Books Ive Read 2007 v.1
Explore the books I read in 2007, a curated list featuring literary gems like Cormac McCarthy's *The Road*, Paul Auster's *Travels in the Scriptorium*, and Alan Moore's *Watchmen*, spanning fiction, graphic novels, and more from my 2007 reading journey.
Book
Mostly Harmless
by Douglas Adams
Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, soon to be a Hulu original series! “Hitchhiker fans rejoice! . . . [Here’s] more of the same zany nonsensical mayhem.”—The New York Times Book Review It’s easy to get disheartened when your planet has been blown up and the woman you love has vanished due to a misunderstanding about space/time. However, instead of being disheartened, Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life a bit—and immediately all hell breaks loose. Hell takes a number of forms: there’s the standard Ford Prefect version, in the shape of an all-new edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and a totally unexpected manifestation in the form of a teenage girl who startles Arthur Dent by being his daughter when he didn’t even know he had one. Can Arthur save the Earth from total multidimensional obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter, Random, from herself? Of course not. He never works out exactly what is going on. Will you? “Douglas Adams is a terrific satirist. . . . He is anything but harmless.”—The Washington Post Book World
Book
Reasons to Live
by Amy Hempel
Hempel's now-classic collection of short fiction is peopled by complex characters who have discovered that their safety nets are not dependable and who must now learn to balance on the threads of wit, irony, and spirit.
Book
Dream Angus
by Alexander McCall Smith
In a retelling of an ancient Celtic myth about Angus, the god of love, youth, and beauty and a trickster who turns one's romantic dreams upside down, five young men named Angus parallel the god's story as they search for true love.
Book
Zen in the Art of Writing
by Ray Bradbury
"Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a land mine. The land mine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces back together. Now, it's your turn. Jump!" Zest. Gusto. Curiosity. These are the qualities every writer must have, as well as a spirit of adventure. In this exuberant book, the incomparable Ray Bradbury shares the wisdom, experience, and excitement of a lifetime of writing. Here are practical tips on the art of writing from a master of the craft-everything from finding original ideas to developing your own voice and style-as well as the inside story of Bradbury's own remarkable career as a prolific author of novels, stories, poems, films, and plays.Zen In The Art Of Writingis more than just a how-to manual for the would-be writer: it is a celebration of the act of writing itself that will delight, impassion, and inspire the writer in you. In it, Bradbury encourages us to follow the unique path of our instincts and enthusiasms to the place where our inner genius dwells, and he shows that success as a writer depends on how well you know one subject: your own life.
Book
Watchmen
by Alan Moore
Imagine a future where Nixon is still President, America won the Vietnam War, and the nuclear clock stands at five minutes to midnight.
Book
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle). A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other. The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation. Look for Cormac McCarthy's new novel, The Passenger, coming October '22.
Book
House of Stairs
by William Sleator
This chilling, suspenseful indictment of mind control is a classic of science fiction and will haunt readers long after the last page is turned. One by one, five sixteen-year-old orphans are brought to a strange building. It is not a prison, not a hospital; it has no walls, no ceiling, no floor. Nothing but endless flights of stairs leading nowhere--except back to a strange red machine. The five must learn to love the machine and let it rule their lives. But will they let it kill their souls? "An intensely suspenseful page-turner." --School Library Journal "A riveting suspense novel with an anti-behaviorist message that works . . . because it emerges only slowly from the chilling events." --Kirkus Reviews
