Tuesday, January 31, 2012

A list of books (a beginning)

There's a lot going on, as usual, and of course I'm spending a lot of time in late December of 2016 so I can't pay a lot of attention to what most of you call the "present" - but hopefully that will be done soon.

I'm also getting to play with some very interesting mathematics, which involves the solution of intersecting hyperbolae. It's a delight since it seems to unite in one place all of computer science, mathematics, and literature - what DOES the Doctor mean by intersecting hyperbolae anyway? A sort of star-crossed exaggeration? Hee hee! More on that soon, maybe - it has some very cool diagrams, and the math is fun - so I hope I can give you the proper lit'ry effect too.

But there was another little project which loomed up in my thought, since someone (I forget where, maybe at Love-to-Learn) was trying to collect titles of books for young people to read. This is a good idea, and I think I ought to try to do that myself.

So, while I have a brief moment, I will give you some of the titles I would recommend for inclusion in any good library.

Hmm, hmm, a difficult topic... there are so many good books. Well, let's start with the obvious ones, and we can always come back. I will put them into order by title so there won't be any debate about silly things like rank. Not all orders are TOTAL orders, and there are relations which aren't orders at all... but we must not get technical about that here, Doctor. aHEM! All right.

Admiral of Ocean Sea by Morison
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Carroll
Around the World in 80 Days by Verne
Ben-Hur by Wallace
The Brave Little Toaster by Disch (and its sequel, The Brave Little Toaster Goes To Mars)
A Christmas Carol by Dickens
The Dawn of All by Benson
The Everlasting Man by Chesterton (the cover of my paperback copy says: "More thrilling than any novel"!)
Ex-Cub Fitzie by Boyton
Father Brown stories by Chesterton
From the Earth to the Moon by Verne (it has a sequel too)
The Haunted Bookstore by Morley (and its prequel, Parnassus on Wheels)
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Verne
Kim by Kipling (also The Jungle Books)
Life of Christ by Ricciotti (and his History of Israel, Acts of the Apostles, Life of St. Paul, The Age of Martyrs)
Little Women by Alcott (and sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys)
The Lord of the World by Benson
The Mad Scientists' Club by Brinley (also their New Adventures, The Big Kerplop! and The Big Chunk of Ice)
The Man Who Was Thursday by Chesterton
Manalive by Chesterton
The Miracle of the Bells by Janney
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by Chesterton
The Neverending Story by Ende
The Nine Tailors by Sayers (and the other Lord Peter stories)
Orthodoxy by Chesterton
The Phantom Tollbooth by Juster
Robinson Crusoe by Defoe
Secret Agents Four by Sobol
Sherlock Holmes stories by Doyle
Sinbad and Me by Kin Platt
Swiss Family Robinson by Wyss
The Thirty-Nine Steps by Buchan
Treasure Island by Stevenson
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Verne (and The Mysterious Island which is a sort of sequel)
Who Is Bugs Potter? by Korman (and many of his other works)

All right, whoa! That's almost 50, quite enough for a start. Yeah, there are a couple non-fiction titles in there, but they're excellent and ought not be neglected. You can also add the books of the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift series, and the dozen or so in the "Danny Dunn" series.

(There are also the Nero Wolfe mysteries, and those by John Dickson Carr and Agatha Christie, and others of the great age of detective fiction, and others like the adventures of Alistair MacLean, though I hesitate to glob all those together; these require some discrimination - yet I should mention their names.)

Though some of these are a bit dated, they are all worth reading. (Yes, I have intentionally omitted Tolkien, but I have no time to elaborate on that today. The same with Wells.) Eventually I ought to do reviews, or at least add something to explain a little about their importance, but I can't do that today either. And maybe eventually I will provide a list of essential Reference Works.

Oh yes, one more item. If it was actually available, I would mention that huge thing the author calls the "Saga" - De Bellis Stellarum, but... oh, yeah, that's by me. Oh my. Maybe it will be done soon, and MAYBE some part of it will appear in some real, regular place where it can be bought! See, if I wasn't spending time writing this, I could be writing that. I'm not like Caesar or Aquinas or Chesterton who could write multiple productions at once. Wow, like textual counterpoint, or a verbal fugue, maybe? Intense! No, though I do come kinda close with my code generation, but (ahem) I'm not supposed to reveal such szekrets on a blogg. This will attract spies.

And if you would like to read some additional discussion about this topic, you can go here.

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