So my friend Steve and I were discussing books this weekend — ones we’ve read and liked (me: Driving Mr. Albert and The Mind’s I : Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul, Steve: The Years of Rice and Salt, both of us: House of Leaves), and books we plan to read (me: Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, both of us: The Da Vinci Code). Which lead me to my new year’s resolution: start reading for pleasure again on a regular basis. To help me with this, I was wondering what other good books people had read, or were planning to read.
Categories: Books
3:07 pm | 8 comments
December 30th, 2003 at 12:16 am
I have Da Vinci on Audible and just got it from Karen on CD.
Here’s the list of books purchased from Audible that haven’t been read yet:
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Me Talk Pretty One Day
The Namesake
The Dream of Reason
Dave Barry in Cyberspace
I also have the following books in paper format:
still reading Triumph and Tragedy (see earlier FatMixx post about it)
Bushwacked
Just got People’s History of America (Zinn)
George Soros On Globalization
Censored: The Top 25 censored stories 2004
There are probably other books elsewhere in my apartment that I mean to read and have forgotten about… but this is the main list anyway.
As for things I have read and enjoyed, I highly recommend reading Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (Al Franken) for an amusing and insightful critique of media reporting over the past 2 or 3 years, especially Fox News, Ann Coulter, and the White House press corps in general. The book was researched by a class at Harvard and includes a number of transcripts and solid primary sources. While I originally listened to it on my iPod, I just got the hardcover for Christmas. I am looking forward to perusing the notes and selecting quotes. I do recommend listening to the audio version… Franken does the reading himself and they use actual audio from the real speeches and shows when they have permission (clearly Fox News didn’t choose to give him permission
).
I also recommend Fast Food Nation and, though a little less so, Reefer Madness. as for other stuff: Any Harry Potter. If you like sports, Triumph and Tragedy is great so far, Moneyball was awesome too. Ender’s Game was great even if you don’t like Sci Fi. I’ll post again if I think of other stuff…
Sujal
December 30th, 2003 at 12:26 am
oh, and lies my teacher told me and lies across america are among my all time favorite books. Interesting look at how history is recorded.
December 30th, 2003 at 7:11 am
ooooooh books! I love i! I listened to the Da Vinci Code on audible — and it was fairly entertaining — but I did not love it — if you are going to check it out - read it — because the reader is a bit goofy — when a woman speaks, he reads in a “woman’s voice.” It’s kind of odd. BUT — I did love Reefer Madness!
I just read The Namesake and really liked it! (by Jhumpa Lahiri) — she also wrote Interpreter of Maladies — short stories — I have not read all yet, but the ones I read were really good. I’ve been carrying around Why Are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Tatum — conversations about race, and two books by Barbara Kingsolver. For XMas I got Dude. Where’s my Country by Michael Moore and Howard Zinn’s The People’s History of the United States of America — which i am excited about. I also ALWAYS recommend The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. And when I’m looking for good books, I often check out the Man Booker Prize list — because there are some pretty awesome books on that list! Which reminds me — Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Every so often I compile book lists — personal ones and ones for students etc - I’m at Sujal’s so I have none of that here… But these are a few i can think of — oh, and check out Mariette in Ecstacy by Ron Hanson. It’s amazing!
December 30th, 2003 at 10:37 am
Shoot, sorry sujal and Heidi, looks like both of you got the same book for xmas. I should have checked with that :(. Oh well. I still need to read Da Vinci Code, it was a book for my bookclub that I never read (though everyone loved it that read it).Life of Pi happens to be the next book, maybe I will acutally read it this time. I always loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, but everyone has read that. If you are a sci fi fan, Enders Game (which sujal finally read) is definately great.
December 30th, 2003 at 10:55 am
GEB was great, but be sure to give yourself enough time to read it. It’s a tome, and at 20 pages per night, I went to bed intellectually fulfilled every night.
I’ve been on a Tom Robbins kick lately, reading his books as directed by a friend of mine. Her library, my reading list. Also, try Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.
Has anyone read the new Neal Stephenson book?
December 30th, 2003 at 11:16 am
Karen — don’t be sorry — you don’t think I’d let Sujal touch any of my books do you????? Some things are just SACRED
December 30th, 2003 at 11:19 am
eh, you wouldn’t have been able to tell by talking to Heidi or I… Heidi got her’s as a present too and wouldn’t have know ahead of time.
December 30th, 2003 at 2:32 pm
On the far geekier (and less mentally challenging) side of things, I’d suggest Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy from the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
But, I’d still have to say that House of Leaves is probably the best book I’ve read in a while.
Oh, before that, I’d have to say that The Descent by Jeff Long was pretty damn good.