Best Books

A while ago my friend and Renowned Author Tim was perusing my stacks of books and he asked me if I had ever assembled a “best books” list. Well Tim, here’s the list. These are the books that made the biggest impression on me:

Best Non-Fiction:
1) Gwynne Dyer – War.
2) Garrett Hardin – Filters Against Folly.
3) Richard Dawkins – The Selfish Gene.
4) Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs and Steel.
5) Jonathan Weiner – the Beak of the Finch.
6) Marjorie Shostak – Nisa.
7) James Lovelock – Gaia.
8) Richard Feynmann – QED.
9) Douglas Hofstadter – Godel, Escher, Bach.
10) Darrell Huff – How to Lie with Statistics.
11) Edward Tufte – The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.
12) Donald Norman – The Design of Everyday Things.

Best Fiction:
1) Charles Yates Harrison – Generals Die in Bed.
2) George Orwell – 1984.
3) JRR Tolkien - Lord of the Rings.
4) Frank Herbert – Dune.
5) Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
6) Larry Niven – Ringworld.

Best Magazine Articles: Since these are not trivial to find, I have added links.
1) Michael Malone – Coins of the Realm (West Magazine, 11/06/1988).
---> Link: http://www.reedsresearch.com/Scribblings/HUMOR/Coins.html
2) Jared Diamond – The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race (Discover, May 1987).
---> Link: http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html

And the one that had the biggest impact is one I no longer remember… my Dad bought it when I was around…10? It was written by a Jewish doctor imprisoned in Auschwitz, who survived by becoming one of the guys who helped move people and bodies around, I forgot what they were called. If I recall correctly, which I probably don’t, it was a red book, with just the title “Auschwitz” in large letters on the cover. To this day I am amazed, and grateful, that he let me read THAT book, at THAT age. There are no words to describe the impact that one book had on me.

If only I could find it again. There are LOTS of people who could use a reading of that book.