Last update: 19-Dec-2007 at 01:52 AM
The following is a selection of books I've read, which I would recommend to anyone who might be looking for something interesting to read. Some of these are simply books I like a lot; others have had a profound influence on my outlook and my character. They are organized roughly chronologically, in the order I read them (vs. the order in which they were published).
By no means does this list contain every book I would recommend to a curious reader. However, it is a sampling of those that I like best, and which have influenced me most.
If this list is of interest to you, you might also want to take a look at my Reading List and my Finished Reading List.
Verne (in translation, as I do not speak or read French) was the first "adult" author I encountered, when I found a collection of his stories on the shelf of my school library in early 1979. I have always enjoyed the stilted antique "travelogue" language of his stories in translation, especially Twenty-Thousand Leagues, which was the first one I read.
Though some people dislike his stilted language (mostly, I suspect, the product of translation) and travelogue style of narration, I was captivated by this antique yet compelling brand of science fiction.
I trace some of my curiosity about language to early readings of these stories. At the time, the dark spectre of "political correctness" had not yet arisen to tar these fine stories (esp. "Finn"), and so to this day, I retain a lasting fondness for the rambling narrative and sharp insights they provide. Both tales show a refreshing lack of the insipid and moralistic character that often pervades stories in which children are the protagonists, and they afford an intriguing view into the social mores of 19th Century America. These stories should not be missed by anyone -- do not be fooled by the rhetoric of their frequent detractors.
Twain has also written a number of very entertaining short stories and essays that should not be missed, including "A Touching Story of George Washington's Boyhood", and "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", to name just two.
It's impossible to overstate the impact of Tolkien's writing on my outlook, my love and use of language, and my conceptions of honour and of fantasy. With a few exceptions, I have re-read these books (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King) once each year since 1981.
For the devout fantasy lover, I would also recommend The Silmarillion, although it is much denser, and requires a certain level of dedication. (I have only read it end-to-end twice).
This is the book that introduced me to the curious blend of chivalry and magic which has always been (at least in my view) the hallmark of the Arthurian legends. In some sense, this is King Arthur as he ought to have been; not merely a bunch of fuzzy recollections out of Welsh and Cornish songs, but a living Hero, trapped in history's amber. White has also written a follow-up to this book, entitled The Book of Merlyn, but I did not find it as deeply engaging as The Once and Future King.
Those who like novels set in the realm of Arthurian legend should also read Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, which gives a different twist on Arthur's life and times.
To dig even further back into legend, read J. R. R. Tolkiens excellent translation of Gawain and the Green Knight, and the old Welsh tales, the Mabinogi, published in a modern translation as The Mabinogion. Spenser's The Faerie Queene and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur should probably be considered essential reading in this area, although they are much less "friendly" to the modern reader. Arthurian echoes also live on in Chrétien de Troyes, in the lais of Marie de France, in the tales of Tristan and Iseut retold by Gottfried von Strassburg, Thomas of Britain, and the 12th Century poet Béroul.
Far-future science fiction is often obsessed with extremes of technology. In Dune, however we are given a far future in which human achievement far and away eclipses the role of high technology. The excellence of Dune and its successors, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune, comes from a penetrating insight into some of the forces that really control human civilization, as revealed through the evolution of complex and compelling characters.
The series gets weirder and weirder as it goes along, and although it remains good even unto the end, Dune is its apex. Frank Herbert's son Brian and science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson, have together written a number of additional books set in the Dune universe. I read the first two (Dune: House Atreides and Dune: House Harkonnen), and while they're not bad, they do not cast the spell the originals did, mainly because they didn't really have anything new to say; reading them felt akin to taking a tour of the sets from one of my favourite movies, with different actors as museum guides.
Although this book defies easy description, it could be described as an exploration of the nature of consciousness. Imbued with the same weird-but-cool interaction between people and their technology that hangs around all of Herbert's books (e.g., The Dosadi Experiment, Whipping Star). The science is fairly dubious, but like any good fiction author, Herbert keeps the details far enough out of sight that the rest of the story can go forward unmolested.
I first encountered Neal Gaiman's writing through the excellent "Sandman" series of graphic novels, and always loved the dark sense of story and his insight into folklore. Good Omens is a wonderful combination of Mr. Gaiman's dark, intricate sensibilities with Mr. Pratchett's light-hearted and thought-provoking humour. Pratchett also has a whole series of books set in the "Discworld", which, while sometimes overbearingly whimsical, are full of clever insights writ funny.
Those who enjoy Gaiman's dark and intricate style may also like some of his other books, including Stardust, Coraline, Neverwhere (a novelization of a television series, as I understand it), American Gods, and Anansi Boys.
Yes, I have acutally read the whole thing, even the hundred-odd pages in the middle where Hugo describes, in excruciating detail, the Battle of Waterloo, and the way Napoleon came to lose it. I bought a cheap softcover edition from a bookstore at Logan Airport in Boston in 1994, while awaiting the arrival of a young lady I was dating at the time. I picked Les Miserables chiefly because it was a thick book, and I (thought I) knew the outline of the story from the Broadway musical based on it. And, of course, Hugo has a better pedigree than the usual sorts of cloyingly insipid romantic dreck they typically push at such establishments.
By the time Shannon's plane arrived, eleven hours overdue, I had made an appreciable dent in it, though that is not saying much. Still, I was hooked, and so a couple weeks later when I took off for a six-week walking tour of England, Scotland and Wales, it came along in my carry-on. I would read it while I was waiting for trains, mainly, and I finished it sitting on a sun-dappled rock west of Lake Windermere in the Lake District.
I felt transported by this story, carried back whole into the ways and minds of France, poised upon the brink of war and Revolution. Don't skip the long discursus, either! You will come out the other end feeling somewhat weary, and having forgotten what you were doing before it began -- but I think that is exactly how the French must have felt after Waterloo. It was a different world; a world in which the grandeur of La France was transformed by blood and suffering and sorrow from an artifice of nobility to an heirloom of the People.
Stephenson is a damned fine writer. Prescient, without being (overly) preachy, he manages to tell a good story with quirky and original characters, wrapped around a matrix of thought-provoking insights into the structure of society and its interactions with knowledge and technology.
This list is out of publication order; my first exposure to his writing was via Snow Crash, which is arguably the most clever. The others are all excellent, though! I have omitted Stephenson's first book, The Big U, from this list, on the grounds that (although it is entertaining) it is not up to the quality of his later books.
This series currently holds the title as my favourite science fiction series, unseating the former title-holders, Frank Herbert's Dune series, and Isaac Asimov's Foundation series (which started off excellent and went downhill after Foundation and Empire, in my not-so-humble opinion).
Simmons writes very literate science fiction, a genre I usually prefer to read in short-story format rather than novels. There is more to these books than just a good yarn; and yet, there are still plenty of the clever "twists" we science fiction readers love so much. Do not miss these books!
Simmons has also written some very good short stories (see the collection Worlds Enough and Time, for instance, and also he appears in some of Gardner Dozois's edited collections of The Year's Best Science Fiction over the past few years).
My friend Amy got me a copy of this book as a present, and I loved it. I am not o'erfond of cities, even at the best of times, but this book -- which is, among other things, the tale of the quest for the perfectly just city -- made me love them, for just a little while. I won't ruin Helprin's wonderful writing by trying to summarize it; suffice it to say this book is something any daydreamer like me should read.
And yes, the horse is crazy.
When I started reading this book, I expected it to be a fairly generic fantasy story, and my hopes were not high. But I was completely taken aback -- it is ever so much, much better than that! Susanna Clarke writes with a dark faerie-tale sensibility much reminiscent of Neil Gamain, but also with enormous humour and a sublime voice of England in the Napoleonic age. Her characters are human and compelling, and I was carried along so by the story that the book's one-thousand or so pages passed as if they were two hundred.
I very much look forward to the next installment!