May 5, 2008
tell me something I didn’t know
Okay. Tell me about a book I have to read. Just one. And give an Amazon (or other) link with it as well. Again, a book I have to read. Perhaps we’ll make it into a post.
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The Stories of Richard Bausch
This might be cheating because it’s actually a collection of short stories. There are over a dozen stories here that I feel are complete genius, but I’d certainly suggest “The Man Who Knew Belle Starr.” They probably have it at Half Price Books for around $10.
The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan
To call this “a manifesto for clear thought,” as one of the blurbs does, does not begin to do Sagan’s message justice. This is the only book that has totally shifted my worldview. If I had to tell everyone on the planet that they must read one book, this is it. We need Carl Sagan’s wisdom now more than ever.
It Must Have Been Something I Ate
Naguib Mahfouz’s classic Cairo Trilogy. The first volume is Palace Walk. Probably found at the Northwest Highway Half-Price Books.
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
Unbelievable person and unbelievably well written.
[...] Clusterflock Asks for Book Recommendations [...]
Rule of the Bone
By Russell Banks, and set in the Adirondacks, where I lived once upon a time, so there’s the sentimental factor, but it’s a clever and insightful book in its own right. Written in the first person, from the perspective and with the tone of a teenager. Not classic literature, but heartbreaking and funny and all too real.
Milan Kundera: Immortality.
and by way of explanation and argument in favor of my choice, I offer this tidbit from the amazon.com page:
Key Phrases – Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
eternal trial, homo sentimentalis, brilliant ally, obscene truth, lute player, complete ass
Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of Independence
by john hockenberry
A journalist for National Public Radio and ABC News recounts the challenges he has faced as a paraplegic at home and abroad, from the dangers of war-torn Iraq and Jerusalem to discrimination at home.
“Lanark: a life in four books” by Alasdair Grey.
A classic of scottish literature. You read the books in the order Three, One, Two, Four. Its technically two novels in one split across the four. One is a weird philosophical [dystopian] science fiction story and the other is about a tortured Glaswegian artist (who becomes the second character when he dies. or something).
I’m studying English Literature at a scottish university (tho I am Irish myself) and Alasdair Grey will be coming to the local literary festival, Word, this weekend..
Lots of solid info here:
http://www.lanark1982.co.uk/lanark.html
http://www.amazon.com/Lanark-Life-Books-Canongate-Classics/dp/1841951838
The edition I have has a beautifully illustrated jacket, by the author himself, somewhat like this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lanark-Life-Books-Canongate-Classics/dp/1841959073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210077603&sr=1-1
Mosocw to the End of the Line
A Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart is kind of a I see dead people, growing up is hard to do, family, Texas story. Good stuff.
Deron–the hardest thing about this is thinking of something you haven’t read! Come browse my bookshlves my friend and take what you like; it would be grand to see you as always. I’m glad you posted this. I see a number of things here that are fine suggestions (from my point of view): Rule of the Bone is indeed very good, and the Bausch stories, and Milan Kundera’s work…. And it was a long time ago that I read Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World, but I think it’s time for that book to come back in a big way. We need it these days!
Sewer, Gas, and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy
by Matt Ruff
from Amazon’s review:
…High above Manhattan android and human steelworkers are constructing a new Tower of Babel for billionaire Harry Gant, as a monument to humanity’s power to dream. In the festering sewers below a darker game is afoot: a Wall Street takeover artist has been murdered, and Gant’s crusading ex-wife, Joan Fine, has been hired to find out why. The year is 2023, and Ayn Rand has been resurrected and bottled in a hurricane lamp to serve as Joan’s assistant; an eco-terrorist named Philo Dufrense travels in a pink-and-green submarine designed by Howard Hughes; a Volkswagen Beetle is possessed by the spirit of Abbie Hoffman; Meisterbrau, a mutant great white shark, is running loose in the sewers beneath Times Square; and a one-armed 181-year-old Civil War veteran joins Joan and Ayn in their quest for the truth. All of whom, and many more besides, are caught up in a vast conspiracy involving Walt Disney, J. Edgar Hoover, and a mob of homicidal robots.
One I’ve mentioned before: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes.
It’s so hard to pick one, I’ll have to call tie.
Tim Powers – The Anubis Gates
http://tinyurl.com/4u9jxz
A college English professor who specializes in Romantic poets is hired as a consultant for a group that travels back in time from 1983 to 1810 in order to attend a lecture by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I won’t spoil it, but it really goes off from there. Tremendous.
Matthew Kneale – English Passengers
http://tinyurl.com/3tbsgp
Manx tobacco, brandy and porn smugglers, an expedition to find the Garden of Eden in Australia, the emerging war between religion and science, an Aborigine revolt in Tasmania, and more. It covers a lot of ground, but you won’t be able to put it down.
Mostly told in the form of logs, journals and letters, English Passengers is a tight, vivid and absorbing epic. This would likely be near the top of your list for favorite fiction you read this year.