Info on my next book report

Hi everyone!


I just wanted to give a quick update on my next book.  I am reading all of the Christmas Books by Charles Dickens.  We all know and love A Christmas Carol, however,  I wasn't aware that he wrote four more short Christmas Novels.   Each one is about seventy-five pages and I plan to write one book report for all of them together, and count them as single book for the project.  

The Christmas books:

• A Christmas Carol (1843)
• The Chimes (1844)
• The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)
• The Battle of Life (1846)
• The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848)

Jason

BOOK REPORT: The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

Title:         The Professor and the Madman

Author:      Simon Winchester

Original Copyright Date:          2005

My Rating:          3 out of 5 stars  ( good )


Backcover Description:
Part homage to the greatest reference work of all time, the Oxford English Dictionary, part mystery, part intellectual history of Victorian England, The Professor and the Madman tells the parallel stories of the dictionary's genius editor and one of his most prolific contributors, an insane American doctor committed to an asylum for murder.

My Thoughts:
The Professor and the Madman was an interesting look into a subject with which I was completely ignorant.  I always took dictionaries for granted and never really thought about how they were created.  I also thought that the Oxford English Dictionary was just another version of a dictionary similar to Webster's.  The OED as they call it across the pond is much more than a dictionary, it is an homage to every single word in the English language, its roots, it nuances of usage illustrated with sentences pulled from literature.  

Being non-fiction, there isn't much to say about symbolism or literary merit; although the author does a good job of developing the two main characters, James Murray the lexical geek editor of the OED and W.C. Minor, an Union army doctor in the Civil war; the madman who thought he was constantly being tormented in the night by little demons who would take him off to far off lands and make him do horrible things.

I did find sections of the book a bit dry as I don't seem to have a knack for philology or English lexicography.  While I did find the history of how the use of certain words outlined in the book interesting, the detailed discussions on roots and origin, etc  was lost on me. 

As a side note, fairly late in the book, another major contributer to the OED was mentioned who, by his own right was a kook.  Dr. Fitzedwald Hall, another American who ended up in India, falls in love with Sanskrit, moves to England, becomes a renowned professor of Sanskrit, and after a heated linguist argument with another Sanskrit scholar,  left in a huff to become a hermit.  It seems that, to be a major volunteer contributer to the OED, it seemed that you needed to be a little off and it would have been interesting to for this book to explore that further.

Overall, it was a fun read, full of sesquipedalian words (including sesquipedalian) that I had to look up in the dictionary... I guess James Murray would be proud!

BOOK REPORT: The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Title:                                           The Life of Pi

Author:                                        Yann Martel

Original Copyright Date:          2004

My Rating:                 3.5 out of 5 stars  ( good )

Backcover Description:

Pi Patel, a God-loving boy and the son of a zookeeper, has a fervent love of stories and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam.  When Pi is sixteen, his family and their zoo animals emigrate from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship.  Alas, the ship sinks-- and Pi finds himself in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and a 450-pound Bengel tiger.  Soon the tiger dispatched all by Pi. Can Pi and the tiger find their way to land? Can Pi's fear, knowledge, and cunning keep him alive until they do?

My Thoughts

I can see how it would be a great book-club book as it is full of discussions on religion, zoology and is full of symbolism.  Of course, most of that symbolism is lost on me.  I've never been one to follow or read deeply into a lot of that unless I am in an academic setting where someone can guide the conversation.  There are even book club discussion questions in the back, most of which seemed to me to apply to a different book... oh, well.  I still enjoyed the book. 

The book is divided into three main sections. Pi's religious life leading up to the ship sinking, the ark of a life boat, and the recovery.  Let's look at each one individually.

The first section follows "Pi" from a small child until sixteen when his family emigrates to Canada.  The bulk of this is detailing Pi's spiritual life as he becomes a full fledged Hindu, Catholic, and Muslim.  I really don't know what this adds to the story other than articulating that each of the major religions has beautiful elements in which Pi can take comfort.  The author even has the three spiritual leaders of each religion meet at one point to heatedly debate the pros and cons of each religion.   As he is growing spiritually, Pi is also living amongst the animals in a zoo; his father being the zookeeper.  Here the author outlines some of the basics of animal behavior and the human element imposed upon the animals. "Look behind the curtain to see the most dangerous animal in the zoo", only to have the patron see a mirror behind the curtain.  

The second section details the sinking cargo ship and the after deadly aftermath.  This was by far the most engaging part in the book and could have stood alone with just a brief introduction and conclusion as an excellent novella, ala Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor with a tiger added for more "ummph"  (Funny, I read that novella on my trip to India, the read this novel on my way to Oregon, which is closer to Canada than I currently am, which was Pi's destination.... wow....that's deep.. ;) )  The author does a good job keeping the story believable that a teenager and tiger could coexist without too much of a stretch of the imagination.  I do find it odd that the emphasis placed in the first section on religion/spirituality was basically absent in this part.  Every now and then, it would be mentioned that  Pi would pray or mix the major figures of each on in an amusing yet non-offensive exclamation.  

The third section wraps up the story, albeit a bit flatly.  Once on land again, Pi recounts the story to some Japanese representatives of the shipping company who are looking into the cause of the sinking ship.  Here, the main point seemed to be that the Japanese representatives don't believe such a fantastical story and the philosophical discussion which followed. 

I really did like this book; it was an entertaining quick read which was great on my flight to Portland.  I think a group discussion would have been helpful to get some of the deeper meanings from the book but it was still enjoyable from the level I read it.  
   

BOOK REPORT: Feed by M.T. Anderson

Title:                                            Feed

Author:                                        M.T. Anderson 

Original Copyright Date:          2002

My Rating:                       4 out of 5 stars  ( good )


Backcover Description:
For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon — a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson creates a not-so-brave new world — and a smart, savage satire ushering us into an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now.


My Thoughts:
Wow. That was a literary transition from Robert Louis Stevenson.  I started Feed about 6 minutes after finishing the short story "Markheim" by the aforementioned Stevenson.  The first page of Feed seemed to have, like, every other word, as like, ",like" or something.  Of course that was on purpose.  Feed is a cautionary tale about a society where the computers are linked directly to the brain at a very young age.  Instead of being used for "good and betterment" it functions just like any computer does today.  It is a vehicle for advertisements and social interaction.   It is just like, you know, having Facebook(tm) in your head ALL THE TIME, you know...  

The book is in the "young adult" section of the book store and I initially took the dumbed down language of the eighteen year old main character to be just that, the inner monologue of an eighteen year old.  But, I quickly learned that everyone spoke, like you know, like that and tthat M.T. Anderson knew what he was doing..  Everyone spoke the same, you know language, from the president down to the janitor.  

As I progressed through the book, I realized that there is a very deep subject here, and that is the dumbing down of the individual in the face of all the social media out there.  It really struck close to home.  In the world M. T. Anderson creates, every time a School or Cloud is mentioned it has a trademark symbol around it.  In this world, schools are corporate subsidiaries and clouds are a product.  Considering that this book was written in 2002, well before most of the social media addictions started, it hit very close to home.   

The back cover description nailed it fairly well saying this follows in the footsteps of Orwell, Burgess and Vonnegut, but I would say the biggest shoe it is trying to fill is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. 

This was a really good book and I would recommend it to most anyone.

BOOK REPORT: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson

Title:       The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories

Author:                      Robert Louis Stevenson 

Original Copyright Date:             various

Original Publishing Date:  2009 (for this collection)

My Rating:             3.5 out of 5 stars  ( good )


Back Cover Description:
Idealistic young scientist Henry Jekyll struggles to unlock the secrets of the soul. Testing chemicals in his lab, he drinks a mixture he hopes will isolate—and eliminate—human evil. Instead it unleashes the dark forces within him, transforming him into the hideous and murderous Mr. Hyde.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dramatically brings to life a science-fiction case study of the nature of good and evil and the duality that can exist within one person. Resonant with psychological perception and ethical insight, the book has literary roots in Dostoevsky’s “The Double” and Crime and Punishment. Today Stevenson’s novella is recognized as an incisive study of Victorian morality and sexual repression, as well as a great thriller.

This collection also includes some of the author’s grimmest short fiction: “Lodging for the Night,” “The Suicide Club,” “Thrawn Janet,” “The Body Snatcher,” and “Markheim.”

My Thoughts

This was an interesting collection of stories by Robert Louis Stevenson.  I should have read this before Halloween as all of them are macabre tales. 

"Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is a novella which I've heard about all my life, but had never read.  I guess a topic so well known  can easily lead to hyped expectations.  It was a good story, although, not as good as Stevenson's other works.  I can see the parallels to Crime and Punishment alluded to in the back cover descriptions, and Stevenson even makes reference to Dostoevsky's works in the work. 

"Lodging for the Night"  tells the story of a cold night turned bad in a small hut where a game of cards leads to a stabbing and the main character venturing out into the night to get away from the scene and tries to find shelter.

"The Suicide Club" is actually three related short stories which follows Prince Florizel of Bohemia and his adventures infiltrating a suicide club.  a place, where for 40 pounds, you play russian roulette. but instead of a bullet, you pull cards.  Whomever pulls the ace of spades is the target, if you pull the ace of clubs, you must be one who kills.  I thought these stories were great.  According to the preface, Robert Louis Stevenson wanted to recreate the "Thousand and One Arabian Nights" and created a collection of short stories in that vein. The Suicide Club is part of that collection.

"Thrawn Janet" was a difficult story to read.  It is essentially a campfire horror story told by a drunk scotsman in the 1700's in his native dialect.  I never had to look so many words up, including "Thrawn" which means crooked or twisted. 

"The Body Snatcher" is a story of a young doctor's apprentice who's main task is to collect bodies for the anatomist.  Most of the bodies brought to him are in the middle of the night in suspicious circumstances.  This story did lead to a new personal goal.  Not only do I need "Gentleman Adventurer and Philanthropist" on my future business cards, but "Bon Vivant" needs to be added.  It means, "A person with refined taste, especially one who enjoys superb food and drink."

"Markheim" is a short story about a man who kills a pawn shop owner on Christmas morning to rob him and his personal crisis which comes thereafter.  This story is very similar to Crime and Punishment, on 400 pages shorter. 

All in all, it was a good set of stories, but it took me longer to read than expected.  

Now, in the style of Robert Louis Stevenson, " Let me profit my idleness, and make haste on my next verse"

BOOK REPORT: A Long Long Way By Sebastian Barry

Title:                                 A Long, Long Way

Author:                             Sebastian Barry

Original Copyright Date:  2005

My Rating:                    4 out of 5 stars  (Beautifully Written )

Would Recommend to a friend?:   Yes

Back Cover Description:

"...Irish author and playwright Sebastian Barry has created a powerful new novel about divided loyalties and the realities of war. In 1914, Willie Dunne, barely eighteen years old, leaves behind Dublin, his family and the girl he plans to marry in order to enlist in the Allied forces and face the Germans on the Western Front.  Once there he encounters violence on a scale he could not have imagined and sustains his spirit with only the words on the pages from home and then camaraderie of the mud-covered Irish boys who fight and die by his side.  Dimly aware of the political tensions that have grown in Ireland in his absence, Willie returns on leave to find a world split and ravaged by forces closer to home...."

My Thoughts:

This was a beautifully written book; the language was absolutely stunning.  It walked the fine line between prose and poetry to perfection.  The subject matter however can be difficult at times.  It is war after all.  

The basic story is a good one.   A young lad goes off to war to make his father proud of him, finds a girl before he ships off to war, and deals with the horrors in the trenches of World War I. But the twist is the Irish revolt which starts up while he is away.  He has to deal with fighting in Belgium and at home, where he is the "enemy" in both places.  

Trench warfare, mustard gas, death, injury, mud, cold, and  rain seem to be surround every scene and never leaves the characters alone, even when they aren't on the front lines or in Belgium for that matter.  But throughout all that, the main character Willie, despite peeing his pants before most any battle, copes with this adversity with a grace and dignity that only men of yore seem to have. You know, the ones that get interviewed on TV shows reminiscing about The War, talking about the small details that got them through the atrocities that surrounded them:  A flower here, a song by a comrade there, a lady back home waiting for him, etc...  Willie is not always brave, but he never runs.  Each time he had to kill a German, it weighed heavily on his soul, despite the fact that he was being attacked and almost died himself.

Sebastian Barry does a great job moving the story forward without bogging it down in the details.  He provides more than enough detail to understand the motivations and driving forces for all the main characters without turning it into a thousand page Vanity Fair style epic which it probably could have been.

But enough of the story, lets get back to the prose, that is the real story here.  It is hard to give examples in this format because the author uses sweeping narrative instead of poignant little quotable nuggets to progress the themes throughout the book.  I remember whole scenes which were simply awe inspiring.  

For example.  In one scene, after a particularly brutal gas attack and hand to hand combat which left 800 of the 1200 front line soldiers dead; Willie's group is brought back to the reserver lines to recuperate.   The soldiers set up a small stage in a barn and hold a somewhat impromptu concert.  As I am reading it, I come to a paragraph which I think shows some of the beauty of the moment.  In this scene, the first performer gets up nervously and starts to sing: 

"The listeners were stilled because in the song there was a melody that brought from their own memories coloured hint and living sparks of the past.  The past was a valued thing bit it was also dangerous to them in the toxic wastelands of the war.  It needed a box of safety round it, and this small room for concerts was a good as they had found" 

However, this poignant scene goes on for several pages and I soon gave up trying write it down in my reading notebook and just wrote a page number down instead.  I felt the shelter and comfort that the soldiers felt.  I was wrapped up into the beauty "Ave Maria" as Willie sings it even though I personally only know the first few bars. I was there. Very few books have ever done that to me consistently throughout a book. 

This isn't to say that there aren't great quotes in the book. 

"The pith of sorrow was in the upshot a little seed of death" 

Thanks Tom for the recommendation and letting me borrow the book!

BOOK REPORT: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Title:       The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Author:                           Stieg Larsson

Original Copyright Date:     2008

Translated to English by:   Reg Keeland

My Rating:         2 out of 5 stars  ( meh )

Would Recommend to a friend?: not really

Back Cover Description:

A spellbinding amalgam of murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue.

It is about the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden . . . and about her octogenarian uncle, determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. 

It s about Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet s disappearance . . . and about Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age who assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism, and an unexpected connection between themselves.

My Thoughts:

This book report is brought to you by Apple Computers, in association with Canon.

This was a crime drama that fell a bit flat.  It was a quick read, and had the potential to be a gripping thriller, but it  never materialized as well as I thought it could. It was fairly predictable, with a couple of decent twists.  Was I entertained?  Mostly. But I can't say I would recommend it without reservations. The crimes committed were gruesome, although most happened well before the two intrepid heroes are on the case.  The suspense doesn't really start until well over 100 pages in the book and the climax occurs with about 80 pages remaining and the denouement was cliche.  The whole thing came across as a episode of scooby-doo directed by Quentin Tarantino.  

On a side note, I was very annoyed with the product placement in the book.  It was like watching a movie where you can obviously see that Coke is the primary sponsor with the product placed conspicuously throughout scenes and the label always facing the camera. My ebook copy had to be returned to the library, so I can't dig up quotes to demonstrate it, but to paraphrase, "She stole his Dell pc laptop and copied the hard drive to her Macbook pro.  Salander then turned on her iPod, an mp3 player the size of a matchbook, and went to work on the images from the night in Photoshop, played with the contrast settings until she could make out the "Visit some place in Sweden" bumper sticker on the blue Volvo S90 Hatchback"

A few character questions remain, to be answered in the remaining books of the series.  I don't know if I will read them.  Maybe I will once I separate my self a bit from this one.  Like I said, it is a quick read and I was mostly entertained.  If I am getting close to the deadline, with my book count a bit low, I might consider it.

BOOK REPORT: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Title:                    Huckleberry Finn

Author:                Mark Twain (Samual Clemens)

Original Copyright Date:         1885

Would Recommend to a friend?: Yes

Back Cover Description: 

Floating down the Mississippi on their raft, Huckleberry Finn and Jim, a runaway slave, find life filled with excitement and the spirit of adventure. Join Huck and Jim and their old friend Tom Sawyer as they come up against low-down thieves and murderers, whilst being chased by Huck's evil, drunken father who is after Huck's treasure. It is a trip that you will never tire of.

My Thoughts:

I was amazed at the complexity of Huckleberry Finn; it went well beyond my expectations. I was expecting an adventure story following a boy riding down the Mississippi River, getting into all sorts of scrapes and near-misses caused by Huck's "boys will be boys" attitude;  I was expecting Treasure Island or King Soloman's Mines. What I got was literature in every sense of the word.  Slavery, Race, Religion, are just some of the themes that even a non-english major can pick out.

I was shell-shocked by the bluntness of language used by Mark Twain when I read some of the passages. For example, the following occurs when Jim (the runaway slave) and Huck have been on the river for a few days is as simple of an explanation of how Huck saw slavery that is, to me, completely unfathomable today:

"Jim Talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an Ab'litionist to go and steal them.

    It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't ever dared to talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying, 'give a nigger an inch and he'll take and ell.' Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children -- children that belonged to a man I didn't even know; a man that hadn't ever done me no harm."

The passage also demonstrates one of the themes that struck me the most. that despite being an orphan most of his life, an outsider who doesn't want to fit into Miss Watson's normal life with schoolin' and churchin', with a drunk abusive father showing up to take advantage of  Huck's fortune outlined in Tom Sayer, he still thinks about slavery as just the way things were, and asks himself why he is helping Jim. Huck wrestles with what is deemed to be normal and right throughout the book. It doesn't take Huck long to realize that the right thing to do is to help Jim, even though his reasoning isn't quite as strong as, "Slavery is bad and I should do what I can to stop it."

"... and I see it warn't no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don't get started right when he's little, ain't got no show -- when the pinch comes there ain't nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on, --s'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up; would you feel better than what you do now? No, says I, I'd feel bad --I'd feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what's the use you learning to do right, when it's troublesome to do right and ain't  no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?"

and further, as Huck and Jim travel on down the river a ways, we see his internal conflict grow from a selfish motivation to keep moving down the river with Jim to a religious one as things get a bit more difficult.
The following quote has Huck praying to "quit being the kind of boy he was, and be better".  Better in terms of what was again, deemed to be normal and right...

"So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from me, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie-- and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie-- I found that out."

He thinks that by not turning in Jim, people would consider it a sin; that to not live "right", he was committing a sin. But the bigger sin to Huck is not being honest and true to himself.

A few years from now, I would like to read Huckleberry Finn again to try and get more from it.  I have no doubt that this book will offer me something more.

I've Finished Huckleberry Finn

Look for a book report sometime soon; alas, I don't have the time to sit down and do it today.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is my next book and I have 7 days to read it. No time to waste!

Well, It looks like my next book will be....

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson.

I had this book on hold at the library and wasn't expecting it this soon.  I have about one-hundred pages left in Huckleberry Finn, then I'm off to the Swedish Mystery...

Hopefully it isn't a 7 day rental...

BOOK REPORT: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Title:                    The Shadow of the Wind 

Author:                Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Original Copyright Date:        2001

Translation to english:          Lucia Graves 2004

My Rating:    4 out of 5 stars  (highly enjoyable)

Would Recommend to a friend?: Yes

Back Cover Description: 

"Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'Cemetery of Forgotten Books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles. To this library, a man brings his ten-year-old son, Daniel, one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book and from the dusty shelves he pulls The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax. But as Daniel grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind."

My Thoughts:

Maggie read this book a few years ago after receiving it as a present from my sister Tina.  While she was reading it, she couldn't put it down and she instantly recommend that I read it next.  I admit that it took me a while to get around to it, but once I did, I was hooked.

The book is very well written, with a twisting/turning plot full of intrigue, suspense, murder, and love with a few "DON"T GO IN THERE GIRL!" moments for good measure.  It reminded me of a more literary version of a Dan Brown novel.  The characters were complex and interesting; Barcelona provides a mysterious and rich backdrop for the story. 

At the core of the The Shadow of the Wind is a book, called, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julian Carax.  As I read the novel, one of the major recurring themes I noticed was about the power and importance of books and storytelling.  The books themselves are revered by the main characters, especially the ones which are rare or forgotten.  

Television is severely panned only once and rarely mentioned again.  This was the dawning of the age of the television, but the characters in the novel had no use for it.  In my own life, television has fallen far down on my priority list, mainly because I want to spend more time with Sims.  I find I don't miss it that much.  I think the following quote from the book, given the current state of television, (Jersey Shore anyone?) is quite fitting:

"Television, my dear Daniel, is the Antichrist, and I can assure you that after only three or four generations, people will no longer even know how to fart on their own. Humans will return to living in caves, to medieval savagery, and to the general state of imbecility that slugs overcame back in the Pleistocene era. Our world will not die as a result of the bomb, as the papers say -- it will die of laughter, of banality, of making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that"   -- Fermin Romera de Torres, upon the television set becoming more common in Barcelona in 1954. 

Contrast that statement with this:

"Bea says the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day."

Now that I think about it, maybe it was this book which subconsciously inspired me to start the Olio-Scholar Project in the first place.

Official Book Recommendation Post

Hi,

This post is intended to give people a place to recommend books to me for this project.  Just post in the comments or send me an email and I will update it so everyone can see it.

Recommendations so far:

Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier (Maggie)
The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (Nick)
The Belgariad and The Mallorean by David Eddings (Nick)
Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony (Nick)
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny (Nick)
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (Mom)
A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving (Tripp)
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (Tripp)
The Infinite Jest  by David Foster Wallace (Chris G.)
Cryptomonicon by Neal Stevenson (Chris G.)
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker (Chris G.)
The John Dortmunder Series by Donald E. Westlake (Dad)
The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. (Jana) 
The Leopard (Italian: Il Gattopardo) by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 

Recommendations which I've already read:

• Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (Jason)
•  (11/21/2011)
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Chris G.)
• I read this book as part of this project (9/24/2011)
• The Things they Carried by Tim O'Brien (Tripp)
• I read this book as part of this project (8/26/2011)
• Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (Tripp)
• I read this book as part of this project (6/13/2011)
• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (Jackie)
• I read this book as part of this project (4/25/2011)
• Never Let Me Go by Kazou Ishiguru (Chris S.)
• I read this book as part of this project (3/20/2011)
• The Book Thief  by Markus Zusak  (Chris G.)
• I read this book as part of this project (2/24/2011)
• The Professor and the Madman  by Simon Winchestor (Tripp)
• I read this book as part of this project (12/17/2010)
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Rhonda)
• I read this book as part of this project (12/7/2010)
• Feed by M.T. Anderson (Tripp/Jana)
• I read this book as part of this project. (11/29/2010)
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway (Dad) 
• I read this back in high school and would like to read it again one day
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (Tripp)
• I read this a few years ago and loved it.