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Great
Books
Time and Again
Jack Finney
I've always eschewed fantasy (Anne
McCaffrey's Dragonsong is the first book I ever remember disliking), but
I make an exception for time travel books. As a child I devoured Penelope
Farmer, stories of young girls in haunted boarding schools who woke up one
day in their grandmother's generation, stuff like that. And then there were
Edward Eager's magic stories. . .Finney's book is for adults, but it's a
whole lot of fun. It's even better if you're familiar with New York city, but
that's not required. Sure, Finney is of a different generation when it comes
to women, but that's easy to overlook. The sequel, From Time to Time,
is a disappointment, but his collection of stories, About Time, is as
magical as the novel.
The Story of Philosophy
Will Durant
For a solid, accessible explanation of the
great thinkers in history, this book is unsurpassed.
Letters to a Young Poet
Rainer Maria Rilke
Inspirational. The perfect thing to pick up
when flying high after a great first date, for a heady mix of expansive
optimism and earnest determination.
Crossing to Safety
Wallace Stegner
A novel about two young couples who meet
teaching in a Midwestern University English department in the thirties, whose
lives remain entwined over the following decades. A study of friendship and
the force of powerful personalities.
My Misspent Youth
Meghan Daum
Daum's work has been compared to a
hot-fudge sundae, which I guess means maybe not a necessary part of the diet,
but hard to put down. Her reporting doesn't take her beyond the world of any
smart young adult in Manhattan (that is, until she left for Nebraska, and
wrote an autobiographical
novel); she writes about polyamorous relationships, crushes on Jewish
boys, flight attendants, money worries. She writes most often about herself,
but even in her spoiled moments, she's smart enough to be critically
observant. Compare her to Sarah Vowell, another This American Life-r,
who is better read but less well-spoken. Vowell spews undigested information
onto the page while Daum is carefully constructing her thoughts. Take the
Cannoli...please.
Basic Economics
Thomas Sowell
Clear, concise, compelling. It turned me
into a free-market capitalist overnight! Well, maybe not completely, but it's
an extremely sensible explanation of things like rent control and price
fixing. A must-read.
Into the Wild
Jon Krakauer
The story of Christopher McCandless, who
goes off to live in the woods at the age of 24 and never makes it home, is
sad and fascinating. For another book about a young man wounded by a troubled
relationship with his father and driven to live in a way the world doesn't
understand, see The Last American Man.
In the Unlikely Event of a Water
Landing
Christopher Noel
Novelist Noel loses his young fiance in a
car accident, and delves back into their lives together and plumbs the depth
of his loss. His offering is this book: gut-twisting sadness burned into
beautifully observed, intensely honest writing. I only hope she felt that
loved by him when she was alive.
Anything by W. Somerset Maugham.
Of Human Bondage will break your heart.
In Cold Blood
Truman Capote
First published in 1965, this is the
granddaddy of true crime writing.
Capote calls it a “nonfiction novel” about a real family who was
murdered in rural Kansas in 1959.
Both the victims and the killers are vividly portrayed, and the
unraveling plot that builds up to the senseless deaths is nothing short of
gripping.
The Mismeasure of Woman
Carol Tavris
Why women are not the weaker sex, the
better sex, or the opposite sex.
Tavris gives a refreshing scrub of common
sense to the messy entanglement of biology, gender and behavior, tackling pop
psychology, brain science and the myth of female ejaculation.
The Fountainhead
Ayn Rand
Like Lord of the Rings, best not
attempted by anyone over the age of 16, but if you get to it when you're
young and grow out of it in time it can be a formative experience.
The Once and Future King
T.H. White
See above.
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