Some of my favorite books...
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Some of my favorite books... |
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my email |
Below you can find links to some of my favorite books that I recommend to others
*Crime
and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The disturbing yet captivating psychological journey of a man who believes he may be "above" morality.
*Jodi Picoult is a contemporary author who explores many different moral questions in today's society. My favorites include Plain Truth, My Sister's Keeper, and Second Glance. I read Nineteen Minutes, which is about a high school shooting and the aftermath, but it wasn't one of my favorites. In my opinion, the ending wasn't as well-crafted. Her novels are rarely cliche and almost always have some sort of twist. Her writing style is impeccable as well.
NOTE: some of the content in her novels may be inappropriate for some readers (strong language or scenes); however, her thematic issues of morality in an increasingly ambiguous world should be appropriate for all mature readers.
*The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
I wrote my undergraduate Honors Thesis on how medieval French poets influenced Chaucer's portrayals of courtly love in The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde. I love how Chaucer realistically portrays all walks of humanity in The Canterbury Tales. What is even more amazing is how some of his observations about people in the Middle Ages are still true today!
Click here to view my senior Honors Thesis entry at Wofford's Sandor Teszler Library
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
This book might be my favorite book of all time. The writing is incredibly amazing as well as the story. This book is packed full of nuance and offers so many different perspectives of what it means to be an American.
On Hitler's
Mountain by Irmgard Hunt
This book offers a different perspective of Hitler and the Holocaust from a German child's point of view. "My book is an intimate glimpse into a German childhood under the Third Reich in the small Bavarian village of Berchtesgaden" (Irmgard Hunt). It's refreshing to read about Hitler from a different point of view than what is typical.
Absolutely spellbinding novel by well-known contemporary British author Ian McEwan. Simply beautifully written, this novel delves into the power of fiction and the possibility of forgiveness. (also a film in 2007) Some content may be inappropriate for less mature readers.
Revolutionary Road by Richard
Yates
I insisted on reading the book before I saw the movie. It's a pretty fast read, and I enjoyed it, but be forewarned: it is not a happy book.
RECENTLY READ...
This book provides an interesting look into the world of Mississippi in the 1960's. Skeeter comes from a traditional Southern family; however, she is anything but traditional. While her mother's goal for her is to get an engagement ring and settle down, Skeeter dreams up the idea of writing a book about the colored maids who ironically control the households of her and her friends.
"When a young girl drowns near the falls of an environmentally protected river, her body trapped by the hydraulic intensity of the churning water, her parents are distraught. They cannot recover the body. The Tamassee River is protected by environmental law as a Wild and Scenic River in South Carolina, one of the few pristine waterways kept out of the reach of developers, but it has been a long, bitter struggle by the residents to achieve such protective status for the river.
Saints at the River is the story of this tragedy as the residents of a scenic area in South Carolina face an increasingly common problem - the protection of a diminishing wilderness. It is the human face of the novel that renders legal decisions all the more difficult: protect the land as dictated by law or make exemptions for deserving humans who are suffering." written by Luan Gaines (http://www.curledup.com/saintsat.htm)
This book provides a fascinating and eye-opening view of our industrialized food system. Pollan traces the origins of four meals to find out exactly where our food comes from. "His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance."
