Reading Freely

This week, the Broke and the Bookish are musing over books they’d like to re-read.

1. The Black Widowers Series, Isaac Asimov
(Tales of the Black Widowers, More Tales of the Black Widowers, Casebook of the Black Widowers, Banquets of the Black Widowers, Puzzles of the Black Widowers, and Return of the Black Widowers.)

Isaac Asimov is my very favorite author, and a few years ago I found a mystery series he’d penned while browsing in the library. The setting is a gentlemen’s social club, which meets in a downtown New York restaurant every month for drinks, dinner, stimulating conversation — and a mystery. The club calls itself the Black Widowers society, and they never intended to get into the mystery business — but every month they invite a visitor, and every month (oddly enough) that visitor  manages to intentionally or accidently present them with a puzzle to think through. Intellectuals and artists, they ask probing questions and rely on both their collective knowledge and a series of reference books. The solution sometimes relies on literary, historical, or scientific information, but it’s always there for the reader to grasp — if only he can think of it before the Widowers’ gentleman waiter Henry can.  I love the series and spent more money on books than usual just so I could have the complete set. If I happen to be having dinner alone for whatever reason, I like to go and fetch a Widowers book so I can enjoy dinner with Asimov’s sleuths. It doesn’t matter to me that I’ve read a given story so many times I know the solution: I enjoy their conversation and the way they work through things. The discussion ranges everywhere from the sciences to humanities to popular culture, so it’s a treat for someone who’s a regular visitor to every part of the library like myself.

2. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Max Shulman.

I do love this collection of tales concerning  a cocky, brilliant, and charming college student who is always getting himself into trouble, usually over girls.

3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling
Why?

“Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people’s business.”
“Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git.”
“Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor.”
“Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.”

It’s better if you know the context, obviously.

4. Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls

I remember being read this story in elementary school. It was one of the most depressing but touching books I’d ever heard, because I was so attached to dogs myself. Heaven knows why I want to read a book that’s just going to reduce me to blubbering like a toddler in need of a nap, but it’s been such a long time. (If you’ve never read it, it’s about a boy who works hard to buy two coon dogs (Old Dan and Little Ann), and they become inseperable companions until…bad things happen.

5. The Pigman, Paul Zindel

It’s been an awfully long time since I’ve read this tragic story about two troubled teenagers who befriend a lonely old man.

6. Too Good to be Forgotten, David Obst

This is a memoir of growing up in the 1960s, which I read in 2006 and remember fondly.

7. Redwall, Brian Jacques

This is the book which inspired a series, this novel is a fantasy adventure story of a large rat who leads and army of vermin against a abbey of peaceful woodland creatures defended by a badger, a funny old rabbit, and a legendary warrior with a sword forged from a stone from the heavens. It’s sort of like Lord of the Rings, but there’s no magic.

8. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

I read this back in 2001 (starting on 11 September, actually), but only for an American literature class. Now I would read it because it is the kind of book I’d be interested in: one with a social message that focuses on salt-of-the-earth people.

9. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Carl Sagan

I bought this book last year (or the year before…) with the express purpose of re-reading it, but I’ve not quite gotten around to that. If I remember correctly, it’s Sagan’s anthropological work and concerns human evolution.

10. Disaster! The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906, Dan Kurzman

I read this years ago (2004, 2005?) from my home library, but when I decided to re-read it I found the book had been discarded or lost. I wound up buying a similarly-titled book and enjoying it well enough, but it wasn’t this one. To be honest, I’m not positive this is The Book, since I wasn’t keeping a log back then…but the title makes me sure enough to look for used copies online.

Booking through Thursday asks: Do you carry books with you when you’re out and about in the world?
And, do you ever try to hide the covers?


If I’m caught without a book, it was an accident — as I keep books in my car and usually remember to grab one on my way out of the house in case I am caught in a traffic jam or stuck waiting on an appointment. While living at university I always had some leisure reading in my backpack, and even if I just went outside for a stroll around campus I took a book with me;  ideal reading spots always chanced to catch my attention. If none of my friends were present in the dining hall, I enjoyed my meal with a book — and  often spent my time between classes or during slow periods at work reading. Even when I worked in a factory, I kept a book in my lunch bag to enjoy during the middle of the day — a welcome respite after hours of monotonous assembly-line work.

As for hiding covers…well, there was a Max Shulman book I purchased with an illustrated cover. I didn’t realize this until I was reading at work, but one of the figures on the cover was a nude woman with very colorful…cheeks.  Fortunately I spotted that before my boss did, heh.

This week the Broke and the Bookish are discussing books which they encountered first through other blogs and bloggers.

1. Sharpe’s Eagle, Bernard Cornwell

Reccommended to me by Cyberkitten of Seeking a Little Truth, this novel introduced me to the Napoleonic action hero, Richard Sharpe.

2. Persian Fire, Tom Holland

Suggested to me by the Resolute Reader after I read Holland’s Rubicon,  chronicling the collapse of the Roman Republic.  Persian Fire looks at an earlier period in history, at the rise of Persia, its conflict with Greece, and the growth of Zoroastrianism which would come to influence the Abrahamic religions.

3. The Lightening Thief, Rick Riordian

Recommended to me by Baley of the Reader’s Book Blog. I later read the entire series, enjoying it all the way.

4. Parasite Rex, Carl Zimmer

Imagine a world where parasites control the minds of their hosts, sending them to their destruction.Imagine a world where parasites are masters of chemical warfare and camouflage, able to cloak themselves with their hosts’ own molecules.Imagine a world where parasites steer the course of evolution, where the majority of species are parasites.Welcome to earth.

Reccommended to me by Neurovore of Neurovore’s Nuclear News Network, or N^4. Hoo boy, was this an eye-opener. You have no idea how wondrously terrifying and disgusting life can be until you’ve read about the life cycle of parasites.

5. The Age of Absurdity, Michael Foley

I only heard of this book through Cyberkitten,  and read it back in January. I haven’t reviewed it yet, because — like The Sane Society — it comments on so much that I feel hard-pressed to do it justice. The essential idea is that we have created societies which not only fail to meet our needs, but often run counter to them.

6. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

Cover source

Neurovore again. This is a dystopian novel set in a nightmare future in which crazy Christians have taken over the United States and created a society based on the Hebrew scriptures — complete with the total subjugation of women.  Considering the Republican Party’s current offerings, perhaps we should read it in preparation.

7. The Blank Slate, Stephen Pinker

…Neurovore. This one takes on various misconceptions about human psychology, including the idea that we are born ‘blank slates’ who act from cultural conditioning only, and not instinct, and the concept that we are born ‘good’ and then corrupted by the artificial construct of society. It’s a naturalistic approach to psychology and neuroscience: quite refreshing.

8. The Magicians, Lev Grossman

Reviewed by Joy of Joy’s Blog. Its cover caught my attention, but the book is stunning. It’s sort of a realistic, cynical take on Harry Potter-style fantasy.

9. Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer

Suggested to me by Baley, this is the story of a young man who lost his life while trying to find himself.

10. Nemesis, Isaac Asimov

This is tagged ‘reccommended to me’, so someone reccommended it to me. (Hence the tag, “reccommended to me.”) I don’t know of many people who would know Nemesis, so I am going to take a guess and say that it was Cyberkitten’s doing.