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1werdfert
does anyone have any good, uplifting/optimistic book recommendations that aren't sappy or cheesy? i've been reading too many books that have a bleak outlook on the future and it's getting me down.
2dcozy
Guy Davenport was an unabashed utopian. If you don't mind adventurous writing and high intellect, you might want to give him a go.
3Cecrow
These aren't future-oriented, but feel-good books I've recently enjoyed include To Kill a Mockingbird, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, pretty much anything by Jane Austen, and The Last Lecture (yeah, I know the guy died, but it's still uplifting imo).
4Bookmarque
The Art of Racing in the Rain just skated by cheesy and missed. While the hero does go through the wringer and there are some tragedies, it ends on an upbeat note.
5tjm568
If you haven't read Paper Moon by Joe David Brown I recommend it. Always makes me smile and laugh (even though it is set during the great depression)
7Nicole_VanK
> 6: Yes. (I happen to like the film too, by the way).
8tjm568
The movie was based on the book, but only tells about half the story. Great movie, even better book. Laugh out loud funny.
10grelobe
I don't know about optimistic, but uplifting sure it is
The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman by Bruce Robinson
The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman by Bruce Robinson
11SylviaC
Thanks for mentioning An Optimist's Tour of the Future, wordfert. It looks like a good companion to A Guide to the End of the World by Bill McGuire, which is definitely not optimistic.
12ABVR
Underneath their "an alien walks into a bar" plots and epically atrocious puns, Spider Robinson's tales of "Callahan's Place" are some of the most humane and life-affirming science fiction I've ever read. The Callahan Chronicles collects the early stories, and is a good introduction to the characters.
Stardance, which intertwines stories of human-alien first contact and the invention of a new art form (zero-g dance), also offers a pretty optimistic vision of the future -- and of humans embracing "the better angels of our nature." Robinson wrote it (and two sequels, Starseed and Starmind) with his late wife Jeanne, who was a professional and choreographer).
YMMV, but Robinson's work is, for me, a sure antidote to an excess of literary doom-and-gloom.
Stardance, which intertwines stories of human-alien first contact and the invention of a new art form (zero-g dance), also offers a pretty optimistic vision of the future -- and of humans embracing "the better angels of our nature." Robinson wrote it (and two sequels, Starseed and Starmind) with his late wife Jeanne, who was a professional and choreographer).
YMMV, but Robinson's work is, for me, a sure antidote to an excess of literary doom-and-gloom.
