Top 5 Most Enjoyable Reads (that I can remember)

"I got out of journalism because some sons of bitches bought my newspaper and it stopped being fun." - David Simon on his transition from working as a writer for the Baltimore Sun to writing a book.  If you're not familiar with Simon, he's the creator of the HBO series, The Wire, and his book The Corner which he co-wrote with Ed Burns is basically The Wire in a nutshell, a true account of the devastation of a West Baltimore community due to the entrenchment of a serious drug market.  If you've ever wondered why we can't just win the war on drugs, or "fix" poverty, the income gap, or poor school systems, this is why.  Simon does a masterful job of displaying the intricate web our society has spun itself, the different players in the game, and the trickle down effect of issues that may seem completely uncorrelated to the naked eye.

 

Life-changing.  Literally.  It's deep, it's challenging at times, but it is eye opening in the way you live your life on so many levels.  The book itself is actually a dialogue account of a 5-episode PBS interview series between Bill Moyers and mythologist, Joseph Campbell, making for a rather unconventional read.  There's certain people that just have that gift of captivating speech, and Campbell is one of them.  He puts things in such an interesting perspective that you forget he's even talking about ancient myths because the underlying messages resonate so heavily with our lives as humans.  I don't know if this book made me happier as a person in any sense of that word, but it definitely gave me a better sense of what it means to be happy and what it means to be alive.

Don't let David Lynch's 1984 film adaptation turn you off.  The Dune universe created by Frank Herbert is like nothing I've ever be exposed to.  It's unfathomable how much detail goes into each of the Dune novels, which is one of the many ingredients that makes them so wonderful to read.  In the second book of the series, Messiah captivates from the opening chapter and ends in thrilling conclusion.  It's my favorite Dune book and definitely the one that got me hooked.  If you're a sucker for any sort series, like I am, then I highly recommend the (first six) Dune novels.

This is the best book I've ever read.  I don't understand how you can even create a literary work such as this.  It's mentioned on so many "best novels of all time" lists that I felt pretentious reading it at first.  I even got made fun of on more than one occasion by people who noticed me reading it.   Prior to picking it up I was skeptical for sure.  So many "classic"  novels that I've read or attempted to read in the past have fallen short with me, simply on the fact that they were written over 70 years ago, I live in the 21st century, and we have absolutely nothing in common.  Not the case with Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, which makes it even that much more of an accomplishment considering it was created in 1943.  The premise of the story revolves around protagonist, Howard Roark, a young architect who refuses to compromise his beliefs or the integrity of his work for the sake of fame or financial security.  Roark is Nicolaus Copernicus.  He is Neil Young and Bill Belichick; people who live their lives on their own terms, refusing to apologize or make concessions for anyone about what is expected of them, no matter what ends it may lead to. (Interesting note: the original manuscript was rejected by the first 12 publishers it was presented to.  Eventually a young editor named Archibald Ogden risked his job to get the novel published.  How fitting, no?)

--> WHAT IT'S LIKE:
This was the first Philip K. Dick book that I ever read and is still my favorite work of his.  While loaded with David Lynch-like "is this really happening?" moments, Dick supplies a cohesive plot that keeps you turning the pages, as opposed to Lynch's more "make-of-it-what-you-will" approach.  Lots of philosophical questions raised in this one, if that's your cup of tea.  It'll leave you questioning...well, everything really.  Read the book for the last few pages alone.


WHAT IT BRINGS TO MIND:
I love science-fiction.  There's not much sci-fi, if any, that I won't test the waters of.  The one thing about modern sci-fi that bugs me though is that with every movie I see or book I read, I feel like I've already been taken to that place.  To be fair, we're all standing on the shoulders of giants to some degree; no skyscrapers without the Great Pyramids, no Beatles without Chuck Berry, no PB & J without sliced bread (you get the idea).  Even Terminator's basic premise was taken from the original TV series Battlestar Galactica.  But I'll use the TV show, Lost, as an example, which totally rips off Philip K. Dick's Ubik in multiple ways without reservation, even mentioning a Dick novel in one episode.  Unfortunately I got sucked into Lost, ultimately wishing that I could have back the 50+ hours of my life that I devoted to it.  Over the course of my Lost experience, I couldn't stop thinking of Ubik.  Both plots start similarly - a plane crash in Lost, a bomb explosion in Ubik, and subsequently a variety of events that follow leaving both the characters and reader/viewer wondering whether each is really happening or not.  Now, where Ubik succeeds and Lost fails lies in their conclusions (neither of which I will spoil for you).  My point is, if you want the experience of either of these, just save yourself the time and read some old sci-fi, because everything today feels like a regurgitated mishmash of what's already been done.  Which is why movies like Duncan Jones' Moon and Neill Blomkamp's District 9 were such welcome additions to the genre.  They definitely retained the classic sci-fi elements, but introduced new thought-provoking spins which is really what makes them worth watching, not just because they're science fiction.  The best works of art are said to reflect the current world around us, and while some of the themes of older works still hold up today, I really don't see the need to continue to rehash them over and over again (unless, of course, if it's really well done, like The Road).  Moon touches on hidden corporate agendas (i.e. every business on the planet), the withholding of information by the powers at be (i.e. every news outlet on the planet), and what I feel to be one of the most interesting topics in our world today: cloning.  Everyone does realize that humans successfully cloned another living entity, right?  That blows my miiiiiiind.  And it blows my mind even further that no one ever really talks about it anymore.  There's no doubt in my mind that some government on the planet has cloned a human at some point, regardless of what was done with him/her/it afterwards.  If you think otherwise, you're naive.