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| Books #1-20 | Books #21-40 | Books #41-60 | Books #61-80 | Books #81-100 |
61) White Palace, Glenn Savan
Lightweight but very well done story of an unlikely romance between a young advertising writer and a waitress at a fast food joint. Quite entertaining. The book is far better than the forgettable movie with Susan Sarandon and James Spader. On a personal note, Glenn (now passed away) was a friend of mine. He wrote the book while we were waiting tables together, and showed me drafts of it in progress. He was a talented and well-schooled writer, having attended the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Fortunately for me, he was a generous teacher who helped me quite a bit with my own writing. At the time I was writing a music column for a local paper, and Glenn went over my writing with me, sentence by sentence. I'll always remember him fondly.
62) Dating Game, Danielle Steele
This pulpy page-turner seems written specifically for middle-aged women. But the appeal of this story of a woman in midlife dealing with starting over after her marriage disintegrates must go beyond its target audience – after all, I enjoyed it.
63) A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Dickens's story of the French revolution has it all: adventure, suspense, love, revolution, vivid characters, great writing. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
64) The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Canon Doyle
Who doesn't love the Sherlock Holmes stories?
65) Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust
I only got through one of the volumes in this seven-volume work, but it's not to be missed. There's a great passage in which Swann, who's romantically obsessed with Odette, thinks he sees her on a crowded street. As Proust describes Swann’s flutter of emotions, it timelessly evokes what it's like to catch a glimpse of someone you're infatuated with.
Funny thing about Proust, he adored long sentences. His writing approach seemed to be: why should a sentence ever end? Why not just use yet another comma? Like this 137-word monster from "Swann's Way":
“Unlike so many people, who, either from lack of energy or else from a resigned sense of the obligation laid upon them by their social grandeur to remain moored like houseboats to a certain point on the bank of the stream of life, abstain from the pleasures which are offered to them above and below that point, that degree in life in which they will remain fixed until the day of their death, and are content, in the end, to describe as pleasures, for want of any better, those mediocre distractions, that just not intolerable tedium which is enclosed there with them; Swann would endeavour not to find charm and beauty in the women with whom he must pass time, but to pass his time among women whom he had already found to be beautiful and charming.”
66) The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
Have you heard of this book? Maybe with a bit more publicity, it could catch on. Kidding aside, what a shocker: a mega-mega-hit that criticizes organized religion. The times they are a-changin'.
67) The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Class struggle, greed, love, betrayal, murder. Yes, old sport, you've got a story there.
68) Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth
Roth's portrait of a horny Jewish boy is frank and very, very funny. Also good by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author is “The Human Stain.”
69) Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
A strange book. Nabokov's story of a middle-aged man's lust for a young girl isn't the most enjoyable read, but it’s a must-read to be fully culturally literate.
70) Lord of the Flies, William Golding
This must be the high school novel, but still, I love the way it reveals that we have only a thin veneer of civilization over our primordial impulses.
71) Brave New World, Aldous Huxley,
Huxley's dystopian vision of the future, in which all people are graded on scale of one to five, and "a gram is better than a damn" (a reference to mood altering drugs suggestive of Prozac) is a horrifying but insightful. And somehow, even fun to read.
72) 1984, George Orwell
This can be seen as the companion book to Huxley's "Brave New World": a dark vision of a totalitarian future. The book was exceptionally prescient in forecasting government spin and an omnipresent watchful eye. While you're exploring Orwell, “Animal Farm” is also a great read.
73) Cell, Stephen King
The master horror writer imagines a world in which cellphones turn much of the world into zombies. Most of this book is quite entertaining – the open is great – but I found the end to just sort of grind into boredom. I admire King but I’m not a big fan.
74) Swimmer in the Secret Sea, William Kotzwinkle
Tells the story of a young couple's efforts to come to terms with the death of their newborn in natural, intimate prose. Touching without being cloying.
75) Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
Towering science fiction classic portrays life among modern earthlings through the eyes of a visitor from another planet. Highly philosophical, including an attempt to explain the nature of humor. Is all humor an expression of pain?
76) The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks
Pure schmaltz, a weepy boy-loves-girl story that sold something like 1.5 billion copies. You won’t respect yourself for turning the pages, but you’ll turn them.
77) Woody Guthrie: A Life, Joe Klein
Simply put: Woody Guthrie is the American dude: compulsively creative, traveler, poet, songwriter, social activist. This biography is a superb rendition of his rich life.
78) Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut's books are easy to read, but that doesn't mean they're not deep. Using his experience as a survivor of the U.S. firebombing of Dresden in WWII, he wrote this powerful anti-war novel, one that's funny and poignant. Most of Vonnegut’s books are good.
79) Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin
The journalist Griffin, a white man, used hair dye and make-up to make himself appear to be a black man. His non-fiction account of traveling through the South in the late 1950s is a biting indictment of racism. Very interesting.
80) Native Son, Richard Wright
Wright's story of a young black man in Chicago in the 1930s who murders a white woman is a classic about American race relations. It’s also a good read.
| Books #1-20 | Books #21-40 | Books #41-60 | Books #61-80 | Books #81-100 |