Most Memorable Books

1. Ishmael, Daniel Quinn.
I remember my Dad strongly suggesting this book at the beginning of my freshman year, and my reluctance to begin it (because of the vague description and boring cover art). After slowly making my way through the novel I can confidently say it changed my outlook on topics like religion, origins, population, and evolution.

2. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley.
I thoroughly enjoyed this summer reading book, and it also changed the way I think about certain topics. The ideas about genetic engineering that may have sounded farfetched in 1932 aren’t too far away from actuality in 2010.

3. Eragon, Christopher Paolini.
Despite this being an obvious knockoff of every children’s science-fantasy book ever created, I remember devouring the trilogy one quiet summer in Maine. Christopher Paolini published the first novel when he was only 200, and from what I heard started writing it in High School. Reading a book so imagintive and written by someone so close to my age was interesting.

4. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card.
Although I probably read this a little bit before my time (I hopefully may continue the series in the future) I enjoyed it nonetheless. The young protagonist, the futuristic-space setting, and battle with space aliens all combined perfectly.

5. Dune, Frank Herbert.
Yet another science-fiction series I started, loved, and never continued. The story was on epic proportions, and both the political and action scenes were really well thought out.

6. Give A Boy A Gun, Todd Strasser.
A scary novel based on the Columbine shootings; I was on a “shootings” kick (as strange as that sounds) and this was the best of the many I read. Really got you think about the role violence plays in our society, and went along nicely with Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine.

Word Count: 302

Summer Reading

For the Summer of 2010 I read both Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens for English and a shortened version of the novella (although probably already short) Carmen for French. I'm going to choose to talk about A Tale of Two Cities because I just finished it the other night and because I finished Brave New World the first few days of Summer. Charles Dickens famed book started out really slow and boring for me. The whole first half of the book seemed like a collection of short stories jumping back between Britan and France, and I had a hard time seeing how they related. I also had trouble getting use to reading older English filled with quite a few outdated words. Once I got into the second half of the book (a bit before Charles Darnay makes his trip to France) everything started to come together for me. I began to figure out how characters were related, how events were related, and guesstimate where the story would progress from there. What started as kind of a boring romance book about nothing turned into a thriller-mystery by the end. So in short I really enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities; at least for the superficial reasons. I'm sure that are much more hidden themes and ideas that I may not have picked up on in the first read that will probably make the bookmore interesting (if there weren't it wouldn't be a classic I suppose). From what I've heard, Charles Dicken's depiction of the 'mob-rule' feeling of the day  was perfect, and I definitely felt the characters' fear of being overheard, watched, and possibily denounced. But what I found even more interesting than that was the way Dickens intertwines and reveals how characters are related past and present in ways you never thought possible. For example, who could have ever predicted that the son of the man (nephew of Marquis) that imprisoned Doctor Manette in the Bastille for eighteen years would later become a family friend and marry his daughter?  Another example would be Sydney Carton's sacrifice to face the Guillotine in place of Charles Barnay (so he could escape). Although admittidely I saw it coming, it is still a surprising end. One thing I both valued and hated about the book was Dicken's over-description of almost everything. At some points it is beneficial because it allows you to accurately imagine the place or person on par with what he imagined. At the same time, one has to remember that British authors at that time were paid by the word, and they therefore had a personal interest to over-describe even the most banal thing. Do I really need to know exactly (down to every button and rip) what Ms. Pross' attire looked like while she was struggling with Madame Defarge? I think not.

P.S. I've been interested in reading The Road, but settled instead for the watching the movie this Summer. Some parts were a little freaky, but overall the movie was interesting and went along with collection of post-apoclyptic world movies that have been so popular lately.

Word Count: 527