Sunday, July 23, 2006

About Books


"I see you have books under your arm, brother. It is indeed a rare pleasure these days to come across somebody that still reads, brother." (...)
"Yes,"” I said. "“It would interest me greatly, brother, if you would kindly allow me to see what books those are that you have under your arm. I like nothing better in this world than a good clean book, brother." (...)
I started to rip up the book I'd got, and the others did the same with the ones they had. (...) This crystal book I had was very tough-bound and hard to razrez to bits, being real starry and made in days when things were made to last like, but I managed to rip the pages up and chuck them in handfuls of like snowflakes, though big, all over this creeching old veck, and then the others did the same with theirs, old Dim just dancing about like the clown he was.

The 'I' would be Alex of A Clockwork Orange and the day after I read about him I received a book that might well have been carried by the poor Chelloveck that was robbed. All of the books I have read in the past year seem to be knotted up like string bits in very odd ways. This is my post-graduation book list:

Imbibed:
A Walk in the Woods -Bill Bryson
1984 (e-book, x2) -George Orwell
Travels with Charlie -John Steinbeck
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -Ken Kesey
A Clockwork Orange (with ALL chapters) -Anthony Burgess
Into the Heart of Darkness -Jonathan Conrad
(I am missing at least one here. It is packed and I just can't remember)

On Tap:
Catch 22 -Joseph Heller
Don Quixote (in English) -Miguel de Cervantes

Deeply Desired:
A Brave New World -Aldous Huxley
V for Vendetta -Alan Moore, David Loyd
A Void -Georges Perec (in English)
One Day in the life of Ivan Denisocitch -Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Slaughterhouse-five -Kurt Vonnegut
Catcher in the Rye -J. D. Salinger
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek -Annie Dillard
Erewhon -Samuel Butler, Peter Mudford
Watership Down -Richard Adams
The hunting of the Snark -Lewis Carroll

Favorites*:
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Alice Through the Looking Glass -Lewis Carroll
Sand County Almanac -Aldo Leopold

This is of course the abbreviated list and I am open to recommendations. Just make sure you let me know why you think I should read a book... or any other piece of literature really. Whatever. My compy is broken so I have how many more hours in my day to spend with books? So many. But thats ok. I really like books.

-Jn


*At this point these books are so well thumbed through that I just read bits and pieces when no other book seems palatable but I still have a craving for words.

3 comments:

Ramblin' Ed said...

I used to read, long, long ago. I read 1984, of course, as a studnet at Brandon High School. As a middle school student I read Watership Down and Lord of The Flies.

There you go. Your useless tidbit for the day.

Anonymous said...

i would suggest The Man who was Thursday, by G. K. Chesterton. it's way complex, and beautifully written, and frankly i feel i need to read it again b/c i'm positive i missed a lot. it involves a secret society of anarchists, and at least one spy...fun times. =) and there's a lot of imagery that comes into play as well...
all around a great book, and an interesting read...


-padawaan-

Anonymous said...

oh, and The Count of Monte Cristo...tho only if you have a lot of time on your hands. it's amazing!! got to be one of, if not the, most complex plots on planet earth, and so beautiful...