on (the) Words (of others)
Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, and Other Written Words (not by me)
My favorites of the Decade 2000-2009, Part 1 (TV Shows and Books) (19 Dec 2009). I break down a little over thirty of my favorite things form the past decade. The first part is half about my favorite books.
Favorite books I read in 2013 being also those that were published, sort of, in 2013 (1 Jan 2014). Looking back over 2013, I didn't read as much as I normally do, but I did read a few standout titles.
Novels
- Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol (Sep 21 2009).
- Edgar Rich Burrough's At the Earth's Core and Pellucidar.
- Ramsey Campbell's
Secret Story - John Christopher's
Death of Grass - Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.
- Cory Doctorow's Little Brother.
- Cory Doctorow's Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.
- Lord Dunsany's The Pleasures of a Futurescope
- Kazuo Ishiguro's
Never Let Me go - Young-Ha Kim's I Have the Right to Destroy Myself
- Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy (
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ,The Girl Who Played with Fire , andThe Girl Who Kicked the Hornet Nest ) - Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
- Stephenie Meyer's Twilight
- Christopher Moore's Fool.
- Chuck Palahniuk's Rant.
- Terry Pratchett's Equal Rites.
- John Ringo's Emerald Sea.
- John Ringo's There Will Be Dragons.
- James Rollins's
Altar of Eden . - Jeremy C Shipp's Vacation.
- Neal Stephenson's Anathem.
- Neal Stephenson's The Big U.
- Monica Stirling's Sigh for a Strange Land.
- G.P. Taylor's Tersias the Oracle.
Short Stories
- Laird Barron's "Lagerstätte".
- Graham Greene's "The Destructors".
- Elmore Leonard's "Three-ten to Yuma".
Short Story and Novella Collections
- Stephen King's
Full Dark, No Stars - Robert Smartwood (editor):
Hint Fiction .
Graphic Novels
- Andy Diggle's
The Losers - Brian Fies' Mom's Cancer
- Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (as adapted by Mike Carey et al)
Nonfiction & How-To
- As A Chinaman Saw Us.
- Ambrose Bierce's Write It Right.
- Donald B. DeYoung's Dinosaurs and Creation.
- Seth Godin's Big Red Fez.
- Theodore Otto Wedel's
Astrology in the Middle Ages . - Alan Weisman's The World Without Us.
Odd and otherwise Notable Books
Bring change for the toilet or phone because your boss lady can't be bothered... (7 Apr 2011). A book from the 80s offers advice for how to handle your new boss lady (presumably it is aimed at guys who have been 'surplanted'). Tips include don't light your boss lady's cigarette, always bring change for her to go to the loo, hail taxis for her, and something about not ordering for her but you will get the check?
A Practical Guide to Racism, a Review (with a quote and some choice 1- and 2-star reviews) (16 Sep 2013). It's a joke book, about racism. Are you laughing yet? Hah. HAH. Good times.
A (Nearly) Random Sampling of Favorites & Essentials
House of Leaves by Danielewski. Cory Doctorow. Various other corporate-punk and cyberpunk writers. Neal Stephenson especially. Bleak House, Tale of Two Cities, Pickwick Papers, Christmas Carol by others Dickens. Wild Swans at Coole by Yeats. Chuck Palahniuk. Simon Green. Christopher Moore. Various by Heinlein. Lord of the Rings. Neverwhere, American Gods and Stardust by Gaiman. Sandman. Ambrose Bierce. Hellblazer. The Amazing Spiderman. The Philosophical Strangler. Douglas Adams. Mad magazine. Carlton Mellick III. Ray Bradbury. PHILIP K DICK. The Vampire Hunter D series. Stuff by Burroughs, Haggard, Verne, Wells, and that Scarlet Pimpernel woman. Thomas Hardy. Iron Man. James Joyce. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Dostoevsky. Horror by King, Kethum, Keene, Laymon, Matheson, Poe and Lovecraft. Joe R Lansdale. Good Omens and Pratchett's various Discworld trappings. P.G. Wodehouse. Bill Shakespeare. The Road by McCarthy. Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. George R. R. Martin. The Walking Dead. Harlan Ellison. John Campbell. That Vogt fellow. Plato. Nietzsche.
Wordy Links
The Internet Speculative Fiction Database has lots of user submitted information on your favorite SF stuff.
The Online Books Page Presents Banned Books Online. Includes many links to books you can read for free, as well as discussions about why these books were banned. Could be an excellent resource for teachers.
While not the most scientific thing in the world, Books that Make You Dumb is a fun website that plots SAT/ACT style scores against favorite books on Facebook.
The Best Things in Life Are Free
"Words" Edition
There are actually several good sources for getting free text online (legally). Arguably the greatest of these is the Project Gutenberg collection. Another worthy place is the Bartleby.com Library. My favorite for easy of browsing and strength of collection is the University of Adelaide eText Library.
Annother general resource, that seems to carry the same texts as Project Gutenberg, except in several digital formats (rtf, pdf, etc) for those that do not like just plain-text and HTML: ManyBooks.net.
You also have The Internet Sacred Text Archive which specializes on books about religion, mythology, folklore and other esoteric subjects.
If you are more into the sf/fantasy side of things, then you should get over to Free Speculative Fiction Online. More precisely you can find some good stuff on Baen's Free Library. I have a special place in my heart for this one, since Baen is one of the leaders in e-book promotion today and their fans love them for it.
Horror Masters has a good selection of short stories, all or almost all in pdf format (despite the title, some are not really horror, though a lot of the great old horror authors are represented).
Many individual authors have some free stuff on their own home pages. It would take too long to link to it all, but many of my favorites (like Cory Doctorow) have a good handfulf of free text to read. Here are some writers not listed above that have a good amount of free material:
For those wishing to get in touch, you can contact me in a number of ways
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"The hidden is greater than the seen."
