Reid's bookshelf: best-books-of-all-time en-US Mon, 12 Jun 2023 08:52:41 -0700 60 Reid's bookshelf: best-books-of-all-time 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Giles Goat-Boy 144629 Wescac computer system that threatens to destroy his community in this brilliant "fantasy of theology, sociology, and sex" (Time).]]> 752 John Barth 0385240864 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.77 1966 Giles Goat-Boy
author: John Barth
name: Reid
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1966
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/06/12
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures]]> 12609 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, written with the deepest of human feeling. Sherwin Nuland said of the account, "There are no villains in Fadiman's tale, just as there are no heroes. People are presented as she saw them, in their humility and their frailty—and their nobility.]]> 341 Anne Fadiman 0374525641 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.20 1997 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
author: Anne Fadiman
name: Reid
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/07/10
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story]]> 57717410 The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a revealing vision of the American past and present.

In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States.

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story builds on The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning â€�1619 Project,â€� which reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This book substantially expands on the original "1619 Project, "weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. This legacy can be seen in the way we tell stories, the way we teach our children, and the way we remember. Together, the elements of the book reveal a new origin story for the United States, one that helps explain not only the persistence of anti-Black racism and inequality in American life today, but also the roots of what makes the country unique.

The book also features an elaboration of the original project’s Pulitzer Prize–winning lead essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones on how the struggles of Black Americans have expanded democracy for all Americans, as well as two original pieces from Hannah-Jones, one of which makes a case for reparative solutions to this legacy of injustice.]]> 590 Nikole Hannah-Jones 0593230574 Reid 5
1619 was the year the first slaves landed in the American colonies. Hannah-Jones makes the compelling (and, to my mind, irrefutable) claim that the entire history of what would become the United States has derived from that moment and the ensuing 250 years of slavery, as well as the 150 years of oppression that have followed. Economically, politically, environmentally—in every aspect of American life, the violent racism of the way in which Black people were exploited, first as slaves and then subsequently as an oppressed minority, makes clear that, without the unpaid then grossly underpaid underclass, our country could not have become the power that it is in the world.

Hannah-Jones and the other authors of these essays also make the essential point that Black people are the ultimate patriots, that to remain loyal to and fight for a country which has never fulfilled any of its promises to you and has, in fact, done everything in its power to oppress, kill, and maim you, is an act of love so profound as to be nearly unfathomable. And to believe for a moment that these racist currents of white supremacy are of the past is to be willfully ignorant. This is particularly true in these latter days of the rise of authoritarianism and white denial, but has never not been true in this country.

In case you have any doubt that The 1619 Project is a profoundly important work, you have only to look at the fact that 30 states controlled by white supremacists have proposed or passed legislation outlawing the teaching of this work in public school. When I heard Hannah-Jones speak in person recently (yes, she is every bit as dynamic as you would expect), she said that, aside from the Pulitzer, these bans are her greatest honor.

It may well be that people of color in this country have always been at war with the ruling elite, but all signs point to the fact that the autocrats are coming for all of our rights, that the battle Black people have fought for centuries is coming home to roost in the home of everyone who is not a white, straight, cisgendered, conservative, Christian male. If ever we needed a battle cry, this is that time. The 1619 Project is a clear, focused, forceful, angry rebuttal to the ever more prominent invocation of a white ethnostate emerging in the United States. It is a call to arms we cannot afford to ignore.]]> 4.61 2019 The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
author: Nikole Hannah-Jones
name: Reid
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2022/05/20
date added: 2022/06/26
shelves: non-fiction, racial-justice, owned, best-books-of-all-time
review:
It has been a long time since I added a book to my "Best Books of All Time" list, but The 1619 Project clearly belongs there. Nearly everyone has at least heard of this amazing book, originally a series of articles in the New York Times, heavily edited and expanded for this publication.

1619 was the year the first slaves landed in the American colonies. Hannah-Jones makes the compelling (and, to my mind, irrefutable) claim that the entire history of what would become the United States has derived from that moment and the ensuing 250 years of slavery, as well as the 150 years of oppression that have followed. Economically, politically, environmentally—in every aspect of American life, the violent racism of the way in which Black people were exploited, first as slaves and then subsequently as an oppressed minority, makes clear that, without the unpaid then grossly underpaid underclass, our country could not have become the power that it is in the world.

Hannah-Jones and the other authors of these essays also make the essential point that Black people are the ultimate patriots, that to remain loyal to and fight for a country which has never fulfilled any of its promises to you and has, in fact, done everything in its power to oppress, kill, and maim you, is an act of love so profound as to be nearly unfathomable. And to believe for a moment that these racist currents of white supremacy are of the past is to be willfully ignorant. This is particularly true in these latter days of the rise of authoritarianism and white denial, but has never not been true in this country.

In case you have any doubt that The 1619 Project is a profoundly important work, you have only to look at the fact that 30 states controlled by white supremacists have proposed or passed legislation outlawing the teaching of this work in public school. When I heard Hannah-Jones speak in person recently (yes, she is every bit as dynamic as you would expect), she said that, aside from the Pulitzer, these bans are her greatest honor.

It may well be that people of color in this country have always been at war with the ruling elite, but all signs point to the fact that the autocrats are coming for all of our rights, that the battle Black people have fought for centuries is coming home to roost in the home of everyone who is not a white, straight, cisgendered, conservative, Christian male. If ever we needed a battle cry, this is that time. The 1619 Project is a clear, focused, forceful, angry rebuttal to the ever more prominent invocation of a white ethnostate emerging in the United States. It is a call to arms we cannot afford to ignore.
]]> Sometimes a Great Notion 529626 The magnificent second novel from the legendary author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...

Following the astonishing success of his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls "one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century." This wild-spirited tale tells of a bitter strike that rages through a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers. Out of the Stamper family's rivalries and betrayals Ken Kesey has crafted a novel with the mythic impact of Greek tragedy.]]> 628 Ken Kesey 0140045295 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.26 1964 Sometimes a Great Notion
author: Ken Kesey
name: Reid
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1964
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/06/21
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> War and Peace 290979
War and Peace centers broadly on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the best-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves behind his family to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman, who intrigues both men. As Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy vividly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature.

Pevear and Volokhonsky have brought us this classic novel in a translation remarkable for its fidelity to Tolstoy’s style and cadence and for its energetic, accessible prose. With stunning grace and precision, this new version of War and Peace is set to become the definitive English edition.]]> 1296 Leo Tolstoy 0307266931 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.32 1869 War and Peace
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Reid
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1869
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/06/21
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> The Arrival 920607
Shaun Tan evokes universal aspects of an immigrant's experience through a singular work of the imagination. He does so using brilliantly clear and mesmerizing images. Because the main character can't communicate in words, the book forgoes them too. But while the reader experiences the main character's isolation, he also shares his ultimate joy.]]> 132 Shaun Tan Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time
But this is not the half of the magic of The Arrival, for the drawings—lavish, lovingly-drawn, careful, kind, and evocative—are as breathtaking in their emotional content as in their sheer technical skill. Tan makes clear in an afterward that many, many years were spent studying the immigrant experience and interviewing many people, including members of his family, to derive a clear understanding of it. But to be able to translate those inferences to something as coherent and heartfelt as this feels a bit like a miracle.

If you have not yet, you really ought to give this beautiful book a look. But take your time. Study the lovely drawings and all their details. Repeated viewings pay richly. ]]> 4.33 2007 The Arrival
author: Shaun Tan
name: Reid
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2017/07/22
date added: 2018/06/21
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:
The Arrival is one of the closest things I have read recently that approaches a work of genius. This is a book without words, skillfully illustrating the immigrant experience with grace, humor, and compassion. Perhaps the most affecting thing about this book is the choice Tan made to set this tale in a world so very foreign to our eyes, with fanciful animals and oddly shaped and decorated buildings, so that our sense of dislocation might recapitulate in miniature what it must feel like to come to a world that is almost entirely unrecognizable as a place to live and thrive. His protagonist struggles with language, with wayfinding, with finding work and lodging—everything, one would imagine, any immigrant would face.

But this is not the half of the magic of The Arrival, for the drawings—lavish, lovingly-drawn, careful, kind, and evocative—are as breathtaking in their emotional content as in their sheer technical skill. Tan makes clear in an afterward that many, many years were spent studying the immigrant experience and interviewing many people, including members of his family, to derive a clear understanding of it. But to be able to translate those inferences to something as coherent and heartfelt as this feels a bit like a miracle.

If you have not yet, you really ought to give this beautiful book a look. But take your time. Study the lovely drawings and all their details. Repeated viewings pay richly.
]]> The Little Prince 157993
Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince, presented here in a stunning new translation with carefully restored artwork. The definitive edition of a worldwide classic, it will capture the hearts of readers of all ages.]]> 96 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 0152023984 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.32 1943 The Little Prince
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: Reid
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1943
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/06/21
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Lincoln in the Bardo 29906980 Lincoln in the Bardo is a literary experience unlike any other—for no one but Saunders could conceive it.

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," the president says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returned to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy's body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory, where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul.

Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction's ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices—living and dead, historical and invented—to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?]]> 368 George Saunders 0812995341 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time
The plot here is a simple one, at least in its outlines. Abraham and Mary Lincoln's son Willie died of a fever (most likely typhoid) in February, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War. Lincoln was by all reports devastated by the death and found it hard to carry this burden along with that of the destruction scarring his beloved country. In this telling, Lincoln spends the night of Willie's funeral in the graveyard where he is buried, grieving and contemplating the war, his life, and the future.

The magic, however, is contained in the fully-realised and very vocal shades who populate the cemetery. These benighted ones have convinced themselves that they are not actually dead, just ill and resting. They call their coffins "sick boxes" and refuse to countenance any suggestion that they might actually be...you know...D. E. A. D. Many have been here in this state for decades, though every now and then one of them will pass over to the other side, acknowledging their true state. The souls remaining behind see this as mere defeatism and worthy only of contempt.

Now Willie is among them, and they take a liking to him and the spindly living man who visits him there. The problem is that to be a child and hang on to the ethereal between-world of the Bardo comes with rather more serious consequences than for an adult spirit. They wish with all their hearts to prevent this for the pleasant little boy.

Of course, no plot outline can sufficiently capture the wonder of this book, for that is contained in both the words and overall structure, which provide an emotional immediacy that defies description. Saunders has always been a master of the English language, but has never put it to such effective and affecting use before this. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough; please read it. Your world view and vision of your life will change for the better.]]> 3.75 2017 Lincoln in the Bardo
author: George Saunders
name: Reid
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2018/03/06
date added: 2018/06/21
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:
I may need a bit more time to ponder it before I can fully support the following statement, but at the moment it seems to me that this is a work of genius. Genius, to me, finds a way to tell a story in an entirely different way, but one that is not merely some sort of self-consciously unique structure. In this way of defining genius, the new method must also elucidate and amplify the subject matter while pulling us into its emotional orbit. A tall order, but Lincoln in the Bardo does all this and more.

The plot here is a simple one, at least in its outlines. Abraham and Mary Lincoln's son Willie died of a fever (most likely typhoid) in February, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War. Lincoln was by all reports devastated by the death and found it hard to carry this burden along with that of the destruction scarring his beloved country. In this telling, Lincoln spends the night of Willie's funeral in the graveyard where he is buried, grieving and contemplating the war, his life, and the future.

The magic, however, is contained in the fully-realised and very vocal shades who populate the cemetery. These benighted ones have convinced themselves that they are not actually dead, just ill and resting. They call their coffins "sick boxes" and refuse to countenance any suggestion that they might actually be...you know...D. E. A. D. Many have been here in this state for decades, though every now and then one of them will pass over to the other side, acknowledging their true state. The souls remaining behind see this as mere defeatism and worthy only of contempt.

Now Willie is among them, and they take a liking to him and the spindly living man who visits him there. The problem is that to be a child and hang on to the ethereal between-world of the Bardo comes with rather more serious consequences than for an adult spirit. They wish with all their hearts to prevent this for the pleasant little boy.

Of course, no plot outline can sufficiently capture the wonder of this book, for that is contained in both the words and overall structure, which provide an emotional immediacy that defies description. Saunders has always been a master of the English language, but has never put it to such effective and affecting use before this. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough; please read it. Your world view and vision of your life will change for the better.
]]> Gilead (Gilead, #1) 68210 Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson returns with an intimate tale of three generations, from the Civil War to the 20th century: a story about fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage at America's heart. In the words of Kirkus, it is a novel "as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering." GILEAD tells the story of America and will break your heart.]]> 247 Marilynne Robinson 031242440X Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time
But nothing could be further from the truth, which is where the word "transcendent" comes into my description of this wonderful novel. Because what the preacher John Ames is really writing about is joy, the joy of living, of faith, of friendship and marriage and children, of devotion to town, religion, and people. Yes, his joy is frustrated (not least because, due to his late marriage, he will die long before his son reaches maturity) and he must reflect on how pinched and crabbed our hearts can sometimes be toward those who do wrong, and what pleasure there is when the forgiveness flows anyway. As Ames writes, "It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health".

Ames is a wise old man, rich in experience. One of my favorite tropes is this:
You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.... In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us.... Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable.

Marilynne Robinson has brought forth here the sublimity of hope, of how that hope for redemption in the world transcends the bounds of faith or belief, and how very vital to our survival it is for us to invest ourselves in that hope, and to the best of our mortal abilities act from it in everything we do.

Please read this book. It may not change your life, but it will certainly make you appreciate the one you've got. Cherish it.]]> 3.84 2004 Gilead (Gilead, #1)
author: Marilynne Robinson
name: Reid
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2014/11/22
date added: 2018/06/21
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:
I am very reluctant to throw around words like genius and transcendent and perfect, but if any book in recent memory deserves these labels, it is "Gilead". The premise here is none too promising, I must admit: an old man near death is writing a long letter to his young son. In this letter he expounds on the joys of Christianity and the possibility of redemption, sin and salvation, forgiveness and the reluctance to forgive. At best, one might think, this is a genre piece, appealing to a very narrow audience that believes as the character does.

But nothing could be further from the truth, which is where the word "transcendent" comes into my description of this wonderful novel. Because what the preacher John Ames is really writing about is joy, the joy of living, of faith, of friendship and marriage and children, of devotion to town, religion, and people. Yes, his joy is frustrated (not least because, due to his late marriage, he will die long before his son reaches maturity) and he must reflect on how pinched and crabbed our hearts can sometimes be toward those who do wrong, and what pleasure there is when the forgiveness flows anyway. As Ames writes, "It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health".

Ames is a wise old man, rich in experience. One of my favorite tropes is this:
You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.... In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us.... Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable.

Marilynne Robinson has brought forth here the sublimity of hope, of how that hope for redemption in the world transcends the bounds of faith or belief, and how very vital to our survival it is for us to invest ourselves in that hope, and to the best of our mortal abilities act from it in everything we do.

Please read this book. It may not change your life, but it will certainly make you appreciate the one you've got. Cherish it.
]]> Where the Wild Things Are 19543 38 Maurice Sendak 0099408392 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.25 1963 Where the Wild Things Are
author: Maurice Sendak
name: Reid
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1963
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/06/21
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Everything is Illuminated 256566 276 Jonathan Safran Foer 0060529709 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.91 2002 Everything is Illuminated
author: Jonathan Safran Foer
name: Reid
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2014/08/17
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:
Such a beautiful and sad book of yearning and love and loss. Vivid, realistic characters that are just a bit off kilter with the world but manage to survive in it anyway. Just enough of the magical to remain enchanting throughout without ever being anything but believable. Highly recommended.
]]> <![CDATA[The Complete Chronicles of Narnia]]> 3421887 C.S. Lewis Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.48 1956 The Complete Chronicles of Narnia
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Reid
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1956
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/12/11
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Mink River 9250050 In a small fictional town on the Oregon coast there are love affairs and almost-love-affairs, mystery and hilarity, bears and tears, brawls and boats, a garrulous logger and a silent doctor, rain and pain, Irish immigrants and Salish stories, mud and laughter. There's a Department of Public Works that gives haircuts and counts insects, a policeman addicted to Puccini, a philosophizing crow, beer and berries. An expedition is mounted, a crime committed, and there's an unbelievably huge picnic on the football field. Babies are born. A car is cut in half with a saw. A river confesses what it's thinking. . .

It's the tale of a town, written in a distinct and lyrical voice, and readers will close the book more than a little sad to leave the village of Neawanaka, on the wet coast of Oregon, beneath the hills that used to boast the biggest trees in the history of the world.

]]> 319 Brian Doyle 0870715852 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time Mink River. You won't be sorry.]]> 4.17 2010 Mink River
author: Brian Doyle
name: Reid
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2012/07/12
date added: 2012/07/12
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:
This book is passionate, heartfelt, poetic, gentle, witty, imaginative, clever, lyrical, wild, homespun, comfortable, generous, odd, sad, cheerful, personal, universal, philosophic, wacky, beautiful, funny, perverse, well-written, engaging, weird, magical, genuine, sweet, silly, salty, sexy, tragic, hopeful, merciful, loving, lovable, balanced, fair-minded, essential, inclusive, respectful, rude, outrageous, friendly, mercurial, peaceful, contented, anxious, afraid, courageous, juicy, and damn near perfect. My recommendation? Drop whatever you are reading and pick up a copy of Mink River. You won't be sorry.
]]> In This Very Life 1457265 298 U. Pandita Sayadaw 0861710940 Reid 5 4.25 1992 In This Very Life
author: U. Pandita Sayadaw
name: Reid
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/03/31
shelves: buddhism, best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Goodnight Moon 32929
In this classic of children's literature, beloved by generations of readers and listeners, the quiet poetry of the words and the gentle, lulling illustrations combine to make a perfect book for the end of the day.]]> 32 Margaret Wise Brown 0060775858 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.31 1947 Goodnight Moon
author: Margaret Wise Brown
name: Reid
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1947
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/11/26
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Watership Down (Watership Down, #1)]]> 76620 Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN13 9780380395866 here.

Set in England's Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of friends, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.]]> 478 Richard Adams 038039586X Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.08 1972 Watership Down (Watership Down, #1)
author: Richard Adams
name: Reid
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1972
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/11/26
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> The Dhammapada 159964 The Buddhist scholar and commentator Buddhaghosa explains that each saying recorded in the collection was made on a different occasion in response to a unique situation that had arisen in the life of the Buddha and his monastic community. His commentary, the Dhammapada Atthakatha, presents the details of these events and is a rich source of legend for the life and times of the Buddha.]]> 114 Anonymous 0938077872 Reid 5 4.26 -400 The Dhammapada
author: Anonymous
name: Reid
average rating: 4.26
book published: -400
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/09/29
shelves: best-books-of-all-time, buddhism
review:

]]> One Hundred Years of Solitude 320 417 Gabriel GarcĂ­a MĂĄrquez Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.10 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude
author: Gabriel GarcĂ­a MĂĄrquez
name: Reid
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1967
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/08/29
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> The Complete Maus 15195
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaustâ€� (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.]]> 296 Art Spiegelman 0141014083 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.57 1980 The Complete Maus
author: Art Spiegelman
name: Reid
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/07/03
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Libra 400
In this powerful, unsettling novel, Don DeLillo chronicles Lee Harvey Oswald's odyssey from troubled teenager to a man of precarious stability who imagines himself an agent of history. When "history" presents itself in the form of two disgruntled CIA operatives who decide that an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the president will galvanize the nation against communism, the scales are irrevocably tipped.

A gripping, masterful blend of fact and fiction, alive with meticulously portrayed characters both real and created, Libra is a grave, haunting, and brilliant examination of an event that has become an indelible part of the American psyche.]]> 480 Don DeLillo 0140156046 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.05 1988 Libra
author: Don DeLillo
name: Reid
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/11/26
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Another Roadside Attraction 9570 Another Roadside Attraction answers those questions and a lot more. It tell us, for example, what the sixties were truly all about, not by reporting on the psychedelic decade but by recreating it, from the inside out. In the process, this stunningly original seriocomic thriller is fully capable of simultaneously eating a literary hot dog and eroding the borders of the mind.]]> 366 Tom Robbins 1842431293 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.00 1971 Another Roadside Attraction
author: Tom Robbins
name: Reid
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1971
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/11/26
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Even Cowgirls Get the Blues 7572
Featuring Bonanza Jellybean and the smooth-riding cowgirls of Rubber Rose Ranch. Chink, lascivious guru of yams and yang. Julian, Mohawk by birth; asthmatic esthete and husband by disposition. Dr. Robbins, preventive psychiatrist and reality instructor...

Follow Sissy's amazing odyssey from Virginia to chic Manhattan to the Dakota Badlands, where FBI agents, cowgirls, and ecstatic whooping cranes explode in a deliciously drawn-out climax...

"This is one of those special novels--a piece of working magic, warm, funny, and san--that you just want to ride off into the sunset with."--Thomas Pynchon

"The best fiction, so far, to come out of the American counterculture."-- "Chicago Tribune Book World"]]> 366 Tom Robbins 1842430246 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.79 1976 Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
author: Tom Robbins
name: Reid
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1976
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/11/26
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> The Big Rock Candy Mountain 10801 563 Wallace Stegner 0140139397 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.17 1943 The Big Rock Candy Mountain
author: Wallace Stegner
name: Reid
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1943
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/11/26
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered]]> 1117634 �Newsweek

One the 100 most influential books published since World War II
�The Times Literary Supplement

Hailed as an "eco-bible" by Time magazine, E.F. Schumacher's riveting, richly researched statement on sustainability has become more relevant and vital with each year since its initial groundbreaking publication during the 1973 energy crisis. A landmark statement against "bigger is better" industrialism, Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful paved the way for twenty-first century books on environmentalism and economics, like Jeffrey Sachs's The End of Poverty, Paul Hawken's Natural Capitalism, Mohammad Yunis's Banker to the Poor, and Bill McKibben's Deep Economy. This timely reissue offers a crucial message for the modern world struggling to balance economic growth with the human costs of globalization.]]> 352 Ernst F. Schumacher 0060916303 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.10 1973 Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
author: Ernst F. Schumacher
name: Reid
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1973
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/11/25
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools]]> 25078
"An impassioned book, laced with anger and indignation, about how our public education system scorns so many of our children." -- New York Times Book Review]]> 262 Jonathan Kozol 0060974990 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.25 1991 Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools
author: Jonathan Kozol
name: Reid
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/11/25
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> The Call of the Wild 1852 The Call of the Wild is regarded as Jack London's masterpiece. Based on London's experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, The Call of the Wild is a tale about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.]]> 172 Jack London Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.89 1903 The Call of the Wild
author: Jack London
name: Reid
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1903
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/02/14
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Madame Bovary 2175 329 Gustave Flaubert 0192840398 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.70 1856 Madame Bovary
author: Gustave Flaubert
name: Reid
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1856
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/09/23
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present]]> 2767 Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen as the exploitation and manipulation of the majority by rigged systems that hugely favor a small aggregate of elite rulers from across the orthodox political parties.
A People's History has been assigned as reading in many high schools and colleges across the United States. It has also resulted in a change in the focus of historical work, which now includes stories that previously were ignored

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s book “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those
whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.”]]> 729 Howard Zinn 0060838655 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.07 1980 A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present
author: Howard Zinn
name: Reid
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/09/22
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> The Sun Also Rises 3876 The Sun Also Rises (Fiesta) is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.]]> 189 Ernest Hemingway Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.81 1926 The Sun Also Rises
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Reid
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1926
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/09/22
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Great Expectations 2623
Pip must discover his true self, and his own set of values and priorities. Whether such values allow one to prosper in the complex world of early Victorian England is the major question posed by Great Expectations, one of Dickens's most fascinating, and disturbing, novels.

This edition includes the original, discarded ending, Dickens's brief working notes, and the serial instalments and chapter divisions in different editions. It also uses the definitive Clarendon text.]]> 544 Charles Dickens 0192833596 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.78 1861 Great Expectations
author: Charles Dickens
name: Reid
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1861
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/09/22
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> <![CDATA[One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]]> 332613 9780451163967

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy â€� the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.]]> 325 Ken Kesey Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.20 1962 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
author: Ken Kesey
name: Reid
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/09/22
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Their Eyes Were Watching God 37415 238 Zora Neale Hurston 0061120065 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.98 1937 Their Eyes Were Watching God
author: Zora Neale Hurston
name: Reid
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/09/22
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Fahrenheit 451 4381 158 Ray Bradbury 0307347974 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.96 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Reid
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1953
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/09/22
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> The Brothers Karamazov 4934
This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal inventiveness of Dostoevsky’s prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel.]]> 796 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0374528373 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.36 1880 The Brothers Karamazov
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Reid
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1880
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/09/22
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Anna Karenina 152
«Nos capĂ­tulos iniciais de Anna KarĂ©nina, somos conduzidos, uma e outra vez, a um sentido de analogia musical. HĂĄ efeitos de contraponto e harmonia no desenvolvimento das principais tramas do “prelĂșdio Oblonskiâ€� (o acidente na estação ferroviĂĄria, a zombadora discussĂŁo sobre o divĂłrcio entre Vronski e a baronesa Chilton, o deslumbramento do fogo vermelho diante dos olhos de Anna). O mĂ©todo de Tolstoi Ă© polifĂłnico; mas as harmonias principais desen- volvem-se com uma tremenda força e amplitude. As tĂ©cnicas musicais e linguĂ­sticas nĂŁo podem comparar-se de um modo exato. Mas como poderĂ­amos elucidar de outro modo o sentimento de que as novelas de Tolstoi surgem de um princĂ­pio interior de ordem e vitalidade, enquanto as dos escritores menos importantes parecem alinhavadas?»

«Anna KarĂ©nina morre no mundo do romance; mas cada vez que lemos o livro ela ressuscita, e mesmo depois de o termos acabado adquire outra vida na nossa recordação. Em cada personagem literĂĄria existe algo da FĂ©nix imortal. AtravĂ©s das vidas perdurĂĄveis das suas personagens, a prĂłpria existĂȘncia de Tolstoi teve a sua eternidade.» [George Steiner, Tolstoi ou Dostoievski]]]> 960 Leo Tolstoy Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.96 1878 Anna Karenina
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Reid
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1878
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/09/22
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> The Lord of the Rings 33 One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.

From Sauron's fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. Sauron gathered all the Great Rings to him, but always he searched for the One Ring that would complete his dominion.

When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.

The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.]]> 1216 J.R.R. Tolkien 0618640150 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.52 1954 The Lord of the Rings
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Reid
average rating: 4.52
book published: 1954
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/09/22
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism]]> 6629131 541 George Bernard Shaw Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.33 1928 The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism
author: George Bernard Shaw
name: Reid
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1928
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/07/19
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> The Brothers K 19534 The River Why, but this massive second effort is well worth the wait. It is a stunning work: a complex tapestry of family tensions, baseball, politics and religion, by turns hilariously funny and agonizingly sad. Highly inventive formally, the novel is mainly narrated by Kincaid Chance, the youngest son in a family of four boys and identical twin girls, the children of Hugh Chance, a discouraged minor-league ballplayer whose once-promising career was curtained by an industrial accident, and his wife Laura, an increasingly fanatical Seventh-Day Adventist. The plot traces the working-out of the family's fate from the beginning of the Eisenhower years through the traumas of Vietnam.]]> 645 David James Duncan 055337849X Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.39 1992 The Brothers K
author: David James Duncan
name: Reid
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/10/29
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:
I can't say enough about David James Duncan and his unique ability to craft a story. I would recommend this book to anyone.
]]> Women in Love 332439 'She thought she loved,
she thought she was full of love'

Women in Love explores the lives of the Brangwen sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, and their developing love affairs with Rupert Birkin, an intellectual, and Gerald Crich, an industrialist. The despair of one sister's relationship contrasts with the happiness of the other's as the four clash in thought, passion and belief, in their search for a life that is truly complete. The novel is the sequel to The Rainbow and, although written in 1916, it remained unpublished in England until 1921.

In his introduction Amit Chaudhuri discusses Lawrence's style and imagery. This edition also includes a chronology of Lawrence's life and work, further reading, notes and appendices containing the original foreword to Women in Love, a fragment of 'The Sisters', the 'Prologue" and 'Wedding' chapters from an earlier draft, a map and discussion of the setting and people involved.]]> 592 D.H. Lawrence 0141441542 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.55 1920 Women in Love
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: Reid
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1920
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/10/20
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> The Odyssey 333706 Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey though life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.

In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.

Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' translation.

This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students.

--

Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, presents us with Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning new modern-verse translation.]]> 496 Homer 0140268863 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.01 -700 The Odyssey
author: Homer
name: Reid
average rating: 4.01
book published: -700
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/10/20
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Riddley Walker 776573 256 Russell Hoban 0253212340 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.03 1980 Riddley Walker
author: Russell Hoban
name: Reid
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1980
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/12
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Slaughterhouse-Five 4981 Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.â€�

An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it.

Fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut's portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.]]> 275 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.10 1969 Slaughterhouse-Five
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Reid
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1969
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/12
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]> 2956 327 Mark Twain 0142437174 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.82 1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
author: Mark Twain
name: Reid
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1884
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/12
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Of Mice and Men 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.â€�

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]> 107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.88 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Reid
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/12
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> Pride and Prejudice 1885 Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780679783268]]> 279 Jane Austen 1441341706 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.28 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Reid
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1813
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/12
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> The Great Gatsby 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Reid
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/12
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]> To Kill a Mockingbird 2657 "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film.]]> 323 Harper Lee 0060935464 Reid 5 best-books-of-all-time 4.25 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: Reid
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1960
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2008/06/12
shelves: best-books-of-all-time
review:

]]>