.Books To Read
Submitted by timepiece on Tue, 02/20/2001 - 10:03
Tags:
- Strong Arm Tactics - Jody Lynn Nye
- Envisioning information - Edward Tufte (class)
- Califia's Daughters - Leigh Richards
- Xombies - Walter Greatshell
- Great Pretenders - Jan Bondeson (nf)
- Lilith's Brood - Octavia Butler
- Ringworld - Larry Niven
- Dear Valued Customer, You Are a Loser - Rick Broadhead
- Buried Stuff - Sharon Fiffer
- To Weave a Web of Magic
- Cash Box - Richard Wheeler (from RA class)
- Eclipse (western, from RA class)
- Cherokee Trail - Louis L'Amour (RA class)
- Trail of the Spanish Bit - Don Coldsmith (RA class)
- Comanche Gone (RA class)
- Popular Culture and High Culture - Herbert Gans (RA class)
- Distinction - Bordieu (RA class)
- Literature as Exploration (RA class)
- Understanding Popular Culture - John Fiske (RA class)
- Airframe - Crichton
- Blindness - Saramago
- A Brief History of Time - Steven Hawking
- Cat's Cradle, Owl's Eyes - Camilla Gryski
- Counting Sheep - Paul Martin
- Dictionary of Euphemism
- Drawing Down the Moon - Margot Adler
- Flameweaver - Ball
- Forever Amber - Kathleen Winsor
- The Forge of God & Anvil of Stars - Greg Bear
- Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
- Game of Thrones - George R R Martin
- Get Shorty & Maximum Bob - Elmore Leonard
- Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
- Hellspark - Janet Kagan
- Hidden History of the Human Race - Michael Cremo
- I'm Eve - Chris Costner Sizemore
- Inventing Wonderland - Jackie Wullschläger
- Isle of Woman - Piers Anthony
- Jesus and the Lost Goddess - Freke and Gandy
- Midshipman's Hope - David Feintuch
- Mother Earth Father Sky - Sue Harrison
- Nerds: A Brief History of the Internet - Stephen Segaller
- Nightwork : A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT
- Opium: A History - Martin Booth
- Pemberly - Emma Tennant
- The Power of Myth - Joseph Campell
- The Reality Dysfunction - Hamilton
- Reindeer Moon and The Animal Wife - Elizabeth Marshall
- The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry - Bryan Sykes
- Souls in the Great Machine, The Miocene Arrow, Eyes of the Calculor - Sean McMullen
- Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
- The Thief Lord - Cornelia Funke
- Very Long Engagement - Japrisot
- Waterland - Graham Swift
- Wicked Words - Hugh Rawson
Author Comments:
Decided to separate the books I just want to read from the ones I want to own. A good portion of these are either on hold at the library or have been checked out and are sitting on my desk to be read. Others I must wait to actually be released.
I've added a few I heard about in my Readers' Advisory class in library school, so I am making a note of those for my own benefit so I don't think "Why on earth are these on here? I've never heard of this author!"
A few of these (mostly the classics) have been on my internal To Read list for some time, and hopefully now that I've announced my intention to read them, I actually will.
Update: that last point doesn't appear to be working.
As distinct from Books To Use As Doorstops, or Books To Put Under The Table-Leg To Keep The Damn Table Steady, huh?
But thanks for another interesting list. "Hidden History" sounds good, and I assume "Ghost and the Darkness" is about the two man-eating lions (don't know if they et any women, but I suppose I should call them 'person-eating'). Good movie based on that story - ask Jim.
Well, as distinct from Books to Spend Actual Money On, rather. There are either books I own but have never gotten around to, or books I plan to borrow from the library.
Has anyone actually finished The Satanic Verses? I remember being so excited about buying a copy (it was very hard to find at the time because of the fatwa on Rushdie), but when I finally got one, I became less interested in reading it. I guess it was the hype and the feeling of owning a "banned" book. In truth, I liked Rushdie's other earlier stuff, especially Midnight's Children. :-)
I found a Brief History of Time, to be a big waste of time, mainly b/c it didn't tell me anything that I could understand lol, it was so damn funny trying to understand physics being a history major, I hope you do better than I did.
I started A Brief History of Time a while ago and I actually enjoyed what I read of it quite a bit. However, when I got busy, I had no problems temporarily abandoning it. What struck me about the book was that if you are not a religious person, it gives you scientific evidence to back up your beliefs, but if you are religious, it could strengthen your faith because of all of the amazing things discussed. Of course, you may read it and get something completely different from it. I never did finish the book, maybe I'll be able to before I leave for college...
I read A Brief History of Time as extra credit for an AP physics class. I'm still amazed that I finished the damn thing.
"I strongly believe in cosmic censorship so I bet Kip Thorne and John Preskill of Cal Tech that it would always hold. I lost the bet on a technicality because examples were produced of solutions with a singularity that was visible from a long way away. So I had to pay up, which according to the terms of the bet meant I had to clothe their nakedness." - Stephen Hawking
This list   (books I plan to read in 2005 - in sequence)   seems to be working for me, which I made because 2004 was such a disappointing (reading) year. Initially it begun to get a little frustrating sticking so rigidly to the list, and I feared straying until I created a second list   (books I plan to read in 2006 - provisional list only)   which provided me with the degree of flexibility that I craved.   I now have a clearly defined list of (prioritised) goals, plus a degree of flexibilility.
A Brief History Of Time by Steven Hawking is on my list for 2005.
I couldn't do that - sometimes I'm in the mood for non-fiction, and sometimes mystery, and sometimes s-f. I couldn't have a set list in advance. Heck, I took 6 books on vacation, and bought new ones instead of reading two because I just wasn't in that mood.
I AM exactly the same (even now), but that strategy just wasn't working for me. Many of the priority books (classics especially) were continually being pushed down the sequence and never being read, and the quality of the books that my 'mood' dictated became very unsatisfactory. My reading year for 2004 was such a huge disappointment that the discipline of a pre-determined list became essential. The flexibility I craved I addressed by drafting a (flexible) list for 2006. So far I have been extremely disciplined, but I am only five months into that new strategy and not at all confident that I can keep it up even for this year. Books on next year's list such as 'The Man Who Meant Well' by Gerard Walschap, 'Replay' by Ken Grimwood, and 'Prescription for Murder: The True Story of Harold Shipman' by Brian Whittle and Jean Ritchie, and many others continually draw me to them and away from my priorities, such as 'Laughter in the Dark' by Vladimir Nabokov, 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte, 'The Remains of the Day' by Kazuo Ishiguro, and 'Rebecca' by Daphne Du Maurier, which I just know should be read as higher priorities.
I also try and sequence the list with a mix of heavier and lighter books, classics, fantasy and sci-fi etc.
"I took 6 books on vacation, and bought new ones instead" - I just know that feeling.
But after you read the new ones did you feel it was the right decision (did your 'mood' guide you correctly) ?
I find I can trust my instinct of what I should really be reading to what my mood tells me to read at any given moment (that passing moment when you decide which book to read next).
If you haven't read The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke yet, I suspect you'll like it. I really enjoyed it as well as Inkheart and Inkspell (don't remember if Inkspell is really the 2nd book or if it's something slightly different). Dragon Rider (also by Funke) was all right, but I didn't like it as much as I liked the other 3. They're great escape books. :D
I would also say that if you want to read a western - just so you know what they're about, you might check out Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey. (I am also a librarian who's big on RA!). :D