Claudia’s Big Blog o’ Books
So I’ve seen about seven of my Facebook friends post something along the lines of “what book should I read next?” as their little status update thingy. Even though maybe two people from Facebook check out this blog on a semi-regular basis, I’m posting here my top 10 favorite/most highly recommended books with little itty bitty one-sentence synopses. I know I’ve done this a couple times before, but the list keeps changing ever-so-slightly and hell, it’s always good to have book recommendations close at hand, right?
Right.
ONWARDS!
10. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
One-sentence synopsis: Vladimir and Estragon wait…and wait…and wait…
9. Watership Down by Richard Adams
One-sentence synopsis: a colony of rabbits set out in search of a new warren and face many perils on their journey.
8. On The Beach by Nevil Shute
One-sentence synopsis: In a post-WWIII world, we get a glimpse into the slow suffering of those living in Australia as they wait for the atmospheric winds to bring the nuclear fallout down from the north.
7. The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Clark
One-sentence synopsis: A group of justice-seeking townspeople (and two drifters) set out to find and punish three men presumed to be cattle rustlers and murderers.
6. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
One-sentence synopsis: Wealthy (and badass) Londoner Phileas Fogg wagers that he can travel around the world in 80 days.
5. Watchmen by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons
One-sentence synopsis: In this graphic novel, an ex-super hero is murdered, his fellow ex-super heroes speculate about his death, and we are privy to an intricate tale of their past and present lives in an alternate 1980s time.
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
One-sentence synopsis: through a confessional outpouring, we learn of lit professor Humbert Humbert’s romantic obsession with 12-year-old Lolita.
3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
One-sentence synopsis: Nick Carraway becomes a neighbor to the wealthy, party-happy, mysterious Jay Gatsby and learns more about him and those he associates with through a series of social and private encounters.
2. Candide by Voltaire
One-sentence synopsis: A sheltered young man, influenced by his teacher, is convinced he lives in the best of all possible worlds (LEINBIZ REFERENCE ZOMG), even as he experiences all sorts of exciting disasters.
1. The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
One-sentence synopsis: US Navy Ensign Willie Keith finds himself on a WWII US minesweeper ship that has happened to fall under the command of an insane captain.
Now, don’t those sound good? Pick one, dear blog-follower, and read!
Top 10 influential books
Hello ladies and gentlemen. There’s this note that’s been going around on Facebook where people list the top 10 books that have influenced them the most, or will stay with them the most. I decided that instead of posting this on Facebook (which I’m beginning to hate more and more), I’m putting it here.
The books I chose I chose because of their impact on me—be that from their emotional impact, their intellectual impact, the story itself, or the style of the writing. I explain in each case. It was hard to choose books that influenced me rather than choosing my favorite books, but I think I did this as unbiased as possible. Plus, the two overlap quite a bit.
Ranked from most influential to…well, 10th most influential, I guess. Haha.
1. Watchmen – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
This might be first because it’s the one I’ve read most recently, but it’s also first because it’s freaking awesome. The story’s intense, it’s very intellectual, and the art is superb. Read it!
2. The Monadology – Gottfried Leibniz
No, I’m not just putting this on here because Leibniz is a smoldering sex pot. Despite the “out-there” factor that is so high with the Monadology, the general idea of determinism that he expresses throughout it (and a lot of his other stuff) actually kind of lines up with how I see things.
3. Candide – Voltaire
I FREAKING ADORE Voltaire. This book is very funny if you know what it’s making fun of (hint: pretty much everything). And even though Voltaire makes fun of Leibniz, I still love this book.
4. The Caine Mutiny – Herman Wouk
YAY! This is my favorite book of all time, but it’s also on here because the story is AMAZING. Wouk is very good at building tension (just wait until you get to the actual mutiny; good luck putting the book down). It’s also freaking hilarious in parts.
5. The Chosen – Chaim Potok
I can’t remember when it was I read this, actually—I only remember the plot and the characters that have stuck with me since. This was one of two books that left me crying at the end. Very emotionally impactful. It’s about two Jewish boys, one of which does not want to follow in his father’s footsteps, if you want to know the very summarized plot.
6. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Beautiful, beautiful writing style. I love Fitzgerald’s way of creating a story, and I love Gatsby.
7. On the Beach – Nevil Shute
The premise of this book is very intriguing: it examines a post nuclear war world from Australia’s point of view as the country sits and waits for all of the fallout from the northern hemisphere to drift through the atmosphere down to them. That’s really all you need to know.
8. Crime and Punishment – Feodor Dostoyevsky
Hooray for deeply psychological books!
9. An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser
This is a long book and seems kind of boring at the beginning, but once the “tragedy” happens, it really picks up. You get into Clyde’s head and feel his desperation.
10. Age of Reason – Jean Paul Sartre
I read this awhile ago and for some reason I still really like it. Probably because it’s existential.
Question: who should watch Watchmen?
Answer: everyone should!
For those of you who haven’t read the novel/watched the movie and intend to at some point, spoilers abound in this blog, so I would skip it if you don’t want things ruined.
Things I enjoyed:
- I don’t think I’ve ever been so impressed with opening credits as I was in this movie. I loved the way they went over the whole history of the Minutemen and the masked heroes while rolling the opening credits to Bob Dylan’s The Times They are a Changin’ (very appropriate choice of music, too).
- Rorschach. They did a wonderful job with his character.
- Matching the style to the style in the novel. BEAUTIFUL. That is the only word for it. If you saw any of the previews that featured a scene of Archie (Nite Owl’s ship) rising out of the water, that scene looked EXACTLY like it did in the novel. And so did like 97% of the rest of the movie.
- The story. Even though they had to change the ending in order to prevent the movie from running like 5 hours long, they still did an excellent job.
Things that could have been better:
- The sex scene. It’s like five minutes too long—which means that there’s an at least five minute long sex scene. But hey, it’s Hollywood, so I was kind of expecting it.
- Laurie’s hair. The fact that it looked SO MUCH like a wig ALL THE TIME was really distracting, but that might just be me.
- The costumes. Laurie’s costume was a bit too Spandexy, Veidt’s costume a bit too Batman-esque, everything generally too dark. I know that royal purple and gold neck bands don’t really work with Hollywood style, but I would have liked it if the costumes were more like the scenery and stuck closer to the novel.
- One piece of cut dialogue. In the novel, at the end, after Veidt averts the attention from nuclear war by killing millions of people, he and John talk for a minute and Veidt asks John if he’d done the right thing. This little bit of dialogue was missing in the movie, which was really disappointing, ‘cause I thought it made Veidt a much more believable, human character.
Yay. Go see it.
Watchmen!
This movie’s going to be great if the whole thing resembles the previews. Check this out:
A graphic novel you HAVE to read
“A graphic novel?” you’re thinking. “Seriously?”
Yes.
Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, is probably the best thing I’ve read in a long, long time. It’s about a group of retired heroes who are sort of forced back into action in a sense. I know it sounds like a stereotypical graphic novel about superheroes and such, but it’s really, really good. The characters are freaking amazing, and so is the artwork.
It’s quite philosophical. It’s now going on my “favorite books list.”
Yeah, I had that high of an opinion of it—it’s an amazing piece of fiction.
Go.
Read it.
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