Inside a Dog

The Best of the Rest (pre-2005)

I won’t review each and every book I’ve ever read – and honestly I don’t think I can remember every one. I know I read a whole bunch of Encyclopedia Brown and Hardy Boys books when I was young, plus too many required readings to ever remember them all.

But here are some of my favorites from year’s past in some completely random categories:

Favorite Childhood Book:

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien
I cannot tell you how many times I read this book, but it must be at least a dozen times. But far and away my favorite book from when I was a kid. This is a moving story of a family of field mice living under a rosebush on the Fitzgibbon farm and how they are saved by an extraordinary group of rats.

Classics:

The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
The Three Musketeers is one of my all-time favs and is discussed more in my 2005 reads. Everything you could one in a great story from adventure to laughter. And reading the trilogy in their entirety I didn’t want the story to end. Loved them all!!

Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Another favorite from Dumas – what a great writer. Despite all the names (and name changes) this is a fantastic adventure story.

Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
The characters Don Quixote and the faithful Sancho Panza have been so burned into our cultural zeitgeist that it is almost difficult to go back and read the original. But I’ve read this twice and enjoyed it even more the second time around. Especially in part two, where Cervantes delves into the conflict between what is culturally and socially acceptable and the freedom of individuals to believe and act apart from those norms. A complex, funny, and ultimately tragic story.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
I was really blown away by what a powerful book this was, especially given how much Frankenstein is a part of popular culture. But the book remains a masterpiece that the films have never really captured.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
The classic story based on the life of Buddha.

Modern Classics:

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Magic-realism I think they call it, but an absolutely fabulous story. Tracing 100 years in the life of a village, Marquez provides a portrait of the human experience.

1984 by George Orwell
A true modern classic than is probably more meaningful in the post-9/11 today than when it was written. If you hated rats before, you’ll really hate them after this.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
First you read this it is really something unexpectedly wonderful. The characters and language are unique and memorable.

The Pearl and Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Two wonderful stories from Steinbeck that deftly explore humanity.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The classic satire on the murderous madness of war – and how does a sane individual survive in an insane world.

The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde
Hilarious! Gotta love Oscar.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
This is the book that introduced me to Eco and I’ve most of his books since. Probably the most straightforward of any of his book and a great read.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
A relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism.


Science Fiction and Fantasy:
Since Sci-Fi and Fantasy used to be my chief reading pleasure, I don’t even know where to begin, but here some of my all-time favs:

Sword of Shannara (and every Shannara book since) by Terry Brooks
This is probably my all-time favorite fantasy book – apologies to Tolkein. I’ve reread it a few times and it never fails to suck me in. While the rest of the books never quite measure up, they are still well worth it.

Dune by Frank Herbert
Another great one that I’ve read numerous times plus seen the movie a few times too. Read all of the Dune books and really enjoyed them. Just a fabulous series – saw it once described as the Lord of the Rings of Sci-Fi. True.

Enders Game by Orson Scott Card
Just read this one a few years back and blew me away. The other books in the series never really come close to Enders Game.

The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkein
With the release of the movie, I went back and re-read the entire series and it was even better than the first time around. And the movies are excellent too!

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
I had tried to get through other Heinlein books (Stranger in a Strange Land, etc.) with no success, but this was a fantastic story. The movie sucked!

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Still laugh every time I read this. Classic. The rest of the series is also extremely funny.

The Stand and The Shinning by Stephen King
Read the Shinning back in Junior High and it scared the shit out of me. The Stand was one of my mom’s favorite books, and so I borrowed it one time in college, and have never returned it. Incredible read.

Dark Tower Series by Stephen King
Not finished yet, but have really enjoyed each one that I’ve read.

And a few other great ones:

The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

Rendezvous With Rama and 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

Forever War by Joe Haldeman

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson – Neuromancer may have started the cyberpunk trend, but Snow Crash established the genre.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip Dick
Basis for the movie Blade Runner (which is a great movie).

The Chronicles of Thomas Convanent the Unbeliever (and others) by Stephen R. Donaldson

The Once and Future King by T. H. White
The stories of King Arthur.

General/Other:

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
This is a truly hilarious book. Sedaris is too funny.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
A gripping account of a disastrous 1995 Everest expedition.

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger
Oh god, I never want to die my drowning. An excellent and harrowing account of the loss of the Andrea Gail in October 1991.

The Bourne Identity (and subsequent Bourne books) by Robert Ludlum
Went through my spy/espionage phase between the Bourne series and then Tom Clancy. But this still holds up as a gripping sotry.

Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
Of all the Clancy books, this is far and away my favorite. A great action and spy story. The movie was very good as well.

Enemy of the People and A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
Two excellent plays that seem even more relevant today then when they were written more than 100 years ago – especially Enemy of the People and its message of truth vs. politics.

Billy Budd by Herman Melville
Melville’s great story about the conflict between humanity and duty.

On Liberty, the Subjection of Women and Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill
Not really a novel, but a great book that everyone should ready. Mill was elequent proponent for limited government and personal freedom.

The Man-Eater of Malgudi by R. K. Narayan
A complex and often very funny battle between good and evil based loosely on Indian myth.


And the worst book I ever read

Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Far and away the worse thing I’ve ever read – I read the whole dam thing. Monotonous with a intricacy of detail that is mind numbingly dull. You have about two chapters of any action and the rest is filled with intense details about ships and whale blubber!