Max Cubed!

collin August 1st, 2008

Every day I take a 45-minute bus ride to and from school. This has given me wonderful opportunities to catch up on my reading! So I decided to blog a bit about my experiences and hopefully inspire someone to try out a great new book.

1. The Chronicles of Narnia - yup, I read the whole series, and it was great! The books are a lot shorter than I remember and all were fantastic, except for “Prince Caspian,” which was unfortunately very short on plot.

2. Demons (AKA “The Possessed”) by Dostoevsky - not Dostoevsky’s best, but still a very gripping and somewhat disturbing book. What really struck me was the narrative style. It was narrated by one of the characters, but at different times. So for the first third or so of the book, the narrator is telling you what happened but he has no idea what’s going on and there are so many gaps in his knowledge. Then he comes back with much more knowledge of what happened and he starts to fill in the blanks and foreshadow what’s to come. It was really interesting - I’ve never read a book like it.

3. 1776 - I read this book for the 4th of July. It was AMAZING!!! There is so much they don’t teach you in school! I recommend this to everybody. And I mean everybody. It’s such a page-turner, and everyone who professes to love this country needs to read it so they can really understand what happened. Don’t worry - it’ll only take a couple of days, and next year on July 4th you’ll look at the holiday a lot differently.

4. The Last Lecture - This book was really sad yet really uplifting. At Carnegie-Mellon it’s tradition to ask a professor to speak and give a hypothetical “last lecture.” Randy Pausch was asked to do the same, but after he was given the assignment he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had the burden of really giving his last lecture. You can find videos of the lecture on YouTube and all over the internet. Here’s a link to his lecture - you should really watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

In his lecture he spoke of fulfilling your childhood dreams. The lecture was such a hit that he expounded upon it and wrote this book. It was very sad to read in the news that Randy Pausch died last week on July 25 at age 47. He had a wife and three kids.

5. Tuesdays with Morrie - I guess I’m just a glutton for memoirs of terminally-ill people. This book (I’m not sure if it’s fiction) was written by a guy who would visit a dying man named Morrie every Tuesday. Every Tuesday Morrie would teach the author a new lesson on life, garnered from a long life of experience and happiness. This book wasn’t nearly as sad, but also not quite as powerful as “The Last Lecture.”

6. The Joy Luck Club - Definitely worth the hype. This book explores the relationships of four Chinese women and their American-born daughters. Each chapter is narrated by one of the seven main characters (one of the women dies in the first chapter so her story is told by her daughter) and as it hops back and forth from person to person and generation to generation you see a broader theme start to develop as gaps are filled in and you understand both sides of a battle that’s been raging in all Chinese-American homes for over 50 years now.

7. The Tao Te Ching - I was kind of on a Chinese kick and I’ve always wanted to read it anyway. I like to think of myself as a “Taoist Mormon.” I truly believe in the Way, and believe that the Gospel is a perfect incarnation of the Way, if followed properly. The Tao is about finding strength in weakness, leading by humility, and the whole yin-yang mentality in everything. Here are some examples:

“When trees are born they are tender, and when they die they are brittle. Stiffness is thus a companion of death, flexibility a companion of life.”

” Which is more destructive, gain or loss? Extreme fondness means great expense, and abundant possessions mean much loss.”

“The most difficult things in the world must be done while they are easy.”

8. Peter and the Starcatchers - co-written by Dave Barry, one of my heroes. It’s a book about the origin of Peter Pan, and it is BRILLIANT! What a fun read - I couldn’t put it down! They’ve since written two more books in the series, and I’ve already reserved them at the library. If you’re mourning the loss of Harry Potter or the Twilight series, I heartily recommend this series to fill the void.

9. The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog - by Dave Barry. Need I say more? Well, maybe a little. Maxine checked this out at the library yesterday and read it last night. She couldn’t stop laughing the whole time. So then I read it (it took 45 minutes to read it from cover to cover) and it reminded me again of why I so revere Dave Barry. It’s narrated by a boy in junior high relating the miracles surrounding his Christmas in 1960. We’re going to buy this book and make it a Christmas tradition from now on, because the book is that good.

So there you have it folks, my own personal book club. I recommend all of these books but on different levels. The only universal recommendations that everyone should read are 1776 and any book by Dave Barry. Maxine and I decided last night that we’re going to get every book he has ever written. He’s that good.

Oh, and I just want to point out that none of the “Twilight” books were on this list.  I was strong and did not get suckered into reading them by my wife.  Yes, that might make me a cad but so be it.

• Collin