10 Books to Read

I am writing this due to a request by my man Joey “hot sisters” Pasco, star of the Yo MTG Taps podcast.

Joey asked me to do a list of book recommendations, kind of like I have done for television shows on this blog in the past. In case you didn’t know, I am a very avid reader and always have been. I spend a lot of time (over two hours per day) on public transportation, so I certainly have time for the reading 🙂

Even though I am characterizing this as a “top 10 list” sorta thing, it isn’t really my top 10 books or whatever… More ten awesome books comprising a wide array of different genres and authors; the box of chocolate of book overviews.

If people like this (and, you know, say so in the comments or whatever), I can do more genre-specific stuff, or probably a more graphic novels-centric version. But for now, here goes!

The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell
Science Fiction

The Sparrow is maybe my favorite novel of all time (there are maybe three or so novels I say that about and they are all on this list). It is about the discovery of extraterrestrials, how humanity goes about contacting them, and what happens next. The interesting twist is that while other people are figuring out what to do, the Jesuits go make themselves a rocket ship out of an asteroid and just take the bull by its horns. I shared this book with Shark right after I read it, and — without any desire to spoil it, mind you — he had a very different reading than I did.

The Sparrow is barely science fiction. Yes, there are space ships and aliens but the story is quite serious and it is the kind of book a middle-aged professional woman would not be embarrassed to be reading on the subway. If that matters to you.

Watchmen, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
Graphic Novel

Hands-down the high point in comic book storytelling. Alan Moore is the consensus best comics author of all time, and Watchmen is generally considered to be his best work. It is the story of a group of aging — largely retired — superheroes living under the shadow of the cold war, and how they have acclimated themselves to society… As a “mask-killer” hunts them down one by one.

Watchmen is not the most inventive story of all time. It is, however, the best told story in the history of comics. Moore essentially defined and redefined visual storytelling techniques with Watchmen, with Gibbons as an able cinematographer. What makes this book so special is how perfectly the panel-to-panel transitions were executed, more than anything else.

For something completely different — that is, Moore’s attempts to push superhero comics to the limit of the genre — I would suggest his work on Supreme. Supreme, while not as groundbreaking as Miracleman, and not as perfect as earlier work like Watchmen or later work like Top 10, really opened the door to the brilliant and serious superhero deconstruction we see from Moore later at America’s Best Comics, with its influence everywhere at DC, Wildstorm, and other publishers.

The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman
High Fantasy

This one is a stone kold cheatyface.

The Subtle Knife is actually the second book in the His Dark Materials trilogy (sandwiched between the excellent The Golden Compass and concluded in The Amber Spyglass). It is the best of the three, and the ending is unbelievably chilling… Especially for a kiddie book. Pullman is essentially the anti-C.S. Lewis, railing against religion, God, and so forth rather than pushing his young heroes closer and closer to Aslan. The universe of His Dark Materials is unusual and specific (for example everyone is running around with their souls manifested as literal animals) and you can’t read The Subtle Knife and make much sense of it without first visiting The Golden Compass-land. But it’s worth it. Hella worth it.

Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Speculative Fiction

This was actually the second Neal Stephenson book I read before becoming a total Stephenson zombie. Make no mistake, I am certain that right now, as I write this, Neal Stephenson is the greatest current writer of fiction to use the English language. I could write more than one highly detailed blog post about how great his books are; for example I think The Confusion (second book of The Baroque Cycle) is the most ambitious thing ever written; and I don’t think that book scratches the surface of his most beloved stuff.

That would belong to Snow Crash.

So what is Snow Crash about?

It is a heady combination of computer hacking, fundamentalist Christianity, la cosa nostra, samurai swordsmanship… and pizza delivery. All at superhuman magnification… So super computer hacking, super samurai swordsmanship, super pizza delivery, etc. Stephenson shows his utter prophetic genius in Snow Crash… He basically imagines h0w we will — and today do — use the Internet, but did so years before its main line public consumption. It’s eerie how well he has things laid out in Snow Crash; let’s hope not all his predictions come to light! (Super fundamentalist Christianity, etc.)

Stephenson is a peerless master of English prose. He is unbelievably good, unbelievably often. However in terms of sustained, dizzying, awesome writing, there is no better book than this one.

The Horse and His Boy, C.S. Lewis
High Fantasy

Think Canadian prince + Mr. Ed  against Islamic fundamentalist super terrorists… But on another planet. With God on your side. Literally.

Basically the greatest boy’s adventure story ever. It is probably helpful if you are familiar with Lewis’s Narnia books, but The Horse and His Boy is — of all the books — the least world-building, and the most “boy and his horse against the bad guys” standalone rip-roaring romp. So even though it is nominally book 6 of 7 (or maybe 2 or 3 in the new numbering), you don’t really need the rest of the Narnia context the way you do with Pullman (above).

The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
Literary Fiction

The Shipping News is a Pulitzer Prize winner by the author of Brokeback Mountain. It is a legitimately challenging read, but the prose is superb; I’d try to tell you what it is about, but what sold me on it (a girl I was interested in… Her dad bought it for me in a bookstore in 2000) was “it isn’t about anything.” I mean there is a plot, but the book is about fishing knots and boat types as much as it is about fidelity and newspaper publishing.

I’ll give it this – The Shipping News has a great ending; and that, I think, is one of the hardest things for an otherwise great book to accomplish. Sits alongside The Sirens of Titan and The Sparrow as basically my favorite book.

The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
Science Fiction (kind of)

This book is kind of like the anti-LOST.

LOST was a television series that pretended to be a mystery, or in other terms, a show a middle-aged non-geek professional woman would not be embarrassed to follow for several seasons. However LOST was — was always — a goofball science fiction show. It was always about time travel or whatever, and the great thing was that they tricked all these old ladies into loving a show about, you know, time travel. It was a “serious, character-driven drama” that could, you know, solve a problem by throwing a dying character into a glowing pool of magic water to bring him back from the brink.

The Sirens of Titan is the opposite of that. It is over-the-top in its science fiction-ness. We are at war with Mars. There is a magic system of reading the Bible to become a billionaire, a time traveling dog appears at a particular place at appointed times. Aliens, etc.

But that’s half the fun – It’s not a science fiction story at all, no matter how hard it pretends to be one! The Sirens of Titan is about love, making choices, intelligence tests, cigarette smoking… It’s just too good. Becker hates it, but as much as we love Becker, he also hates holding himself to 40/60 (rather than 41/61) cards, as well.

Full disclosure – Becker hates the ending, and the first time I read The Sirens of Titan back in 1993 or so, I must have missed one sentence or paragraph that completely changes the end of the book. But I still love it, anyway.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon
Literary Fiction

I think this is the second time I’ve used the term “literary fiction” on this list. My understanding of literary fiction actually comes from a book forward by Chabon himself, and since it’s been a few years since I’ve read either The Shipping News or The Mysteries of Pittsburgh I would fall back on my partial-Chabon definition… of what part of the bookstore they are in. For example, Chabon’s work is littered with comic book references. Not just The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (his 2001 Pulitzer Prize winner), which was overtly about comic books… Chabon’s books are aout Richardses leaving the Baxter Building, stuffed with Easter Eggs for geeks like me (that middle-aged professional women never get).

Anyway, I’ve read most of Chabon’s novels and enjoyed them all. I think I like this one best, but The Yiddish Policemen’s Union was also fantastic. Unique pros for each:

• The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – won both the Hugo and Nebula awards; uses the word “cuntish”
• The Mysteries of Pittsburgh – breakout novel of one of America’s best writers; tons of butt sex

Outliers, Malcom Gladwell
Nonfiction

Outliers is Gladwell’s work most embraced by the online marketing community. It has all kinds of stuff about how to be — or more precisely how generations of other people have become — rich and successful.

Outliers studies and suggests on education, cultural norms, sports performance, and the Beatles. It is the home of the now-famous 10,000 hour rule for mastery. It is one of the few books that has ever wanted me to make myself better; not in the context of self-improvement, but to help the rest of the world be better.

Made to Stick, Chip Heath & Dan Heath
Nonfiction

I got this book as a freebie at Search Engine Strategies – San Jose in 2008. I started to read it while I was there, and of all the keynotes, it was the Heath speech was the only one I actually wanted to attend… but I missed it on account of going out the night before (it was my co-worker’s birthday and we partied while watching Misty May and Kerry Walsh win their second Beach Volleyball Gold Medal [was playing on the screen in the bar, live from China]).

Anyway, Made  to Stick is a legitimately life-changing book. It teaches you how to make ideas that are sticky. Why are there these great ideas that die before anyone ever hears them… But other ideas which are just lies or completely inaccurate that everyone “knows” (has heard) / never forgets? The Heath brothers study stuff like staples in Halloween candy (never happened) or organ thieves (everyone knows the story)… Why does EVERYONE KNOW THE STORY?

Read this book and you will learn the six principles for crafting better — that is more memorable — messages. Like I said, a truly life-changing book.

My copy is sitting, unopened, on Jon Finkel’s shelf :/

Anyway, those are ten awesome books!

LOVE
MIKE