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C. wrote: "I have a weakness for books on 'Government Cover-ups' and 'Underground Knowledge'.

The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro by Kenn Thomas, Jim Keith

..."
----------------

Wow terrific list, C. Thank you for including all the links !

I've only read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks from your list. I thought it was terrific.

Alias Reader wrote: "C. wrote: "I have a weakness for books on 'Government Cover-ups' and 'Underground Knowledge'.

The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro by Kenn Thomas, Jim Keith

..."

You are most welcome.I have read several of them, but several,including The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks is on my TBR list. :]

@ C, so X-files was your fave show right?

What a list, C. Thanks for sharing. There are titles with which i am unfamiliar & have taken note. Like Alias, i've only read the Henrietta Lacks book.

deb

This looks like a terrific list. I love the TED talks on YouTube. And this list gives you some ideas of some to check out. It also has a lot of books that are off the beaten path. Enjoy !


Your summer reading list: 70+ book picks from TED speakers and attendees

Great list, Alias. Thank you for sharing. I've only listened to a couple of TED talks but like that they are available. Now to have a list of books! Yes!

Here is a list of physics/science books that I have found to be as literary as they have educational!

(EDIT: fixed links)

Music of the Spheres
Music of the Primes
Hyperspace
Microbe Hunters
The Fabric of Reality
The Selfish Gene
A Brief History of Time
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Godel, Escher, Bach
The Code Book
Brain on Fire

Good list, Victor. I've read a couple from your list and agree with you.

deb

Great list, Victor ! Thanks so much for sharing with us.

It's terrific when someone who has a particular interest in a topic and shares the books that they've read on it.

Thanks !

I thought i'd list the science books (not restricted to any particular branch, as you'll note) i've read that i've found worthy of mentioning. A couple of these are from long ago but still are important to my understanding of science.*

The Universe Below: Discovering the Secrets of the Deep Sea by William J. Broad. He is a science writer who is a favorite, even when he injects himself into the story, it's not obtrusive as others can be.

The Enchanted Loom by Robert Jastrow. Unfortunately this is dated now, as i see from GR reviews. I read it in the '80s & felt it opened doors for me.

The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life by Robert O. Becker and Gary Selden. Another from the '80s.

The Secret Life of Plants: A fascinating account of the physical, emotional, and spiritual relations between plants and man by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird. Another oldie.

Dark Life: Martian Nanobacteria, Rock-Eating Cave Bugs, and Other Extreme Organisms of Inner Earth and Outer Space by Michael Ray Taylor

The Third Domain: The Untold Story of Archaea and the Future of Biotechnology by Tim Friend. This author injected himself into the story too much, ending up an advocate for his own theory about archaea, which skewed my opinion of how he was interpreting the facts he was learning.

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan. Part of this bothered me, i recall, but can't remember what it was. I feel i learned plenty, so add it now.

Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease by Sharon Moalem taught me SO much!

Finally, i know this might not technically be a science book but i felt by addressing the issue of permission in research, the author did readers a favor. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

* I didn't list biographies or autobiographies about scientists. If i did, i would add Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, read with this group.

Excellent list, Deb. Thank you for posting it and all the links, too !

I know that The Universe Below: Discovering the Secrets of the Deep Sea is one of your all time favorites.

True. I also found Broad's The Oracle interesting, too. It researched the origins, history & possible scientific explanations for the prophetic words of the Oracle at Delphi, in ancient Greece.

In all, i find him a good science writer. I'll admit to being surprised by other topics his books addressed, as seen on the GR book page. Star Warriors sounds good, particularly if it explains the science. However, one of the neat things about his science prose is that he informs readers about the scientists, when allowed. It helps one understand their interests & motives, if any, behind their work.

Thanks for the list, madrano! I've added several of these that I've never even heard of. The only one on your list I did read was The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and I agree, it ought to stay.

Victor, glad to add to your list, as you have to mine. Yesterday i had the first discussion in my life with someone who truly believes science is all bunk and all scientists are anti-God. My reading prepared me for an intelligent conversation, although i'm not prepared to say that's what this was.

Yes. Although I would love to read a great book on the art of debate (suggestions welcome), I have come to understand that debate is intended for an audience, while changing someone's mind about something is far more difficult and requires a completely different skill set. Having just recently finished How to Win Friends and Influence People, I've started thinking a lot about these things.

Victor wrote: "Yes. Although I would love to read a great book on the art of debate (suggestions welcome), I have come to understand that debate is intended for an audience, while changing someone's mind about so..."

How to Win Friends is a terrific book, Victor. I re-read it every so often.

Two books I have about the different types of arguments that can be made are:

Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language-Robert J. Gula

I think this is a terrific book.

Another similiar book, but not as good as Nonsense, is
A Rulebook for Arguments --Anthony Weston

Also -- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is on my TBR list . . .

Carol wrote: "Also -- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is on my TBR list . . ."

Oh, Carol, the Lacks book is excellent ! It gives one much food for thought.

Back in high school i was on the debate team. We had a solid reference book about debating, Fundamentals of Debate: Theory and Practice by Otto Frank Bauer. Lessons learned from it served me well then & sometimes come to mind as i'm discussing topics nowadays. But not always.

Alias, i have the Gula book on my TBR, as it sounds up my alley. I suspect i got the title from you or one of the threads here. Thanks.

Thanks, Deb! My biggest problem is drawing a blank during discussion, then crafting a beautiful argument after we've parted ways. Perhaps if I read and absorb a Sun Tsu type manual I can live more in the present and become a debating jedi!

madrano wrote: "Back in high school i was on the debate team. We had a solid reference book about debating, Fundamentals of Debate: Theory and Practice by Otto Frank Bauer. Lessons ..."

Deb, FYI, the Gula book is a list of various types of arguments one can make and the explanation of each. I found it useful. However, I just wanted to be clear about the books format.

Would you recommend picking up a used copy of the Bauer book?

Thanks for the note about the Gula book. Your comment makes it sound more interesting, actually. I once had a book on conversation which was similarly written. It helped me enormously.

The Bauer book was good for me as a student. It is really more about debate-team style debating. Or, rather i suppose, components of a debate. If someone at a gathering started debating me the way the book suggests, it would make for a long discussion. The following points were made:
-being prepared to prove there is a problem
-have a plan/solution for the problem
-produce a way to evaluate the plan once (if) implemented.

At this late date it's hard for me to tell how much of what i read has become second nature to me & where it came from. I will say my family doesn't like "debating" with me because i usually have my ducks in a sort of row and refrain from emotional answers. Also, i can usually see both sides of any issue, which leads me to be the "devil's advocate" too often.

At the party, mentioned above, i asked my brother-in-law, whose birthday party it was, if it would be alright to discuss the contentious issue there. BIL encouraged us, "I'd like to watch without being a participant against either of you." LOL!

Thanks for the feedback, deb. I see the Bauer book selling for around $5 used online.

I haven't done this before, but wouldlike to list my favorites.

Thanks for sharing your list of favorite books with us, Lee !

My Pleasure! Thanks for inviting me.

Lee, i haven't heard of the Food Lovers' Village mysteries but i really like the title Butter Off Dead. I'll keep my eyes open for that series, as it's set in Montana, to boot.

Good list. I'm glad you shared.

The following two posts are a list of 100 books to read, with comments, by the late Dick Dabney published in THE WASHINGTONIAN in the early 1980s.

I took on the task of a scribe once upon a time and copied the following from an article by Dick Dabney. Dick Dabney was a monthly columnist for the THE WASHINGTONIAN in the 1970s, and he published a five page article that he called “My Secret Reading Lists �� A Good Book Sometimes Can Help,�� in which he listed his favorite 100 books. Over the years, I have shared xeroxed copies of this list with many friends and even with some of my favorite book reviewers, e.g. Michael Dirda. The following is a copy of the list that Dabney published in that article, along with some of my own comments.

Dabney’s opening words �� “In retrospect, it seems that my parents, by giving me good books and telling me, as pleasantly as possible, that to get the benefit out of them I’d be obliged to take the trouble to read, were doing me an immense favor. Ever since then, I’ve been tempted to publish a list of my favorite books; a literary event which, if it did not enlighten anybody, would at least provide the occasion for considerable mirth.�� Dadney then explained how he arranged with a Washington, D.C. bookstore, the Savile Book Shop in Georgetown (fondly remembered but now alas, out of business) to stock all of these except for two which weren’t in print in paperback. And so it begins �� Following are the first two books.

Dabney’s List �� Book 1: Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, Selections from The Tatler and The Spectator (1709-1712) �� Wise, graceful and witty, these short pieces are the exquisite, perfect flowering of the eighteenth-century periodical essay.

Dabney’s List �� Book 2: Aeschlyus, Agamemnon (458 BC) �� A savage powerful drama, where cannibalism, incest, adultery, murder, and madness are merely emblems of a deeper, worse thing: human pride, in all its relentlessness. Good reading for those who want to rise in Washington.

Dabney’s List �� Book 3: Aristophanes, The Birds (414 BC) �� A noble comedy that shows stupendous Cloudkookooland the Beautiful, ideal city of the skies, and attacks the civil self-destructiveness that applauds, rewards, and even worships professional informants. Good introduction to investigative reporting.

Dabney’s List �� Book 4: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813) �� Elegant harpsichord-piece of a novel in which manners and sentiments are ostensibly what’s going on, and lust for money is what’s really going on. Good gift for a lobbyist.


Dabney’s List �� Book 5: Francis Bacon, Essays or Counsels �� Civil and Moral (1597, 1612, 1625) �� Short, meaty essays on topics of general interest by a man who was as disciplined as he was wise.

Dabney’s List �� Books 6, 7, 8, & 9 : Honore de Balzac, The Black Sheep (1841), Cousin Bette (1847), Eugene Grandet (1833), and Pere Roriot (1834) �� The driving forces in Balzac’s nineteenth-century France were lust and greed. Subject matter obviously out of date.

Dabney’s List �� Book 10: James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LLD (1791) �� The best biography ever written. To be read discursively, good to keep on the bedside table and open at any place, because it need not be read consecutively from end to end.

Dabney’s List �� Book 11 : Richard E. Byrd, Alone (1938) �� A chronicle of Byrd’s living alone under the polar ice cap for four months in 1931. He was far away from where anybody could reach him, and for that and other reasons this is the Walden of the twentieth century. Exiting and profound and not much esteemed.

Dabney’s List �� Books 12 & 13: Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays (1964) �� The best essays written in this century. Beautiful, honest, strong, and of a special bittersweet piquancy like Algerian coffee. The Stranger (1942) �� The great American novel that happened to be written by a Frenchman. Not set here, but American in spirit: the essential atheism, sensualism, and moral drift. Beautiful, too, and affirmative, in a disquieting way.

Dabney’s List �� Book 14: Willa Cather, The Professor’s House (1925) �� Most underrated American novel of all time, the best of Cather’s work, and maybe the second or third best American novel.

Dabney’s List �� Book 15: David Cecil, Melbourne (1954) �� Best biography written in this century. Melbourne was Victoria’s first prime minister, an impressive and appealing aristocrat, and the husband of Caroline Lamb, with whom Byron had a tempestuous public affair. Melbourne was smarter than Byron, and a better man. This was John F. Kennedy’s favorite book.


Dabney’s List �� Book 16: Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, Atala and Rene (1802) �� These are really two interconnected short stories. Gorgeous, sentimental, early-nineteenth-century romanticism �� the noble savage, the kindly old priest, the virgin forest, true love, the pure maiden. But he was making it new, and this book has tremendous integrity.


Dabney’s List �� Book 17: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (1387, printed 1487) �� One of the books that I’d have if I had only half a dozen books. Modern translations are available for those who didn’t want to wade through Middle English.


Dabney’s List �� Book 18: Joseph Conrad, Victory (1915) �� The best of Conrad, and the most powerful novel ever written, although not the best ever written.


Dabney’s List �� Book 19: James Fenimore Cooper, The Bravo (1831) �� Everyone knows Cooper by the Leatherstocking Tales, which are worthwhile if you’re patient. This, however, is his best novel �� a vivid, exciting tale of 15th century Venice.


Dabney’s List �� Book 20: Dante, The Divine Comedy (1320) �� Of course, one of the best works of all time. The John Ciardi translation is cheap and best.


Dabney’s List �� Book 21: Daniel DeFoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719) �� Not a child’s story at all. Really and truly worth reading, from Robinson Crusoe is a real and compelling man, not at all like the pop caricatures of him.


Dabney’s List �� Books 22 & 23: Great Expectations (1861) -- Bleak and plotty, like most of Dickens, but written with his characteristic energy and charm. Like heavy, smoky scotch. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836) �� Energetic and charming, with a kind of Chaucerian geniality.

Larry’s note �� I guess I’m surprised that Bleak House is not one of the two choices, but again, Dabney is choosing what he likes most.


Dabney’s List �� Book 24: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1879) �� Cerebral, violent, lurid, and long; nevertheless the four brothers represent the four prime points of view present in contemporary civilization and in ourselves.


Dabney’s List �� Book 25: Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900) �� Not so laboriously long-winded and detail-ridden as most of Dreiser. A vivid tale of modern woman determined to make it; rich with atmosphere and speech of the 1890s. Contains some few hints of why “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby,�� is the saddest song in all the world.


Dabney’s List �� Book 26: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays (1841 and 1844) �� Not pie-in-the-sky at all, though they’re reputed to be. Gracefully written, on the most important topics of his time and ours. Emerson wasn’t the best American writer, but he was the most seminal. These are valuable not only for what he says but for what you yourself are liable to start thinking when you’ve finished them.


Dabney’s List �� Books 27 & 28: Epictetus, The Manual (104) and The Discourses (140) �� The wisest and the most helpful of the Stoic philosophers. Cheaper than a psychiatrist, and probably much more useful if your problem is living and not baying at the moon.

Dabney’s List �� Book 29: Euripedes, The Alcestis (483 BC) �� Tragicomedy about a man who asks his wife to die in his place, and whose gratitude is less than his concern for his social reputation. Recommended for politicians�� wives. While Sophocles represented men the way they ought to be, Euripedes represented them as they are.

Dabney’s List �� Books 30-37: William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom (1936), The Hamlet (1940), Light in August (1932), The Mansion (1960), The Reivers (1962), Sanctuary (1931), Sartoris (1929), and The Town (1957) �� The best American novelist. College students are taught to despise Faulkner by being handed a copy of The Sound and the Fury and being told it’s his best work. It isn’t; it’s well-nigh unreadable. All those listed above are better than the one that’s supposed to be classic. Faulkner’s no good for skimmers, because you have to make an effort to get into his style. After that, it’s easy going, and ordinary discourse seems affected. And if Faulkner’s not for skimmers, neither is anybody else on this list.

Dabney’s List �� Book 38: Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews (1742) �� Rollicking, jolly, eighteenth-century comic novel; as good as Tom Jones, but much shorter, which is better, because even rollicking gets tedious after nine hundred pages.

Dabney’s List �� Book 39: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) �� Hauntingly beautiful, solidly true, and more than likely despised because of its inclusion in lit courses taught by profs Gatsby would have murdered. The movie, too, was good, and almost universally panned; which causes one to suspect that there’s something in Gatsby most of us don’t want to know:

Larry’s note: The movie is, of course, the Robert Redford version, which I have to confess that I also liked a lot.

Dabney’s List �� Book 40: Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (published 1818) �� Droll, colorful, and well written; in a way, the granddaddy of all the Horatio Alger books, because Franklin indicates how to get on in this world is you care to. Maybe he’s programmatic about virtue, but he’s a wise and charming man.

Dabney’s List �� Book 41: Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896) �� This, and not Elmer Gantry, is the classic about American preachers. Excellently conceived, crisply written; shows how being professionally born-again can be hard in a world where wit, truth-telling, and courage matter too.

Dabney’s List �� Book 42: Francois Gilot, Life with Picasso (1964) �� Splendid account of the years she lived with Picasso; the clearest available picture of him; honest, graceful, absorbing, and relatively free of sour grapes. You see how more than one genius could love this woman, who’s currently the wife of Dr. Jonas Salk; she has the kind of lucidity and warmth Simone de Beauvoir only claims to have and is the most human of all the women writers in the past forty years or so. This book, too, was a show-biz flop.

Dabney’s List �� Books 43-45: Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Parts I & II (1808, 1832) �� The story of the atom bomb. MacNeice’s translation is best. The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) �� Short, immensely powerful, eighteenth-centrury novel, perhaps the first romantic novel. Werther was spiritual forbear of Mersault and Bartleby. Certainly one of the ten best novels of all time.

Dabney’s List �� Book 46: Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850) �� Not for children but force-fed to them anyway, usually in high school. The result is that they don’t read this when they grow up, which is the only time it could mean anything to them.

Dabney’s List �� Books 47-50: Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929), The Green Hills of Africa (1935), A Moveable Feast (1964), and The Sun Also Rises (1926) �� Regnant, purring, genteel criticism and her whipper-on, the women’s movement, have so arranged things that many men—in the words of Mort Sahl—are proud to say they’re ashamed to be men. So the climate’s poor for old Ernie, especially in the bitch-epicene literary living rooms of our town. But all these are great books. A Moveable Feast is the best nonfiction work so far this century. And the two novels mentioned above are of the first rank.

Dabney’s List �� Books 51 & 52: Homer, The Iliad (750 BC) and the Odyssey (755 BC) �� The better “read�� of these two is The Odyssey. Had the brave and wily Odysseus been Hamlet, there would have been no second act of Hamlet, for he would have slain the king immediately, and whatever introspection he carried on prior to that would have been directed to how rather than whether. It’s often said, of course, Hamlet was the more modern man, but sometimes I wonder. I do know this: If you read The Odyssey, you’ll understand your dreams better, and without the help of C.G. Jung. Richmond Lattimore’s translation of The Iliad and Robert Fitzgerald’s of the Odyssey are best.

Dabney’s List �� Books 53 & 54: Horace, Odes & Epodes (23 BC) �� The ideal spot for a man is neither downtown K street nor some wild fen, but a kind of middle ground, part wild and part civilized. And just as that’s the ideal place to live, so is it the ideal for a man to be. Horace, then, was no romantic; and his pastoral writings are ever fresh and new.

Dabney’s List �� Books 55-58: Henry James, The Ambassadors (1903), The American (1877), The Europeans (1878), and Washington Square (1881) �� You can get too much of James’s story, which is almost always the same, to wit: Gentleman meets lady, and something resembling a courtship ensues, in which one party loves and years and the other party is the cold judger. The lover turns out to be slightly flawed, this by the tiniest nuance—is never, say flatulent or a murderer—and the cold judger walks away loftily oozing moral and aesthetic superiority. This was James in real life, too. That said, his manner of telling this, the understanding of the little things of human behavior that mask the big things, the Bach-like prose—are all wonderful. His masterpiece was Washington Square. This is a secret.

Dabney’s List �� Book 59: James Jones, From Here to Eternity (1951) �� Jones was as crude as James was delicate, and produced only one superlative work—whereas James wrote several. However, on the strength of that work alone, he deserves a rank equal to that of James. He is not likely to get it, because crudeness is considered outré—unless , of course, it is the vomitous, perfume-in-the-throat, pamphleteering crudeness of, say, Stein, Gide, Proust, or for that matter Gore Vidal. But from Here to Eternity is better than anything that boy or those girls ever wrote, realistic to the limits of realism, but also a fable of what America is and of what Washington is, for those who care to see. Painful vision.

Larry’s note: Dabney’s apparent homophobia seems to be leaking through here.

Dabney’s List �� Book 60: Madame de Lafayette, The Princess of Cleves (1678) �� The author lived with the epigrammist La Roucheau-foucauld, by the way, and it’s through her that the epigram learned to cohabit with French prose fiction, a liaison that’s lasted more than thee hundred years.

Dabney’s List �� Book 61: Herman Melville, Typee (1846) �� Moby Dick, for all of its whaley thunder, is pretentious. Melville wallows, spouts, and poses in that one; is cryptic, allusional; pretends to know some great mystery that has troubled sophomores and supported scholars for years now. But Typee, written in 1846, before the transcendentalists got Herman thinking he was Jesus Christ, is the real stuff; even when he makes it up, it is the real stuff. A South Seas travel romance, Gauguin with a brain. Gauguin even with wit, and if “sexy�� is a category, this is that which there is no sexier than.


Dabney’s List �� Book 62: Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (1949) �� I don’t like Miller, and emphatically don’t like what this play is saying. However, to call it anything less than the best play of our century would be unjust.

Dabney’s List �� Book 63: John Milton, Paradise Lost (1967) �� I read this every November and have to get ready for it. It requires a fire in the grate, the phone of the hook, the dog at the feet, a hooker of cognac on the table, and is substantial going. Nothing’s better for a writer than Paradise Lost; you always write better after you’ve read him, and not like him either, but like yourself. This usually comes in a volume with L’Allegro, Il Penseroso, Lycidas, and all that. You read those in October as a kind of training.

Dabney’s List �� Book 64: Michael de Montaigne, Essays (1580-88) �� These ramble and put you to sleep, but on-and-off napping is a fine old tradition that ought to be continued and every 7 ½ pages this first of modern essayists has something fine to say. One reads this as one reads the Boswell.

Dabney’s List �� Book 65: Frank Norris, McTeague (1899) -- The best of our early naturalistic novels, better by far than anything by Crane. The saga of the ox-like dentist, his ocarina, the metastasizing bureaucrats who destroy him and obviate the need for the huge gold tooth he has hanging out over the street to advertise his services.

Dabney’s List �� Books 66-73: Plato, Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Republic (circa 348 BC) �� The best writer who ever lived, and Republic the best book. It’s well to work one’s way toward that one by starting with Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, then going back to the Gorgias, then tackling Republic. Plato is an education in himself, and any philosopher—or, for that matter, playwright, poet, novelist, or essayist—who is ranked with him is misranked. The Dialogues of Plato are the finest writings our civilization has produced. The Jowett translation is best.

Larry’s note. Better translations than Jowett are available.

Dabney’s List �� Book 74: Plotinus, The Enneads (262) �� Neo-Platonism, founded by this man, has been more influential in America than Patonism has. Plotinus is resistant to quick commentary, but not to diligent reading.

Dabney’s List �� Book 75: Betrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (1930) �� Anybody who’d like a bit of advice and maybe even some happiness without being obliged to primally scream, transcendentally meditate, masochistically be ESTed, devastatingly for the finances be psychoanalyzed, or horridly for the truth-telling apparatus be Billy Grahamed into bovinity might like a few kind, sharp words from this sage.

Dabney’s List �� Books 76 & 77: Antoine, de Saint-Exupery, Night Flight (1931) and Wind, Sand, and Stars (1943) �� As good as the best American novels of this century, The author, a French aviator, is ostensibly writing about the early days of flight. Lyrical and strong.

Larry’s note: Antoine de Saint-Exupery was so much more than just The Little Prince, which itself was great.

Dabney’s List �� Book 78: Sir Walter Scott, Kenilworth (1821) �� Like most of Scott, this goes on and on; a colorful and imaginative picture of the Elizabethan times and of the Dowager Queen herself. A long hike, but in fair weather through fine country.

Dabney’s List �� Books 79-89: William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1606), Hamlet (1600), Henry IV, Part I (1597), Julius Caesar (1600), King Lear (1605), Macbeth (1605), Much Ado About Nothing (1598), Othello (1604), Richard III (1592), The Tempest (1611) and The Winter’s Tale (1611) �� The Collected Works of Shakespeare is one of two books to have, if you have only two. But to read the plays in the cheap single-volume editions put out by the Folger Library is handier. Good footnotes in those.

Dabney’s List �� Book 90: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex (450 BC) �� Wherein one is able to fill in the blank in the wall graffitum that has it that “Oedipus was a ____________________.��

Dabney’s List �� Book 91: Philip Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield, Letters to His Son (1774) �� Illegitimate son, actually. Washington, which loves cynical advice, ought to love this book, in which a man of the world offers a young man some exceedingly practical advice on women, friendships, money, and manners.

Dabney’s List �� Books 92 & 93: Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma (1839) and The Red and the Black (1830) �� Stendhal, whose real name was Marie Henri Beyle, had a notion that most men and women live desperately, behind masks. He did not create the modern hero as describe him from the inside. And, if one were obliged to choose the best novel of all time, it would likely be one of these.

Dabney’s List �� Book 94: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (1726) �� Strange that we work so hard to shield children from mere pornography and jam this into their grade-school lunch boxes. Though a fable, it’s as savagely and accurately bitter as any of Swift, and most of us, after that disturbing early exposure, don’t want to go back. Another example of how we inoculate ourselves against our best literature.

Dabney’s List �� Book 95: Henry D. Thoreau, Walden (1854) �� Henry’s mother’s house was not many minutes�� stroll down the path from that Walden shack. So he could, and did, pop home for a bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich anytime he felt like it. Therefore, this isn’t a chronicle of the deep wilderness so much as a metaphysical fairy tale, and a good one �� so long as you don’t mind Henry’s being convinced that he’s a hell of a lot smarter and better than you.


Dabney’s List �� Book 96: Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1838) �� The best and up-to-date account of what we’re all about in America. If we stamped Understanding Washington on the cover and gave it away to newcomers, we’d be performing a considerable public service, because nobody understands the hidden p[remises of this place better than de Tocqueville. However, since we cherish the notion that things change around here, nobody is going to do that.

Dabney’s List �� Book 97: Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons (1862) �� A universal guide to the generation gap �� except that Turgenev’s young nihilists (he coined the term in this book) were highly conscious and lucidly articulate, whereas Washington’s, whose rebellion seems limited to the conspicuous consumption of Columbia records and pre-worn Levis, tend toward monosyllabic, incoherent raving. There’s much more to Fathers and Sons than that, of course; and it’s Turgenev, not either of those other two, who’s the best Russian novelist.

Larry’s note: Well yeah, since Dabney doesn’t like Tolstoy.

Dabney’s List �� Book 98: Mark, Twain, Huckleberry Finn (1884) �� The second best American novel, or maybe the best.

Dabney’s List �� Book 99: Miguel de Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life (1912) �� Unamuno the Spaniard is the intellectual expression of what Zorba the Greek �� as played by Anthony Quinn �� was in the flesh: robust, companionable, and wise.

Dabney’s List �� Book 100: Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905) �� The beauteous Lily Bart tries to run with the beautiful people without having remembered to bring along a sufficiency of cash. I saw a thousand of her on L Street the other day. Among the best American novels of manners.

Larry’s note: In forty years, the action has moved over one street to K Street. Little else has changed.

Dabney’s List �� Book 101: E.B. White, Essays (1977) �� White, one the two best American periodical essays, wrote the New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town�� for many years.

Larry’s note: And Charlotte’s Web �� and Stuart Little.

Dabney’s List �� Book 102: William Carlos Williams, Paterson (1946-58) �� Williams, a college friend of Ezra Pound, renounced life among the literati in favor of practicing medicine in the Paterson, New Jersey. He saw more and knew more than Pound did, and was the better wrwriter, Person is a masterpiece, not a novel, but a kind of hybrid genre that has no name yet and may end up taking the place of the novel.

Dabney’s List �� Book 103: Emile Zola, L’Assommoir (1877) �� Zola’s the father of the naturalistic novel, and this one shows the wonderful rewards life has in store for you if you mean well and are good-hearted and work hard.

Hmmm ... I think I miscounted since there were supposed to be 100 books.

FINAL COMMENTS ON DABNEY’S LIST: Maybe they aren’t all the best 100 books of all time, but Dabney meant the list to be a personal list of books that could. I’ve found it to be valuable because it has pointed me in the direction of some great books that I might not have read otherwise and also because it has made me think of what would be on my list of 100 books to recommend. Maybe 50 of Dabney’s books would be on my own list.

Another comment about Dabney's list is it probably helps to live in the Washington, D.C. area to appreciate some of Dabney's wry comments that are pertinent to DC.

Larry, you can hit EDIT and COPY your Dabney posts then PASTE them to the new thread.

What a fascinating list. While i've read a number, there are even more which have been on my "gonna read" list for some time, while other titles and authors are totally new to me. Thanks for sharing.

A few things i'll mention here.

1) The way he described Pride and Prejudice was exquisite, "Elegant harpsichord-piece of a novel in which manners and sentiments are ostensibly what’s going on, and lust for money is what’s really going on."

2) He highly praised one of my favoriteWilla Cather works, The Professor's House.

3) I know i'm in the minority here but i prefer The Iliad over The Odyssey. I think it's because i learned much about the pageantry of war.

4) Long time Book Nookers saw this coming, i'm sure. If Ernest Hemingway was such a good author it seems to me that, even in his disdain for the new woman, he could have depicted them better. As it is they are singular dimensional characters. Even if that is his point, it seems to me an outstanding author would flesh women out better than he does.

Of course i can't fault him on A Movable Feast, as that is his memory of events and people. It certainly illustrates his own psyche, i must admit. And i will say i've enjoyed a number of his short stories but the only novel i liked by him was The Old Man and the Sea.

Thank you for taking the time to share this piece, Larry. It is a remarkable list. Even if i thought to create such a personal list, my prose would never manage to be as succinct and distinguished as this.

madrano wrote: "What a fascinating list. While i've read a number, there are even more which have been on my "gonna read" list for some time, while other titles and authors are totally new to me. Thanks for sharing ... He highly praised one of my favoriteWilla Cather works, The Professor's House." ... I know i'm in the minority here but i prefer The Iliad over The Odyssey. I think it's because i learned much about the pageantry of war. ... Of course i can't fault him on A Movable Feast, as that is his memory of events and people. It certainly illustrates his own psyche, i must admit. And i will say i've enjoyed a number of his short stories but the only novel i liked by him was The Old Man and the Sea.

Madrano, I haven't read a lot of Cather, but I've read The Professor's House twice. I found it amazingly modern and just great in many different ways.

I also prefer the Iliad. I think that over the past 40 years, the consensus of which was the better of the two epics may have changed. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that we've been engaged in wars almost the whole time.

I've read A Moveable Feast at least four times, including the so-called restored edition which came out a few years ago. I find Hemingway's writing to just be stunningly good. But if you want another take on some of the events that happened (or maybe didn't happen) as recounted in that work, do find Morley Callaghan's That Summer in Paris. It's a great book also, although not as good as Hemingway's. You will be left with thinking that Hemingway was the better writer ... and Callaghan was the better man.

madrano wrote: "What a fascinating list. Thank you for taking the time to share this piece, Larry. It is a remarkable list. Even if i thought to create such a personal list, my prose would never manage to be as succinct and distinguished as this. "

Of course, the good writing is Dick Dabney's and not my own.

Larry, you are a good wordsmith yourself. I was aware it wasn't your writing and am grateful you shared it.

Thank you for the book title. When i read Hemingway's book on the topic someone told me about a book on the same group, which title i lost. I'm guessing this was it, although i don't recall that name or author.

I forgot to mention how happy i was to see The House of Mirth was on the list. Much as i liked Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, i felt Mirth was a much better story, illustrating richer emotions.

This is a list to the ongoing best 100 nonfiction books in English as chosen by Robert McCrum of the Guardian. The list has a new book added each week, with nine books selected so far. The most recent book added is Michael Herr's Dispatches. It was selected as one of the works to be included in the Library of America's Vietnam Reporting volume Reporting Vietnam: Part Two: American Journalism 1969-1975.

"Combined with the compelling urgency of Herr’s narration �� every line set down as if it’s about to be interrupted by incoming shell-fire �� there’s Herr’s mesmerising voice itself, perhaps the single greatest achievement of a book that, nearly 40 years on, offers the definitive account of war in our time, especially the Vietnam war �� among the most terrible of the postwar wars."

Yeah, it really was that good. I only wish that Herr had gone on to write more books.

Larry wrote: "This is a list to the ongoing best 100 nonfiction books in English as chosen by Robert McCrum of the Guardian. The list has a new book added each week, with nine books selected so far. The most rec..."

Interesting list so far. I think I have No Logo on my bookshelves. We read Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance here as a group read.

It looks as though reading selections he's chosen would give readers a fine social history about the later part of the last century. So far, so good.

McCrum makes clear these are his choices but it seems odd to me to put Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes in the nonfiction category. I just don't put poetry in the nf category, even if it's about real people and even from letters.

I read a variety of books, probably staying close to fiction mostly. Here is a list of my favorites :)

A Dog's Purpose
A Dog's Journey
The Dogs of Christmas
A Dog's Way Home
Emory's Gift
The Dog Master: A Novel of the First Dog

The Art of Racing in the Rain

The Book Thief

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

Suspect

Mrs. Mike

Stephanie wrote: "I read a variety of books, probably staying close to fiction mostly. Here is a list of my favorites :)

A Dog's Purpose
A Dog's Journey
[book:The Dogs of Christmas|3..."

I've only read from your list A.J. Fikry. I also enjoyed it. I gave it 4/5 stars

Stephanie wrote: "I read a variety of books, probably staying close to fiction mostly. Here is a list of my favorites :)

A Dog's Purpose
A Dog's Journey
[book:The Dogs of Christmas|3..."

I see a canine trend here. I love dogs. 😊🐶

@Alias Reader... I really loved it. Such a great story :)

@Barbara...I may have a slight obsession with books about dogs ;)

Novels set in or around junk, thrift or vintage stores are just one of my favorite categories.

I would welcome any suggestions for additions to my very short list :


Second Hand by Michael Zadoorian

Savannah Blues, Savannah Breeze and Savannah Bliss by Mary Kay Andrews

A Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff

Does it follow that if you like op-shops (what we call second-hand stores in Australia), you'd also like books about them? I've never read one, but do like op-shops.

Good question, Tamara. As one who likes libraries, i relish reading books set in them &/or with characters who work in them. It seems likely the same is true for op-shops or second hand stores. Honestly, though, i've never read one. I should probably try one from Heidi's list.

I'm glad you commented on this, Tamara, as i'd forgotten this thread existed. I meant to add to it but forgot. Maybe this time i'll remember?

I'm not sure where to put this. It's a fun look at the most popular book in the year that you were born:



Mine was Doctor Zhivago, which is also a favourite read for me. It started slow (in my opinion) but then really ramped up and got interesting, and became a favourite novel of mine. I've never seen the movie.