Favorite Holy Book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Favorite Non-Fiction Book: Humankind by Rutger Bregman

Favorite Print and Audiobook Series: The Aubrey-Maturin Saga by Patrick O’Brien, narrated by Patrick Tull

Favorite Terry Pratchett Book: Going Postal

Rarely read book, but Ender’s Game is probably my favorite

My Teacher Flunked the Planet, by Bruce Coville.

The final book in the My Teacher is an Alien series, it follows a group of 6th graders who are tasked to explore the best and worst of humanity in order to help defend our right to exist to an intergalactic council of aliens that fears us. It deals with some pretty heavy fucking themes that have stuck with me since I first read it at the age of 10.

“Forty thousand,” said Duncan. His eyes were closed, as if he were reading from a page inside his head.

“What?” asked Susan.

“Forty thousand,” he repeated. “That’s how many kids die every day from things that could be changed if we, all of us, the people of Earth, decided they should be.”

I took in a sharp breath; forty thousand people was more than twice the population of Kennituck Falls.

“Forty thousand a day,” continued Duncan relentlessly. “That’s a quarter of a million a week. Over a million a month. Nearly fifteen million a year. They die from not having vaccines that cost less than a dollar apiece. They die from dirty wells and lack of food. They die from the fact that people don’t care, at least, not enough to change it.”

Duncan sat frozen, as if in a trance. Tears leaked from beneath his lowered eyelids, cutting paths through the dust of the camp that still covered his cheeks. His voice was like the voice of God, listing our sins.

“Last year, fourteen million children died because we earthlings decided to spend our money elsewhere. It happened the year before, too. And we’re going to let it happen again this year.”

Suddenly he opened his eyes and looked right at me. “Peter, I learned a lot in the last few weeks. I read more than you can imagine.I have millions of facts in my head that I’m trying to put together. I don’t know what it all means, but I know the numbers. I know one day’s worth of the money our world spends on guns and bombs and soldiers could save fifty million children over the next ten years.”

As Duncan spoke I had a vision, a fantasy, that the people of Earth - not the leaders, not the governments, just the people - were suddenly able to speak with one voice. And they said, “Enough. We don’t want it to be this way anymore. Make it right!”

But we couldn’t speak with one voice. For some reason we were no better than mute in the face of a disaster we all wanted to pretend wasn’t happening.

I was sick with shame and anger. And I knew that I would never be the same after that night.

I had been witness to a crime.

Now I would have to testify to what I had seen. Because to keep silent would also be a crime.

The Count Of Monte Cristo

Neil Stephenson - Cryptonomicon
Terry Pratchett - The Night Watch
Randal L. Schwartz - Learning Perl

Really, not possible to have a single favorite. Maybe favorites by genre?

Fiction: Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_the_Wind

Science Fiction: Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper (bonus! public domain!)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Fuzzy

Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18137

Fantasy: Lord of the Rings

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings

Horror:

Books of Blood by Clive Barker

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_Blood

Of particular note are the stories “The Yattering and Jack” and “The Body Politic”.

Western:

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower_(series)

Romance:

Griffin and Sabine series by Nick Bantock

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin_and_Sabine

Also - Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlander_(book_series)

Travel:

Into the Heart of Borneo by Redmond O’Hanlon

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/123474/into-the-heart-of-borneo-by-redmond-ohanlon/

Also - In Trouble Again by Redmond O’Hanlon

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/123475/in-trouble-again-by-redmond-ohanlon/

Religion:

Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism by Archbishop John Shelby Spong

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/rescuing-the-bible-from-fundamentalism-john-shelby-spongjohn-shelby-spong?variant=41174963781666

Also - Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes by Archbishop John Shelby Spong

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/liberating-the-gospels-john-shelby-spong?variant=41245649600546

Mythology:

Tales series by Chronicle Books:

https://www.chroniclebooks.com/collections/tales

Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein.

Really good sci-fi, and written by a former military officer who saw the hippy movement coming, with a “Mary Sue” stand in whose entire point is how an older person doesn’t have to understand progress, just simply let it happen instead of enforcing their own norms/morals on future generations.

The only depressing part is we’re still fighting for the same changes 60 years after the book was written. But the good news is it means the book is still relevant I guess.

Hyperion Cantos. Excellent story and interesting characters.

Red Sister by Mark Lawrence. A series described inaccurately, but amusingly, as about “lesbian murder nuns”.

“It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men.”

“No child truly believes they will be hanged. Even on the gallows platform with the rope scratching at their wrists and the shadow of the noose upon their face they know that someone will step forward, a mother, a father returned from some long absence, a king dispensing justice … someone. Few children have lived long enough to understand the world into which they were born. Perhaps few adults have either, but they at least have learned some bitter lessons.”

Book: Dune

Audiobook: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (narrated by Jim Dale).

Hard one. I’ll list a few I suppose

The terminal man by Michael chrichton: a paranoid man has electrodes implanted in his head to stop violent fugue states he enters, but he learns to control the electrodes, and accidentally sets off significantly more intense violent outbursts

Annihilation by Jeff vandermeer: the first part of the southern reach trilogy, an expedition of scientists are sent into a possibly alien anomaly to find out what it is and how to stop it from growing and consuming the land. The environment inside is confusing and seems to infect anyone inside it in some way.

Wizard and Glass by Stephen King: the fourth book in the dark tower series, it’s a flashback to the main characters adolescence, his first mission as an ambassador and spy for his kingdom to find out how a small town may be secretly participating in a civil war, and how a witch may be controlling the enhabitants.

The Stranger by Albert Camus: a man with no motivation or real concern finds himself the focus of a murder trial, and without any interest in defending himself, can’t see how nobody is on his side.

The Little Prince by Antoine St Exupery and Imagica by Clive Barker

I don’t know if it’s my favorite, but the one I suggest to people the most is “House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski

Asimov’s Foundation. That got me back into reading after around twenty years. Now I read one book a month, mostly sci fi, for nine years now.

Thank you Isaac Asimov, I could not imagine a life without reading anymore.

Collin’s Field Guide to Spiders of Britain & Nothern Europe.