Those things with paper and words and stuff

Happy Inauguration Day!

In lieu of a proper post, since I am still in Juneau and a negative number of interesting things have happened since my last post, I'm just going to list some books that I like and would recommend. Devon and Ryan were like, books, those are still around? so in response, yes... they are. Don't dog ear your pages! Tip your waiters!

In no particular order:

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - after this book, there are two series that branch off. One is Ender's series and the other is Bean's series. I much prefer Bean's series, which follows the children left on Earth. Ender's series follows Ender's life to an adult age, which is less interesting to me.

Black and White by David Macaulay - this is a children's book, but it is genius! Remember how all the books we used to read were huge and full of pictures? Those were the days...

Twelfth Night or What You Will by William Shakespeare - Not a huge fan of Shakespeare, but I think Twelfth Night is hilarious. If Shakespearean lingo is not your thing (or if plays are not your thing... I find them difficult to read in general), you could just try to find the movie version with Ben Kingsley as Feste and Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia.

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech - The book is supposed to be the assigned poetry journal of an elementary school student (kids' literature). It is written entirely in poetry and is the unfolding story of a boy and his dog.

Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett - perhaps to the general disapproval of fencers, I do like Terry Pratchett. It really depends on what you pick up, though. He's written a bazillion books about different places and people in Discworld. I prefer Sam Vimes to the witches or the gods, and I don't bother with the wizards. Thief of Time was the first Terry Pratchett book I read, and, perhaps because of that, also my favorite. I was still a romantic then, and it has a cute ending.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon - written from the point of view of an autistic boy. It's a good, quick read. Haddon also wrote A Spot of Bother, which I also liked, but less so.

The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg - kids' literature, but I still love it. It's about a sixth grade academic bowl team and their coach/teacher, and how they are awesome.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut - really strange, but I enjoyed it, for a book I had to read for school. Between the freezing stuff and the foot sex, it's pretty bizarre.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein - also a children's book. Story of a boy and his tree.

Lamb by Christopher Moore - a Dogma-esque comedy about Christ's forgotten best friend Biff.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - I'm not even going to really bother saying anything about this except that it is British humor, I love it, and stop while you're ahead (at the end of the fourth book).

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine and Beauty by Robin McKinley - both rewrites of fairy tales (Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, respectively), both from that romantic period I was talking about. Ella Enchanted is a juvenile fiction book, but sweet. I can't bring myself to watch the movie version, as much as I love Anne Hathaway.

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand - a play, so not my favorite format, but a really very pretty story. Also, there's fencing in it! There was a movie with Steve Martin in it that is maybe called Roxanne that is loosely based on this play.

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan - imagine David Sedaris is an angsty high schooler. It's not a comedy, it's an angsty high school book, but there are some funny parts, and I liked it.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster - in 2004, I drew a frog character every day, and two of them were King Azaz the Unabridged and the Mathemagician. This is also juvenile fiction, but GREAT juvenile fiction.

Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine - Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine travel around the world looking for I think it is six endangered species. One of them is the kakapo, a bird found only in New Zealand! Not at all like Hitchhiker's Guide, in case that is what you are expecting, but awesome in its own way, especially the part about the condom.

Lizard Music by Daniel Manus Pinkwater - I could remember this only as "the book where they watch TV with their eyes closed" for years until I rediscovered it in the public library. It's a great juvenile fiction book, simple but bizarre and great. Also by the same author, the Hoboken Chicken Emergency, about a giant chicken named Henrietta.

Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith - comedy by the author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Takes place in Europe instead of Africa, a collection of stories about the fictional philologist Professor Doctor Mortiz-Maria von Igelfeld.

The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman - Read all three. The last one is very sad. Darius told me he was unimpressed with the Golden Compass, and I think part of the reason I liked it so much was that I read it when I was right at target age, so maybe read it with a grain of salt.

Persepolis I and II by Marjane Satrapi - autobiographical graphic novel (in two parts) of growing up during the Iranian revolution. The illustration style is almost like woodblock, done in black and white.

On a graphic novel note, I also highly recommend the Asterix books by Goscinny and Uderzo, which follow the adventures of Asterix the Gaul and others in his Gaulish village, and I Killed Adolf Hitler by Jason, which was recommended to me by Jim. Jim can probably tell you more about Jason, and actually probably also more about Asterix, if my bet is correctly placed.

There are a lot more books, especially children's books, but I gather that few of you are going to the Everybody Book section and dig all these out. So, I will leave you with that, and one more children's book, Yo! Yes? by Christopher Raschka, probably one of my all-time favorite books. So yeah, these are just off the top of my head, probably a ton missing. Bye!