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Books &
Authors
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Input. You are what you read. The ranking starts out fuzzy and
then dissolves quickly and altogether...
- Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1974
- Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire, 1968
- Douglas Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, 1979
- Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, The Mind's I, 1981
- Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, 1987
[ Web: 1
2
3 ]
- Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia, 1985
- Jostein Gaarder, Sophies World, 1991
- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- Richard Powers, The Goldbug Variations, 1994
- Daniel Boorstin, The Creators (more than The Discovers or The Seekers), 1992
- Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue (and most everything else)
Web Site
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Trilogy (all five volumes), 1977-1987
Web Site
- Tony Hillerman, A Thief of Time, 1983
- Norman Lewis, The World, The World, 1993
- Graham Swift, Last Orders, 1996
- Kevin Phillips, Wealth and Democracy, 2002 (one in the same...)
- Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory, 1995
- Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, 1999
- Jared Diamond, Collapse, 2005 (read this instead of Al Gore)
- Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy (and related fiction), 1951, 1952, 1953
- Paul Theroux, My Secret History, 1985 (and much else)
- Neil Postman, Building a Bridge to the 18th Century, 1999
- Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths, 1964
- Tom Stone, Summer of My Greek Taverna, 2002
- Calvin Trillan, Tepper Isn't Going Out, 2001 (a parking novel!)
- Sherman Alexie, Reservation Blues, 1995
- Richard Ford, Rock Springs, 1987
- The many essays of David Quammen and Stephen Jay Gould
- Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine, 1988
- Nicholson Baker, The Fermata, 1994
- David Yeadon, Lost Worlds, 1993
- Richard Lees, Parachute, 1988
- Shirley Hazzard, Greene on Capri, 1999
- Jim Marshall, Not Fade Away, 1997
Web Site
- Richard Feynman, Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman, 1983
- Charlene Spretnak, The Resurgence of the Real, 1997
- Chris Fuhrman, The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys, 1994
- John Irving, The 158 Pound Marriage, 1974
- John Updike, The Witches of Eastwick, 1982
- John Updike, Roger's Version, 1984
- Richard Matthiessen, Indian Country, 1979
- Terry Southern, Blue Movie, 1980
- Raymond Carver, Where I'm Calling From, 1988
- Michael Chabon, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, 1988
- Phillip Morrison et al., Powers of Ten, 1982
- Simon Blackburn, Think, 1999
- John Straley, The Curious Eat Themselves, 1993
- Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1955
- Alfred W. Crosby, The Measure of Reality, 1997
- Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden, 1977
- Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel, 2002
Web Site
- Martin Gardner, The Annotated Alice, 1986
- Christopher Evans, The Micro-millenium, 1979
- William Hauptman, Good Rockin' Tonight, 1988
- Stephen King, Pet Sematary (only one I've read!)
- Joseph "Red Dog" Campbell, A Book of Tails, 2001
- Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End, 1953
- Jane Smiley, Moo, 1995
- Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero, 1985
- John Mortimer, Paradise Postponed, 1986
- John Hanson Mitchell, Trespassing, 1998
- Tim Parks, Shear, 1993
- John E. Wills, JR., 1688 - A Global History, 2001
- Lisa Jardine, Ingenious Pursuits, 1999
- Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics, 2005 (overhyped but good)
- Geoff Nicholson Still Life with Volkswagens, 1996
- Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic -- Why We Drive the Way We Do, 2008
- JK Rowling, Harry Potter series
- Larry Gonick, The Cartoon History of the Universe
Web Site
- James Christensen, Voyage of the Basset, 1996
- JRR Tolkein, The Hobbit, 1959
- Bertrand Brimley, The Mad Scientists Club, 1965
Web Site
- The Three Investigator Series (at least the first 8 or so)
- Nancy Patz, Gina Farina and the Prince of Mintz, 1986
- Chris Van Allsburg, The Polar Express, 1985
- Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, 1963
- Melinda Long / David Shannon, How I Became a Pirate, 2003
- Granta (many issues) [ web ]
For some background material on essayists such as Gould, Quammen, Florman,
Postman, and others,
see my freshmen seminar site
Essays in Engineering, Science, and Technology.
