Book Lists

a few different book lists here:


first, the easy one, the books i want my kids to read b/c i remember them fondly from my childhood/adolescent reading:

1- Madeleine l'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time series

2- J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

3- William Goldman's The Princess Bride

4 -Roald Dahl's The BFG

5- Farley Mowatt's Never Cry Wolf

6- Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days

7- Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, and Oh! The Places You'll Go!

8- S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders

9a- Donald Sobol's The Encyclopedia Brown series

9b- Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle

10- George Orwell's Animal Farm

honourable mention - doesn't exactly fit the category, but i would be remiss in not mentioning the game Dungeons and Dragons, which was like a masterful work of fantasy fiction in its own right; and, while I'm at it, how about Bill Watterson's full collection of Calvin and Hobbes


2nd, a top ten of my favourite fiction, in no particular order

Timothy Findley's Famous Last Words (speaking of which, must re-read Not Wanted on the Voyage)

Yann Martel's The Life of Pi

Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country

John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men

William Golding's The Lord or the Flies

Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea

Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Christopher Moore's Lamb, the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Robert Merullo's Breakfast With Buddha

and a tie between Morris West's The Devil's Advocate and Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose

and, though that's ten (+), b/c no list would be complete without the best writer in history, i'll add a play:

William Shakespeare's Hamlet (perhaps not his best, but the one that had the greatest impact on me as I was studying it)

and I'll also add an account that is perhaps part fiction, but more philosophical autobiography:

Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance


3rd, a list of the non-fiction books that have most moved/inspired/motivated/affected me:

Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation (not the first book on atheism i read, but the first to convince me to no longer hide my atheism)

Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (not as good as Jared Diamond's books, but it was the first book to make me think about the rising and waning tides of civilizations and to look at history from a broader context than just a timeline of events)

Howard Bloom's The Western Canon (mostly as an inspiration to read all the classics i haven't yet read)

Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time (i won this when graduating from high school as a prize for the best graduating student in the sciences - didn't understand it when i first read it, but, thankfully, his later editions, particularly with the enhanced graphics, were more comprehensible to me)

Carl Sagan's Cosmos (the first book to really open my eyes to the grandeur of the wider universe)

Nathalie Angier's The Canon: A Whirlgig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science (beautifully written)

David Quammen's The Flight of the Iguana (also wonderfully written)

Paul Krugman's The Great Unraveling (if i wasn't already sickened by politics, this clinched it)

Peter Singer's The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter (almost made me go vegan --- but has definitely changed the way i think about food, the way i choose to buy it and what i consume)

James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency (i'm not yet sure what to make of this; i fear he's right --- in fact, i think i KNOW he's right, but am just hoping he's early in his timing)

David Korten's The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community (I read too much that discusses the world's problems, and need to find balance with those that offer realistic solutions)


and, finally, an incomplete list specifically on finance and economics, in the order that i read them:

David Chilton's The Wealthy Barber

William Bernstein's The Intelligent Asset Allocator, as well as The Four Pillars of Investing

John Bogle's Common Sense on Mutual Funds

Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street

Peter Bernstein's Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

Charles Kindleberger's Manias, Panics and Crashes

Irving Fisher's The Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions

Richard Koo's The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics: Lessons from Japan's Great Recession


and, i havent finished them yet, but two possible additions:

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff's This Time is Different

and Steve Keen's debunking Economics




books that i really want to read

Jared Diamond's Collapse, after i finish Guns, Germs and Steel

Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money

Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma

J. M. Keynes The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher and Bach

James Montier's Behavioural Investing

George Akerlof and Robert Shiller: Animal Spirits

Stephen Hawking: On the Shoulders of Giants

Noam Chomsky: Failed States

Annie Leonard: The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities and Our Health

Raj Patel's The Value of Nothing

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude

something i can't believe i havent read yet: Huxley's A Brave New World

and something I've gotten part way through but never finished: Thoreau's Walden

and, finally

Thich Nhat Hanh's The Miracle of Mindfulness