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As an avid reader, I've encountered many good
books in my life. Having also encountered many bad ones, I know
the value of a reliable guide to the world of the written word. I
found some good guides in college -- teachers who assembled amazing
reading lists for their classes; however, my best guide has always
been,
and continues to be, my mother. So, if you want to find a good
book to read, you should ask her...not look here. For, creating a
good guide takes time and thought, neither of which have really gone
into this page. This is simply a short list of a few favorites.
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| The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle I lied. Watership Down was my favorite book for a long, long time, but this one usurped it somewhere along the line. Don't tell, though. It's a secret. |
| The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the
Galaxy "Trilogy" by Douglas Adams The best two are Life, the Universe, and Everything and Mostly Harmless. For the rest, the books are okay and worth reading, but they don't compare to the radio show. Still, it's nice to have them in book form as well as radio form. It's harder to look up a good quote in a radio show. |
| Dirk Gently's Holistic
Detective Agency and The Long
Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams The first is a brilliant ghost story. The second is a bizarre tale filled with Norse gods and evil refrigerators. These far outshine the majority of the Hitchhiker's books, since they were originally written in novel form. Douglas Adams was a genius. Did you know I missed out on seeing him speak by one and a half days? Breaks the heart... He's one of my heroes. |
| The Chanur Series by C.J. Cherryh Pyanfar Chanur is one of my heroes. (Yes, I have a lot of heroes.) Lions in space, with the fire and faith of the Bajorans...who could ask for more? These books are gripping, fun, and even insightful. Cherryh's concept of sfik, the currency of power, is particularly fascinating. I still use it when trying to figure out social dynamics. This is a fun universe, with spiffy aliens, and lots of complicated alien politics. These books, before Deep Space Nine, were the first exposure I had to the idea that politics could be interesting. |
| The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster If you've read it, read it again. It won't take more than a few hours. I've always particularly liked the part about eating words -- imagining what different words would taste like. My favorite words are 'scintillating' and 'corrugated.' I imagine that the former would be either very sugary or effervescent, preferably both. The latter would likely be rich and chocolately. So, right there, you've got my favorite meal: gingerale and chocolate cake. |
| Everything by Jane Austen (Except for Mansfield Park) I recommend reading them in the order she wrote them. They function as a primer in the fine art of irony. Before reading the works of Jane Austen, I didn't "get" irony. Sure, I could define it on an AP English test, but I didn't find it funny. By starting with the broad irony of Northanger Abbey and slowly progressing to the meticulously fine irony of Emma, I managed to develop and fine tune my heretofore lacking sense of irony. More important than Austen's wonderful irony, though, is her cast of characters: the endearingly naive Catherine; the heartfelt Marianne; the wisely reserved Elinor; the witty Elizabeth; and the richly complicated Emma. These are fully realized people, worth knowing. Few characters in modern works achieve the depth and believability of Austen's heroines (and her heroes). Austen keeps her distance: you hear the characters thoughts, but only on occasion. The reader is left with the profound sense of a true mind, filled with thoughts, forever out of the reader's reach. Many modern works, by living too closely to their characters' minds, rob the reader of this depth, or illusion of it. Since we never know real people from the insides of their own minds, Jane Austen's method brings us closer to how we truly perceive others. |
| The Once and Future King
(& The Book of Merlin) by T.H. White Inspiration for and close cousin to the movie Camelot, T.H. White's depiction of the Arthur legend in vivid, stunning, beautiful, wonderful... Arthur is a truly admirable man, and the story of his rise and fall has true staying power. It's been told many times, but I believe this telling to be the best. Or, at least, my favorite. |
| Tim by Colleen McCullough Perfect, exquisite, beautiful... One of those books that makes you just love reading words...and astounds you with how vivid the characters you see through those words can be. |
| The
Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov Few books are beautiful simply in their structure. However, a mathematician friend and I were in raptures over the structure of this novel during a late night conversation in college. |
| The
Lucky Starr Novels by Isaac Asimov (writing as Paul French) Why someone hasn't made movies out of these books is beyond me. If I were handed the budget to make a movie and told to pick anything, I'd choose Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids. (And I know a sometimes-actor who'd be perfect for the title role.) |
| A
Miracle of Rare Design by Mike Resnick This was my favorite book during the latter half of high school, at the same time as Dark City was my favorite movie. They each embodied the same theme for me. It was a time when I realized I was changing, and I was afraid of losing myself in the changes. This book is about a character, Xavier William Lennox, who changes as much as a human can, while still maintaining even a shred of humanity. Yet, his transformation is amazing and beautiful. This book said to me, no matter how much you change, you will still be yourself, and you may even find a greater meaning for yourself in the changes. It was a deeply empowering message at the time. I took it to heart. Of course, beside all that, it's just a really fun read, filled with fascinating aliens. And, seriously, that's what I read science-fiction for. |
| Startide
Rising and The Uplift War by David Brinn Talking dolphins versus evil insects in the one; talking chimps versus evil avians in the other. You can't go wrong. But, beyond that, the concept of "uplift" fascinates me, and the entire universe backdropping these two books is wonderful. |
| Raptor
Red by Robert Bakker If you ask me my favorite animal, I'll probably say otters. (Though, it really depends on the day.) If you ask anyone from college my favorite animal, they'd probably say raptors. Well, they don't talk in this book, but it gets inside their minds. Better yet, it really gets into the relationship between the main character, Raptor Red, and her sister. |
| Lord of the Flies by William H. Golding Speaking of college... This is one the truest novels ever written. It greatly saddens me to believe that. I read it for the first time as a freshman in high school, and it perfectly captured the experiences I'd just gone through in middle school. I read it again near the end of college... Deja vu. Seriously, you'd expect more from young women in their twenties than from middle school boys; however, I suspect that you'd be disapointed, especially if you went to my college. I hope I never find myself in a situation so perfectly captured by this book again. (Near the end of college, I wrote an essay mathematically encoding the behavior exhibited by William Golding's haunting characters.) |
| Guys
From Space by Daniel Pinkwater I would trade five plastic fish for this book. No question. Even though I'd have to go and acquire the plastic fish... Hmm. I'd probably want to get six plastic fish so that I could keep one for myself. |
| The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger Supposedly, time travel is the most tired meme in all of science fiction. This book, however, shockingly found a fresh take on it. Oddly, that's really not what makes this book noteworthy. The snake-eating-its-tail romance between Henry and Claire is vibrant and haunting. I fell right into it, and whenever I pick this book up, I fall right into it again. (Even if I'm not planning on rereading it, but instead planning on, say, wrapping it as a present.) |
| The Mystery Method by Mystery Okay... It's a bit weird to recommend this book. But... It's a brilliant analysis of human interaction. It reads like a text-book, and it's goals are... well, not goals I've ever shared... But, seriously. This is a good book. Interacting with other human beings is hard. And this guy has it figured out. (At least, at a theoretical level.) |