Tag: my favorite books

My Favorite Books

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Friends of Freddy - Friends of Freddy

Of course, if I were to list all my favorite books, we’d be here all day and I’d still be far from being finished. So I’m going to name only a few of them. And why not? Books make great Christmas presents (hint, hint).

*Freddy and the Ignormus, by Walter R. Brooks. This is my favorite Freddy book, and its theme couldn’t be more timely. It’s all about being afraid of something that isn’t real! If that doesn’t sum up 2022 in seven words, I don’t know what could.

*Murder Must Advertise, by Dorothy L. Sayers. This intimate peek into the advertising business is just endlessly fascinating! You almost forget there’s a murder to be solved, you get so wrapped up in slogans, jingles, etc.

*The Chessmen of Mars, my all-time favorite Edgar Rice Burroughs book–even more than Tarzan of the Apes. All that need be said is that “This book puts you there”–“there” being a Martian backwater where the game of chess is life and death. Really, if you’ve never met Ghek the Kaldane, you’ve really missed something.

*Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton, exposes the destructive hubris that underlays our worldly business and scientific triumphs. Talk about building foundations on sand! Ours are built atop a sinkhole.

And is it really necessary for me even to mention Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia?

All these books are, in their own way, parables. Maybe the authors didn’t know that they were writing parables–but that only makes their achievement more impressive.

This Book’s a Winner

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Murder Must Advertise (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries Book 10) by [Dorothy L. Sayers]

One of the things keeping me out of the booby hatch lately is a crackerjack mystery novel, Murder Must Advertise, by Dorothy L. Sayers. I’m re-reading it and I don’t want it to end.

Lord Peter Wimsey gets called in to solve a murder at an advertising agency, where he goes undercover as a copy-writer. Dorothy Sayers worked for several years as an advertising copy-writer, and she knows all the ins and outs of the business. In fact, her depiction of the agency is so fascinating, you almost don’t care about the murder.

Just to show you what the author knows, Ms. Sayers considered this one of her least best books, didn’t like it much. She never realized what a terrific book it was!

I’d like to say more, but again the computer’s giving me fits and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to post this or not. Suffice it to say that this is one of my all-time favorite mysteries–and it does a superb job of taking your mind off whatever’s bugging you.

‘Fading into Obscurity’ (2011)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of the viking by edison marshall

Some authors are wildly successful for a while, maybe even a long while; and yet they and their books wind up slowly fading away.  If you’ve ever read a best-seller list from 100 years ago, you’ll be amazed at the number of famous books you never heard of.

Fading into Obscurity

Here’s a corny cover of The Viking, by Edison Marshall. Just for the record, vikings did not wear horns on their helmets. And dig the 35-cent price! This particular edition now sells for $300.

Since I wrote this in 2011, Patty and I have been able to complete our collection of Arthur Upfield’s “Bony” novels. It seems readers simply won’t let them fade away. You can still find most of them on amazon.com at reasonable prices.

My All-Time Favorite Half a Dozen Novels

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Some folks are going to read this and say, “What a philistine! Why, he has no literary taste at all!” I can’t help that. Anyhow, I enjoy reading other bloggers’ lists of their favorite books, so why not post one of my own?

Here they are, in no particular order.

*The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I don’t have to explain this choice, do I?

*The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Not only is this, for me, the model of what a Christianity-based fantasy ought to be: but it also features the most fascinating story-start I’ve ever read. It’s been around for going on 70 years, and people will still be loving it 100 years from now.

*20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. When I’m reading this, I never want it to be over. We’ll never quite figure out what makes Captain Nemo tick, but that only makes him perpetually intriguing. You don’t expect this kind of depth of character in a science fiction novel from the 19th century–or any other century.

*Freddy and the Ignormus by Walter R. Brooks. Fantastic children’s fiction laced with humor that will delight adult readers. Freddy the Pig takes on a terrifying challenge which may or may not be real–and who but Walter R. Brooks would ever describe a beetle as “motherly”?

*Nemesis by Agatha Christie. Miss Marple takes on an investigation without knowing what the crime was, or even if there truly was a crime. More than just a puzzling whodunit, Nemesis explores the deep working of God’s justice in a fallen world.

*The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. More than any other book the creator of Tarzan ever wrote, Chessmen takes you to a place you never imagined, and makes you think it’s real. Plus it offers the most entertaining non-human character you’ve ever met–Ghek the Kaldane, all head, no body, who, in spite of himself, learns how to be human.

So there you have it–books that I come back to again and again, always with pleasure, and which have taught, and continue to teach me, much of what I know about writing.