Bobg.net

The following is a list of books that I would recommend. It’s also a way to get to know me. Studies show that the most commonly talked about subject when getting to know someone is music. I would assume books and movies aren’t far behind. The more you like someone’s tastes in media, the more you will probably like them. I now leave you with a list of books that I have enjoyed so that you can know the real me.

First off Russian Novels:

	Master and Margarita -Mikhail Bulgakov. I read this book for my Russian lit class. Yes, I read it in English, just like every book on this list.
	A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. A short story about life in a Russian concentration camp in Siberia. I wrote a paper about how the characters created a micro-society.
	Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol. This is great story in theory, but not so excellent in practice. It inspires me to scam the system to move up on the social ladder.
	Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky. This is long, I’m not sure why I read it.
	The Soviet Experiment - Ronald Suny. A great book with one viewpoint of the entire soviet era. It goes from beginning to end, but seems a little against the idea of socialism the entire way.
	My Discovery of America - Vladimir Mayakovsky. His discovery is short but vivid.
	Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler. Written by a Hungarian, its a grim account of the soviet system destroying itself and the paranoia of those trapped within.

All the Others:

	The Foundation Series - Isaac Asimov. Several books about a man who invents a science that can predict the actions of large groups of people. Because people are sheep. Does the science work? only the books will tell.
	The Robot Series - Isaac Asimov. The second series of books I’ve read by Asimov. These center around the positronic brain and the 3 laws of robotics. If you don’t know them, you should. If you know them only from the movie, read the book its a completely different story.
	The Rama Trilogy - Arthur C. Clarke. A semi-philosophical work based on the idea that this galaxy is only a test, how do you collect the data?
	Stranger in a Strange Land et. al. - Robert A. Heinlein. Someone who has no ties to human ity and its culture comes and we try and take advantage of him. This goes with a lot of other Heinlein books that started me reading Science Fiction. These were great when I was a child, but weak in plot now.
	Job: a comedy of Justice - Robert A. Heinlein. One of my favorite science fiction books because it mixes philosophy, religion and science and comes up with a different theory that is compatible with current religious dogma.
	The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein. I once tried to make a movie script for this in high school. I kinda wish I got past the beginning, it would still make a really cool movie. Its about revolution.
	The Ringworld series - Larry Niven. Several books which spawned several more books about a geo-engineering project on a stellar scale. A world with more land mass than a million earths. I want to live there, and to start a country there too.
	Discworld - Terry Prachett. A series of books with no real order about a world on the back of 4 elephants on the back of a planet sized turtle. excellent comedy with a fantasy setting.
	The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams. Don’t forget your towel. 42. So long, and thanks for all the fish! Please don’t see the movie first (either of them).
	1984 - George Orwell. In the year I was born, Orwell thought the world would be a totalitarian one party state. Too bad the real world is only Orwells vision set a few years later. My guess, 2084.
	The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde. I honestly didn’t pick up on the homosexual themes when I read this book. I just wanted a picture to be painted of me. pretty sweet way to avoid death if you ask me.
	Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card. This is a quintessential Science Fiction book. If you don’t like science fiction, you will still enjoy this book. Card is a one hit wonder, but its a great read. There are 2 series of sequels, one is a retelling the other sucks.
	Nine Princes in Amber - Roger Zelazny. 10 books, high fantasy, about men who are gods and earth is only a reflection of their world.
	Everything Bad is Good for You - Steven Johnson. A great essay about how the popular culture of games, and television are making us more socially intelligent.
	A Brief History of Time - Steven Hawking. I read this when I was in middle school and it probably made me one of the smartest kids in my class. I need to read it again sometime, so I can feel smarter.
	Snow Crash - Neil Stephenson. The Metaverse found here is a comic yet all to ideal future of the internet. The setting and descriptions in this book far out shine the story and plot. The end is a bit too short, but happy.