One Girl's Books

Quick homework assignment

A couple months ago I asked people to provide book suggestions they thought everyone would like and I think the responses I got were pretty interesting.

So, another assignment...

One book you think everyone should read.  Either because it is so damn good, or it moved you or it makes other books make sense or any number of reasons. Provide the name of the book and why you think it needs to be read.

Here's mine...

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I know, sort of annoying, right? To me it encapsulates all that can be great in a novel. Any coming-of age-story written in the last hundred plus years owes at least a small debt to Dickens. Yes, even Holden Caufield.

It is sprawling and funny and sad and ridiculous. The characters are the key to the book. Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep and Betsy Trotwood are classics who make appearances (in many other forms) throughout English literature. The book is huge and daunting to start, but take it in small pieces and you won't regret it.

This is one of my favorite lines:

Gentlemen,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'do with me as you will! I am a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by the elephants - I beg your pardon; I should have said the elements.'

About Time

I am a sucker for time-travel stories.

I've been intrigued by the concept since I was a kid. Backwards in time; forwards; whatever. The following provides a small sampling of some of my favorite time-travel tales.

The Time-Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger  - This is the class of the group. An extremely well-written and beautiful book. It took the first 50 pages to get used to the time shifting, but after that the story of Clare and Henry really moved me. Henry suffers from Chrono-Displacement Disorder which  causes him to move involuntarily through time.  It is during one of those time shifts that he meets a young Clare who years later becomes his wife. Don't hold it against the book that book clubs all over the country have this on their reading list. Here.

Time and Again by Jack Finney - I think this was the first time travel novel I ever read. Si goes back to 1880s New York with the help of a mysterious government agency. Finney wrote a couple sequels because people loved the book so much. It's a classic. Here.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis - Maybe it's just me, but a story involving Victorian manners, the bombing of Coventry during WWII, time travel and Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat can't miss.  I read this in 2001 for the first time and have picked it up three or four times since.  It's a comedy science fiction mystery. One of my favorites. Here.

Also....

Shortcut in Time - This is a very low-key novel. An alleyway provides the "gateway" for time travel. But the travel is only 15 minutes back. I enjoyed the concept. Here.

The Diana Gabaldon Outlander series is very popular too. Not a lot of time travel, but good romance. The first one is probably the best. Here.

Smart families are all the same?

I've been meaning to post something about a favorite small sub-genre of mine - "the eccentric family novel."

The ultimate expression of this genre is J.D. Salinger's Glass family who make appearances in several of his books, most notably Franny and Zooey. If you've only read Catcher in the Rye, you are missing out. Read Franny and Zooey first, but  just read them. Here.

Another excellent example of this genre is I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. The Mortmain family lives in a crumbling English castle and younger daughter Cassandra chronicles the family's ups and downs in a series of journals. One of my all-time favorites. How can you not like a book that begins, "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink...."? Here.

A screenplay suggestion - Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums owes a huge debt to Salinger. If you've seen the movie, try the screenplay. Hilarious. Here.

When the genre is done poorly, it really, really fails. So, don't read A Taxonomy of Barnacles by Galt Niederhoffer. The Barnacle family is not eccentric; they are boring. The Barnacle family is not quirky; they are annoying.

Blog Strike

The blog has been on strike.

The blog has not been inspired.

The blog has seven books going and can't finish one.

The blog will be back this weekend.

This the blog promises.

A Whole bunch of Online Resources

So I've been finding some pretty cool book sites out in the wilds of the Internet that I thought I would share them here. Many of these sites feature free ebooks. I'd rather read an actual book rather than reading a book on a screen, but free is free!

1.The Forbidden Library - an interesting site detailing efforts over the years to ban certain books because of their "dangerous" content.  Here.

2. The World Public Library is the world's largest digital archive of pdf ebooks. Lots of stuff to look at! Here.

3. Librarian Chick - a wiki site that has tons of resources for educators and others, including an easy search tool for ebooks. Here.

4. Bibliomania - Books, articles, reference books, dictionaries and much more. Here.

5. Free audio books - this site has many digital audio files. Many of them are iTunes compatible. Here.

6.Lifehacker.com is an excellent blog about all sort of good stuff. They did an amazing post on all the best places to get free books online. Here.

7. FullBooks - the name sort of says it all. A simple site with lots of ebooks. Here.

It is a strange and beautiful world.