false 19 9 9 true 5739821 read 0 true 604183 currently-reading 0 true 604182 to-read http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9362456 to: Possessing the Secret of Joy (Paperback) by Alice Walker
I met, briefly, Alice Walker a few times and never knew exactly what to say to her about how much this book moved me. I think, many years later I can sum it up.. "Thanks. You taught me a thing I never would've known without you." ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39105302 to: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (Paperback) by Robert A. Heinlein
This is quite possibly Heinlein's most politically charged book. People speak of Stranger in a Strange Land as being socially revolutionary, but this book is both that (polygamous marriage to form extended families, murder generally allowed, but insults to women punishable by death) and politically charged (Libertarian, Libertarian, Libertarian, though not exactly that kind of loopy American Libertarian Party kind, but a kind based more strictly on a dismantling of governmental power).
It is a constant flow of political ideas, many of which you'll want to discard as unworkable or even offensive, but there is real power in Heinein's willingness to go out on a limb and build a radical scoiety and try, within the bounds of his Luna, to make it work.

When the Professor says, "In writing your constitution let me invite attention to the wonderful virtue of the negative! Accentuate the negative! Let your document be studded with things the government is forever forbidden to do. No conscript armies... no interference however slight with freedom of press, or speech, or travel, or assembly, or of religion, or of instruction, or communication, or occupation... no involuntary taxation," there is real power there. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39104889 to: Stardust (Paperback) by Neil Gaiman
It is precisely for the fact that Gaiman decides to keep this book simple that I love it. It's an elegant, but uncomplicated, fairy tale. It is not too preciously clever like his "Good Omens" and not archetecturally formal like much of his comic writing (which I do love). It's a polished stone and lovely. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9362147 to: Pure Imagination: The Making of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Hardcover) by Mel Stuart
Interesting, but not ass much as you might think. Still, totally worth it for the pictures of a grown up Charlie looking a lot like the motorcycle cop from the Village People. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9362063 to: A Princess of Mars (Barsoom 1) by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The beginning of the best pulp sci-fi series of all time.
Completely impossible to put down. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9361030 to: The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze: And Other Stories (New Directions Classic) by William Saroyan
Saroyan's short stories are a true American treasure. They read much like Joyce's "Dubliners" stories with a similar sense of lusty humanism and unforced epiphany.
This is also one of the best views of the Depression from the ground floor you'll ever see.
"Try to learn to breathe deeply; really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell." - Saroyan ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9360692 to: Finnegans Wake (Paperback) by James Joyce
The easiest book in the world... seriously. With scholars unable to ever reach consensus on what the book is or how it should be read or even if it actually has value, you can simply ignore them. Your opinions are just as valid. Add to this the wads of cultural ephemera that Joyce has packed the book with and you find yourself in the rare position to occasionally be BETTER qualified to interpret parts of the text than academics.
Try this, get some friends together, pop the cork on a few bottles of wine and, in your most twee Irish accents read it to each other. A whole new world of dirty jokes, awful puns, barbed insults and musical references will suddenly pop out of this previously "impenetrable" text.
And don't be afraid to get sidetracked, it's part of the point. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9360413 to: Little, Big (Trade Paperback) by John Crowley
Simply the best fairy story written in the modern age. It's difficult to not have your breath taken away by page after page of deft similes that make your insides ring.
This is not your babysitter's fairytale, though. There is a raw, almost obscene, earthiness in this book that keeps it from ever dripping into sentimentality.
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9360147 to: Aegypt (Bantam Spectra Book) by John Crowley
Possibly the most formative book I've ever read. The main character, Pierce Moffat, feels so familiar to me that it was easy for Crowley's brilliant prose to influence how I saw the world.
Often compared to Robertson Davies in his use of history and sense of detail, Crowley actually leaves the old master behind with the sheer world-cracking scope of the piece.
Intellectually demanding, but rewarding beyond belief.
This is the beginning of a four book series which was completed this year and yet this one can stand on its own. (The others in the series can't.) ]]>