Reading List

I read somewhere recently that art is basically any human creation that, after experiencing it, impacts the way one views the world around them.  I realize that www.goodreads.com has already established a website dedicated to this kind of stuff, but I want to post this here even if it is not entirely the appropriate venue for such a post.

As I begin to put together a reading list for the Global Environment syllabus (I plan to start the class off with "The Lorax", by Dr. Suess), I have been thinking about the novels that have left a lasting impression on me.  Each one of these books has engaged, inspired or influenced me in its own unique ways.  In the following list I will try to stay as chronological as possible and annotate the entries.

1)  "My Teacher is an Alien", by Bruce Coville.  This book introduced me to absurdism.  It made me realize that you can write about whatever you want, and triggered an early interest in science fiction.  In my later years, I bought a house three blocks away from the author's home in Syracuse.

2)  "The Catcher in the Rye", by J.D. Salinger.  Can there be a better book for male teenager to read?

3)  "The Grapes of Wrath", by John Steinbeck.  My literary introduction to corporate exploitation of man and nature.   For a long time, I called this the best book I have ever read, and that may still be true.

4)  "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", by Ken Kesey.  I have already alluded to this book in a previous post.  The narration and character development in this book are excellent, and another great book for a teenage to read as they start to rebel against the establishment.

5)  "Catch-22", by Joseph Heller.  You are insane if you don't like this book.  Hilarious.  This book holds the for the fastest I have ever read a book.  I am usually a pretty slow reader (I like to take time to reflect), but I think I covered this in under 5 days.

6)  "The Great Gatsby", by F. Scot Fitzgerald.  The author actually spent some of his childhood growing up in Syracuse.

7)  "The Metamorphosis", and "The Breast", by Franz Kafka and Phillip Roth, respectively.  I read these books one right after the other.  Metaphors for alienation.

8)  "Eucalyptus", by Murray Bail.  I did not like this book the first time I read it.  Then, I had a professor ask me to re-read it and ask myself one question:  Is our life just a collection of the stories that we tell?  I haven't stopped thinking about that question ever since.

9)  "A Confederacy of Dunces", by John Kennedy Toole.  Laugh-out-loud funny.  Also triggered an obsession with New Orleans that, like the characters in this book, will never leave me.  I often cite this as my favorite book.

10)  "On the Road", by Jack Kerouac.  Mostly just because I read it while traveling across the county as a young man.

11)  "Lolita", by Vladimir Nabokov.  The transformative power of words and laguage.

12)  "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", by Robert Pirsig.  How to approach problems with the scientific method.  Also good primers for various philosophical ideas, and a good story line.

13)  "Never Cry Wolf", by Farley Mowat.  More explicitly about the scientific method, and a good nature/adventure tale.

14)  "Raising Holy Hell", by Bruce Olds.  This is historical fiction about John Brown.  It really got me thinking about the strength of one's convictions.  John Brown is an inspirational figure in American history.  But to be sure, he was a fanatic.

15)  "Under the Banner of Heaven", by John Krakauer.  I recognize that none of these last three entries are novels, but they all read like one, as do the other Krakauer books I have read ("Where Men Win Glory", "Into Thin Air", and "Into the Wild").  I enjoy all of Krakauer's work, but "Under the Banner of Heaven" seems like the most "no stone left unturned" kind of thing that I have ever read.  The history and the story here are blended flawlessly.

16)  "Sometimes a Great Notion", by Ken Kesey and "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky.  These are largely the same story, just a different cast of characters and Kesey should be credited with probably the best character development I have ever encountered in a book.  Kesey replaces Dostoevsky's Russian monasteries of the mid 19th century with Oregon's logger unions of the mid 20th century.  There are many other differences as well, but these are still books about family tensions, and how all people come at the world with their own unique perspectives.  BK is probably the best book I have ever read, strike that, its definitely the best book I have ever read.

17)  "The Witches of Eastwick", by John Updike.  Maybe magic is possible through human will?

18)  "Slaughterhouse 5", by Kurt Vonnegut.  For me this book felt like it had some universal truth in it.  Also, very funny.

19)  "Oil", by Upton Sinclair.  Inspiration for the movie "There Will Be Blood".

20)  "Invisible Man", by Ralph Ellison.  This book was really important for me.

21)  "The Moviegoer", by Walker Percy.  Life is about unlocking the underlying mystery and defeating any tendencies toward general malaise.

22)  "Freedom" and "The Corrections", by Jonathan Franzen.  These books can be very depressing, which I usually don't like.  I was glued to these books even though, at time, I didn't want to be.

23)  "The Mezzanine", by Nicholson Baker.  It is the minutia of everyday life that give us profound experiences and the most meaningful connections to the world.  Also, great use of detailed footnotes.  While reading this book, I was struck by the feeling that Baker was writing about exact thoughts and/or experienced that I had before, like we were the same person in some strange way.

24)  "A People's History of the United States", by Howard Zinn.  Okay, I am done trying to make this list exclusively about novels.  There is a lot of non-fiction that has inspired and even transformed my perspectives, and this book is most important among them.  Beware of the two party system, and don't be afraid the stand up for ideals.

25)  "Hope and Despair in the American School System", by Gerald Grant.  Why do there need to be such inequities between suburban and inner city schools?  This book isn't great about revealing the history behind the problems in education, but does offer some refreshing potential solutions.

26)  "Guns, Germs, and Steel", by Jared Diamond.  Social science, laid out almost like a scientific paper in long-form.  This really helped me to understand the history of human civilization, and I will definitely be using it with my class next year.

27)  "A Walk in the Woods", by Bill Bryson.  I also enjoyed "A Brief History of Nearly Everything", and "In a Sunburned Country".  But Bryson's travelogue of the Appalachian Trail actually prompted me to start brainstorming my thru-hiker name.

28)  "Two Americans:  Truman, Eisenhower, and a Dangerous World", by William Lee Miller.  I don't often read straight historical biographies.  But this one was really well written, and these were too very interesting presidents during very interesting times in American history.  I learned a lot while reading this book.
 
29)  "High Fidelity" and "About a Boy", by Nick Hornby.  Okay, so I am not even trying to list books in chronological order any more.  "About a Boy" was good, but "High Fidelity" articulated a lot about manhood and music.  Also, best use of lists I have seen in any novel

30)  "Dude, Where's my Country?", by Michael Moore.  The hijackers on September 11th were Saudi Arabian citizens.  Why did we go to war with Iraq and Afghanistan?

31)  "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt", by Chris Hedges.  I can never eat a tomato withouth thinking of the migrant workers in Florida again.  There is a lot of true despair depicted in this book, but it is also a natural offshoot from Howard Zinn.  People are resilient, and there is still hope for humans, but we need to stop ignoring the deep problems that we face.  I think Hedges is brilliant, and I also got a lot from "War is a Force that Gives us Meaning", and "Empire of Illusion:  The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle".

Thirty-one books seems like a good place to stop (1 great, influential book for every year that I have been living - not bad).  All of these books (and a number of plays as well) have helped me to reflect on myself and on the human experience in general.  I look forward to my continued reading and my continued adding to this list.  Strangely though, I realize now that I have left off one of the most important books of my life, "The Giving Tree", by Shel Silverstein.  My mother used to read this book to me (maybe that's why I neglected to include it, because it was initially read to me rather than by me), and now I have read it to my children.  Reading this book today still provokes a strong emotional response in me.  I feel guilt -- like I am a taker from my parents and from the resources of the world.  My hope is that as I go through life that I can eventually come to be terms with this guilt and be at peace with Shel Silverstein (another brilliant writer).  Ideally, I would like to feel that I have given back and nurtured people to a degree equal with all that I have taken and been given.  That would be a good sense of balane and peace.

Honorable Mention (AKA these books are just as important to me as the ones above, but I forgot to mention them as I was writing the list.  Note the shorter annotations): 

A.  "Civilization and Its Discontents", by Sigfund Freud.  What an orgininal!

B.  "Parsons's Pleasure", By Roald Dahl.  Irony!

C.  "The Sound and the Fury", by William Faulker.  Another one about varying perspectives and seeing experiences through the eyes of others.

D.  "The Pearl", by John Steinbeck.  More money, more problems.

E.  "The Rum Diaries", by Hunter S. Thompson.  The film version over politicized this story.  This book made me want to travel and meet people, and helped me to refine my sense of adventure.  "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was more ground-breaking, but "The Rum Diaries" remains a more important book for me.

F.  "Beloved", by Toni Morrison.  Another author who spent time living in Syracuse.  Transcendent!

G. "Freakanomics",  by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.  Incentives.  Note:  this is the only co-authored book to make the list.

H. "A Civil Action", by Jonathan Harr.  The #1 reason I didn't go to Law School.

I.  "1984" and "Animal Farm", by George Orwell.  My parents gave me these books in a double volume for Christmas one year.  More than any other books, these provided me with a framework for thinking critically about power, corruption, and greed in government.  Very timely in the current era of Super PACs.

J.  "Brave New World", by Aldous Huxley and "The Time Machine", by H.G. Wells.  Great books for thinking about the hierarchies within social classes, and the inherent implications.   

K.  "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius", by Dave Eggers.  If you read one memoir this year, make it this one.

L.  "The Clan of the Cave Bear", by Jean M. Auel.  Recommended to me by my mom -- fascinating interpretation of early humans, gender roles, social order, etc.

M.  "Interview with the Vampire", by Anne Rice.  Would eternal life turn anyone into a vampire?  How could one possibly cope with experiencing all the changes throughout history (both revolutionary and gradual)

N.  "Cheap: The High Cost Of Discount Culture", by Ellen Ruppel Shell.  This book really got me thinking about the good that I consume.  It refers to Wegmans as a "love letter to capitalism" which "identifies with the local food movement" in a chapter that contrasts the Wegmans grocery store chain with that of the "behemoth" Whole Foods.  An analogy in the furniture retail world would be Dunk & Bright vs. IKEA.

O.  "Don Quixote", by Cervantes.  One of the funniest and poignant books I have ever read.  Everyone comes through the universe with their own unique perspective, so try not to judge them.