Loyal readers often see me discussing movies and television, but I rarely talk about books, at least not directly. For this Friday, I thought I'd stop and list five books that I read within the last year that I really think knocked it out of the park.
Before I jump in, I'll warn you now that none of these are political books. I could tell you about some that I have read, but the odds that you've already read them too are high, and besides, the books I want to talk about are a bit more imaginative than a talking head giving you their take on recent events. Click on X right now, and you'll get a boatload of that.
The books I'm about to tell you about are ones that I found intriguing to the point where they altered my perception of the world, or at the very least, had me thinking about concepts I hadn't previously considered. In an age of CGI and screens, you sometimes forget how effective a book can be at getting you to alter your worldview or expand your imagination.
The following books did so for me and in various ways. Feel free to let me know in the comments if you've already read any of these, or even give some book suggestions of your own.
"The Great Divorce" - C.S. Lewis
I must've read this book a million times. In fact, I try to read this book at least once every year.
The C.S. Lewis iceberg is an interesting one. At the top, everyone knows the "Chronicles of Narnia." People who go a little further into his work will know other works like "Mere Christianity" or "The Screwtape Letters." These are all masterpieces in their own right, but often overlooked is "The Great Divorce," a book Lewis wrote as a response to William Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell."
Blake believed that good and evil are two sides of the same coin and that the only way for humanity to progress is to reconcile them, something that Lewis thought was absolutely ridiculous. Originally, the book was a serialized story he was telling during the tail end of WW2, when Lewis was seeing people redefine morality as subjective. What would become "The Great Divorce" is Lewis standing firm and saying it's not.
What makes this book fascinating is how Lewis delivers his points in his allegorical way. The main character is Lewis himself, though he never outright says it, and he places himself in a dreary town near a bus stop where people have begun to line up. Everyone in the town seems perfectly miserable, and even more than a little combative and antagonistic. Soon, the bus arrives, and after some tense conversations, Lewis discovers that the bus is flying through the air ever upward until the dreariness of the town fades away and gives way to a beautiful land where the morning sun is just hinting at its rise behind the mountains.
To his horror, Lewis realizes that everyone on the bus, including himself, is a ghost, and they're so immaterial that they cannot even bend the grass beneath their feet. They cannot change the land in any capacity, even unable to pick up the smallest apple. However, coming to meet them are solid people who look perfect and full of joy. Lewis watches interactions happen between the ghosts and the solid people, realizing that each knew the other when they were alive.
Each interaction is a moral lesson Lewis is trying to convey to the reader, and with each tale, Lewis is expertly curing the moral confusion modern people often experience, tackling everything from "proper pride" to bastardized love.
"The Great Divorce" is one of those books worth reading multiple times, as you'll soak up new parts of it every time you do, and as your life changes, you'll find new ways to relate to it.
"The Killer Angels" - Michael Shaara
A wild hair on the Civil War hit me one day, and I asked around X to see if there were any books people would recommend. Overwhelmingly, they told me to read "The Killer Angels," and I'm glad I did.
The book serves to humanize both sides of the war and is said to be the most accurate fictional retelling of the battle of Gettysburg to this day. Author Michael Shaara has the book follow protagonists, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Confederate General James Longstreet, and Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.
The way Shaara tells the story is almost like painting with words. He doesn't just address the war; he approaches it from the perspective of opposing moral worlds through the lenses of the three men fighting the war themselves. In truth, it comes off more like a theological debate than a war novel, and it's one that I found absolutely fascinating. It's more philosophy than gunpowder and blood, but Shaara makes sure to include enough of the latter two to drive the tragic point of war home.
I was struck by how fair Shaara treats each character, too. Lee and Longstreet aren't mustache-twirling villains in grey uniforms. They're men bearing great weight, both personal and societal. Chamberlain is not glorified; he's treated with the same humanity. This gives you a 360-degree view of one of the most intense and divisive moments in American history, and one that's so beautifully written that you might find yourself highlighting parts of it for reference later.
Even today, West Point still assigns the book to students for its depiction of command and battle psychology.
"Project Hail Mary" - Andy Weir
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling, this sci-fi book by the brilliant mind behind "The Martian," Andy Weir, is as fascinating as it is weird.
The story revolves around an attempt to save Earth from an "Astrophage," a sort of plague that is slowly dimming the sun and threatening the Earth with an apocalyptic ice age. Ryland Grace, a middle school teacher who was once a brilliant molecular biologist, is volun-told to accompany a voyage to figure out how to stop it, only to refuse and threaten sabotage.
However, Grace wakes up on the ship later in space, having very little memory of what happened, how he got there, or why everyone in his crew is dead except him. As he attempts to gather his memories and solve the Astrophage problem, he stumbles upon an alien ship. It's here he meets "Rocky," a spider-like alien seemingly made of rock. The two find out that both are scientists and form a bond that has them teaming up to stop the astrophage from threatening both their worlds.
If you read and enjoyed "The Martian" (I know I did), then you will probably love "Project Hail Mary." Weir uses the same obsessive detail to space-faring, mathematics, and biology he used in his previous book for this outing, and unlike other writers, he manages to make science fun and fascinating. While Rocky might seem like something of a jolt to the feel of the story, it becomes highly welcomed as the relationship between the two develops.
What makes this story stand out from other sci-fi books is that it manages to take nihilism and put it in the hot seat. It's a sci-fi film that elicits hope, and while it does a good job of making humanity feel small, it makes it clear that we're not powerless. It's an optimistic book, and one that you'll walk away feeling better for having read.
I'm hoping the movie adaptation is just as good as "The Martian."
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"Children of Time" - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Trying to find a way to describe this sci-fi book in its entirety is a difficult one to do, because it's so creatively done that a 10-foot view of it doesn't do the story justice.
The book is set in the distant future, where humanity is pretty much at the end of the line. Earth is destroyed, and the last remnants of humanity exist on generational ships on a desperate errand to find a new planet to live on. One mad scientist creates a virus that is supposed to speed up the evolution of apes once they find a suitable planet, but after a series of unfortunate events, the virus lands on the new planet and begins accelerating the evolutionary growth of insects, particularly spiders.
What the book becomes is effectively Genesis, if God's imagers were arachnids instead of hominids, and Tchaikovsky tells the fascinating tale of three spiders, in particular, who, over the course of generations, develop a culture, religion, customs, tribes, and ethics from the biological perspective of spiders. As the story of the spiders unfolds, the humans on the generational ship are dealing with their own twists and turns, including uprisings, changes in command, and interpersonal drama.
"Children of Time" is a very scientific book with a lot of hard sci-fi elements, but I could easily say it's just as theological. The way spider society develops their own right and wrong, their religions, and even the way they deal with civil rights issues mirror humans in many ways, but due to the difference in species, are also wildly different.
Morality takes center stage in many instances in the book, and Thaicovsky paints a magnificent picture that reveals what humanity considers base morality isn't actually human at all, but a universally agreed-upon standard. Christian readers, in particular, may find this book to be a fantastic depiction of the argument that "What we consider to be just and moral is a concept that had to come from somewhere."
Of all the books I read this past year, "Children of Time" might be my favorite. It won't be for everyone, given its hard sci-fi elements, but I found it endlessly fascinating.
"House of Leaves" - Mark Z. Danielewski
I'm just going to come right out of the gate and say that this book freaked me out. For all intents and purposes, it is a horror novel, and one that does its absolute best to mess with your mind. It's not just a book you read; it's one you work through because Danielewski didn't just write a story; he effectively assembled a madhouse in book form.
Describing the plot itself can get confusing. You're effectively reading the assembled report by an old madman named "Zampano" called "The Navidson Record," but told through the voice of an editor named Johnny Truant, who himself is addicted to drugs, sex, and alcohol. The tale told is stacked like a Russian nesting doll, with three narrative voices interjecting with one another.
On the surface is "The Navidson Record," which tells the story of photographer and videographer Will Navidson, who discovers one day that the interior of his home is slightly larger than the exterior, a physical impossibility. Soon, the house itself becomes a character. A door appears that seems to lead into a dark, eerie, labyrinthine structure that shifts and changes for seemingly no reason. There's a hostile feel to the house, but Navidson, a team of explorers, a professor from Harvard, and others are too invested in the mystery to leave it.
Zampano's assembled notes are obsessive and point to a man who lost his mind. Truant, for his part, is slowly unwinding mentally as he develops his own obsession with compiling the work, and as it goes on, the book itself seems to go mad. Text starts to break apart or take on weird patterns, and the pages turn into mazes. There are parts of the book you almost have to endure, but you do so because you're just as curious about the mystery as everyone else in the book.
If you want to read this book, buy the physical copy, but I'll warn you that this book isn't for everyone. It's weighty, as in between the mystery is obsession, depression, and the dark parts of the human mind. Danielewski does a great job of pressing the story in on you, and what's more, you don't even notice it at first. Just like the story, the madness builds until you've found yourself lost in it.
This book is responsible for a myriad of media and stories popping up all over pop culture. YouTube's analog horror obsession stems directly from this book. The "found footage" genre of movies was inspired by "House of Leaves."
If you're looking for a spooky book for Halloween, try "House of Leaves," but I warn you now, it's not for everyone. It requires some amount of dedication, and the content can be pretty explicit, especially on Truant's part.
