Seeing as
classes start tomorrow for me, I cannot think of any better time to
finish up my thoughts on the books I read this summer. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here.
15. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy by Douglas Adams
I already explained how I feel about
this book earlier, but I figure it cannot hurt to gush a little more.
For those not in the know, this is one of my favorite novels of all
time, and this summer was probably my fourth time reading it. It's
interesting that I haven't read this book as many times as some
others of my favorites – Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead by
Orson Scott Card have been read five or six times already, and
nothing comes close to the number of times I have read Jurassic Park
and The Lost World by Michael Crichton. But that doesn't mean I love
this any less than them. The perfect blend of ridiculous sci-fi,
insane humor, and the most logical faulty logic in writing anywhere
come together to make this one of the greatest books ever written. I
also hope to reread the rest of the series soon; I've read Restaurant
at the End of the Universe a couple times, but I've only read all the
others once each. It's possibly because the series takes on a very
different feel in the fourth and fifth books. They're still good
though! They're just a little more cynical than even the others.
16. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
After reading Good Omens, I knew I had
to find some more stuff by Neil Gaiman, and my eyes naturally settled
on his well known works American Gods and Anansi Boys. On the
recommendation of a friend, I started with the latter. At first, I
wasn't particularly sold on it. It wasn't bad by any means, but I
couldn't get into it. The first half of the book took me about two
weeks to read. But then the second half of the book took me about
two hours. Once this book gets going, it really gets going. It's
fun, it's fascinating, and the characters are great. I've always
been a sucker for mythical themes in fiction, and this is certainly
no exception. A great book, and I recommend it highly.
17. 1984 by George Orwell
As an English student in years past,
people had always been shocked by some of the books I haven't read,
the two chief ones being The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and
1984 by George Orwell. People have been pressuring me for years to
read these books, saying that I couldn't truly call myself a student
of literature without reading them. And since I eventually read The
Great Gatsby at the beginning of this year, I decided it was time to
finally get around to reading 1984. I'm glad I did. For me, it
wasn't the most gripping book. I didn't particularly like or even
care for any of the characters. But the book was tight. It was so
well thought out, so thorough, that it almost felt real. There was
some distance, obviously, but so many of the things that happened in
this book seemed so logical that you couldn't help but wonder if
these could be the natural progression of things. In my mind, of
course, it would be basically impossible to pull off a society like
that in today's world, and the book seemed to leave out exactly how a
government like that could fully come to power. But in the world of
the book, it is watertight in a way that is thoroughly impressive and
terrifying. And when the events of the book are explained, when
someone finally says why this all is happening, it's the most
unsettling reveal I have ever read. This is a very, very good and
thought-provoking book, but you probably did not need me to tell you
that.
18. Henry IV part II by William
Shakespeare
If you are a consistent reader of this
blog, you might remember my thoughts on reading this play. But if you are not a consistent reader, and statistics
indicate that you are not (Hello, Russia! I don't know why you are
reading this!), then allow me to reiterate. I hated this play. I
generally do like Shakespeare, and I enjoyed Henry IV part I, as
difficult as it was. But I sorely disliked Henry IV part II. Perhaps
some of the fault goes to the Shakespeare class I took recently,
which informed me of the popularity of the character of Jack
Falstaff, the charmingly insolent ruffian sidekick of Prince Hal
(later King Henry V). Knowing that he was so well received makes me
awfully suspicious of the merits of a play that gives him a much
expanded role, similar to how a Hollywood studio might conceive of a
sequel where a popular bit character is given greater prominence to
the point where they focus on nothing else. In any case, the biggest
problem with this play is the fact that almost nothing significant
happens until the fifth act. That's honestly too much time to spend
with nothing but Falstaff being sassy. It'd be like making a sequel
series to a groundbreaking cartoon fantasy epic with a well-developed
mythos and beloved characters and then spending half of it on playing
sports and unjustified love triangles.
19. Steam Ticket: A Third Coast Review
Volume XII Spring 2009
This might not completely count. This
is a volume of a national literary magazine that is produced out of
my university. I hope to get on the staff before I graduate, so I
figured I should read some of it before I apply. It was good! I
mean, there's not much else to say about it. There was an especially
good story that imagined what R.L. Stine must be doing with his life
now. It was equal parts depressing and hilarious. But there was a
great mix of enjoyable poems and memorable stories. I look forward
to looking into this magazine further.
20. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley
Every English program everywhere has
that one book that shows up again and again in the curriculum. At my
school, that book is Frankenstein. A friend of mine had to read it
five times before she graduated, and I myself have been assigned it
twice. It's kind of a bad thing, then, that I'd never read it all the
way through. Oh sure, I read parts of it, but I jumped around a lot
to catch up in class, filled in some blanks with SparkNotes. I even
wrote two papers on it without ever reading it all the way through.
So naturally, I decided that it would probably be in my best interest
to finally read the whole thing from front to back. This decision was
aided by a particularly inexpensive hardcover edition I found in the
Barnes and Noble clearance section. I like this book. It's dense, it
moves too quickly at times and too slowly at others, but all things
considered, I like this book. The nice thing about it is that it
lends itself to so many different readings, messages and
explorations. As long as I'm going to have to study a book over and
over again, it's nice to know that it's a book that can be taught in
a number of different ways. It's not light reading, not by any
means. But if you have the guts and the fortitude, it's a pretty
damn good book.
21. The Importance of Being Earnest,
and Four Other Plays by Oscar Wilde
Ah, Oscar Wilde. This collection,
featuring The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere's Fan, A
Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and Salomé,
has been sitting on my bookshelf for a while. I had been meaning to
read it for the longest time, since the little I had read of The
Importance of Being Earnest was fantastic. I finally did, and I must
say it was a good decision. There is a reason Oscar Wilde is so
well-regarded: his humor is incredibly tight and incredibly
influential. I'd wager that the writers of Monty Python, Douglas
Adams, and many others owe at least some of their inspiration to the
man's writing. Granted, some of the quips get a little predictable
after reading four comedies in a row, but the characters remain
charming, the plots (while not necessarily groundbreaking) remain
entertaining, and the plays remain thoroughly enjoyable. This
collection also includes the tragedy of Salomé,
the story of the daughter of King Herod and the death of John the
Baptist. Some critics hate it, but as for me... Biblical themes?
Again, I'm sold.
22. Selected Poems by Langston Hughes
If there is one poet who can challenge
Billy Collins for the position of my favorite poet, it is Langston
Hughes. His work is just so phenomenal, working in a number of
recurring themes that overlap just as easily as they work on their
own. This collection was selected by Hughes himself, arranged in
several sections by either recurring themes or continuing stories.
I've always loved his work on its own, and in this collection, it is
absolutely sublime. The poetry I write has borrowed a lot from his
style and influence, and his work will always be close to my heart. I
may not be able to relate to the oppression and striving that he
encountered and his poetry describes, but I will always, always love
it. I thoroughly recommend this book, and all poetry by Hughes in
general.
And here, with 22 books, is where my
summer draws to a close. Tomorrow, I begin classes in my third from
final semester as an undergraduate. I've changed a lot over the past
year, and I've changed the way I view my work as recently as this
summer. I've never read so much or written so much as I have in 2012,
and a great deal of that is thanks to the reading and writing I have
done almost every day this summer. I recommend all of these books
very highly (well, except Henry IV part II, which I hated, or Kingdom
Hearts, which was all right but not astounding) and I would love to
hear what you think of them or what you have been reading lately.
