Over the next week, until I board a plane for Southwest Asia...I think that's where I'm headed...I will put up articles about "things I think are awesome". Today's update is Books I think are awesome.
#1 - George Orwell - Animal Farm -
"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 5
The first time I read this book (in which the Russian Revolution takes place on a farm and all the character's are animals) my mind was blown. In subsequent re-reads I have realized that this is my favorite book. Instead of pontificating on and on about how great it is, I will merely offer this advice: READ IT!!
#2 - Ray Bradbury - Farenheit 451
"I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it'll make sense."
-Ray Bradbury - Farenheit 451 Part 2
Apparently 451 degrees is the temperature that books burn, makes me wonder what the heck I would do to escape life if I couldn't read, if the government censored all of my favorite books. Sounds terrible. Another one of my all-time favorites that must be read, preferably more than once.
#3 - Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five -
"If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be, I am not overjoyed. Still--if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five, Chapter 10
Time Travel - Check. World War 2 - Check. Vonnegut calls on experiences from his time in WWII to write a fantastic anti-war novel about a time traveling, chaplain's assistant named Billy Pilgrim. Predestination and the fourth dimension ensue. I'm not smart enough to have understood everything I read in this book, but I'm smart enough (I think) to have loved it.
There you have it, my three favorite works of fiction.
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