anything they say. (The reason for the "quotation marks" is that JW's view anyone who is critical of their organization as apostate whether they were a JW or not. Also they are not "God's Organization" they are a CULT by every definition of the word. But please be gentle when using that word with active JW's, they don't realize it yet, and a mental barrier will immediately go up.)

Since Steven doesn't mention JW's it may help your friend to indirectly realize that she is in cult, without ever fully saying so.

Hope this helps!

If you already tried American Gods, try Stardust from the same author. Albeit shorter,the world is rich and wonderful while the story is quite clever.

If you are looking for something totally different, try the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. The first book is Eyre Affair. It is a book about people who love to read book. It has fantasy, sci-fi, crime thriller all mashed up together perfectly. It's funny and have several meta-references to some famous title which could encourage you to read even more.

Being socially awkward isn't something you have to live with. You don't say what age you are, but I started off that way and got much, much better with practice. Use your obsessive qualities and study how to interact with people:

https://www.amazon.com/Manners-Excruciatingly-Correct-Behavior-Freshly/dp/0393058743

I've basically developed a list of topics that cover just about anyone you might meet and need to interact with that serve as placeholders until you find out if there's anything more interesting you can talk about. You just have to carefully watch people's body language and vocal inflections to figure out how they are reacting.

The larger question is what's the point? Live your life doing the things you love and you'll find people with common interests. You want to find your own tribe where you don't have to pretend. Using language like "geeky/nerdy" and "socially awkward" just stigmatizes people for being their normal selves based on an arbitrary scale.

For example, I hang out at a Maker Space several times a week, and the place is littered with people who fit your description. I'm sure the group that hangs out at the country club bar has better social skills, but who the hell cares? Hell, I even got a date after a couple of months with someone who's much better looking than I'd ever have a shot at online.

Great series of books. You do not need to read them in order; I read book 4 first, and it spoils nothing.

Supposedly, Amazon Prime wants to do a miniseries of this, or at least the first book, to the level of quality of Game of Thrones. I'll... believe it when I see it.

Anyway here are Amazon/Audible links! (Or hit up your local library, etc.)

1. Consider Phlebas paperback / Audible
   
   
2. The Player of Games paperback / Audible
   
   
3. Use of Weapons paperback / Audible
   
   
4. The State of the Art (collection of short stories) paperback / Audible
   
   
5. Excession (I read this one first, it's great) paperback / Audible
   
   
6. Inversions (sort-of a Culture book) paperback / Audible
   
   
7. Look to Windward paperback / Audible
   
   
8. Matter paperback / Audible
   
   
9. Surface Detail paperback / Audible
   
   
10. The Hydrogen Sonata (my favorite - Vyr Cossont is my hero) paperback / Audible
    
    I really like this stuff as space opera type stuff. It's usually not "hard" sci-fi like Asimov or even Philip K. Dick or anything, but I rather hope humanity heads in the direction of the Federation, and then ultimately to The Culture.
    
    Fun fact!! Elon Musk named the autonomous drone barge ships (the ones that SpaceX rockets land on) after some Culture ships. Namely the Of Course I Still Love You, and the Just Read The Instructions. I also rather like the full name of the ship Mistake Not… (Don't Google it! It's a spoiler!!!)

Here's a list of some of the better, popular books that may go over well with the group. Some of the topics may be a bit dark, but the treatment is well thought out and the writing style is beautiful in my opinion.

• White Oleander by Janet Fitch
  
• Tell A Thousand Lies by Rasana Atreya
  
• The Hangmans Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch & Lee Chadeayne
  
• When You Went Away by Michael Baron
  
• (light reading) The Liberation of Alice Love by Abby McDonald
  
  I'm a sci fi reader mostly, but I did get a kick out of each of these books, especially the second one by Rasana Atreya. Hope you like them too.
  
  EDIT: added links.
  

I went through a phase like this (but I'm not saying it's just a phase for you). Personally, I wasn't very happy. The birth of my son was a big reality check for me. I reevaluated everything and ultimately concluded that the church didn't do as much good as I previously thought it did, and I felt that I had a responsibility to truth and I didn't feel comfortable raising my son in the church if it wasn't 100% literally true. I also felt more and more guilty being associated with the church because of its homophobic doctrines - I wanted to set an example of acceptance for my son, especially considering that there's a decent chance that he may be somewhere on the LGBT spectrum.

My advice would be to keep going if you feel good about it and if it truly makes you happy. I'd also recommend being completely open and authentic - if the church doesn't accept you with open arms as you are, it's not worthy of you.

I'd also really recommend https://www.amazon.com/Combatting-Cult-Mind-Control-Best-selling/dp/0892813113. I think it's really important to understand mind control techniques. If you conclude that the church doesn't use them and you don't feel like they are at work in your life, great! No harm, no foul. And if it turns out the church has been using them on you, you can look at your situation from a more informed perspective. Again, you may still conclude that the church does more good than harm.

Good luck.

It was brutal. I wasn't that good. But there were many people who were superb. It was such a pleasure watching them perform.

Here are some sci-fi recommendations (you may have read them already, but I thought I'd offer anyway):

Serious Scifi:

Anathem the "multiverse" (multiple realities) and how all that works
Seveneves feminism meets eugenics—watch out!
The Culture series by Iain Banks, esp Book 2, the Player of Games Banks is dead, but wrote some of the best intellectual scifi ever

Brilliant, Visionary:

Accelerando brilliant and hilarious; and it's not a long book
Snowcrash classic
Neuromancer another classic

Tawdry yet Lyrical (in a good way):

Dhalgren beautiful, poetic, urban, stream of consciousness, and more sex than you can believe

Underrated Classics:

Voyage to Arcturus ignore the reviews and the bad cover of this edition (or buy a diff edition); this is the ONE book that every true scifi and fantasy fan should read before they die

Stress Pattern, by Neal Barrett, Jr. I can't find this on Amazon, but it is a book you should track down. It is possibly the WORST science fiction book ever written, and that is why you must read it. It's a half-assed attempt at a ripoff of Dune without any of the elegance or vision that Herbert had, about a giant worm that eats people on some distant planet. A random sample: "A few days later when I went to the edge of the grove to ride the Bhano I found him dead. I asked Rhamik what could have happened and he told me that life begins, Andrew, and life ends. Well, so it does."

Changeling Space Program (My Little Pony) - the changelings are attempting to be the first on the moon. It has realistic depictions of rocket research and the author is basing the characters' progress on his ability to build a rocket on the Kerbal space game. It's a great read and hilarious. But the updates are on the order of months in between.

Replay (Original) - it involves a man repeating his life with the repeats getting closer to his death date each time. It's not what I consider rational in the character's investigation and use of the power, but his emotional struggles were very vivid and well written.

The Red Knight (Harry Potter) - A great story where Ron goes back in time to his birth, but the world he is reborn into is an AU so he has no idea of what to expect from the future.

Forged Destiny (RWBY) - It's a re-imagining of RWBY as an RPG-like world where everyone is a gamer character and the plot of RWBY is dramatically different as a result. I would recommend anything written by Couer Al'aran. He's a brilliant writer.

Auburn (RWBY) - RWBY with Jaune, Weiss, Blake, and Ruby on a team together. The author Super Saiyan Syndaquil has written some other good fanfics, but Auburn's my favorite.

On a side note, if you want to read a similarly themed book, but with more modern understandings of technology and how humans interact with such radical changes I would highly recommend David Marusek's Counting Heads. The story may also be more to your liking, as the characters are much more important to the central plot, and it plays out like the movie Crash, where you get introduced to many separate characters and their stories, and they converge as the story goes on to paint the larger picture. It's a lot more gripping, but it is also more vague in what themes about the future it's trying to present. I won't lie, I plug this book a lot, but it's for a good reason. The way he extrapolates technology in the future is a lot more complex, taking notes from all of our recent scientific endeavors.

Finding out that everything you believed in was a lie is rough. Losing a sense of belonging is also rough. Losing emotional support when you live in a house controlled by a domineering person... well, you get the picture. It's all rough. The question then becomes "is losing any or all of that worth waking up for?" How would she react to it all? What is gained by waking up to TTATT? Personally, I really think life is better without the organization, even if it's taken me a couple of years to begin to build up a new base of friends, and the majority of them are Facebook friends who live thousands of miles from me (I think that might say something about my comfort levels with people being close to me...) There are ways for her to gain more social contacts outside of the organization.

If you choose to try to wake her up, I strongly suggest reading books like Carl Steve Hassan's Combatting Cult Mind Control. It provides a lot of good advice in trying to help wake up a loved one.

Edit: I have no idea where the name Carl popped into my head from, but it's supposed to be Steve Hassan. Thanks, /u/queensvillage1976, for pointing that out to me.

This book is exactly that story, in multiple threads of time. I thought it a good read, although it hovers between Sci-Fi and romance, it was an amazing thought experiment.

Basically, he takes one life and becomes an amazing investor and gambler-millionaire (a la "Grey's sports almanac-style prediction). He ends up repeating another life and swoons the girl that got away. In his third life he retires to the farms of Oregon and lives in solitude. Then, he begins to notice that the history he remembers is not what seems to be happening, someone else is changing history alongside him - and that's when it becomes really fascinating.

I tried so hard to like Divergent because I would have liked to launch myself into a new fandom, but I just couldn't find any redeeming features in the book beyond "lots of people like them so there must be something there" and "the author is really young and successful and that's inspiring." I would have been quite OK with Tris being cold and calm (like Violet Victoria or Daisy or Christopher or Sabriel), but rather than seeming to possess those character traits, to me, she just read empty.

Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke collaborated on a phenomenal novel about scientists creating wormhole technology which allowed them to peer through tiny mobile wormholes at any point on the planet. Eventually, the technology is leaked and suddenly, anybody can send a tiny invisible wormhole camera into their neighbors homes, the President's meeting room, the refugee camps of Africa, anywhere. They could have stopped there and it'd have been an awesome read, but eventually it is discovered that the wormholes can allow people to view backwards through time... that's when things get really crazy. Definitely a fantastic read that I would recommend to anybody, it's one of my favorite SF works of recent years.

I'd really enjoy this book, Replay, bought used to save money

And I'm also pretty happy! Aside from tons of tests and essays due this week that are crunching my time, I have a few fun things planned this week, and my Dad is officially coming home for Christmas!

I'm currently reading (and almost finished with) The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde which I'm finding really fun. I'm enjoying it due to the fact it's a bit humorous like Terry Pratchett plus there's the possibilities that books are realities you can enter which I've always wanted to do when I was younger. Definitely a fun read.

I enjoy Kage Baker's The Company series. It has an interesting concept where time travel is possible, but so expensive that it is cheaper to make immortal employees then travel back and forth.

The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter is excellent. It is sort of time travelly.

I also love the Pern series by Anne McCaffrey, which involves quite a bit of time travel. But it may be considered more fantasy than sci-fi.

No, this isn't wrong. We certainly have all been there. Truth doesn't require you to not read certain things to remain true. While some things can be confusing, and some require a serious study to get to the bottom of, you should never be afraid of questioning something to prove whether it is true or not. If it's true, you don't have to worry about questioning it.

I was really uncomfortable with the idea of "apostates" myself for a long time; it's been hammered into you from a young age, of course it's scary to think that you might be tricked. But for one thing, there is no trick. You'll have to figure that out for yourself, but I'd encourage you to start trying to figure it out.

Combatting Cult Mind Control was written by Steven Hassan, who had no exposure to the Witnesses prior to writing this book. He writes about his experiences as a Moonie, and the techniques the Unification Church (and others) used to attract people to their organization and keep them in it. You don't have to worry about it being an "apostate" book, since he certainly wasn't affiliated with the witnesses, and didn't even know about them.

The similarities between the Unification Church, and his experience in it, along with the analysis of various other high control groups will help you see that many groups rely on the idea that speaking to former members is one of the worst sins imaginable. It isn't, of course, but it makes an effective tool to keep people tied in to an organization.

If you can, pick up a copy and read it. Visit Hassan's site for a quick overview, this is a good place to start: BITE Model

This isn't an effort to convince you that the organization is a cult, it's just a presentation of how many cults work. Take a look and see if you see any of these elements in the way the organization works.

Let us know how you're doing, though, if you would. We have a pretty caring community here, and it includes some worriers - myself included, I suppose. When people pop on, especially when they're in tough spots, we want to hear that they're doing ok. I hope you are.

I found that Bible verse ping pong just didn't work -- and they really only used a certain amount of verses ad nauseam and without reason.

I did find that I could engage them better when I got them to speak about their lives before JW (if they were converts) -- or got them to speak about what they did for work etc. And I also had some luck when I took them through the basics of critical thinking (just thinking through things logical and reasonably, which has to be done outside of the Bible). In both cases, I could see the "mask" drop and the person come through. The second you mention anything about religion etc their demeanor changes into JW mode. It's quite striking to see it happen.

The absolute best book I read on dealing with them had nothing to do with apologetics, but in dealing with those involved in mind-control cults. Note that I didn't free anybody, but I was better able to understand what's going on. That book was also helpful with the Mormons. It really helped me to understand that apologetics/arguing with them wasn't a great approach.

You could also check out ex-JW stuff here on reddit to get the inside scoop and their tactics and training. It's quite fascinating and rather sad.

Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, and Use of Weapons

These three were written by Iain M. Banks and they're all sci-fi novels set in a far off future Earth where we live in a post-scarcity, stateless, classless, communist paradise. Banks uses the alien societies we encounter in the future as a means of criticing our actual, modern society today.

I absolutely love those novels. The Culture (what we now call the united humans of earth + their colonies) is fascinating. I won't spoil it for you. But go for it. Read until your eyes bleed.

Also, if you're looking for something fun and innocent. You can't go wrong with The Smurfs. I shit you not, I grew up on these so don't any of you dare insult them >.>

You'll want the comics, of course, not the cartoons.

>How is that possible?

Israeli beer. Kashrus info etc.

>go to synagogue coz you haven't been there for year" or what?

I'll tell you that.

>What to do?

Go to shul. Daven, do mitzvos, learn torah. Drink a peach snapple. I love Peach.

>Is it possible for Hashem to give us signs in modern times? Or only Prophets were able to see them? Like Salomon for example.

It all happened so you could post this on reddit, and become closer to Hashem.


Recommended Reading:

To Be A Jew: A Guide To Jewish Observance In Contemporary Life

On Judaism: Conversations on Being Jewish

Judaism for the Rite Reasons

Becoming a Jew

This Is My God

There are two amazing resources available to help you.

TorahMates and Partners in Torah.

Do not hesitate to make use of them.

And stick around this awesome sub!

1. As someone else already stated, magical realism is definitely what you are looking for. I don't really enjoy Marquez, but many do, so I would say try that. Other wonderful authors in this genre is Juan Rulfo, try Pedro Paramo which inspired pretty much all the Latin literature for the next 20 years, or try Günter Grass', The Tin Drum.

>I'm half-Jewish

No such thing. Either Jewish or not.

> my mother being secular but ethnically Jewish.

Jewishness is passed strictly along the maternal line. Was her mother Jewish also? If so you are 100% Jewish.

> I'm eager to find more of a connection with Judaism and Jewish history


Recommended Reading:

To Be A Jew: A Guide To Jewish Observance In Contemporary Life

On Judaism: Conversations on Being Jewish

Judaism for the Rite Reasons

Becoming a Jew

This Is My God
>Would people raised with more of a connection to the community and the faith find it unusual or inappropriate that someone like me might take interest or identify with the Jewish community?

Nope, happens all the time.

Check out Torah Mates, and Partners in Torah.

That's a tough situation to be in. I'm sorry to hear that you are stuck "inbetween" worlds- but it must feel great. What's your plan with the fam? I suggest reading "combating cult mind control" by Steven Hassan. His second book might be helpful as well. They outline what to avoid and give suggestions on how to plan an "intervention" carefully and methodically in order to have the highest chance of success in freeing someones mind from a destructive cult.

Have you read Jewish Literacy? Also, while this is written by an Orthodox Rabbi, Rabbi Aryeh Moshen's Gerus Guide may be helpful. This is my God is a popular suggestion. Here's a reading list suggested by Orthodox courts. Given your interest in Conservative Judaism, you may find Rabbinic Authority interesting, although it's a little advanced. I found Maimonides' introduction to the Talmud to be a great intro to the idea of the Oral Law.

Also, check out /r/Giyur if you need help/support.

World War Z, by Max Brooks

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller

I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson -- fair warning: it's actually more of a short story/novelette. But even if you've seen the Will Smith movie, the book is different (and, in my opinion, better) so you'll still want to read this one.

The Last Policeman, by Ben Winters -- sort of fits. It's not exactly post-apocalyptic. It's more pre-apocalyptic. It's a sort of noir detective novel, except the government has announced that an asteroid is going to collide with the earth, probably ending life as we know it. So it's kind of a murder mystery while the world breaks down around the hero. The first book in this trilogy won an Edgar Award in 2013 for Best Paperback Original.

Parasites Like Us, by Adam Johnson -- This one's more light-hearted. The hero is a 2nd rate anthropologist working at a 2nd rate university. He illegally conducts a dig at the site of an early American settlement, and gets thrown in jail. Turns out that the dig unleashed a virus that threatens to wipe out civilization. It focuses more on the human elements of the story -- life, love, etc. -- and less on the apocalypse, and it's filled with dark humor and satire.

On Love by Alain de Botton. It's relatively short, but really good. Brings a lot of clarity to the idea of love/being in love.

Replay by Ken Grimwood.
I really enjoy time travel movies in general, and this book has a fairly interesting twist on that premise. I definitely recommend the book, and would love to see it as a movie.

Baxter's Manifold Trilogy is indeed excellent, with the exception of the horrible Manifold: Origin, which can be excused though, if you see it as Baxter preparing himself for Evolution, which he wrote shortly after, and which is in my opinion a forgotten masterpiece (and the best I've read from Baxter).

I also strongly recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in the Capital series, if you're interested in reading about politics, climate change and science, set in a near future.

I think Robert Charles Wilson has some great books, but the Spin series for me are not his best (and I don't get why did those got so many awards). From him I'd recommend instead The Chronoliths and Blind Lake.

China Mieville's Bas-Lag trilogy also gets my vote.

Other great series no one mentioned here yet are:

• River of Gods & Cyberabad Days, by Ian McDonald (not really a series, but one of the highlights of the decade, for me)
  
• Counting Heads & Mind Over Ship, by David Marusek
  
• The Golden Age series, by John C. Wright
  

"The Algebraist" by Iain M. Banks.

Banks is better known by the Culture series. The most accessible book in the series may be "The Player of Games" and others have mentioned "Consider Phlebas". I did not like "Matter" very much but YMMV.

edit: I usually link to the Amazon's page because it is a quite good place to see reviews and get a general idea about if the book is any good. As others have said it is a good idea to get the book from a library.

Eifelheim is really good. Pretty much anything by Michael Flynn. Similarly, The Book of Feasts & Seasons and anything by John C. Wright.

Edit. Actually now that I think about it the Book of Feasts and Seasons isn't sci-fi at all even though most of what John C. Wright writes is. It is awesome though and very Catholic. For more sci-fi, I'd recommend the Count to a Trillion Series.

Have you read Player of Games by Iain Banks? If not, firstly shame on you, and secondly I'd really recommend it. While his isn't exactly a bed time story he does employ a similar technique that uses an outside narrator to tell the story but he gives a couple of small segments where the narrator has his own voice aside from the action of the story. It was a really great effect for me because it made me aware that the story was being related to me and meshed those moments of broken action because I knew where it was coming from.

It's also one of my absolute favorite scifi novels.

And you are welcome.

i would throw cormac mccarthy's name into your selection, too. both "the road" and "no country for old men" are great introductions to his style. If you get a taste for his writing, definitely pick up "blood meridian." it's my favorite work of his. he's got a good sized catalog of 10 books if you get a taste for his style.

[Well there's this] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Curious-Incident-Dog-Night-time/dp/0099450259/ref=reg_hu-rd_add_1_dp) but I feel like I should keep to the 'under 5'.

So. [This is also good] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/NW-Zadie-Smith/dp/0141036591/ref=reg_hu-rd_add_1_dp).

So Happy Birthday Diaju! Do you like to read too?

OK time for you to go (re)read A Wrinkle in Time for the best literary approach to this sort of metaphor.

Later in our exploration of New Age Metaphors Mapping to Contemporary Religion we can talk about Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

You are love.

True. Many of those books are written by scientists. One of those recent what if's , and good at that is Blindsight by Peter Watts (marine biologist). Adding vampires into the story in hard SF way with nice biological reasoning behind it is just start :) One of my favorite first contact stories ever.

This isn't a "must read list", but going off your list, I think you would enjoy:

• Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind
  
• Greg Mortenson's Three cups of tea
  
• Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner
  
• Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
  
• Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time
  
• Richard Adams's Watership Down
  
  If you are looking for books to expand your literary chops on, I think blackstar9000 made a very good list.
  
  For my recommendations on getting out of your element try these:
  
  
• Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince
  
• Naomi Klien's Shock Doctrine
  
• Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra's Y: The Last Man
  
• Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
  

Are you willing to go to the past rather than the future. I thoroughly enjoyed Eifelheim.

>Father Dietrich is the village priest of Eifelheim, in the year 1348, when the Black Death is gathering strength but is still not nearby. Dietrich is an educated man, and to his astonishment becomes the first contact person between humanity and an alien race from a distant star, when their ship crashes in the nearby forest. It is a time of wonders, in the shadow of the plague. Flynn gives us the full richness and strangeness of medieval life, as well as some terrific aliens.

I have a friend that looks a lot like her. I'm not sure how creepy it is that my friend is what my favorite fictional character, Cayce Pollard, looks like in my head.

If you like sci-fi, you should try the Culture books by Iain M. Banks. There's been no romance plots in the ones I've read, and they're really imaginative about the possibilities of far future tech and cultural development. And they're really good, engaging, and there's quite a few of them (though they're not really a series, just a shared universe).

Maybe try The Player of Games first.

It was pretty good - I like Richard Coyle.

And now: Small Gods please, please, please...

Have you read Jasper Fforde? If you like Douglas Adams, you'll love him. He's got a few series, including the Thursday Next series that starts with The Eyre Affair. Or if you want something slightly less lighthearted, there's Shades of Grey.

For some reason, I'm a total Jasper Fforde evangelical lately, but he's fantastic.

I'm pretty sure this is the one you want, but it's always a good idea to shop around all formats and editions.

http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Recognition-William-Gibson/dp/0425198685/

Anyway, good book!

For the love of your future and mental health, read THIS BOOK If you only do ONE thing after you leave the JWs...read it! It will save you from years of heartache and confusion. You will know why and how you fell for it and how to avoid getting taken advantage of by these groups in the future. Not to mention reconciling that it happened at all. I promise you will not be disappointed. You do not have to do this on your own. There are people who are willing to help.

If I had this then I could read it, and I've been told it's a wonderful book. If I were a book, I hope that I'd be a great one.

I enjoyed Yōko Ogawa's (Ogawa is the family name) The Housekeeper and the Professor. Definitely reminded me of my time in Japan, and also, I like math. :)

Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection
Don Roff, Chris Lane

Day by Day Armageddon
J. L. Bourne

Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile
J. L. Bourne

Earth Abides
George R. Stewart

Swan Song
Robert McCammon

The Road
Cormac McCarthy

edit: This covers a good array of subjects on different ways the world might perish. All fiction also.

I just read The Road and it was pretty good. Would make a great movie.

its still a neat idea. neat enough to where one of the best sci fi writers who ever lived wrote a book about it

>The Light of Other Days

Very, very good book, quite impressive as a look at what the true social consequences of wormholes might be. Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter are the wombo combo of science fiction imo!

Amazon link if anyone wants to check it out.

Oof, well I recommend a lot of reading, maybe starting with something like This is My God and checking out our suggested books list. I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you might have, publicly or by PM (full disclosure, I have a rabbinical degree).

$6.00 + $14.00 = $20 even. :)

Thanks for the contest! Snow, snow, go away, allergictoapples is too pretty to be cold!

1. The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel The first in a series, it's hilarious and FUN to read, it's about a detective who has to enter into the actual pages of Jane Eyre to prevent Jane from being murdered by a literary terrorist. It's great for the absurdists. If you like Terry Pratchett or Monty Python.



2. In the Realms of the Unreal: Insane Writings writings by schizophrenics in asylums in the early 20th century. Amazing, poetry that is heartbreaking and shows that even the least of us are human.

Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats Memphis white boy here who knows you do. not. ever. touch a black lady's hat.

3. David A Man Of Passion And Destiny Chuck Swindoll's whole Great Lives series is amazing. as an aside, I really like Chuck Swindoll's writing, but not a huge fan of his preaching. His preaching is never finished, he's in the pulpit and he's still mentally compiling things. But his books have this well researched "finished" flawlessness to them.

4a. I'd give an E-bible. I might app card for the NIV which is under copyright, but I'd most likely recommend the free ESV. I recommend having several, at least three bibles on each digital device you own - phone, ipad, backup phone, laptop. On the hard drive, not on the cloud, so if you are stuck in the desert without internet.

4b. Not sure of this, but I have an old old "Family" bible with pictures and maps that I was given by a preacher when I was 10 or 11. It's in large print, has maps (I am a sucker for maps) and there's plenty of space to write in it.

Anyways, that's my list.

I really enjoyed it, and based on its high ratings (4.5 stars with over 700 reviews) so did many others:

https://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X

Hope you enjoy it!

Blindsight by Peter Watts. Easily one of the best scifi stories written in years. Hugo, Locus, and Campbell nominee.

Its available for free online too. Link

list of linked fictions in order posted repeats omitted, see my other comments for what EY said about them.

Dungeon Keeper Ami by Pusakuronu As a .docx

Mandragora (HP)

To The Stars (Madoka)

My Little Pony: Friendship is Betrayal (MLP)

Earthfic

Unequally Rational and Emotional(Negima/damn near everything)

The Missing Risk Premium (Non-Fic)

Mahou Sensei Negima manga


Harry Potter and the Natural 20 (HP/DnD)

Naruto: Game of the Year Edition(Naruto)

Big Human on Campus(Ranma/RosarioxVampire)

Friendship is Optimal (MLP)

Myou’ve Gotta Be Kidding Me(MLP)

Prince of the Dark Kingdom (HP)

Fallout Equestria (MLP)

Time Braid(Naruto)

Hybrid Theroy(Mega Crossover)

Luminosity (Twilight)

[Discworld] (http://i.imgur.com/kvqoC1h.jpg)

The Best Night Ever(MLP)

Imperfect Metamorphosis(Touhou)

Sanctum

Friendship is Optimal: Caelum est Conterrens(MLP)

Tales of Mu

Black Cloaks, Red Clouds (Naruto)

Dirty Old Men(Naruto)

The Eyre Affair (first novel in the Thursday Next series)

Postnuptial Disagreements(F/SN / Sekirei)

Saga of Soul

Murasakiiro no Qualia

NGE: Nobody Dies: The Trials of Kirima Harasami(Eva)

Love Lockdown(Naruto)

Worm

MLP Loops(MLP)

City of Angles

The Last Christmas

Branches on the Tree of Time(Terminator)

How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Lord Voldemort(HP)

Emperor of Zero(Familiar of Zero/Napoleon)

Cenotaph(Worm)

Memoirs of a Human Flashlight(Worm/Exalted)

She Who Skitters in Darkness(Worm/Exalted)

Goblin Queen(Worm/Exalted)

Starry Eyes(Worm/Lovecraft)

Tale of Transmigration(Worm)

Bug on a Wire.(Worm)

Sunshine

Toasterverse(Avengers)

Back Again(LOTR)

Carpetbaggers(Narnia)

A Bluer Shade of White (Frozen)

Metropolitan Man(Superman)

Ra

Homestuck

In Fire Forged(Naruto)

Right Moments(Ranma)

Hitherby Dragons

Nice Dragons Finish Last

The Shadow of What Was Lost

The Unwelcome Warlock

Path of the King (F/SN)

Gate! Thus the JSDF Fought There

Weaver Nine(Worm)

https://www.fanfiction.net/community/Rational-stories/117575/99/4/1/0/0/0/0/
https://www.reddit.com/r/rational

I'm not "after" anything. But if he wants to confirm himself to Christianity, he shouldn't be looked down upon. 14 is old enough to know what you believe (at least for the moment). You could have chosen a more subtle book, like Small Gods by Terry Pratchett.

If you enjoy religion/atheism as a topic, you should really enjoy this one!

I'm surprised to see a Witness on a thread like this. Reddit was something that a lot of young people at my hall talked about not using. That was back when /r/atheism was on the front page. I would suggest you do some research about the organization. Not from what they give you, they do enough policing of their own enough as it is with the molestation cases. I would suggest reading Combating Cult Mind Control. In his book he describes what defines a cult and what techniques they use to control your thoughts and behavior. This is also a good read pertaining specifically to Witness's. Now I know you probably wont read these, I sincerely hope you do. What the Witnesses are doing is wrong and damaging to people. You are a fellow human and I care about you, please PLEASE, at least read that. Then you can have a true informed choice.

Yes, came in to advocate Replay as well. It's definitely one of my favorite books that I read this year.

Some of my favorites are The Housekeepr and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, and Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I'm also a big fan of Walter Moers(German), but his books aren't everyone's thing. Goodreads might also be a good place to continue your search. I just did this search and found many books that would meet your requirements.

Replay by Ken Grimwood.

Pretty dang good book, with pretty much this premise.

Here are two of my favorites. both are great reads.

Replay by Ken Grimwood is kinda like Groundhog Day writ large. It's about a guy who relives the 60s, 70s, and 80s over and over again.

11/22/63 by Stephen King is about a guy who finds a portal that takes him from the present to 1958. He decides to live for a few years in the past and try to prevent the JFK assassination.

And if you like the idea of a dinosaur time-travel thriller, look up my book and see if it interests you.

Surreal? check. Weird? check. Mysterious and Distant? check and check.

Pedro Paramo

A lot of people say this is where Magic Realism began, although Borges can also take much credit for that. Not the easiest read, but a hugely influential book, especially to the more famous magic realists like Marquez and Rushdie

Are you looking for pulse pounding, believable-but-still-inventive enough, hardcore mercenary action? Well look no further.

Direct Action - Written by a former Ranger/SF guy, this is the first in a set of (so far) 3 books featuring Deckard as the main character. Deckard is a former SF and CIA SAD guy who ends up getting contracted by a shady cabal to form a PMC for them to use in their attempt to bring about a NWO. He says "fuck that." This is honestly some of the best in the genre of military fiction. Written by a dude who has been there and done that, it's well written and believable enough, and the action...gritty, hardcore, doorkicking, operating action. It does not stop once it starts, and neither do the sequels, Target Deck and Direct Action. They're a blast to read and I can't recommend them enough.

Task Force Desperate - America's dollar has collapsed. The military is incredibly underfunded and no longer has the ability to project power. This all comes to a head when an American military base in Djibouti is attacked and taken over. With the US no longer able to respond to events such as these, Jeff's PMC, Praetorians, are contracted to handle the situation. The guy that wrote it is a former Recon Marine, so similar to Jack Murphy, he's been there, done that, and it shows. If you want hardcore action, this is another solid book for you. The plot is a bit out there, but hey, fuck it, it's fun.

Moving away from fiction...

Level Zero Heroes - Written by one of the first MARSOC dudes that went into Afghanistan when MARSOC was first stood up. He's his MSOC's forward air controller, and it's just a pretty cool and interesting look into the special operations world from a new (at the time) SOF unit.

Horse Soldiers - About the first ODA that went into Afghanistan within weeks of 9/11. They worked really closely with CIA SAD, and it's an incredibly interesting write up on what these guys managed to do in incredibly austere conditions. They rolled around the country on horseback. That's bad ass.

First In - Similar to Horse Soldiers, but written by one of the CIA paramilitary officers that coordinated with the Northern Alliance and the SF ODAs when they first came in country. A bit dry, but if you're interested in this sort of thing, it's one of the best (and only, from its perspective) accounts of the early parts of the Global War On Terror.

Now for some non military stuff.

Dune - The best sci-fi novel ever written, bar none. It has political intrigue, an oppressed people against an overwhelmingly larger force, oh, and giant sandworms. It's hard to describe just how rich the world of Dune is in a simple paragraph, so I won't even try. If you're into sci-fi and you haven't read Dune, you owe it to yourself. You're in for a treat.

The Road - The bleakest thing I've ever read. It takes place after some type of apocalyptic event in the US (which is never detailed), and is the story of a father and his young son attempting to survive in the wasteland amongst cannibals that keep their "livestock," chained in a basement, roving bands of marauders, and other horrors. It's written in an incredibly minimalist style which adds to the tone and atmosphere so much. If you want something heavy, this is your book.

I'll probably add more but here are my recommendations for now.

Small Gods is good too. The main Yahweh parallel god is mostly forgotten, people are worshiping the religion, but not the god. They are preforming the acts of ritual, but focused on the priests and the action of it rather then the Deity. So he's become a weak spirit, and the only boy left who truly worships him is a bit slow. But he believes in him with every fiber.

It's not controlling to tell your girlfriend to keep her wits about her. I highly, highly recommend Steven Hassan's book.

http://www.amazon.com/Combatting-Cult-Mind-Control-Best-selling/dp/0892813113

Your girlfriend is going into an environment that may make her feel special and understood, BUT, if the environment is what's controlling her rather than teaching her to control herself, then it's a cult.

Tell her to keep her eyes open and to remain appropriately skeptical. Good luck!

David Marusek's Counting Heads.

Mindbendingly brilliant post-human SF, hugely critically acclaimed (Locus called it "one of the best SF novels of the decade"), criminally under-read.

If you are curious about something like this, there is a famous sci-fi book called "Glasshouse" (http://www.amazon.com/Glasshouse-Charles-Stross/dp/0441015085/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1417575141&sr=8-14&keywords=glass+house) that pretty much talks about it. Though it is more about how people and machines are at the point where "what is humanity anymore" comes into question. The sections I refer to about this particular question is about how we can save our "current" consciousness, go off and get killed, and revert back to our "saved" consciousness in a new version of our body and not remember what we did originally after that save. It really is interesting and I had to read the book two or three times to fully wrap my head around it.
It makes you freak out about the singularity and how we wont be "human" anymore.

I was sure this was going to be A Wrinkle in Time or The Phantom Tollbooth.

But since it wasn't either of those, The Mouse and the Motorcycle was a good alternative. One of my elementary school teachers read that (and other books from the series?) in class when I was a kid, and it was wonderful.

You might enjoy this delightful little book. It has a section fairly early on (IIRC, read it years ago) where the narrator does the math of him sitting next to such an attractive single woman on an airplane who is also attracted to him.

We're reading Rule 34 this month in r/SF_Book_Club. I'm, reading Halting State at the moment which is set before the events in Rule 34 and I'm really enjoying it.

My favourite Stross book is probably Glasshouse which is set in the same universe and some time after the events in Accelerando; I'd definitely recommend it.

I've just downloaded "The Jane Eyre Affair" for something fun to read over the weekend. It looks fantasy/sci-fi-ish and has been highly recommended by a couple of friends. Wanna read a book together?

This seems like a good one. Here's an amazon link if anyone is interested.

Amazing author. Amazing book.
This is a hysterical review though... http://www.amazon.com/Road-Oprahs-Book-Club/product-reviews/0307387895/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_1?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addOneStar

I second the Ready Player One rec, and I also strongly suggest Replay by Ken Grimwood.

I'm a Stephen King fanatic, and I do agree that the endings are generally disappointing. The thing about King is that his style is incredibly engaging. The short stories have much better endings than the longer works. If you're going to try King, as a tech addict - I suggest you start out with the short story UR.

Here's some books I've found that I think help explain the JW experience. Your library system might have some of these.

Jehovah's Witnesses: Portrait of a Contemporary Religious Movement A sociological study on the religion. Holden gets some doctrines wrong, but I think that's minor compared to how well this describes the experience in terms a therapist would probably find useful.

[Combatting Cult Mind Control] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0892813113/ref=oh_details_o07_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) Steve Hassan was in the Moonies but the methods are the same. Freaked me out when I first read it.

I'm Perfect, You're Doomed If you haven't read this yet, I highly recommend it. It's hard to get through sometimes because she's not always likeable and sometimes really pathetic, but weren't we all?

Yay! I just bought the kindle version and will start reading it immediately.

I'm absolutely fascinated with the prospect of machine intelligence: it moves us closer to answering the question of whether or not self-awareness is an inherent property of massive neural networks (of a particular design and complexity), or if awareness is the result of some other mechanism merely tied to the brain (say, feedback from the complex electrical field generated by the neurons as a separate entity, or some kind of quirk of quantum behavior at those scales not taken into account in current artificial models).

Then there's the secondary question: is it possible to have an intelligent mind that appears self-aware but is not self-aware, ala Blindsight.

Glaxnor, I almost always agree with you, but here we part ways. It may be true of certain types of SciFi, or even the entire Fantasy genre, but not all. Replay and Altered Carbon are two that disprove this, for me.

This is the plot of "Replay' by Ken Grimwood. Wonderful book, also served as the inspiration for Groundhogs Day.

http://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X

> I apparently have politeness Tourette's or something and I'm incapable of not extending hospitality to people I despise

You can still be polite and say no to people. I recommend Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior as a starting point on how to learn. One of the things she covers is how to politely say 'no' in all sorts of social situations.

Her all-purpose, get-out-of-Hell-free card is "I'm sorry, but it isn't possible" (or such variants as "I'm sorry, but it won't be possible", "I'm sorry, but that evening is impossible for me", and so forth). The trick to making the phase work is not to offer any excuse: “I’m so sorry, but we won’t be able to have you here for supper” should suffice. Should a JNMIL be so audacious as to demand why, Miss Manners recommends saying, “It’s just not convenient" and do not add anything to that statement.

I work in sales. In sales training, I learned about something called overcoming objections*. Basically, a customer comes in, expresses interest in something, but then hesitates. Your goal as a sales person is to find out what the customer's objection to buying is, so you can offer ways to overcome it. So for example, a customer might say: "I can't buy this car." The sales person asks why. "Oh, I can't afford a down payment right now." The sales person then offers a way to overcome the objection: "You're in luck--we're running financing specials with really good interest rates and no down payments. I can walk you through some options and get you in this car today."

When JNMILs and their ilk want something from you and you decline, they'll start probing to find out what your objection is so they can work to overcome it. Your best defense in that situation (and it works against sales people, too) is to not offer your objection at all.

Default to a pleasant 'no' ("I'm sorry, it's not possible"), and don't be afraid to repeat that statement exactly. Repeating the exact same words (aka the Broken Record Technique) engages the pattern recognition in the brain and mentally forces your JNMIL to pay attention to your no instead of blowing past it. Then they have to deal with your no without knowing how to overcome it.

Variations on the above technique include greyrocking and Don't JADE (Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain). Read up on those, experiment, maybe mash them up to meet your needs, and see how it works for you.

Might not be totally what you are looking for but I think White Oleander is a really great book

She is a book on female psychology using myth.

White Oleander is a fictional book about a mother/daughter relationship. The mother kills her boyfriend and goes to jail, then tries to control her daughter's life through the foster system from prison.

Women Who Run With The Wolves is also a lot like She, but it's myths from different cultures that explain various feminine archetypes, as opposed to one myth (the myth of Psyche).

Good luck!

Anyone interested in this kind of concept should read the utterly fantastic Replay by Ken Grimwood.

Short version: Middle-aged guy has heart attack, then all of a sudden he wakes up and holy shit he's back in college. He gets to relive everything over again, from betting on the World Series to how he met his wife. And it gets much more interesting -- and thought-provoking -- from there.

I'm noticing more and more sci-fi elements in "serious" classical-style fiction. Here are some examples:

• Man Walks Into a Room by Nicole Krauss has memory downloading and uploading.
  
• Cormac McCarthy's The Road is straight-up post-apocalyptic sci-fi.
  
• Jose Saramago's Blindness has everyone in a city in Spain--and presumably everywhere else since no one comes to help--go blind, one by one. More plague/apocalypse fiction.
  
  Earlier, user xmashamm wrote:
  > If you set out to write a badass sci fi story, it's going to be bad. If you set out to write a deeply human story, and it happens to be set in space, you're probably on to something.
  
  In all of the examples I gave, the sci-fi element itself is peripheral to the story of the people involved. There is little or no time devoted to explaining how the sci-fi element came about or how it works. In all three examples, the characters are three-dimensional[1] and the prose is top-notch. Blindness won the 1998 Nobel Prize for literature. So I do think the line is melting. I think that now it's more of a continuum, with placement depending on how much time is devoted to talking about the science and technology itself. I'd place Larry Niven's stuff waaaay on the sci-fi end, and the three authors above much farther toward the classical end.
  
  The funny thing about this use of sci-fi elements by classical-style authors is that these skillful writers sometimes make rookie science mistakes that their core audiences don't seem to be bothered by. My biology training made me find the premise of The Road internally inconsistent and largely unbelievable, for example.
  
  
  ____
  [1] Possible exception of the one by Nicole Krauss, who doesn't write male characters well.

Idk how serious you are about saving her or your relationship. If you are very serious about this I urge you to check this book out.

Many of us can attest to how we royally screwed up by trying to reason with our own JW families and friends in a normal fashion. The vast majority of them are so warped and brainwashed that it really doesn't matter how many facts or logical arguments you launch their way. You will only end up making them even more zealous.

These people use families and common human emotions as weapons against you. The religion may look innocent enough on the outside, don't be fooled. The people are definitely sincere in what they practice and preach, however, many make the mistake of confusing sincerity with "good."

Combating mind control takes A LOT of patience and very careful non threatening questions to get the person to wake themselves. Make no mistake your girl is being brainwashed and the JW doctrine is far from being a harmless joke.

Good luck man.

If you like classical literature you might want to try out the Thursday Next Series.

Lot's of... 'insider jokes' for people who know themselves around in the classics and really entertaining and witty to read.

Anyone who is interested in this must immediately read Blindsight by Peter Watts. Good science fiction novel which, among many other themes, deals with the idea of the Chinese Room and what it means for human consciousness.

The Light of Other Days, by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter - http://www.amazon.com/Light-Other-Days-Arthur-Clarke/dp/0312871996

Good sci-fi concept (wormhole technology lets us see into the past), weak character development, but overall a good story. And then a totally weird out of the blue last chapter. Just don't read the last chapter (it's like 4 pages long anyway) and the book is just fine.

Replay is a bit different, but I love this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X

It is really good, and you're quite welcome. Though, if this is your first Culture novel, I'd advise reading The Player of Games first. It's a more straightforward novel, so you get a good intro to the Culture without having to deal with unraveling two simultaneous stories. It also has a decent twist, but that's less "Darth Vader is Luke's father" than a infodump at the end explaining everything that happened, including the stuff the protagonist wasn't told.

The Road(2009) is one of the best dystopian movies i have ever seen. A father and son journey in a post apocalyptic world. the movie was adopted from a book under the same title, it is definitely one of the best movie adaptations ever made IMHO.

It's called a post-scarcity society. The best examples of this I've seen are in The Culture novels of Iain M. Banks, a science fiction author. The Culture is a galactic society more or less run by a collection of AIs called Minds. I recommend starting with The Player of Games.

Im ex Jehovah's witness. I found out by total accident my religion was a satanic mind control cult. So I researched all groups. Turns out the mormons are a cult as well. You will only win your mormon family over with Love. If you attack their faith all your going to do is further implant their "persecution complex" (which is what all cults teach their members)

You need this book

https://www.amazon.ca/Combatting-Cult-Mind-Control-Best-selling/dp/0892813113

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I read it in a single day (into the night) because I couldn't put it down. http://www.amazon.com/The-Road-Cormac-McCarthy/dp/0307387895/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405051311&sr=8-1&keywords=the+road

It's been awarded many many awards, so you don't just have to take some random redditor's word for its greatness. It's an easy read, too, so even if you don't love it you can get through it and get it over with quickly.

OP doesn't mention the best-known Culture book

The Player of Games (Culture) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316005401/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ErJpxb3QP2HKJ

Which is awesome.

Also H. Beam Piper, if he doesn't ring a bell, you can thank me later. How's "Space Viking" for a title?

Agent Washington.

That said, you'd like this: http://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X

It's awesome.

[Pedro Paramo] (http://www.amazon.com/Pedro-Paramo-Juan-Rulfo/dp/0802133908) by Juan Rulfo is a beautiful surrealist journey. It's one of the best books I've read this year and while it seems to be well known among some communities it's a shame it isn't more popular. I'd put it up with One Hundred Years of Solitude as one of the Latin America greats.

I'd recommend Player of Games by Iain M Banks. I loved the Dune series and would urge you to read and make up your mind for yourself.

Replay by Ken Grimwood

A bit of an older book, but one of my favorites. Shares similarities with the movies Groundhog Day or Edge of Tomorrow, but published in 1986, this was before either of those.

>Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn't know he was a replayer until he died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again -- in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle -- each time starting from scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the question: "What if you could live your life over again?"

For interesting time travel concepts that are like the Butterfly Effect or Inception....then:

1. Replay
   
2. Dark Matter
   
3. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
   
4. Lost Futures
   
5. The End of Eternity

'Counting Heads' uses such a society as a backdrop. The free people in it barely get by, for what that's worth. They band together in little corporations and share their micropayments for doing trivial little things. Customized clones get the middle class life we have now.

There's an interesting novel that plays out as a sort of thought experiment on a topic similar to this. It's called The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke.

Link - Amazon

Eifelheim by Michael Flynn

Booklist: In the fourteenth century, the Black Death ravaged Europe. Most towns decimated by it were eventually resettled, except for Eifelheim, despite its ideal location. Mathematical historian Tom discovers this anomaly and an unexpected connection to his domestic partner Sharon's research in theoretical physics, which seems to be leading to a method of interdimensional travel. In fact, as Eifelheim's priest back then, Father Dietrich, relates, before the plague's arrival, an interstellar ship crashed nearby. The encounters between its passengers and the people of Oberhochwald, as Eifelheim was first called, reflect the panoply of attitudes of the time, from fear of the foreign to love and charity for one's neighbors to the ideas of nascent natural philosophy (science), and the aliens' reactions are equally fascinating. Flynn credibly maintains the voice of a man whose worldview is based on concepts almost entirely foreign to the modern mind, and he makes a tense and thrilling story of historical research out of the contemporary portions of the tale.

Replay It's like a cross between Back to the Future and Groundhog Day. One of my favorite books!

I highly recommend anyone interested in this scenario to read Replay by Ken Grimwood.

May be Replay, by Ken Grimwood. Loved that book, and thank you for not spoiling the fun for those who haven't read it.

Small Gods by Terry Pratchet

10/10

Fantasy, Humor, Satire

My favorite book. Satirizes and pokes fun of everything from religion, war, and philosophy, to turtles and little old monks. Imagine the humor of Hitchhiker's Guide for a fantasy audience.

Amazon

This is from The Road. It is a sub par movie about an AMAZING book that takes place after the apocalypse of a man and his son trying to survive. The book is less than 300 pages with largeish font and is less than $10 on Amazon. You all should read it.

I wish I could take credit; the quote is an excerpt from a review which was included in my copy of Pattern Recognition

Just read a book about this (written back in the 80s) called "Replay." Basically, a guy has a heart attack at 40 and gets put back in his 18 year-old body with all knowledge of the next decades. Really good read, check it out: http://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302060545&sr=8-1

If you're as big a bibliophile as you sound, you need to read the Thursday Next Novels, by Jasper Fforde. The Eyre Affair is the first one. You're going to love Bookworld.

...or perhaps more accurately, a cult. For which a trained exit councillor is probably the best approach. See Steve Hassan's book on the subject.

This question reminds me of "The Light of Other Days" By Arthur Clarke and Stephen Baxter. Great book, btw.

The Player of Games by Ian M. Banks. Part of the classic Culture sci-fi series and a great starting point for that series.

Eifelheim by Michael Flynn.

Great from a science-fiction perspective and really shows the author knows his stuff about medieval and church life.

> https://www.amazon.com/dp/0892813113/

ok thanks

If you're into war novels, you should definitely check out All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. It's hands down my favorite war-related book. And if you're into post-apocalyptic stuff, the easy answer is The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Might I suggest Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor, and The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.

Both deal with magical realism/urban fantasy, and I really enjoyed both of them.

Pretty sure that it's going to be implied that these desparate humans will probably just murder and eat you and kidnap your daughter. People during the apocoalypse are not friendly folk.

I suggest you go and look up "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy it seems to have been a huge inspiration for this game.

Uh, you just described a cult. That's classic brainwashing. You need to get these people out, and start adopting deprogramming techniques. I would recommend Combatting Cult Mind Control and releasing the bonds for techinques in helping these people, because they are in a dangerous controlling situation.

Remember that they will actually believe what they are being told. Given advanced brainwashing techniques you can make your followers believe anything you wish, even crap like Xenu. These people WILL believe what they are taught because of this, and being intelligent doesn't make you immune from brainwashing.

The key tactic here is to make them think. Ask them a tough question and let them do as much talking as possible. You cannot confront their beliefs directly, or you become the devil to them, instead you must guide them to the answer on their own.

To be honest, these people really need you. Cults are so damaging. I'd know, I've been in one. Mormonism is a cult.

Good luck.

We do know that religious people are far more likely to condone torture.

Also, if you haven't done so, go read Jasper Fforde's "The Eyre Affair". It's like if Douglas Adams was a fan of classic literature and decided to write in that context instead of about space ships, aliens, and robots.

Yup! Read the book called "Combatting Cult Mind Control" by steve Hassan. Its a fascinating read and although written about his experience in the Moonie cult it gives you insight into how cults work whether religious, secular, political or any other, the methods the leaders use to control, the logic they employ and how they manipulate people are all the same. It is SPOT ON how trump speaks to his base and the methods he uses to distort the truth

My favorite book of the past 10 years is The Housekeeper and the Professor, by Yoko Ogawa

Premise: A housekeeper and her son meet a crazy old mathematician. However, this mathematician has short-term memory loss, so that every 80 minutes his memory resets.

Pros: Very well-paced, heartwarming without being cheesy, interesting characters, uses mathematics as a metaphor our relationships as people.

Cons: Some characters are under-developed, some interesting plot points are missing.

Overall, it's a fun read that I recommend to everyone. Generally Japanese Lit is known for being very dry, but this was one of the few books that I always wanted to read just a little more.

I read that short story when I was a kid. You should read The Light of Other Days by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter. It's an excellent book on the same themes.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312871996/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_0bRgAb8JJ7KWT

The Road has always been recommended to me. It's about a father and son who are travelling to the coast but they don't know what to expect when they arrive. It's about their journey through a burned American landscape while dealing with bandits and the like.

Note to self: don't read sad books while you're on an airplane.

If you haven't read The Road, you definitely should! It's about a father and son coping with the aftermath of the end of the world.

This is a really good book on the theme

First thing he does is bet on horses in a big way!

Dan Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness. I recommend this book to everyone I know. It has changed me for the better in so many ways.

It's cliche but, Michael Pollans In Defense of Food.

Lastly, Janet Fitch White Oleander.

The Glasshouse - Charles Stross.

Really hard sci-fi and great read.

>Books have given me much wisdom, my eloquence, my patience, and so much more.

Not ENOUGH eloquence and patience, I see.

Oh, hey, I thought of something for you: http://www.amazon.com/Manners-Excruciatingly-Correct-Behavior-Freshly/dp/0393058743/

Bwahahahaha!

Yahweh is deflating as we speak. Soon he'll be reduced to the size of the little turtle in Small Gods :)

I really enjoyed it. Post-apocalyptic fiction but felt a lot more realistic. It’s not zombies or mad max, it’s just about a man and his kid trying to survive. Try a chapter or two...
https://www.amazon.com/Road-Cormac-McCarthy/dp/0307387895

You would enjoy the book Replay. It's essentially that story.

The Road. It's such an engaging read, not the best thing I've ever read but definitely one of the most captivating, a real page turner. It's hard to put it down before you finish it.

Okay! Sure it's this one! I'm right above you! :P Have you by chance heard of the band The Classic Crime? Or Vocal Few?

Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper And The Professor is a fiction work about a math professor who has an 80 minute memory span. Some of the number theory is interesting and well-woven into the story.

• Lights Out by David Crawford
  
• Going Home by A. American (and the whole Survivalist series that follows)
  
• Patriots by James Wesley, Rawles
  
• Enemies Foreign and Domestic by Matthew Bracken
  
• The Postman by David Brin
  
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  
• Breakers by Edward W. Robertson (and the rest of the series; good deals on Kindle bundles)
  
  

https://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X

Good book, too.

Even better book about first contact : Blind Sight by Peter Watts

I would actually page through Miss Manners Guide to Excrutiatingly Correct Behavior(http://www.amazon.com/Manners-Excruciatingly-Correct-Behavior-Freshly/dp/0393058743). You can probably get it from the library. I think she nails the right tone between helpful and scathing and witty. It will also give you some RP ideas for "things you character would do correctly / correct people on."

Replay by Ken Grimwood. I mostly read sci-fi and this is one of my favorites.

Jasper Fforde actually uses this as a means of transport in his alternate timeline series of books about Thursday Next, which, by the way, I highly recommend.

Amazon link

If this thread interested you, I'd highly recommend reading Replay

When you wish upon a star
***
Favourite Disney film is probably The Lion King or Toy Story.

Favourite song is "Just Can't Wait to be King".

item link.

This is an interesting science fiction book about the concept:

http://www.amazon.com/Light-Other-Days-Arthur-Clarke/dp/0312871996

A company develops faster than light communication through little microscopic wormholes. As the book goes on they learn how to use this to see the past.

You might find the book 'Player of Games' interesting for some discussions on the topic.

Miss Manners is fun:

https://www.amazon.com/Manners-Excruciatingly-Correct-Behavior-Freshly/dp/0393058743/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511825439&sr=1-1&keywords=miss+manners+guide+to+excruciatingly+correct+behavior

Steve Hassan has written a book that might help. http://www.amazon.com/Combatting-Cult-Mind-Control-Best-selling/dp/0892813113

Gods receive their sustenance from belief and believers. This is what feeds them and gives them life. For more details, I refer you to the book Small Gods. Craftily disguised as a satirical novel (satire is generally invisible to divine beings - which is why they have no sense of humor), it documents and explains deities.