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10 Best Books 2004?
The NY Times has released its list of the 10 best books of 2004 in both fiction and non. Funny, none of the books on my potential reading list are on the Times' list. I think I'll stick with my list, along with the suggestions you all have made. So far it seems like Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is winning the race, although I do very much like Care's advice to read Into the Forest
first, then try to get to something else. Or maybe Jonathan Strange. . . or I'm still into The Baroque Cycle. I mean, I want to read it someday, for sure, but is now the time to start? Hmm...
Isn't thinking about reading great fiction so much more fun than studying for finals? Yeah, it definitely is. In addition to reading, I'd like to catalog all the books L. and I own so we can see what we have. I have a CueCat barcode scanner, I have the free and very impressive Books for Mac OS X software, and I have the books to scan in—I just don't have the time. L. thinks I'm a big fat geek for even wanting to do this, but once you've got them all cataloged, you can do cool things like find them when you want them. You can also do something like putting a list of your books online, which could be useful somehow, I think. Anyway, it sure would be better than studying corporations. But then, the bar for that is really, really low.
Posted December 12, 2004 08:45 AM | ai books
Hey dude. Just to be clear, The Baroque Cycle, while lengthy and involved, is something that you can read for plain old fun. While I think it has to be read, and critiqued, in its entirety, I do think that the broad outlines of the story are sufficiently visible to make each novel self-sufficent, for lack of a better compound. And it's funny the way Stephenson is funny in novels like "Snow Crash" or "Cryptonomicon." You can read it quick for enjoyment or dawdle and go for something deeper. Either way it repays the effort.
I agree with the NYT choice of Philip Roth as well. It's a damn fine book and plenty funny/thought provoking as well. I would also recommend the Chernow biography of Hamilton as well. Chernow's biography of John D. Rockefeller "Titan" is worth a read as well.
Peace.
Posted by: Famous P. at December 12, 2004 10:53 PM
Yeah, I'm going to tackle Quicksilver sometime for sure, just not sure if it's going to be now. I'm also sure the Chernow bios would be good, but there's so little time these days!
Posted by: ambimb at December 13, 2004 12:01 AM
"but there's so little time these days!"
You're telling me! My best to L. and yerself for the holidays. Try and get some rest willya?
Posted by: Famous P at December 13, 2004 12:18 PM
Tell me how that CueCat works out. I've been using Books to get some order to this mess of a collection of mine (I bought a book that I already had two copies of without realizing it...Ha ha! Hey, I hurt myself!) for awhile now. But I've been entering ISBN's by hand and it's definitely taking too long. Those CueCats are so damn cheap. Still, I don't want to waste any money. Know what I'm saying?
Posted by: Famous P. at December 13, 2004 10:06 PM
I highly recommend the CueCat. See more here. If you have an iSight or a DV camera, you can also use evoBarcode to scan in your books. Man, we're geeks, huh? But I did the same thing -- bought a second copy of a book I already owned. That kind of madness clearly must stop.
Posted by: ambimb at December 14, 2004 08:37 AM
I don't know about the NYT list -- some of the books were heavily hyped, but I didn't see a whole lot that I was really interested in reading. Somehow I missed your original pleasure reading post, and just went back and read it. Jonathan Strange and Fortress of Solitude are both on my reading list (the former, I have to admit, more because of buzz than anything else -- I picked it up in a bookstore and didn't get into it right away). Middlesex was interesting, in an epic sort of way. I preferred The Virgin Suicides by him. I LOVED The Time-Traveler's Wife -- it's not often that you read a really well-done love story with a science fiction plot.
On my actual bookshelf: The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket, Betsy and Mr. Kilpatrick by Carolyn Haywood, and Marcella Cucina by Marcella Hazan. So you might want to weigh my recommendations based on that.
Posted by: CM at December 16, 2004 04:08 PM
