Littera Scripta Manet

November 17, 2007

in Books and literature, Daily updates

Emily and I have devised a scheme for mutual education: we are each to select five books that the other person will read. Each book is assigned the span of one month to be acquired, read (however challenging it may be), and commented upon on respective blogs. My comments will obviously be here; hers will be on eponymous horn (like me, she has ensured eternal confusion by having a title unrelated to her URI). Discussion can then occur between the two of us and other readers by means of comments.

The intent behind the scheme is to select books that are both educational in themselves and revealing insofar as they reflect the character of the person who recommended them. Indeed, books that played a substantial role in developing character could be ideal for this sort of exchange.

I am going to need to spend some time seriously contemplating what ought to be on my list. One virtually never gets the opportunity to make a claim on so much of another person’s time.

Which books would the varied and interesting readers of this blog select?

{ 2 trackbacks }

And the finalists are… « eponymous horn
11.27.07 at 1:37 am
a sibilant intake of breath » Blog Archive » Book project: month two
01.04.08 at 6:57 pm

{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

Litty 11.17.07 at 7:26 pm

How do you get the time and energy for all this?

R.K. 11.17.07 at 9:00 pm

Any ideas what books you will choose?

Scientific works? Political ones? Legal? Economic?

Milan 11.18.07 at 9:10 pm

A few books I have been considering:

  • Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake.
  • Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game.
  • Card, Orson Scott. Maps in a Mirror.
  • Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene.
  • Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby.
  • Gibson, William. Neuromancer.
  • Greene, Brian. The Elegant Universe.
  • Herbert, Frank. Dune.
  • Ignatieff, Michael. Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism.
  • Keegan, John. A History of Warfare.
  • Kundera, Milan. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.
  • Milton, John. Paradise Lost.
  • Rushdie, Salman. The Moor’s Last Sigh.
  • Schneier, Bruce. Beyond Fear.
  • Singh, Simon. Fermat’s Last Theorem.
  • Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia
  • Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina.
  • Vaillant, John. The Golden Spruce.
  • Weisman, Alan . The World Without Us

Clearly, I am going to need to pare things down. The Keegan might be a good place to start: it’s an excellent book, and probably almost entirely new information for her.

Milan 11.18.07 at 9:43 pm

The Great Gatsby is off the list, as Emily has already read it. Indeed, she played two roles in a stage production of it.

Milan 11.18.07 at 9:46 pm

Another possibility is books that seemed very significant at one point in time, but have since lost potency. Two examples would be The Andromeda Strain (which I read about 50 times in elementary school) and My Side of the Mountain.

Alena 11.20.07 at 12:24 am

How about something by Solzhenitsyn, Zola, or Steinbeck?

Milan 11.20.07 at 9:26 am

Mom,

They are meant to be books that I have read. I have read a bit of Steinbeck and, while it was worthwhile, it isn’t what I would consider essential reading.

. 11.22.07 at 9:32 am

Emily has posted a list of books she may assign for me to read:

An List of Literature

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