The Reading List
Professors just love to assign readings. Lots and lots of readings. Really bad dull boring readings, right? So – let me start by recommending Commons, et al (eds) Quantitative Analysis of Behavior: Volume 2 – Matching and Maximizing Accounts. Really classic classic stuff.
OK – but let’s not go there. I am sure you are relieved…..
Instead, here are a bunch of books I have enjoyed and hope others might enjoy. At the top is the Hall of Fame – my current list of favorites. It is followed by a longer list of other books – still good but perhaps less recommended than those on the top list.
I read a lot and I expect this list will change regularly. I would love for this to be interactive – please share your suggestions in the comments section.
My Personal Hall of Fame
Life of Pi (Yann Martel): Certainly the best book I have read in years, if not the best ever. Spiritual without being preachy – a book that really makes you think. Read it before the movie comes out – I fear they will ruin it.
Beatrice and Virgil (Yann Martel): Another Yann Martel book. This one has been far less popular than Life of Pi, at least with mainstream book reviewers. I love quirky stories – and this one is very quirky…. and dark…. very very dark. It makes you think.
Bad Monkeys (Matt Ruff): Deliciously indescribable – witty, quirky, and paranoid as hell. Read it, but watch out for the eyes….
The Quiet American (Graham Greene): A book about American involvement in Vietnam – particularly frightening because it was written BEFORE the US became heavily involved in Vietnam, and of course well before Iraq.
Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut): One of the most influential books of my youth. Vonnegut made me question everything I had always thought to be true…and I am still questioning.
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery): A gift from a girlfriend many years ago – inscribed “in the hopes you never become a grown-up.” That has been my philosophy ever since.
The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkein): Perhaps a cliche, but this book helped define my childhood. Reliving the books through the eyes of Peter Jackson was an amazing experience.
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDs Epidemic (Randy Shilts): The only nonfiction book in my Hall of Fame. This is a scathing critique of how everyone mishandled the AIDs epidemic – from politicians to the health care industry to the media to the gay community itself. An absolutely amazing piece of journalism.
Other good reads:
Set This House in Order (Matt Ruff)
The Other (Thomas Tryon)
Three Farmers on their way to a Dance (Richard Farmer)
Tree of Smoke (Denis Johnson)
Vineland (Thomas Pynchon)
The Brief History of the Dead (Kevin Brockmeier)
Going After Cacciato (Tim O’Brien)
City of Thieves (David Benioff)
Tropic of Night (Michael Gruber)
The Forgery of Venus (Michael Gruber)
Villa Incognito (Tom Robbins)
August 26, 2009 at 11:41 pm |
As a compulsive reader, this just happens to be the last blog entry I read. I have enjoyed reading ALL your musings and have a little better entry into your complex and distant mind. But back to books. I have also just finished reading Brissinger, a book of Corey’s perhap of a genre your son would know. When I don’t have a good book of my own I am reduced to stealing my children’s library books, forcing them to accumulate bad library karma for late books. Fortunately with time children mature. At this point Braden saves really good books for me. I will read a book to the end unless it is REALLY, REALLY bad, gross or over the top violent, muttering all the time until at last I am released by the final page. I ingnore the housework, even the garden, of course my family, though I do manage to get to work and keep people from starving,mostly. I imagine i would be a good book editor, I know the sound of language and when it flows well. Would I be good at picking books to publish? Most likely not as I don’t naturually choose best sellers, though I have read those too, especially from the children’s section. So, best/most influential books I can think of quickly:
Dreams of my Russian Summers by Andre Makine – beautiful lyricism especially if you know a bit of Russian and French
Another Roadside Attraction – similar effect in my life to Slaughter House 5. OK the books are nothing alike, but it informed me of some of the positve freedoms of hippiedom. Read it in high school.
Mark Vonegut’s book East of Eden was the anecdote of that, what can go wrong if with hippiedom if you also deal with a mental illness as Mark did. Hippiedom has not worked out for me despite living, or because of living in hippie central. Certainly not as it has worked out for you O Professor.
I must go caress my book now and find old friends there, the compulsion to read diverts me.
August 27, 2009 at 12:17 am |
Oh – you mentioned of “Another Roadside Attraction” reminded me of how much I love Tom Robbins. I just added one of his to my list (Villa Incognito – which is more obscure and less well-rated than his others – but somehow struck a nerve with me).
Many of the books on my list are recent reads – so many older favorites are missing. I am adding them as I think of them. I added a few tonight, in fact.
September 22, 2009 at 8:21 pm |
I’m involved in a great book discussion group. We are currently reading Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. Before that we read his Power of Now. Oprah featured him several weeks on her show a while back. I don’t understand everything he says but in many ways I feel as if he knew me and my relationships (or lack thereof) when he wrote about “pain bodies” and role playing: The many faces of the ego. If you ever get a round “to-it”, I’d love to hear your psychological comments on him.
November 13, 2009 at 9:18 pm |
I was mainly influenced by the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, and others like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash.
April 16, 2010 at 4:58 pm |
Dear Hippie Professor,
I’m more than gratified to see that my gift of *The Little Prince* made a difference in your life! I’m glad this best-of-all-books (almost) made your list! And if you haven’t yet read it: *The Sparrow,* by Mary Doria Russell. Also life-changing.
Enjoy hippie springtime!
April 17, 2010 at 11:06 am |
Bertie – I will indeed have to look that up. You have an amazing track record in introducing me to good, life-changing stuff.
June 26, 2010 at 11:04 am |
The Little Prince…fond memories of a fond book….might I add a couple more?
Walden…Thoreau…life changing…
The God of Small Things…Arundhati Roy
And Something more current… Shock Doctrine…Naomi Klein
My two cents…good day all…
June 26, 2010 at 11:42 am |
Drake – thanks for the suggestions. This is meant to be an interactive list. I wish more people would suggest things.
I have read Walden – though it was so long ago I should probably run through it again. I suspect it would mean more to me now. The others I am not familiar with – I will have to take a look.