The end of the world as we know it (and I’m reading fine)
When I graduated from high school, my parents gave me a copy of the then recently released ”Our Final Hour” — a book by British astronomer Sir Martin Reese. The book outlines all the possible ways the world can end in the 21st century, mostly through technology run amok and environmental catastrophe induced by human folly.
It was an odd choice for a graduation gift, especially since most people seem to get Dr. Seuss’s “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” and not a book about doomsday scenarios in honor of completing high school. Call me a cynic, but I have always been fascinated by the end of the world, if only to imagine what the deadline would be like.
I recently started reading “Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded” which chronicles the August 1883 event in which a volcano essentially vaporized a Pacific island and killed more than 36,000 people. The explosion sent ash so far in to the atmosphere that the planet went into an abbreviated ice age.
The book got me thinking about my other favorite end times stories like Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle” and Cormac McCarthy’s beautiful and haunting read “The Road.” My favorite beach book last summer was Stephen King’s “Cell” in which mobile phones turn people into mindless zombies.
Reading is such a pleasure for me, especially historical novels, and anything non-fictiondealig with history, culture politics and religion. Some of my favorite authors are: Jeff Shaara, James Michener, Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Two books that surprised me were the Illiad and The Odyssey by Homer. Both were fantastic reads. A few year ago I decided to read 36 classics and they were among those I read. Also read was Moby Dick, Middlemarch, David Copperfield, The House of Seven Gables, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Great Expectations, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms.
Here is a list of my favorite 20 books of all time:
Centennial
War & Peace
Anna Karenina
The Steel Wave
The Trial of Robert E. Lee
The Novel
The Rising Tide
The Sir John Fielding series
The Hound of the Baskervilles
David Copperfield
Lost Souls
The Hour I First Believed
The Illiad
Plays by William Shakespeare
Billy Budd
To Kill A Mockingbird
In Cold Blood
Little Women
The Pearl