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Holiday Riches for Reading

Holiday Riches for Reading

Books—printed, audio, online, or on e-devices—make risky gifts. But long after the tie hangs unworn, the toy bores and breaks, or the scent sits unopened, a book can forever give knowledge, new worlds, and wonders.

Books aren’t for everyone and can be a very personal purchase. Suggestions:

• Know the recipient’s reading habits and interests.

• Beware religious books. Proselytizing can backfire.

• Avoid self-help books. Your recipient may ask, “What problem?”

• Include the receipt for exchange.

Why should you trust my highly subjective list? Each entry or author changed my life, delighted an interest, and/or entertained. This tortuous task omitted hundreds of “favorites” and excluded hundreds unread. But it’s a start.

Adventures

The Three Musketeers

Alexandre Dumas, 1844

You won’t be able to put down the ribald, swashbuckling prototype! Iconic heroes, heroines, villains, and villainesses dueling for honor, power, and romance dwell within the pages. Set in 1625 to 1628, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d’Artagnan (based on Charles de Batz-Castelmore d’Artagnan) after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the Musketeers of the Guard.

A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens, 1859

This is a nail-biting introduction to my favorite author—the genius Charles Dickens. The story follows one of literature’s bravest champions, The French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, and his release to life in London with his daughter Lucie, whom he had never met. It also focuses on Lucie’s marriage and the collision between her beloved husband and the people who caused her father’s imprisonment, as well as Monsieur and Madame Defarge, sellers of wine in a poor suburb of Paris.

A Wrinkle in Time

Madelleine L’Engle, 1962

Before J.K. Rowling, L’Engle wrote a series of books with a then-unheard-of girl hero. The story stars Meg Murry, a high-school-aged girl who is transported on an adventure through time and space with her younger brother Charles Wallace and her friend Calvin O’Keefe to rescue her father, a gifted scientist, from the evil forces that hold him prisoner on another planet.

At nine years old, A Wrinkle in Time was my first challenging read and exposure to challenging concepts—good and evil, death, wondrous time travel—and it set reading standards that I still use today.

Recommendations

Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883; Dune, Frank Herbert, 1965; Neuromancer, William Gibson (inventor of “cyberspace”), 1984; any Clive Cussler stories featuring Dirk Pitt.

Classics

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925

Arguably the greatest American novel, the book follows the lives of the impoverished and the millionaires, and shows their passions and obsessions thriving during the decadent Jazz Age as the American Dream haunts doomed lovers, Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Make sure to snag a copy with the original, iconic cover.

The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck, 1939

This is another contender for greatest American novel. The Grapes of Wrath perfectly shows the dignity of a poor family juxtaposed against the overwhelming social upheaval of the Great Depression and is depicted with the right amount of grit and grace. You can’t go wrong with this one.

Brideshead Revisited

Evelyn Waugh, 1945

Read it for the sheer beauty of the English language. Before Downton Abbey, Brideshead Revisited (of Masterpiece Theatre fame) kindled Americans’ love affair with British aristocracy in this heart-wrenching story of love, longing, and memory. Narrated by the middle-aged artist and Second World War army Captain Charles Ryder, Brideshead Revisited tells the story of his involvement with the Flyte family, Catholic aristocrats whose family seat is the splendid Brideshead Castle.

The Short Stories of John Cheever

John Cheever, 1978

The sublime “Chekhov of the suburbs” chronicles the lives and mysteries of everyday life with language wielded like a precise, yet tender, scalpel. It contains some of his most famous stories, including “The Enormous Radio,” “Goodbye, My Brother,” “The Country Husband,””The Five-Forty-Eight,” and “The Swimmer.” Gift it to those who have short attention spans or busy schedules. Trust me.

Recommendations

The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton, 1920; Orlando, Virginia Woolf, 1928; The Berlin Stories (of Cabaret fame), Christopher Isherwood, 1945; Giovanni’s Room James Baldwin, 1956; On the Road, Jack Kerouac, 1975; The Last Picture Show, Larry McMurtry, 1966; Maurice, E. M. Forster, 1971; The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst, 2004.

History

Nicholas and Alexandra

Robert K. Massie, 1967

How I became a Russophile. Tsar wars, ineptitude, and autocracy guaranteed the downfall of the Russian Romanov dynasty, but the love story between its last royal couple humanizes the heavy hand of history. In the novel Tsar Nicholas weds the German princess Alexandra, and the marriage proves unpopular with the Russian people, a situation not improved when she has four daughters. When she finally bears a son, the infant’s acute hemophilia can only be controlled by the powers of the fanatical monk Rasputin.

The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

Barbara Tuchman, 1984

The deathly absurdity of how and why governments pursue self-destructive policies was never made clearer, nor more relevant, considering America’s imperial entrenchments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The book is about “one of the most compelling paradoxes of history: the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.” It details four major instances of government folly in human history: the Trojans’ decision to move the Greek horse into their city, the failure of the Renaissance popes to address the factors that would lead to the Protestant Reformation in the early sixteenth century, England’s policies relating to American colonies under King George III, and the United States’ mishandling of the conflict in Vietnam. More than half of the book deals with US intervention in the Vietnam War, while the other three case studies are shorter.

And the Band Played On

Randy Shilts, 1987

Chronicling the AIDS plague, And the Band Played On documents the events following the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The book takes an investigative journalistic approach to describe how the disease was handled—or not handled—within four different communities: the gay community, the medical community, the political and governmental community, and the media.

Spoiler alert! Government indifference and political infighting doom the afflicted and guarantee a global disaster. A real mystery infuriatingly solved.

A Short History of Byzantium (abridged)

John Julius Norwich, 1997

Eccentric anecdotes enliven Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, in this piece of historical brilliance. Power-hungry, Christian Europeans ensured its downfall—and almost Western Civilization’s—when in 1453, Muslim conquest set in motion the conflicts of today’s Middle East. It’s a necessary read.

Sexually Speaking

Gore Vidal, 2001

Here, fourteen essays and three rare, vintage interviews published over the past four decades tackle hot-button topics such as gay American founding fathers, sex and the Catholic church, gay bashing and the U.S. Congress, and bedding Jack Kerouac.

Becoming a Man

Paul Monette, 1992

This National Book Award for Nonfiction details one man’s life in the closet and his example of how to courageously come out of any closet. Paul Monette tells the story of his life: growing up gay in a world where he felt gay was seen as just not right and how it shaped his life. It’s a story so many queer people are familiar with, and one that some still endure.

One Nation Under God; How Corporate America Invented Christian America

Kevin M. Kruse, 2015

The Republican religious right began in the thirties as a repudiation of FDR’s New Deal. A union busting strategy and greedy grab by business led to Billy Graham’s role as the Antichrist, as well as today’s Dark Age of American politics, are all covered within the pages of this eye-opening book.

Recommendations

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (abridged), Edward Gibbon (seriously!), 1789; The Boys of Boise (homosexual underground scandal in 1955 Idaho), John Gerassi, 1966; The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson, Robert Hofler, 2005.

Crime

Murder at the Vicarage, 1930, Murder on the Orient Express, 1934, And Then There Were None, 1939, Curtain, 1975

Agatha Christie

I’ve read more than 50 novels by my other favorite author, and these are only a few of my favorites. Christie’s detectives Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot always delight with ingenious crimes. And when I’m stressed (obviously often), visits to cozy English villages or exotic locales reassure me the world is ok. I’ve found solace within Christie’s page, and maybe you know someone who needs to sit back and get lost in beautiful stories.

Jack Reacher Novels

Lee Child

After pooh-poohing manly novels by manly authors, my partner suggested this manly, no-bullshit hero. Ten novels later, who knew! With justice seemingly non-existent, Reacher delivers it to deserving villains with a vigilant eye and savage hand. Vicarious, adrenaline-inducing thrills spill from every page, leaving readers at the edge of their seats.

Recommendations

The Secret History Donna Tartt (forget her boring The Goldfinch), 1992; The Alienist Caleb Carr, 1994; Perfume: the Story of a Murderer, Peter Suskind (weirdest story), 1985.

Patronize your neighborhood bookstores like Tattered Cover, and don’t underestimate used bookstores like Capitol Hill Books (300 E. Colfax at Grant) or Kilgore Books (624 E. 13th next to Wax Trax on Washington).

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