Uhh-ohh...you got me started on books. Everybody back up!
I’ve seen several good referrals here on fiction. On the non-fiction side, these are some of my favorites:
Ian W. Toll’s
Six Frigates, a fantastic (nay, epic —it’s even in the subtitle) history of the founding of the US Navy, spanning most of the ninteeth century. The Age of Sail at its best. Every few chapters you feel the need to shower—to wash the salt spray out of your hair, the tar off your hands, and the black powder residue off your face. This is a book that I could read multiple times. Problem is, everyone in my extended family is passing it around, so it will be a long time before it comes back into my hands. No kidding: I will probably buy another copy.
Anything by Mary Roach, an entertaining and funny “science” writer who approaches her chosen topics from the everyday-person-on-the-street perspective. Her titles almost speak for themselves:
- Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
- Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
- Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
- Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
- ...and more!
Another entertaining “popular science” writer is Sam Kean, who has a number of good titles under his belt. My favorite was
The Disappearing Spoon, an exploration of history as explained by the periodic table of the elements. (Yes, you read that right.)
Edmund Morris’s Theodore Roosevelt trilogy:
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex, and
Colonel Roosevelt. The series is a major reading investment, but you really learn a lot about turn-of-the-century America. I am not much of a biography reader, but I’m glad I took the time to slog through with this one. It’s actually pretty readable, if loooong.
David Halberstam,
The Coldest Winter. An account of the events leading up to the Korean War, and the first year or so of the war (before stalemate set in). Focuses on the geopolitical aspects, rather than the military side. (If you want a military history of early Korean War, try Clay Bair’s
The Forgotten War. Very good read for the military history buff.) Not sure I agree with all of Halberstam’s conclusions (to be expected whenever politics are part of the narrative), but I came out of it with a better understanding of a mostly forgotten aspect of our history—one that actually had a lot of impact on us as a nation.
Theodor Giesel’s
Horton Hears A Who. Okay, at this point I am just checking to see if anyone is still reading this...
