Prompted by John Culver, Travis Whitworth, and Hank Messick to do the 10 books list, this is what I came up with. Terri Schwartzbeck, Mark Bailey, Jay Garvey, and others, what would you choose? In random order: 1. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I remember it blowing my mind as a teenager, may have to read it again to see if it stands up. 2. Atlas Shrugged. Espouses a nutty elitist philosophy but the story is well told. 3. Gulag Archipeligo. 4. Ulysses. Though I must admit that after several tries Ive still never made it all the way through the book. And I needed a Cliff Notes companion to explain about 99% of the references and allusions. 5. Barbarossa. The scale of warfare on the Eastern Front absolutely dwarfs the US experience in Europe in WW2. 6. 1587- A Year of No Significance. Artfully told story of a Ming Dynasty emperor completely boxed in by the bureaucracy; a perfect parallel to the Hu Jintao era. 7. Maos Great Famine. A well researched recounting of the horrors of the Great Leap Forward. I hear Tombstone is better, but this one is very good. 8. Foreign Devils on the Silk Road. A great Hopkirk book on western plundering of abandoned ancient Silk Road cities by a bunch of real life Indiana Joneses. His The Great Game also impresses. 9. Maos Last Revolution. A very detailed look into the total chaos of the Cultural Revolution, which was still rumbling on when I was in elementary school. 10. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Another great LeCarre book, since John already picked TTSS. Ill also pick his The Honourable Schoolboy since it is a very well executed story and much of it happens in Hong Kong. And for extra credit, anything in the Flashman series, they are a guilty pleasure. And for extra extra credit, Asian Godfathers by Joe Studwell. Brilliantly explains why most Southeast Asian countries have jacked up economies.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 02:32:59 +0000
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