Here’s the Friday open comments post.
Today’s suggested topic is a list of “10 Favorite Reads of All Time (including books, graphic novels, comic books, magazines, etc.)?”
Here’s my list, in no particular order:
Paine, Common Sense. Concise, powerful, timeless.
Lincoln, Collected Works, Vol. 1 & 2 (Library of America). Simple, elegant, and powerful writing. Unmatched in American politics.
Commentary Magazine, 1979-80. Commentary when it was truly a neo-conservative magazine. Wonderful to read at the time, for their rigorous critique of Carter’s inept foreign policy.
William Gibson, Pattern Recognition. I think it’s his best work, even better than his highly-regarded Neuromancer.
Hayek, Road to Serfdom. The truth, published when it was an unfashionable truth.
Wells, War of the Worlds:
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.
With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us….
Learning the World, Ken Macleod. Humanity discovers an inhabited world, far from earth, with creatures just beginning their own industrial age. Macleod’s description of the small, intelligent mammals is memorable.
Melville, Moby-Dick. We presumptuously treat books like this as something from school, to be put behind us as we grow older. We’re foolish to do so. There’s wonder on these pages, if only we would read see it with fresh and open eyes.
Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. As with Moby-Dick, a book that’s new — and revolutionary — each time one reads it.
Wired. A guilty pleasure. It’s an uncertain grab bag of articles each month — one sometimes finds a real gem.
The use of pseudonyms and anonymous postings are, of course, fine.
Although the comments template has a space for a name, email address, and website, those who want to leave a field blank can do so. Comments will be moderated, against profanity or trolls. Otherwise, have at it.
I’ll keep the post open through Sunday afternoon. Enjoy.
