Favorite books

I limited myself to books I've read more than once. I think that proves their mettle. Each description is followed by the number of times I've read it.

"Oranges" by john McPhee You might think it's dull. It's about early Florida Orange growers, but that slice of culture was totally unknown to me and very endearing. 2

"Where Strange Roads go Down" by Mary Del Villar about 2 beatniks walking across rural Mexico. 2

"Where Rivers Ran Backward" by William E. Merrit was also great. Another Vietnam biopic, I liked his continual interspersing of rock lyrics to lock the story to the era. 3

"The Devil and Sonny Liston" by Nick Tosches which many would find crude and borderline offensive. It's the biography of the baddest man who ever lived, who happened to be a famous boxer. 5

Stephen King: "The Dark Tower" say what you will. He wrote it at the height of his drug-induced mania. It's brilliant. I think it stands alone as the rest of the series is strictly downhill. 3

Jim goad wrote a book called "the Redneck Manifesto" that was patently profane and indecent and borderline obscene. Alternately it was some of the most original and thought provoking literature I've ever read. 2

Russell Hoban writes books that are hard to follow, difficult to read and often totally unsatisfying to finish. But his use of language is a weapon. He invents new words, sometimes whole new languages. Each book of his I've read is it's own struggle to finish and comprehend. "Riddley walker" is about post apocalyptic future written in a devolved English language replete with new words, new grammar and new spellings. His book "Klienzeit" is even harder to follow and a long narrative that I think supposes existentialism is wrong and metaphysics are right and nothing
is real. Or it's just absurd. I don't think I understand it. 2

"The Crossing" Cormac McCarthy, He is unstoppable in all his gothic western glory. 2

Hunter S. Thompson..It's hard to limit myself to one book... I own most of them, but "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign trail of 72'" is a tad better than the classic "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." 2 (each)

Simon Winchester

I like to read non-fiction. It's an easy read, you educate yourself and there's no tension in stopping mid-sentence at bedtime. John McPhee, Mark Kurlansy, and Simon Winchester all figure prominently in the personal library.

Simon Winchester's most recent work "A Crack in the Edge of the World" ruined it. He has a new and unnatural urge to dip deeply into the thesaurus. (The origami book jackets remain a fixture.) Below is a complete list of the world I had to stop and look up. many were technical terms a geologist would know, some were typos but most wee just him being difficult. (I've excluded those technical terms he included in the appendix.)


umbos
terminator line
ailanthus
orogeny
febrile
annus mirabilis
skein
kittieakes
fulmars
post hoc ergo propter hoc
auguries
gasconading
lickspittle
panjandrum
hobbledehoy
sauve qui peut
lumpenproletariat
quotidian
archdruidical
ultramafics
minié
cordilleran
allotropes
coesite
sishtovite
niggle
E pur si muove
mountain cwn (might be a typo)
sunder
long chalk (British idiom)
plashes (typo)
friable
serried
soda lakes
bathyscapes
nosegay
inapposite
tisanes
saturnalia
skerries
quayside
louche
melodeons
sartorial
laager
magisterial
penuriousness
cuboids
brocade
capo di tutti capi
sylph-waisted
Liebfraumilch
phaetons
hansoms
cupola
chance medley (British idiom)
porte cochere
whiffletree
pilaster
phylloxera
asperities
nullahs
rills
caryatids
galangal
pour memorie
xenolalia
jeremiad
maunderings
périphériques
quotidian
hectopascals

And of course the quote:
"The locals are seemingly obsessed with constant stories of death (as fishermen drowning in sudden storms, birds perishing in their hundreds of thousands, beaches made exclusively from the crushed bones of fish skeletons, various species of flora and fauna dyning out as the level of salinity, which is already close to that of the pacific ocean keeps on climbing in the hot and pitiless sunshine)."