SOUPCATCHER'S BLOG
Why I can't live without these books
Saturday, January 1, 2005 2:53 AM
One of my favorite recent threads is the “Books you can’t live without” thread started by BadgersHat: http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=8318It took me a while to come up with an entry, partly because when I would just free-flow-type I would end up with a huge list. So I culled it down to books that I would try to save if a fire broke out in the apartment. And I ended up completely leaving out most of my science fiction/fantasy choices because that would’ve made the list long again.
Even then, my list still felt incomplete. I used a number of different criteria in selecting books. So this is more in the way of supporting background on why these books are so important to me designed primarily for my own benefit so I can get a handle on my thought processes.
Battle of Midway by Ira Peck
This is definitely not a scholarly work on the Battle of Midway. But it was my introduction at a young age to a battle that had such profound impact on the Pacific Theater during World War II. I dog-eared this paperback, reading and re-reading, cringing every time the torpedo bombers made their runs, rooting for the defenders of the island to survive the attacks, waiting for the dive bombers to burst through the opening that was paid for by the lives of their fellow pilots, and just reminding myself of how many things had to go right for the US leading up to and during that engagement and how thin the margin for error was.
Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
My parents had a rule when I was growing up for checking out library books. For every fiction book we checked out we had to also check out two non-fiction books. This rule got somewhat blurred when the topic of great authors of western literature came up and I was able to argue that Jules Verne (among other authors) should count on the serious side of the ledger. I only ended up reading a couple of his books but this one was my favorite and I ended up purchasing a copy for myself. I’m not sure if he would be a successful author today but for the time he was writing he was so far ahead of the curve that he was off the chart. So I’ve always made sure I had at least one of his books sitting on my bookshelf to pick up every so often and remember where science fiction came from.
Lost Horizon by James Hilton
I keep this book around not so much for the story, even though it is an enjoyable one, and not because it is the first reference to the concept of a Shangra La (at least in western literature, not sure if this is the first ever reference to the concept), but instead because it was the first book released in that newfangled paperback format. The majority of books that I buy are paperback and so this is more a homage than anything else.
Give a Man a Gun by John Creasey
This was the first John Creasey book that I ever read. I picked it up at a garage sale when I was in junior high school for a quarter. Since then, I have bought well over a hundred of his books. He is definitely not a master of the art of detective/mystery writing, he’s more of a journeyman worker – churning out book after book over the course of his career until he wrote more than five hundred. All of his books are quick reads – I can usually finish one in a few hours after dinner on a quiet night – and he invented a number of interesting characters (my personal favorite is The Toff). I consider his books more like getting coffee at a greasy spoon diner rather than from a barista at a high price coffee shop. It’s comfortable and, even if the quality isn’t as high, you always know what you’re going to get. Sometimes that’s what I’m looking for in a book. And it doesn’t hurt that you can find his books in used book stores for less than two dollars.
Dayworld by Philip Jose Farmer
I borrowed this book from a friend at school and ended up purchasing it for myself as soon as he asked for it back. It was the first current science fiction that I had read and I was fascinated by the world that Farmer had created – a world where you were cryogenically (sort of
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