Being a diverse and interesting selection of the most-thumbed volumes (not necessarily the "best", as it turns out) from my collection. I blame deals at Waterstones for a lot of this. solo1's book reviews
Like his life, and all his writings, Hunter's death was entirely on his own terms. This is the first published collection of the gonzo journalism of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, who was the greatest living American writer until he died (with the possibly exception of Kurt Vonnegut). Then Kurt Vonnegut died. Who's left? In this rather large book, there are extracts from his wonderful books "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: 1972", and a scary interview with Mohammad Ali. Back to list of booksCrime and PunishmentCrime and Punishment has such a reputation these days for being the most emo book in the world that you may come to it with a bunch of preconceptions - that it's 'difficult' or 'depressing' or 'too long'. Although Dostoevsky clearly meant it to be, at least on one level, a damning attack on the nineteenth-century class-based Russian society, none of that means anything to us now. I wonder what he would have made of the twentieth-century attempts to wipe out class altogether in Russia. He would probably write against that too. There's no pleasing some people. However, the power of his writing is such that you can read this book just as a crime thriller, and although it can be 'depressing' (it would be hard for anyone to write about murder in a cheery fashion), it is certainly not in any way 'difficult'. A man decides to murder an old woman, believing that his brush with higher philosophy will be enough to insulate him against the natural human guilt that would normally follow. He is wrong, however, and it affects him in a physical way. The police chief is onto him immediately, of course, as he is acting like the Most Guilty Man of the Year, but he has no evidence. Hence, drama. Back to list of booksMetamorphosisThis is another one of those books which comes with a lot of baggage, and has one the most famous opening lines ever: "As Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into a giant bug." No one could ever accuse Franz Kafka of fucking around, at least not when it came to his writing. Everyone likes to think of this in terms of metaphors, but I never went that way when I read it first (not having, at that time, the benefit of a university education). I read it completely literally - and guess what, it works that way too. The central joke is that although the main character has physically turned into a beetle overnight, everyone's reactions are pedestrian, and not at all nonplussed like you'd expect. His main concern is getting to work, and the family's main concern is how his transformation inconveniences them. Which is kind of hilarious. Back to list of books
The Blind Watchmaker is the first Richard Dawkins book I ever read. It's typical of his style - hard science and common sense, mixed with occasional confirmations that the person who wrote the book is a human being. The purpose of the book is to outline in clear, logical terms the only process in the universe which has been demonstrated (so far) to make complicated things out of simple things: evolution. Although our tiny brains might reject some of the realities involved (for example, the fact that we have millions of years to play around with; an amount of time which is for all purposes unimaginable), it really is a wonderful idea. If you like the idea of evolution, but don't get some aspects of it, this is the book for you. In other news, we need more people like Richard Dawkins, who are prepared to stand up in the middle of a crowd and scream logic and common sense. It's so easy to just stand around and nod your head in a bemused fashion while bullshit-merchants peddle their gibberish and end up taking over the world. But don't take my word for it. Back to list of booksNineteen Eighty-FourNineteen Eighty-Four may have changed my life. I was only around ten years old, but never again would I take anything for granted, particularly in the area of politics. You may, of course, realise that they're all a bunch of lying scumbags. But this book will explain why. I keep forgetting how much literature and culture has been directly inspired by Nineteen Eighty-Four: the idea of governments damaging their own populations because it's more efficient that bombing other people; "doublethink", or holding two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time; Minority Report-style "thoughtcrime"; believing something that is demonstrably not true because of a highly successful propaganda campaign; love as a useless avenue of protest; torture as an ordinary means of population control, etc. Last tip: if you're interested in seeing a movie version of this, watch Terry Gilliam's Brazil instead of the "official" movie version with John Hurt and Richard Burton (two great actors wasted on a shoddy script). Brazil's a different story, but it makes all the same points that Orwell wanted to make. Back to list of books
The Deeper Meaning of Liff asks us some questions. Firstly, are there not many shared experiences for which there exists no name? And secondly, are there not many words sitting around on signposts pointing to places, but which actually mean nothing at all in the English language? This book represents the synthesis of these two basic truths. Although it probably breaks some sort of copyright, I here produce an example from my own country:
Everything about this book is funny. They've even played around with the contents at the start and the index at the back, and there are interesting illustrations throughout. For some reason, it never gets old. A word a warning: no one else seems to understand why I find this book so riotously amusing. It's possible I am entirely alone in this. Back to list of booksThe First CircleI have rediscovered Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn recently after giving up on The Gulag Archipelago when I was in high school. My father scared me with stories of grim prison camp realities, and a Stalin that just wouldn't quit. All I knew was that he wrote anti-communist tracts from his house in Vermont, and then later on became disillusioned with the US, and moved back to Russia. His novels are grim, but they are full of the fire of human determination, and the remarkable things people force themselves to do (and to think) to live under inhuman conditions. The best I've read so far is called The First Circle, about a "special" prison camp called Mavrino, near Moscow, where Stalin put the clevers to make them do science things to help him take over the world. This particular book concerns Stalin's efforts to make a machine that could identify an individual from his voiceprint, something that scientists can't even do today with any degree of reliability. But Stalin is a man who does not like the word "No", and so they're launched into an impossible task. Throughout the book, he focuses on the personal lives of each of the people involved: the prisoners; the prison wardens (themselves prisoners of a sort); Stalin (in one of the creepiest passages in any book I've ever read, Solzhenitsyn tries to guess what must have been going on inside Stalin's mind); the ministers; the civil service officers; and the wives and families who will probably never see the prisoners again. At any point during the narrative, you're expecting to get bored (because the subject matter should make this a boring book) and so it is with some surprise you will reach the end wanting more. The good news is that he has written lots of other books. Back to list of booksTitlereview Back to list of books |
