Today’s TTT is about books that provoked a strong reaction. I’m going to try to focus on books from the first ten years of the blog. First, though, Ye Olde Tuesday Tease.
For [Antipater], the human being in action is best understood as an archer. We train and practice, We draw back the arrow and aim it to the best of our abilities. But we know full well that despite our training and our aim, many factors outside our control will influence where the arrow hits the target — or if it falls short entirely.(Lives of the Stoics, Ryan Holiday)
(1) The Good Guy, Dean Koontz. I don’t remember the plot of this novel as much, only that one of its viewpoint characters was a serial killer, and Koontz was effective at creeping me the heck out.
(2) Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn. Again, disturbing enough that I never revisited Flynn.
(3) Most of Phillip Kerr, but especially The Lady from Zagreb. Although Kerr’s German mystery novels were always masterful thrillers, I had to limit myself to one a year because they were frequently depressing, despite the main character’s Berlin humor.
(4) The Art of Living, a translation of Epictetus by Sharon Lebell. After quotations from Marcus Aurelius prompted me to read The Meditations, I wanted to read more of the Stoics and discovered this volume in my university library back in 2008. I vividly remember copying passage after passage from the book into a notebook. Unfortunately, I lost that college commonplace book in a move — how I would love to see the stuff I was thinking about back then! I later bought my own copy of this as well as The Meditations.
(5) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert Putnam. This is one of those books I read in 2013 that dramatically changed the way I think.
(6) The Four Agreements. One of the first books I ever one-starred on Shelfari (anyone remember that?) and Goodreads.
(7) The Sea Wolf, Jack London. My favorite London novel, it follows a young academic who is lost at sea and rescued by a whaler. The whaler is captained by a beast of a man — strong, intelligent, dominating, and the academic must learn to function as a man in full (adding physical strength and courage to his mental gifts and moral core) to overcome his captor. Invigorating!
(8) Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry. I regard this as my favorite novel, and it’s one I didn’t just “read”: I have both as a physical book and an audiobook, and I frequently re-listen to chapters from the audio book whem I’m trying to relax. There are many unforgettable moments in this book for me — Jayber standing up to Troy, Jayber’s realization that “She said ‘we'”, etc.
(9) Angels and Demons, Dan Brown. I would have thrown this book across the room if it wasn’t a library title.
(10) Enemy of God, Bernard Cornwell. The middle volume of his Arthur trilogy, which set Arthur as a Celtic lord fighting against the Saxons. However, this isn’t straight historical fiction: because Arthur is such a legend, Cornwell departed from his usual style and gave this the slightest grazing of the ethereal — not making it fantasy, but taking the book to the very edge, to the liminal space between history and myth. Enemy of God was especially close to that edge, and set during Samhain it has a scene that borders on horror. Really effective.
Reading Freely 
Bowling Alone—yep, that packed a wallop. I still go on and on about that book with others. Loved my recent read of Jayber Crow, too. Perhaps Four Agreements was to you what Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was to me.
I wasn’t much for Zen & MM, either! It was one of those I wanted to like, but just…couldn’t….
I was leant ‘Zen’ by my Law teacher *many* years ago who said that it would ‘change my life’. I *did* think it was interesting but not exactly life changing. I might read it again someday to see if I’ve changed my mind in the last 40+ years!
I couldn’t get into The Four Agreements either, but Bowling Alone was so interesting! I think I would have liked to live in a time when communities were stronger.
Thank you for stopping by my post earlier.
Lydia
Haven’t read ‘Gone Girl’ yet, but I thought the movie was very powerful.
Kerr’s German mystery/detective novels are starting to stack up. One day I’ll actually *read* them!
I have a few of London’s, but not ‘Sea Wolf’ although I have been interested in reading it for some time.
I enjoyed Cornwell’s Arthur trilogy a great deal (pre-Blog).
I have ‘enjoyed’ a few of Dan Brown’s books although they are *very* disposable!!
Unfortunately, having seen the movie, you may not get the full impact of the unreliable narrator device in the book. I think you’ll enjoy the Berlin novels — they’re often funny despite the darkness.
I read one Dean Koontz book and remember really liking it, it’s impressive when an author can thoroughly creep you out via ink on paper. If it’s too impressive I agree that it can sometimes act as a deterrent unfortunately. 😅
Oh, do you still commonplace? I have been debating about starting but don’t really know how to…lol
lol to Angels and Demons, may I ask why? I haven’t read it but I am curious about the specifics of why it deserves to be thrown across a room 😛
Last of all I am SO interested in trying Cornwell, I have two of his books on my e-reader!
Collecting and sharing quotes here have replaced — or rather, supplanted — the commonplace practice. I know writing things by hand aids in remembering them, more-so than copy-pasting. Perhaps I should return to it. Back then I used write journal entries on the front sides of pages, and copy quotes from books and such on the back side. It’s interesting that you ask, though — earlier this year I created a docs file called “Commonplace” to store quotes from articles I read (I’m a chronic substack reader), and then promptly forgot about it a month later.
As far as Angels and Demons go, I remember shallow characters, ridiculous speeches, and historic inaccuracies What sticks out most is one character attributing communion/the Eucharist to the Aztecs. That seems so absurd I have to wonder if I didn’t misinterpret it, but life is too short to go back and re-read it! XD
Cornwell is an absolute favorite of mine. This list is badly out-dated, but it will give you an idea of how much and how broadly he’s written:
https://readingfreely.com/2020/04/29/british-historical-fiction/
Ah, fair enough blogs are a sort of virtual commonplace thing if you think about it. You do share a lot of great quotes. I have terrible hand-writing but I like the idea of common placing in an actual book though who knows if I would even stick with it, I don’t think I’ve ever finished a notebook lol that sounds wonderful though. haha there are just so many little projects we all wanna do its hard to stick with them all!
omg hahah yes sure the Aztecs came up with the Eucharist, that’s kind of hilarious 😂 Yeah if you hated it that much I say good riddance and try something else instead!
Oh, great! I’ll check that out later thanks so much! I have a feeling his historical fiction is the kind I might love.
One thing I especially appreciate about him is that he’s FUNNY. I can’t watch The Last Kingdom (based on his Uhtred novels) because it lacks his narrative voice and the humor that brings.
I didn’t read Bowling Alone but I remember hearing about it and discussing the topic with my husband. It is fascinating. I will have to read it.
I haven’t read any of these books (the closest I’ve come is watching Gone Girl). Although I do kind of get how the book may have made you feel as I’ve read Sharp Objects by her and it was almost claustrophobic feeling. It’s like the atmosphere seeped off the page and under my skin. Very unsettling. I’m also going to have to look into Bernard Cornwells Arthur series based on what you’ve said. The touch of the ethereal sounds great.
I am working on my AI guess-the-book list and will post it shortly!
Ooh I look forward to seeing it.
It’s live now! 🙂
Gone Girl was a DNF for me. I found myself getting angrier and angrier with the characters. When I was about 30% in, I skipped to the last chapter to see if I should keep reading, and found myself getting angrier!
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
https://readbakecreate.com/warm-fuzzy-reads-12-books-to-give-you-warm-fuzzy-feelings/
Great list! I was floored by the movie Gone Girl, so I can only imagine how the book is. Even so, I own a copy that I found at a library sale, just haven’t had the time to pick it up and read it. I’m so curious about the Bernard Cornwell book – I’ve read his Saxon Stories series, and loved it, but was worried that none of his other series would match up to it and haven’t read any others (if that makes sense). And I remember reading the Dan Brown series and not fully getting it or the hype about it, but I always chalked it up to not knowing enough about Christianity and being too young to really understand what I was reading. 🤷🏻♀️ Maybe not
The part about Cornwell makes sense in a weird way. Sharpe’s series is his other big one, and it was my introduction to him as an author. The King Arthur series would be closer to Saxon Stories, though.
Whew, so it’s probably a good bet for me.
The Sea Wolf packed quite the punch… I couldn’t finish it the first time for the brutality. But the second time I was enthralled.