Book Recommendations

Other People's Recs:

  • Check out new book reviews at Salon.com
  • The Modern Library's 100 best novels --here are two lists, the board's list and the reader's list. I recommend the board's list, as the reader's list was somewhat skewed by internet geeks.
  • The Modern Library's 100 best nonfiction --again see the board's list.
  • Harvard Book Store's 100 Favorite Titles --these are staff choices. Also see their Awards section (lists most recent winners of the Booker Prize, Caldecott Medal, Pulitzer Prize, etc.)
  • NEA's 100 best books for children

    My Book Recs:

    --in three categories, "modern", "classics", and "children's", but then in no particular order:

    "MODERN:" (i.e. books published after I was born, mid-1970s)
  • nearly anything by Milan Kundera, especially Immortality (1988), and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1982).
  • nearly anything by David Sedaris, like Naked, a hilarious, but sometimes serious, discussion of his experiences. Sedaris frequently appears on the NPR show "This American Life".
  • nearly anything by Tom Robbins, who's written seven "cosmic/comic" novels, from Another Roadside Attraction (1971) to Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1994).
  • nonfiction by Douglas Hofstadter, start with Goedel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979), and if you like that, try Metamagical Themas (1985) and/or Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language (1997).
  • The Golden Gate: A Novel in Verse, by Vikram Seth. (1986, 1991). From Publishers Weekly: While the idea of a novel in verse may be initially off-putting, readers of this tour de force are in for a treat. Using the sonnet form throughout, and varying his language from lyrical elegance to timely vernacular, Seth's tale of four California Yuppies is as fully dimensional as a good novel, and twice as diverting."
  • An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales, by Oliver Sacks (nonfiction, 1996). From the author of Awakenings (made into the Robin Williams movies) comes a collection of 7 short tales of people with fascinating neurological problems.
  • All in the Timing: Fourteen Plays, by David Ives (1995). Great for reading out loud at parties.

  • ....more coming soon (I just started this page)


    "CLASSICS:" (i.e. books published before I was born, mid-1970s)
  • Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes. The diary of a man who is retarded, but through an unstable medical experiment slowly doubles his IQ (to genius level), and... it's fascinating and sad.
  • The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. About a young man.
  • Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. A disturbing tale of the love/lust a middle-aged man bears for his teeanage stepdaughter, but with beautiful language.
  • Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. My favorite of the "what if in the future we are all controlled by a scientific dictatorship" books (of course George Orwell's 1984 is also a must-read).
  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, another frightening version of a future, controlling government, and a man's struggle for freedom. I also enjoyed Bradbury's The Illustrated Man.
  • Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence. "the adulterous affair between a sexually unfulfilled upper-class married woman and the game keeper who works for the estate owned by her wheelchaired husband" (amazon.com), it's not as boring as it sounds, the writing is quite engaging.
  • Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. Yes it's long and a bit conceited, but I still liked it.
  • Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. I don't usually like wartime stories, but this one is exceptional. Be warned that he jumps around in time a lot, just hang in there.
  • A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. I couldn't stomach the visual violence in the Stanley Kubrik movie, but I found the 'futuristic' part-russian part-english slang in the book interesting.

  • ...more coming soon (I just started this page)

    CHILDREN'S: since I don't have kids yet, these are books that I've enjoyed reading as an adult. Some children's books are much more engaging than others.
  • all of the Winnie the Pooh books, by AA Milne with really nice illustrations by E. Shepard.
  • Alice in Wonderland, by (the mathematician) Lewis Carroll
  • Charlott's Web, by E.B. White. I also enjoyed the animated musical movie version of this, which I saw as a child (by disney perhaps? not sure).
  • Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, and the later books in the series.

  • ...more coming (I just started this page)

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    Last Modified Tue July 13, 2004
    Comments to shruska at msm.umr.edu