Alright, so as promised I just determined the winner of the free GOG! In total, 80 people participated in the thread. Thanks a lot to everyone for sharing their book recommendations. And the winner is:
wlmiv
Congrats! I'll definitely check out "The Rising Sun." An account of the Pacific War from the Japanese perspective sounds like something I would be very interested in.
Let me know which game you would like, and I'll send it your way. If you want the gift certificate from GOG, I will need your email address. Otherwise I'll just PM you the code to redeem the game.
wlmiv: Let's see, for nonfiction I will recommend John Toland's "The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945" It's pretty much exactly what the subtitle makes it sound like it is. I always felt like the history of the World War II era Japanese Empire that I had been exposed to was lacking so it was interesting to read a book focused explicitly on that perspective. It was a Pulitzer Prize winner back in the day, if you put any stock in that.
For a good single volume history of the American Revolution, I really enjoyed Robert Middlekauff's The Glorious Cause.
For fiction I'll second a few suggestions that have already been made: George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series is definitely my favorite fantasy series (first book is A Game of Thrones), Stephen Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen is an interesting fantasy series because of the scope of the world that is imagined. I would personally find the characters and the story of Song of Ice and Fire more compelling than Malazan but I find the Malazan world and back story more compelling. Reading the Malazan books is almost like an archeological dig if that analogy makes sense. I'll also say the Wheel of Time series but the critiques about it booking tedious in the middle books is quite true (although because it was one of the first series I read it will also have a special place in my heart).
Some good science fiction: Asimov's Foundation Trilogy (read the original 3 first, he wrote prequels and later books but the original three should be the first you read). Also Asimov's Robot trilogy is quite good, each novel is basically a detective novel set in the future. I cannot recommend Robert Heinlein highly enough. Stranger in a Strange Land is my favorite of his, but many are great. I especially enjoyed The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Farnham's Freehold, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Starship Troopers, and Time Enough for Love. Frank Herbet's Dune is another classic very worth reading (the first book can be read and enjoyed whether or not you ever read the sequels. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is another great science fiction book about children who are trained in war games to prepare for a coming war with an alien race. Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End is another great one about mankind's first encounter with an alien race.
