booklist.txt

Book Lists
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:doctype: book
:toc:
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:numbered!:

*10 Essential Books on Typography* - Maria Popova
-------------------------------------------------

https://www.brainpickings.org/2011/08/01/10-essential-books-on-typography/[+https://www.brainpickings.org/2011/08/01/10-essential-books-on-typography/+]

*10 Experimental Novels That Are Worth the Effort* - Emily Temple
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http://flavorwire.com/476224/10-experimental-novels-that-are-worth-the-effort[+http://flavorwire.com/476224/10-experimental-novels-that-are-worth-the-effort+]

* *A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing* - Eimear McBride

*****
"McBride’s widely lauded novel is full of fragmented, floating sentences that sometimes feel like only gestures at sentences, like gestures at the things under thoughts, that real, pre-language stuff. It’s hard going at first, but once you let the language wash over you and form a rhythm, the book blossoms into a gorgeous, brutal stream of word and thought."
*****

* *C* - Tom McCarthy

*****
"McCarthy’s second novel is gorgeous and devastating, a search for patterns in the phenomenal world and a warning against the same; a book of just-missed connections, wireless communication and full-on joy. As Jennifer Egan wrote, “C is a rigorous inquiry into the meaning of meaning: our need to find it in the world around us and communicate it to one another; our methods for doing so; the hubs and networks and skeins of interaction that result. Gone is the minimalist restraint he employed in Remainder; here, he fuses a Pynchonesque revelry in signs and codes with the lush psychedelics of William Burroughs to create an intellectually provocative novel that unfurls like a brooding, phosphorescent dream.”"
*****

* *Hopscotch* - Julio Cortazar

*****
"This is book that can be read in any order, with chapters that can be left out or left in, depending on the mood of the reader. It sounds easy to screw up this literary labyrinth, but you really can’t: every page hums with life and language, and however you make your way through, you’ll be glad you did. As Pablo Neruda famously wrote, “People who do not read Cortazar are doomed. Not to read him is a serious invisible disease.”"
*****

* *Notable American Women* - Ben Marcus

*****
"Marcus’ sophomore novel is totally weird, but also pretty gorgeous. Like another, later novel of Marcus’, language is weaponry here, and the protagonist of this book (“Ben Marcus”) is a child whose mother belongs to a cult of Silentists, obsessive verging on abusive. This novel constantly asks its reader to re-evaluate the real, both the absolute real and the relative real, and the difference between the two. For instance, the two blurbs on the back of this book are these: “Ben Marcus is a genius, one of the most daring, funny, morally engaged and brilliant writers, someone whose work truly makes a difference in the world.” — George Saunders; “How can one word from Ben Marcus’s rotten, filthy heart be trusted?” — Michael Marcus, Ben’s father. Point and case."
*****

* *The Mezzanine* - Nicholson Baker

*****
"This entire novel takes place over the length of an escalator ride. No, no, it’s about 140 pages of minute details, imaginings, footnotes, and lists with columns like “Subject of Thought” and “Number of Times Thought Occurred per Year (in Descending Order).” There are times when the amount that Baker can focus on one tiny thing threatens to drive one mad, but in the end, the novel is a deeply moving meditation on change and life and, of course, language."
*****

* *Speedboat* - Renata Adler

*****
"Adler’s mostly plotless first novel is stunning, hilarious, vivid, vital. Let go of what you think a novel should be, and let this novel be what it is, and you’ll be rewarded by waves of pleasure on every page, both emotional and intellectual."
*****

* *Wittgenstein's Mistress* - David Markson

*****
"This novel is organized as a long series of notes written continuously on a typewriter by the last woman on earth — a woman who is obsessed with art and philosophy and literature, but keeps forgetting, or confusing, or willfully misrepresenting things. Again, the book is sort of plotless and (especially for sticklers for facts) frustrating, but it’s also a beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking ode to loneliness and the world of the mind."
*****

* *How to Be Both* - Ali Smith

*****
"Smith’s newest novel, just recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, can be read two ways — depending on which version of it you happen to pick up. Some copies of the book begin with one of its interconnected stories, some with the other. In both structure and subject, Smith is investigating duality and the relationship of surface to substance. “It’s about fresco form,” Smith told The Guardian. “You have the very first version of the fresco underneath the skin, as it were, of the real fresco. There’s a fresco on the wall: there it is, you and I look at it, we see it right in front of us; underneath that there’s another version of the story and it may or may not be connected to the surface. And they’re both in front of our eyes, but you can only see one, or you see one first. So it’s about the understory. I have the feeling that all stories travel with an understory.”"
*****

* *JR* - William Gaddis

*****
"This novel is long. This novel is almost entirely made up of untagged dialogue. This novel is brilliant and will suck you in and keep you forever."
*****

* *The Emigrants* - W. G. Sebald

*****
"Sebald’s writing is at the easy end of experimentalism — that is, there are no bizarre sentence structures, no choose-your-own-adventure-style tricks, no tomfoolery. But at its heart, his work is deeply experimental — after all, what is it? Novel, travelogue, essay? Some combination of these, complete with badly reproduced and sometimes doctored black and white photographs and the specter of Nabokov following us through all the complicated pages? Yes, yes, yes, yes."
*****

*10 Forgotten Fantastical Novels You Should Read Immediately* - James Blaylock and Emily Temple
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://flavorwire.com/391301/10-forgotten-fantastical-novels-you-should-read-immediately[+http://flavorwire.com/391301/10-forgotten-fantastical-novels-you-should-read-immediately+]

* *Phantastes* - George MacDonald

*****
"“This one begins with a young man finding the key to an old, oak secretary in a secret library in a house that sits at the edge of things. He opens the door of the secretary only to discover that what seems to be the back wall is a false panel with a hidden pin that keeps it locked in place. He shifts the pin, draws out the panel, and finds… Published in London in 1858 by one of the world’s great fantasy writers, and originally illustrated by Pre-Raphaelite painter Arthur Hughes, Phantastes is a seriously beautiful and creepy book, always dream-like, often a strangely compelling nightmare. C.S. Lewis bought it when he was 16 years old. Years later he wrote, ‘I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for by buying Phantastes.’ I felt that same way when I read it. I had never read a book more fanciful, and had never read a book more Real. You might have read MacDonald before – ‘The Day Boy and the Night Girl,’ or On the back of the North Wind – but I can assure you that Phantastes is no sort of children’s story. The book was republished in 1970 as one of the brilliant Ballantine Adult Fantasy series (buy them all if you get a chance) and by Everyman’s Library in 1983 and no doubt by other publishers. It’s especially of interest to anyone who wonders which giants C.S. Lewis was standing on the shoulders of.”
*****

* *Masters of Atlantis* - Charles Portis

*****
“When I turned in my novel The Digging Leviathan, my editor called on the telephone with an understandable complaint. ‘I thought you were going to write a hollow earth novel,’ she said, ‘but your characters never get out of Glendale.’ I was okay with that, and so was she in the end, but it was the first time I became aware that I wanted to write about a certain sort of character, and that it made little difference to me whether he descended into the center of the hollow earth in order to engage in dinosaur adventures, or stayed home in Glendale dreaming the dream of the hollow earth. Writer Lew Shiner took a liking to my book, and when we met some time later and became friends, he recommended Masters of Atlantis. ‘Somehow I think you’ll like this,’ he said. It turns out that I did. In the book, Lamar Jimmerson becomes a member of the Gnomon Society, dedicated to preserving the arcane wisdom of Atlantis. They meet in trailer parks. They wear pointy hats called Pomas. They’re sensitive to Telluric Currents. Their temple is in Burnette, Indiana. They fall in love, but it doesn’t go too well. A Senate subcommittee is formed to investigate them…. Portis’s True Grit gets all the press, but my heart is with Lamar Jimmerson and the Gnomon Society.”
*****

* *Looking for the General* - Warren Miller

*****
“…is one of the greatest and strangest conspiracy novels. It was written in 1964, right after the Kennedy assassination. Howard Waldrop called it ‘a collaboration between Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the Coen brothers.’ I’m going to randomly choose three sentences from the book, eyes closed, which I’ll transcribe for you. ‘Behind the altar in the grotto, a door (Protestant dream of sinister Catholic mysteries): the general’s HQ.’ ‘If I were your average missionary and had a Christian pygmy who spoke English I can assure you that I’d be very careful who I lent him out to.’ ‘We have had messages from our people in that area: descriptions of a great luminosity in the northern skies, of curious localized turbulence in the air, erratic migrations of birds; of enormous clouds appearing suddenly in a cloudless sky, clouds the wind did not move.’ Okay, Lew Shiner gave me this book, too. My own books must be more self-revealing than I know. If you’ve already read it, congratulations. If not, then read it at your own peril: be ready to deny you’ve read it when the authorities knock on the door.”
*****

* *Doom* - William Gerhardie

*****
“Once again, if you already read Gerhardie’s novels, then skip this entry. I have to say, however, that in the 30 years I’ve read and reread his books, I’ve yet to find anyone else who did the same, or who read him at all. Probably there’s a William Gerhardie Society out there that has thousands of members and hundreds of chapters, although why they haven’t contacted me, I can’t say. Gerhardie was an Anglo-Russian writer, considered a genius by Vladimir Nabokov, Evelyn Waugh, Edith Wharton, Grahame Greene, Katherine Mansfield, H.G. Wells, and a heap of other writers with whom it is difficult to argue. Doom might or might not be his best book (I’d argue that The Polyglots wins that prize) but Doom is certainly science fiction, of a sort: ‘The huge propellered car ran swiftly and imperiously down the deserted Fleet Street and, suddenly, spread out wings in front and behind and left the ground, clearing the roofs of Fleet Street houses, flying Piccadillyward.’ And so the book proceeds from flying automobiles to the destruction of the earth due to science-run-mad. Don’t miss it.”
*****

* *That Hideous Strength* - C. S. Lewis

*****
“How can C.S. Lewis’s name possibly find a place on a list of forgotten books? Probably it cannot, but it’s here anyway, and I’ll bet half a pound of Velveeta cheese, in a jar or wrapped in foil, that you haven’t read it. (If you have, by the way, I’m not going to send you any cheese.) I’m calling it the best novel that Lewis wrote, and one of the five best fantasy novels ever written. Certainly it had an outsized influence on my writing, especially in books like The Last Coin and All the Bells on Earth. John Ruskin once wrote, ‘Our full energies are to be given to the soul’s work – to the great fight with the Dragon.’ I’ve always thought that for most of us, the great fight with the Dragon takes place close to home, in seemingly quiet neighborhoods and often under sunny skies, and also that the Dragon will return and return no matter how often it’s slain, and we’ll have to pick up the cudgels with every new dawn if we don’t want to go down to defeat. That’s what I got out of That Hideous Strength, an Arthurian novel that takes place in the modern English countryside at a small, pleasant university that sits right at the edge of nightmare.”
*****

* *Lud-in-the-Mist* - Hope Mirlees

*****
“Tim Powers gave me a copy of Lud in the Mist back in the 1970s, assuring me that it was quite likely the best fantasy novel ever written. I think he’s correct. (Neil Gaiman has said something of the same thing recently, and so perhaps all of us are in agreement, and there’s no point in going on here. Even so…) Lud in the Mist was published in 1926, and then again as one of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in 1970, this time without permission of the author, who was assumed (conveniently) to have died, although she had not. Upon its original publication, Hope Mirlees was pronounced a genius, and, according to Virginia Woolf, ‘rather an exquisite apparition.’ Mirlees inherited a fortune from her engine-building father and saw it as an opportunity never to have to write again. Too bad for us. She died in 1978, ostensibly never having learned that her novel had been republished. Lud in the Mist evokes Faery and Faeryland in all its dangerous attractions like no other novel, with the exception, perhaps, of MacDonald’s Phantastes.”
*****

* *The Boats of the Glen Carrig* - William Hope Hodgson

*****
"“Another Ballantine Adult Fantasy novel, which I searched out and read after being given a copy of Hodgson’s House on the Borderland by Tim Powers. As is true of all of the Adult Fantasy novels, the book is worth buying for the cover alone. (And by the way, you want ink and paper copies of books like this; they have magic in them that is missing from the electrons swirling around in your e-reader.) The writing in the book is purposefully archaic, as if it were written in 1757, when the story takes place. Critics have suggested that the language is inaccurate, but to my ear it has its own charm. If you’re a fan of Sargasso Sea stories, giant cuttlefish, squid men, fungi the size of small trees, and other such glories, then you’ll go for this one. Here’s a question: Is this a better book than Hodgson’s brilliant House on the Borderland? Probably not. Buy that one too, if you can find it. (Immense old house besieged by pig men that come up out of a ravine.) But I’ve got it on good authority that The Boats of the Glen Carrig has been read or forgotten by 28.3 percent more people than The House on the Borderland, hence Boats being included in this list.”
*****

* *All Hallows' Eve* - Charles Williams

*****
“…or anything by Charles Williams. Like C.S. Lewis, Williams doesn’t qualify as being obscure, forgotten, or ignored, and like That Hideous Strength, the book was immensely inspirational when I was writing contemporary fantasies in the late 1980s. Despite Williams’s literary reputation, however, and his stature among members of the Mythopoeic Society, I rarely run into people who have read him. I’ve read All Hallows’ Eve several times, and have discovered that the second chapter, titled ‘The Beetles’ is more deeply unsettling each time I read it. Stevenson said that with age ‘we no longer see the devil in the bed curtains,’ and I remember having lain awake in terror when I was six years old, convinced that the white T-shirt heaped on the chair in my bedroom was a human skull, and too frightened to get out of bed in order to flatten the life out of it. Those days are long past, thank heavens. That being said, I wouldn’t choose to read the first chapters of All Hallows’ Eve before falling asleep at night.”
*****

* *The Great Dark* - Mark Twain

*****
“This unfinished novella, which might, I suppose, have become a novel if it were finished, qualifies as the strangest, darkest, most fantastical thing that Mark Twain wrote – a lucid nightmare that might or might not be a dream. It’s included in the volume titled Letters from the Earth, which scarcely qualifies as obscure, but it’s true that the first third of that book gets most of the attention. ‘The Great Dark’ reads a little bit like Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, to my mind, but with Mark Twain’s voice and sense of humor. Here’s an example of the sort of sentence that particularly attracted me to the story when I read it 35 or 40 years ago: ‘Between seeing the squid, and getting washed off her feet, and losing the children, the day was a costly one for Alice.’ The squid, I can tell you, is worth seeing (as are pretty much all squids).”
*****

* *The Fabulous Baron Munchausen* and *The Fabulous World of Jules Verne* - Karel Zeman

*****
“Not nearly enough people know that Karel Zeman is the Great God of Steampunk and that his films are enormously cool. My favorites are the two I mention here, which I saw either in the late 1950s or early 1960s, around the time when they first came out. I had read plenty of Jules Verne by that time, and so was custom-built to go crazy for The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (plenty of cephalopods), but The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, which I hadn’t read, caught my imagination by surprise. Since then I’ve read every version I could find of the Baron Munchausen story, and am a big fan of the Terry Gilliam film. Terry Gilliam, of course, was a big fan of Karel Zeman, which brings me back to these two films, which (as I’ve said more than once in various interviews) are the only two films that I’ve set the alarm to see when they (very rarely) show up on late night television. Now I own DVDs of both films, thank goodness, and can watch them when I choose. They’re indescribable and literally wonderful."
*****

*10 Great Reads from the Feminist Lesbian Sci-Fi Boom of the 1970s* - Sandra Gail Lambert
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://lithub.com/10-great-reads-from-the-feminist-lesbian-sci-fi-boom-of-the-1970s/[+https://lithub.com/10-great-reads-from-the-feminist-lesbian-sci-fi-boom-of-the-1970s/+]

* *Picnic on Paradise* - Joanna Russ

*****
"A list like this has to start with Joanna Russ who honed feminist and lesbian anger into magnificent story telling. I remember reaching the last page of The Female Man, flipping the book over, and reading it again. Her How to Suppress Women’s Writing is no less relevant today. But most forgotten, I think, is her 1968 debut novel. It features, for the first time, her raunchy, violent, and funny heroine, Alyx."
*****

* *Native Tongue* - Suzette Haden Elgin

*****
"Elgin proposed a future where women’s civil rights have been eradicated. (Those science fiction writers with their improbable imaginations, right?) A professor of linguistics herself, Elgin constructed a world where language is a weapon in an underground resistance movement of old women."
*****

* *Conscience Place* - Joyce Thompson

*****
"This is a problematic book (as I’m sure many of them would be if I reread them), but I adore it. The premise is that with the atomic age “monsters” are born. They are sequestered in a closed community from childhood. Yuck, right? But most of the book is about how these people with disabilities make a community with each other. They have no reference points to know they are anything but typical. Each of them contributes. Each of them is supported. It’s a fragile, ecstatic utopia. It doesn’t end well. And you have to get past the so offensive cover copy. Still, read it."
*****

* *Amazons* - Jessica Amanda Salmonson, ed.

*****
"Salmonson gathers together stories from both the established writers of the time (St. Clair, Norton, Tanith Lee, Cherryh) and the up and comers of this new wave. And the epigraph is a poem by Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz! This was the first place I read one of my still most beloved short stories, Elizabeth A. Lynn’s “The Woman Who Loved the Moon.” And Salmonson was the first transgender writer I, in my limited experience, knew of. Also, there’s a second volume—Amazons II."
*****

* *A Different Light* - Elizabeth A. Lynn

*****
"Yes, this is the book the bookstore is named after, and Lynn is most well known for her chock-full-of-lesbians series the Chronicles of Tornor that was published beginning in 1979. And those books are perched at my side as I write, but for the most romantic, galaxy spanning, and tragic (not because they are queer) novel about the death-surviving love between a gay man and bisexual man, and also if you need to cry so hard that you are left keeled over in your chair making seal noises, read this novel."
*****

* *Dreamsnake* - Vonda N. McIntyre

*****
"Dreamsnake began as the gorgeous novelette “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand,” which is included in Pamela Sargent’s (Alive, on FB, send fan mail.) Women of Wonder series. The full-on novel continues the tale of Snake, a healer, traveling in a post-apocalyptic world with her cobra (Mist), rattlesnake (Sand), and a snake of alien origins (Grass). In our bookstore’s science fiction collection of female warriors, amazons, and mages, Snake stood out as gentle, tender, and determined, but a no less powerful heroine. McIntyre is the founder of the Clarion West Writers Workshop."
*****

* *Mind of My Mind* - Octavia E. Butler

*****
"No, Butler is not a forgotten writer. But some of her books are. This is my favorite book from Butler’s Patternist series. (Maybe. Since I read the others over 30 years ago, who knows?) Of course Kindred blew me away when I read it. (I still have my 1981 Pocket Book edition.) Of course, Lauren Oya Olamina of the Parable of the Sower is a complex study in power and cults and survival. But Mary—poor, oppressed, and pitted against a 4000-year-old immortal—is an unforgettable portrait of what I can’t quite call a heroine."
*****

* *Walk to the End of the World* - Suzy McKee Charnas

*****
"What! Some of you can’t believe I chose this over its sequel Motherlines, but these days I’m in the mood for stories of women escaping unrelenting oppression. Yes, this is another post-apocalyptic world where men keep women in breeding pits. But it’s such a good one."
*****

* *Star Songs of an Old Primate* - James Tiptree, Jr. aka Alice Sheldon

*****
"I know James Tiptree, Jr. also doesn’t belong on a list of forgotten authors. Sure you’ve read all about her, how she kept her gender secret for years and how she (posing as a man) had a long correspondence with Joanna Russ about feminism, but have you read her? Have you read “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” or the sublime “The Women Men Don’t See?”"
*****

* *From the Legend of Biel* - Mary Staton

*****
"When us feminist science fiction fans would meet each other, there would be some jockeying as we checked out each other’s credentials. I’d casually mention my hardback copy of Virginia Kidd’s Millennial Women and wasn’t that Joan D. Vinge story she’d included great. They’d reply with a lesbian-feminist analysis of Gearhart’s The Wanderground. But the ultimate test was if we’d read From the Legend of Biel. It is an odd, obscure, not easily (or ever) understood novel that resonated with all of us hardcore fans. If there was a copy on your shelf, you were automatically way cool. I hope that still works."
*****

*10 Longest Novels Ever Written* - Dave Fawbert
-----------------------------------------------

https://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/books/the-10-longest-novels-ever-written/95919[+https://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/books/the-10-longest-novels-ever-written/95919+]

* *The Son of Ponni* - Kalki Krishnamurthy (900,000 words/2,400 pages)

*****
"Published in the 1950s and released in five volumes, this historical novel, originally written in Tamil, tells the story of Arulmozhivarman, one of the kings of the Chola Dynasty, which ruled in the 10th and 11th centuries. It took Krishnamurthy three years and six months to write - it would probably take us about the same time to read it (not withstanding having to learn a new language)."
*****

* *Kelidar* - Mahmoud Dowlatabadi (950,000 words/2,836 pages)

*****
"A famous Persian novel, this was published in 1984 and tells the story of a Kurdish family in Sabzevar, Khorasan who face hostility from neighbouring visitors, set against a backdrop of the years following the Second World War; a turbulent era for Iranian politics. It took Dowlatabadi 15 years to write: thank God people liked it or that would have been a serious waste of time."
*****

* *Joseph and His Brothers* - Thomas Mann (1,492 pages)

*****
"Written by German Thomas Mann, this epic tome was published in the middle of the war, in 1943 in Sweden. The novel retells the famous stories of Genesis - from Jacob to Joseph - set within the historical context of the Amarna Period of Egyptian history (around 1300 BC). It took Mann 16 years to write the four parts that make up the whole - if only he’d decided to go the Lloyd-Webber routem write a few songs and turn it into a musical instead, he’d have made a lot more money."
*****

* *Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady* - Samuel Richardson (984,870 words/1,534 pages)

*****
"An example of an epistolary novel - one written as a series of documents such as letters or diary entries - this huge book was published in 1748, telling a tragic story of a heroine constantly set back by her family. We’ll be honest: if we were going to read almost a million words, we’d probably appreciate a happy ending."
*****

* *My Struggle* - Karl Ove Knausgård (1,000,000 words/3,600 pages)

*****
"Don’t worry, it’s not that book by a megalomanical Austrian, but in fact a series of six autobiographical books published between 2009 and 2011 by the Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård. They gained huge fame and notoriety due to the unflinching honesty and detail that Knausgård went into regarding his friends, family and the “banalities and humiliations of his life”; so much so that his wife suffered a nervous breakdown. To date it has sold over half a million copies in Norway alone - one for every nine people in the country."
*****

* *Zettel's Traum/Bottom's Dream* - Arno Schmidt (1,100,000 words/1,536 pages/6,800,000 characters)

*****
"Arno Schmidt, along with Hans Wollschläger, was tasked with translating the works of Edgar Allan Poe into German and, in the course of this, he decided to write a novel - about the problems of translating the works of Edgar Allan Poe into German. Well, they do say it’s always best to write about what you know."
*****

* *The Man Without Qualities* - Robert Musil (1774 pages)

*****
"The novel, written in three books, is a “story of ideas”, which takes place during the last days of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1913. A huge range of important human themes are explored: truth; opinion; society and ideas and, in many ways, it foresaw the problems that Europe would face after 1918. Unfortunately, the novel was never finished, as Musil died before its completion, having been unable to settle on an appropriate ending. He never saw fame or fortune with the book in his lifetime, despite spending 13 years of his life writing it. You’ve got to feel for the guy haven’t you?"
*****

* *Mission Earth* - L. Ron Hubbard (1,200,000 words/3,992 pages)

*****
"Written as a ten-book series by the father of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, Mission Earth is a strange beast, billed as a “satirical science fiction adventure set in the far future”, but derided by critics and even banned in some places. The town of Dalton in Georgia tried to have it removed from its public library, claiming that it contained, “repeated passages involving chronic masochism, child abuse, homosexuality, necromancy, bloody murder, and other things that are anti-social, perverted, and anti-everything.” Nonetheless, all ten books were bestsellers. Some people will buy into anything, eh?"
*****

* *In Search of Lost Time* - Marcel Proust (1,267,069 words/3,031 pages/9,609,000 characters)

*****
"Rated the longest novel ever by the Guinness Book of World Records, there’s no doubt that Proust’s masterpiece could quite easily double up as a mightily effective doorstop, with 13 volumes clocking up nearly 1.3 million words. Its theme of involuntary memory is repeated through the course of following the narrator’s life, from childhood to adulthood. Published between 1913 and 1927, it had a profound influence on many works that were to follow in the 20th century; it’s considered the definitive modern novel by many leading scholars. So, to summarise: really long, but really good."
*****

* *Cyrus the Great* - Georges de Scudéry/Madeleine de Scudéry (2,100,000 words/13,095 pages)

*****
"In terms of pure word count, this 17th century novel obliterates the opposition, with a whopping 2.1 million words forming its ten volumes. The work is credited on the page to Georges de Scudéry, but is usually attributed to his sister Madeleine. The ultimate example of the roman héroïque form it is, essentially, a romantic novel, with endless twists to keep the suspense, and the action, going. Despite its gargantuan length, at the time it was hugely popular. However, it was not subsequently published again until an academic project was launched to make it available to read on the internet here. So what are you waiting for? Those 13,095 pages aren’t going to read themselves."
*****

*10 Must Read Swedish Books* - sweden.se
----------------------------------------

https://sweden.se/culture-traditions/10-swedish-must-read-books/[+https://sweden.se/culture-traditions/10-swedish-must-read-books/+]

*10 of the Most Cryptic Texts in the World* - Alison Nastasi
------------------------------------------------------------

http://flavorwire.com/403727/10-of-the-most-cryptic-texts-in-the-world[+http://flavorwire.com/403727/10-of-the-most-cryptic-texts-in-the-world+]

* *Voynich Manuscript*

*****
"There is a 600-year-old book written in an unknown language, containing peculiar illustrations of unknown species (plant and animal). The Voynich manuscript, discovered in 1912 and named after the book dealer who acquired it, contains chapters on herbs, biological systems, astrological and astronomical passages, and fantastical oddities — at least we think, because no one has been able to decipher its 240 pages.

The Voynich has frustrated and fascinated code breakers and armchair historians, who have come up with a number of hypothetical explanations. Some believe the entire work is a fabrication. Army cryptographer William F. Friedman concluded that the Voynich was written in a constructed language, while others see it as a piece of outsider art that was composed during a trance. A popular theory about the Voynich being decipherable only under a microscope has yielded no answers. The book’s bizarre marginalia — such as the drawing of a corpse holding its stomach that New Yorker writer Reed Johnson mentioned in his https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-unread-the-mystery-of-the-voynich-manuscript[article] about the appeal of the Voynich — teases the imagination further still. The Voynich remains an unsolved puzzle — and a symbol of wishful thinking."
*****

* *The Story of the Vivian Girls* - Henry Darger

*****
"Reclusive artist Henry Darger created an elaborate mythology surrounding a battle between child slaves and vicious overlords that was realized in a 15,145-page saga called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion."
*****

http://www.openculture.com/2018/12/meet-henry-darger-the-most-famous-of-outsider-artists.html[+http://www.openculture.com/2018/12/meet-henry-darger-the-most-famous-of-outsider-artists.html+]

* *Codex Seraphinianus* - Luigi Serafini

*****
"The Codex Seraphinianus is another deeply personal compendium that recalls the work of Hieronymus Bosch. Luigi Serafini’s fantastical text is a roadmap of its creator’s imagination — 360 pages of flora, fauna, anatomies, fashions, and foods that exist only in Serafini’s head. The text, composed in a manner similar to automatic writing (during the late 1970s), is unintelligible, but Serafini wanted to create a work that conveyed the sense a child has when they are presented with books they aren’t able to read."
*****

* *Rohonc Codex* 

*****
"A Hungarian count donated the Rohonc Codex to the country’s Academy of Sciences in 1838, but the 448-page text, containing 87 crude illustrations, can be traced back to the 1700s. Pictures of military battles and religious iconography populate the manuscript — Christian, Pagan, and Islamic symbolism. Scholars have suggested the book’s cryptic script could be early Hungarian, Hindi, and even a syllabary alphabet similar to Chinese. All of the research may be for naught since a number of scholars believe the work to be a hoax by Transylvanian-Hungarian antiquarian Sámuel Literáti Nemes. (Will a director please use this name for their next movie villain?) The rare book dealer is infamous for his convincing historical forgeries."
*****

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohonc_Codex[+https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohonc_Codex+]

http://real-ms.mtak.hu/80/[+http://real-ms.mtak.hu/80/+]

* *Zodiac killer ciphers*

*****
"It’s been 45 years since the Zodiac Killer first terrorized the Northern California area, taunting the press with coded messages. Of the four ciphers supposedly sent by the serial killer, only one has been solved — a complex 408-word cryptogram (misspelled), in which the murderer talked about making the victims his slaves in the afterlife. Nice guy. Despite a list of potential suspects, the Zodiac murders — and letters — remain unsolved to this day."
*****

* *Beale Papers*

*****
"Treasure hunters have scoured the Bedford County, Virginia area since the 19th century, searching for buried gold, silver, and jewels. The Beale Papers are ciphers that reveal the location of over 60 million dollars in treasure, said to be squirreled away by Thomas Jefferson Beale. He entrusted the text to a friend before he died, and James B. Ward made them public in 1885. Only one of the codes has been cracked, revealing details of the riches and their location, but scholars doubt the authenticity of the papers. No record of a Thomas Jefferson Beale has ever been found. Ward, a Mason, is suspected to be the author. Edgar Allan Poe (a cryptography enthusiast) was also on the list of potential scribes, due to his connection to Virginia and his short story The Gold-Bug — about a secret message that leads to buried treasure. Historians have since ruled him out."
*****

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beale_ciphers[+https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beale_ciphers+]

* *Book of Soyga*

*****
"Alchemist, occultist, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I, John Dee had ownership of the Book of Soyga until his death. It was thought to be lost until the 1990s, when two manuscripts were located in the British Library and the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library under a different title. Dee sought the help of spirit medium Edward Kelley to uncover the significance of the 16th-century magical text. The angel Uriel supposedly revealed to the men that only the archangel Michael could interpret the book. Later, writer Jim Reeds cracked the code used to create the 36 tables of letters found within, but the collection of incantations, names, and backwards writing remains a mystery."
*****

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Soyga[+https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Soyga+]

* *Dorabella Cipher*

*****
"Is the Dorabella Cipher a love letter written by a 40-year-old married composer to a girl in her 20s? Edward Elgar and Dora Penny were friends for life, but an 87-character, three-line cipher sent to Penny by the musician in 1897 could hold a deeper meaning. Reportedly, Penny was never able to translate it. Some believe it’s shorthand for a musical composition. Several convoluted translations have surfaced over the years, but most of them resemble nonsense poems — which is yet another theory about the popular mystery."
*****

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorabella_Cipher[+https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorabella_Cipher+]

* *Liber Linteus*

*****
"Believed to be a ritual calendar, the Liber Linteus has a somewhat morbid history. A Croatian official in the Hungarian Royal Chancellery purchased a female mummy from Egypt during his travels. He displayed it in the sitting room of his home, even removing the linen wrappings at one point. After his death, the mummy was donated to the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, where a lengthy inscription was found on the cloth, estimated to date back to 250 BC. The codex contains 230 lines and 1200 legible Etruscan words — hymn-like passages and names of gods. The mummy itself was identified as Nesi-hensu, the wife of Paher-hensu, a tailor from Thebes. Scholars have never been able to decipher the entire text due to a language barrier."
*****

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_Linteus[+https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_Linteus+]

* *Ripley Scrolls*

*****
"We know that the Ripley Scrolls, named after English author and alchemist George Ripley, are copies of an original 15th-century text. The works contain strange illustrations and poetic passages referencing the elusive philosopher’s stone — aka magical realness that only Harry Potter understands, which is why the scrolls remain a mystery."
*****

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ripley_(alchemist)[+https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ripley_(alchemist)+]

* *The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám*

*****
"Persian poet and astronomer Omar Khayyám wrote thousands of poems, many compiled into The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Numerous translations have added widely different meanings to the text, ranging from mystic interpretations to devoutly religious (Islamic) symbolism. Scholars can’t agree on the authenticity of the collection, clouding the works further. Francis Sangorski, one half of London bookbinder company Sangorski & Sutcliffe, created a stunning bejeweled binding for The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám that took years to create. It was lost during the sinking of the Titanic. Sangorski drowned weeks later, leading many to believe that the book itself is cursed. Take that, James Cameron."
*****

*10 of the Oldest Known Surviving Books in the World* - Wigan Lane Books
------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://wiganlanebooks.co.uk/blog/interesting/10-of-the-oldest-known-surviving-books-in-the-world/[+https://wiganlanebooks.co.uk/blog/interesting/10-of-the-oldest-known-surviving-books-in-the-world/+]

*20 Books for Rebuilding Civilization*
--------------------------------------

http://www.openculture.com/2015/08/brian-eno-book-lists.html[+http://www.openculture.com/2015/08/brian-eno-book-lists.html+]

*20 Obscure SF/F/H Books Recommended by the Pros* - G. Calcaterra
-----------------------------------------------------------------

http://garrettcalcaterra.blogspot.com/2013/10/20-obscure-sffh-books-recommended-by.html[+http://garrettcalcaterra.blogspot.com/2013/10/20-obscure-sffh-books-recommended-by.html+]

*20 Wonderful Books About Books and Bookstores*
-----------------------------------------------

https://modernmrsdarcy.com/books-bookstores/[+https://modernmrsdarcy.com/books-bookstores/+]

*26 Most Underrated SF Books* - Tom Merritt
-------------------------------------------

https://www.techrepublic.com/pictures/the-most-underrated-science-fiction-books/[+https://www.techrepublic.com/pictures/the-most-underrated-science-fiction-books/+]

* *Clans of the Alphane Moon* - Philip K. Dick

*****
"You think you know Philip K. Dick because you've seen Total Recall, Blade Runner, and Minority Report, right? I submit that you don't really know Philip K. Dick until you read Clans of the Alphane Moon. The book is set on a planet that is also a mental institution where clans have arisen centered around their diagnosis. It features a slime mold named Lord Running Clam."
*****

* *The Sparrow* - Mary Doria Russell

*****
"Sometimes people ask what would happen if the Jesuits led space exploration. No, seriously, sometimes people ask that. And when they do I tell them to read The Sparrow."
*****

* *Stories of Your Life and Others* - Ted Chiang

*****
"Not enough people saw the movie Arrival, but those that did loved it. Even fewer read the source story that is the title of Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang--and it may not even be the best of the nine stories collected here, which includes three Nebula Award winners, one of which also won a Hugo."
*****

* *Blue Remembered Earth* - Alastair Reynolds

*****
"An optimistic future in which humanity has begun to repair the Earth and explore the stars. Blue Remembered Earth includes one of the most interesting devices to overcome the speed of light delay in long distance communications that I have ever read."
*****

* *A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet* - Becky Chambers

*****
"Fans of Star Trek and Firefly often claim they are good because you love everyone in the crew. I love everyone on the Wayfarer. Even Corbin. Read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers."
*****

* *Doomsday Book* - Connie Willis

*****
"Connie Willis's time travel works are not well-known enough; even among her fans, the first in this series, Doomsday Book, is often excused as being a little stiff. So forget I said that because, if you don't know any better, you'll think you just read one of the best time-travel adventures written. You will be right."
*****

* *Ringworld* - Larry Niven

*****
"If you've ever seen an episode of a science-fiction TV show of any kind, you've probably seen one of Larry Niven's Ringworld concepts. OK, maybe not ALL episodes but certainly a large percentage of Star Trek is inspired by various aspects of this book."
*****

* *1Q84* - Haruki Murakami

*****
"1Q84 tells the story of what happens if you get out of your taxi in a traffic jam to complete your assasination assignment, only to change the nature of reality. Plus, the title is a pun in two languages."
*****

* *The Baroque Cycle* - Neal Stephenson

*****
"Many people try to read this trilogy of historical science fiction and many fail. But if you persevere, you will be rewarded with a new perspective where Charles Babbage and Isaac Newton seem like your friends."
*****

* *Boneshaker* - Cherie Priest

*****
Steampunk zombies in a fictional Seattle. It makes Amazon and Microsoft's troubles look like a walk in the park--or a bicycle in the park, maybe. Read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest."
*****

* *After On* - Rob Reid

*****
"If you've read tech news for the past 5-10 years, you must read After On. Superintelligence, quantum computing, and biohacking are just the base of modern trends that form a fun adventure as a Silicon Valley startup tries to convince a budding AI that she can trust them."
*****

* *Memoirs Found in a Bathtub* - Stanislaw Lem

*****
"Do not read Memoirs Found in a Bathtub if you already think they are watching you. Do read it if you want to see the paranoia of the security state taken to its logical extreme. I've already said too much."
*****

* *How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe* - Charles Yu

*****
"In How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, there's a murder and time machines and a woman who relives the same hour of her life over and over on purpose. Oh, and the time travel paradoxes. You think you know. But you don't."
*****

* *Simulacron 3* - Daniel F. Galouye

*****
"A virtual city is developed for market research--which is fine until one inhabitant realizes it. Do not use Facebook within three hours after reading Simulacron 3."
*****

* *Fuzzy Nation* - John Scalzi

*****
"John Scalzi wins lots of awards, and he deserves them. But people sometimes forget this little gem, which he wrote as an exercise. Fuzzy Nation is a reboot of H. Beam Piper's 1962 novel, Little Fuzzy, published with the authorization of the Piper estate. It starts with a man being fired for letting his dog set off explosives. Again."
*****

* *Phasma* - Dellah S. Dawson

*****
"Delilah S. Dawson, an author best known for steampunk paranormal romance, kills it telling a compelling backstory for one of Star Wars' most underutilized movie characters. Not only will Captain Phasma make more sense after you read Phasma, but you get an amazing story of a postapocalyptic society unaware of the advanced universe surrounding it."
*****

* *Empire State* - Adam Christopher

*****
"In a prohibition-era alternate New York, the Skyguard and the Science Pirate constantly battle for justice. One of them is a villain. Also, this is a pocket universe. Imagine 1930s gangster meets superheroes."
*****

* *The Life Engineered* - J-F Dubeau

*****
"In The Life Engineered, human beings are long gone, and the universe is filled with robots who refer to themselves by the much more dignified term of Ćapek. A newly-formed Ćapek, fascinated with the legendary humans, tries to figure out who killed her mother."
*****

* *Dawn* - Octavia Butler

*****
"Too few people know about the Lilith's Brood series, which has one of the best alien contact stories yet told. If you cringe when you see aliens in TV and movies who just act like humans, Dawn will definitely satisfy you."
*****

* *Flatland* - Edwin A. Abbott

*****
"Flatland is too often classified as a math text, but honestly it's one of the best inter-dimensional stories ever made and will definitely change your perception of the 3D world around you."
*****

* *Station Breaker* - Andrew Mayne

*****
"In Station Breaker, a gun fight breaks out in orbit, and David Dixon needs to get out of there. So he makes his way back to Earth while still on the run. SpaceX meets Jason Bourne."
*****

* *Daemon* - Daniel Suarez

*****
"Daemon rose to great fame on the internet when it first appeared, but like Mahir and "Leave Britney Alone" it has faded and been replaced by other internet trends, which is wrong, because this book feels as relevant and predictive today as it did when it hit big on Slashdot 10 years ago."
*****

* *The Rookie* - Scott Sigler

*****
"The Rookie is a book that became beloved as a podcast. Yes, there is planetary colonization and conquest, and interspecies warfare. But there's also football 700 years in the future. And humans are only one of a handful of major species who play in the GFL."
*****

* *Lost Stars* - Claudia Gray

*****
"Forget that Lost Stars is a Star Wars book, and read it for the excellent love story of two people trying to make their lives better while achieving their dreams of serving aboard and piloting spaceships. Then put them in the Empire and add in cameos from Star Wars legends. It's so good."
*****

* *Marrow* - Robert Reed

*****
"An alien structure the size of Jupiter appears with little clue who built it, so humans turn it into a cruise ship for all aliens--but it turns out there's a whole planet hidden inside. It's a really big ship, so it took awhile to notice."
*****

* *Radiance* - Catherynne M. Valente

*****
"Like alternate history? Or pulp fiction? Or film history? Or cyberpunk? How about all in one with a mystery to boot? Radiance is weird and interesting and inventive and just plain enjoyable."
*****

*5 Incredibly Self-Referential Books About Books* - Jeff Somers
---------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/5-incredibly-self-referential-books-books/[+https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/5-incredibly-self-referential-books-books/+]

* *Bookshelf* - Alex Johnson

*****
"You’ve heard the term “house proud.” Book nerds are “bookshelf proud.” Whether it’s your standard IKEA Billy or a custom-designed, handmade beauty, book nerds love to examine bookshelves wherever they go, to snap “shelfies,” and to lust over innovative and clever bookshelf designs on Pinterest. In this fab book, clever, beautiful, and efficient bookshelves are highlighted, celebrating designs that make book storage prettier, deeper, and more fun. Whether you’re looking for a great idea for a small space, or a grand idea for a grand space, there’s a bookshelf in this book you’re going to covet."
*****

* *The Book* - Keith Houston

*****
"A complete history of the book and its component parts, Houston’s fantastic work will remind you that every book is the end result of centuries of technological, artistic, and intellectual development. Houston traces the paper, glue, ink, and other materials that make up every book ever printed, and dives into the history behind each ingredient, while offering up tactile examples and gorgeous illustrations. When you’re done, you’ll see your books from a whole new perspective."
*****

* *Nabokov’s Favorite Word was Mauve* - Ben Blatt

*****
"We love print books, but the digital age has given us plenty of blessings, among them the ability to apply big data to the world’s body of literature. Instead of an artistic review of great writers and their famous works, Blatt and his team have analyzed countless books to find patterns, to reveal secrets of composition and blueprints of creativity. They suss out which writers fall back on clichés, which break their own writing advice most often, which have the most limited or largest vocabularies, and more. This sort of data is fascinating to a book nerd, because it quantifies aspects of literature that are instinctive. Why do we enjoy some writers and not others? The answers might be in this incredibly meta book."
*****

* *Printer's Error* - Rebecca Romney

*****
"One of the upsides of digital publishing is the ability to fix an error with a push of a button, silently updating millions of downloaded books without fuss. But that’s also a downside for book nerds who revel in the mistakes, the errors, and the unintentionally evocative screw-ups that launched a million theories on what the author meant—when, in fact, it was just a mistake. Romney starts at the beginning of the printed word and recounts some of the best stories of publishing incompetence ever told."
*****

* *Codex Serpahinianus* - Luigi Serafini

*****
"Finally, the experience of reading a book can come to be second-nature, and thus unremarkable, if you spend a lot of time with your nose in a book. Long forgotten is the amazement we experienced when we first learned to read, first discovered fictional worlds and factual compilations we could access at any time. The genius of Serafini’s book—written in an artificial language that has so far eluded linguists, describing things that don’t actually exist—is in how it replicates the way children must feel when they first encounter a book before they know how to read. There’s an instinctual understanding that the markings mean something, a beautiful order to everything that implies meaning, even if that meaning is obscured. It’s a wonderful feeling for a book nerd to be able to simply appreciate the form and beauty of a book without the hope of being able to understand a lick of what’s on the page."
*****

*59 Books for Building Your Intellectual World*
-----------------------------------------------

http://www.openculture.com/2015/08/brian-eno-book-lists.html[+http://www.openculture.com/2015/08/brian-eno-book-lists.html+]

*8 Books so Unique They Have No Readalikes* - Jeff Somers
---------------------------------------------------------

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/8-books-so-unique-they-have-no-readalikes/[+https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/8-books-so-unique-they-have-no-readalikes/+]

* *If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler* - Italo Calvino

*****
"This novel is about you reading this novel. And, generally, failing, because you keep getting interrupted by other novels. Sound confusing? Oh, it is—but it’s also a joyous celebration, in its way, of reading and adventure, of stumbling onto new stories. After an introduction addressing you directly, the actual novel begins, but owing to a printer’s error you only get the first signature, at which point you return to the bookstore, meet a woman, and select another book to read, only to have that one interrupted as well. If this sounds confusing, it is. If it also sounds amazing, it is."
*****

* *Hopscotch* - Julio Cortazar

*****
"This book is divided into 155 chapters, and Cortazar includes in the beginning a complex set of instructions detailing two approaches to reading the novel. The first is to read chapters 1–56 straight through, and then ignore the final 99 chapters as “expendable.” The second is to “hopscotch” through the book by jumping from chapter to chapter in what might seem random ways. Even more confusingly, the 99 “expendable” chapters are not expendable at all, but fill in crucial gaps in the timeline and details. It’s safe to say you will never read another book structured like this."
*****

* *Finnegan's Wake* - James Joyce

*****
"James Joyce is a famously challenging writer, but most of his other works, even Ulysses, can be enjoyed on a more or less superficial level simply because you can generally understand the words on the page, even if the larger meaning and structure elude you. Finnegans Wake’s first sentence is “riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.” And that may be the most easily understood sentence in the book. Ostensibly in English, it may be the most difficult novel ever written, and as such will always be 100% unique."
*****

* *Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age* - Hrabal Bohumil

*****
"A story about an old man who approaches some women on a beach and begins telling them stories from his life, Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age is unique for one singular achievement: the entire novel is rendered as a single sentence. Carry a copy to school or work with you, and when someone complains about a run-on sentence you can do your best Crocodile Dundee impression, tossing the book on their desk and saying, “You call that a run-on sentence? This is a run-on sentence.”"
*****

* *Gödel, Escher, Bach* - Douglas Hofstadter

*****
"This book isn’t a novel. It also isn’t many other things. It’s possibly the most unique book ever written, a book about thinking, about how thought is possible and how thought works, as well as a book about how systems can be constructed from elements that have no intrinsic meaning and yet the systems themselves have meaning. And all of this is conveyed through a series of absorbing, enjoyable stories, thought experiments, puzzles, and other examples of pure creativity that will leave you riveted even if you you’re never 100% certain you’re following along."
*****

* *The Mezzanine* - Nicholson Baker

*****
"In visual mediums we have the slo-mo, a way of isolating a moment in time and exploring it. In fiction, we have The Mezzanine, the entirety of which takes place in the mind of an office worker as he returns from his lunch break and rides an escalator up one floor. One floor. The book is made up of his thoughts as he reflects back over his lunch—what he ate, the chores he accomplished, the book he was reading—and follows those thoughts backward and forward through the use of footnotes drilling down into the roots of his memories and the implications of his epiphanies. The most amazing aspect of this completely original novel is that it never once feels forced."
*****

* *S.* - J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst

*****
"This book is more like two books. It comes as a print copy of a novel, Ship of Theseus, by V.M. Straka, apparently borrowed from a library and never returned. In the margins of that book are notes written by Eric and Jen, two students seeking to solve the mystery of Straka’s identity and disappearance. Including other materials such as postcards and maps, this is a truly unique reading experience that tells two side-by-sides stories, at the very least."
*****

* *The Familiar* - Mark Z. Danielewski

*****
"We could probably include just about any Danielewski work on this list, as the author has yet to write a straightforward novel. His latest work is unique in so many ways, however, it may shape up to be the most singular story ever written. Coming to us in 27 planned volumes (only 2 have been published so far), the novel incorporates different fonts for each character’s point of view, and a plethora of layout and typesetting tricks that often reflect the action—or some other, less obvious aspect of the story. Nothing like it has ever been published before."
*****

*Brilliant SF Books That Got Away*
----------------------------------

https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/lost-worlds/[+https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/lost-worlds/+]

* *Dark Universe* - Daniel C. Galouye

*****
"Deprived of light in their refuge far underground, the descendants of the survivors of a nuclear
holocaust have heightened hearing.  They navigate using the echoes from clicking stones, and develop
a religion around the memory of lost light.  Then the protagonist, Jared, begins to question
his tribe's beliefs."
*****

* *Journey of Joenes* - Robert Sheckley

* *The Cyberiad* - Stanislaw Lem

* *Random Acts of Senseless Violence* - Jack Womack

* *New Maps of Hell* - Kingsley Amis

* *We* - Eugene Zamiatin

* *Last and First Men* - Olaf Stapledon

* *Floating Worlds* - Cecelia Holland

* *The Listeners* - James Gunn

* *Earth Abides* - George Stuart

*Favourite Books About Fishing* - Charles Rangeley-Wilson
---------------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/sep/29/top10s.fishing[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/sep/29/top10s.fishing+]

*James Beard's Books* - Alexandra Zohn and Peggy Grodinsky
----------------------------------------------------------

https://www.jamesbeard.org/about/james-beard-books[+https://www.jamesbeard.org/about/james-beard-books+]

*M. John Harrison's Top 10* - M. John Harrison
----------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/nov/17/bestbooks.sportandleisure[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/nov/17/bestbooks.sportandleisure+]

*Stories Behind 10 Dr. Suess Books* - Stacy Conradt
---------------------------------------------------

http://mentalfloss.com/article/28843/stories-behind-10-dr-seuss-books[+http://mentalfloss.com/article/28843/stories-behind-10-dr-seuss-books+]

* *The Lorax*

*****
"The Lorax is widely recognized as Dr. Seuss's take on environmentalism and how humans are destroying nature. Groups within the logging industry weren't very happy about it and later sponsored The Truax—a similar book, but from the logging point of view. Another interesting fact: The Lorax used to contain the line, "I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie," but 14 years after the book was published, the Ohio Sea Grant Program wrote to Seuss and told him how much the conditions had improved and implored him to take the line out. Dr. Seuss agreed and said that it wouldn't be in future editions."
*****

* *The Cat in the Hat*

*****
"Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat because he thought the famous Dick and Jane primers were insanely boring. Because kids weren't interested in the material, they weren't exactly compelled to use it repeatedly in their efforts to learn to read. So, The Cat in the Hat was born. "I have great pride in taking Dick and Jane out of most school libraries," the author once said. "That is my greatest satisfaction.""
*****

* *Green Eggs and Ham*

*****
"Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss's editor, bet him that he couldn't write a book using 50 words or less. The Cat in the Hat was pretty simple, after all, and it used 225 words. Not one to back down from a challenge, Geisel started writing and came up with Green Eggs and Ham—which uses exactly 50 words.

The 50 words, by the way, are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you."
*****

* *Horton Hears a Who!*

*****
"The line from the book "A person's a person, no matter how small" has been used as a slogan for pro-life organizations for years. It's often questioned whether that was Seuss's intent in the first place, but when he was still alive, he threatened to sue a pro-life group unless they removed his words from their letterhead. Karl ZoBell, the attorney for Dr. Seuss's interests, says the author's widow doesn't like people to "hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material to front their own points of view.""
*****

* *Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!*

*****
"It's often alleged that Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! was written specifically about Richard Nixon, but the book came out only two months after the whole Watergate scandal. Which makes it unlikely that the book could have been conceived of, written, edited, and mass-produced in such a short time; also, Seuss never admitted that the story was originally about Nixon.

But that's not to say he didn't understand how well the two flowed together. In 1974, he sent a copy of Marvin K. Mooney to his friend, Art Buchwald, at The Washington Post. In it, he crossed out "Marvin K. Mooney" and replaced it with "Richard M. Nixon," which Buchwald reprinted in its entirety. Oh, and one other tidbit: This book contains the first-ever reference to "crunk," although its meaning is a bit different than today's crunk.
*****

* *Yertle the Turtle*

*****
"Yertle the Turtle = Hitler? Yep. If you haven't read the story, here's a little overview: Yertle is the king of the pond, but he wants more. He demands that other turtles stack themselves up so he can sit on top of them to survey the land. Mack, the turtle at the bottom, is exhausted. He asks Yertle for a rest; Yertle ignores him and demands more turtles for a better view. Eventually, Yertle notices the moon and is furious that anything dare be higher than himself, and is about ready to call for more turtles when Mack burps. This sudden movement topples the whole stack, sends Yertle flying into the mud, and frees the rest of the turtles from their stacking duty.

Dr. Seuss actually said Yertle was a representation of Hitler. Despite the political nature of the book, none of that was disputed at Random House—what was disputed was Mack's burp. No one had ever let a burp loose in a children's book before, so it was a little dicey. In the end, obviously, Mack burped."
*****

* *The Butter Battle Book* 

*****
"The Butter Battle Book was pulled from the shelves of libraries for a while because of the reference to the Cold War and the arms race. Yooks and Zooks are societies who do everything differently. The Yooks eat their bread butter-side up and the Zooks eat their bread butter-side down. Obviously, one of them must be wrong, so they start building weapons to outdo each other: the "Tough-Tufted Prickly Snick-Berry Switch," the "Triple-Sling Jigger," the "Jigger-Rock Snatchem," the "Kick-A-Poo Kid," the "Eight-Nozzled Elephant-Toted Boom Blitz," the "Utterly Sputter," and the "Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo."

The book concludes with each side ready to drop their ultimate bombs on each other, but the reader doesn't know how it actually turns out."
*****

* *And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street*

*****
"Dr. Seuss's first children's book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was rejected 27 times according to Guy McLain of the Springfield Museum in Geisel's hometown. Only after Geisel bumped into a friend who'd just been hired by a publishing house did the book get the green light. "He said if he had been walking down the other side of the street," McLain told NPR, "he probably would never have become a children's author.""
*****

* *Oh, the Places You'll Go!*

*****
"Oh, The Places You'll Go! is Dr. Seuss's final book, published in 1990. It sells about 300,000 copies every year because so many people give it to college and high school grads."
*****

* *How the Grinch Stole Christmas!*

*****
"No Dr. Seuss story would be complete without a mention of the television special based on his book How the Grinch Stole Christmas! In the Dr. Seuss-sanctioned cartoon, Frankenstein's Monster himself, Boris Karloff, provided the voice of the Grinch and the narration. Seuss was a little wary of casting him because he thought his voice would be too scary for kids.

Tony the Tiger, a.k.a. Thurl Ravenscroft, is the voice behind "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." He received no credit on screen, so Dr. Seuss wrote to newspaper columnists to tell them exactly who had sung the song."
*****

*Ten Overlooked Odd Speculative Fiction Classics* - Scott Cupp
--------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.sfsite.com/lists/10odd03.htm[+https://www.sfsite.com/lists/10odd03.htm+]

* *The Last Starship from Earth* - John Boyd

*****
"The Last Starship from Earth is still one of my favorite novels of all time.  Alternate universe with more twists than a Moebius strip."
*****

* *The Standing Joy* - Wyman Guinn

*****
"Primarily remembered for his short story "Beyond Bedlam" (about enforced schizophrenia) The Standing Joy is Guinn's only novel.  It's similar to Stranger in a Strange Land but sometimes better."
*****

* *Let the Fire Fall* - Kate Wilhelm

*****
"It is hard to imagine a Kate Wilhelm book being overlooked but Let the Fire Fall seems to be one.  It has similar themes to Pangborn's  A Mirror for Observers (which is probably forgotten enough to be on the list also)."
*****

* *The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything* - John D. MacDonald

*****
"John D. MacDonald is generally dismissed as a SF writer because he is completely identified as a mystery writer.  The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything is wild, sexy, and a totally odd fantasy novel.  DO NOT WATCH THE MOVIE!!"
*****

* *Alien Island* - T. L. Sherred

*****
"T.L. Sherred is again another writer remembered for one story ("E FOR EFFORT").  Alien Island is his only solo novel and it's very worthwhile."
*****

* *Emphyrio* - Jack Vance

*****
"Again, Emphyrio is another novel by a respected master but also, severely neglected. I think this is his single best work.  A novel of myth, reality and power and its ability to shape the present."
*****

* *Wave Rider* - Hilbert Schenk

*****
"Wave Rider is collected from several wonderful short stories initially published in the 80s in F&SF. This novel sank like a stone.  It's a damn shame."
*****

* *Who Fears the Devil?* - Manly Wade Wellman

*****
"Hard to include Who Fears the Devil? but I thought "When was the last edition?"  More than 10 years ago?  Do people (other than hardcore fans remember Manly Wade Wellman)  I don't think so.  Someone prove me wrong here.  It's a great collection of fantasy stories centered around folk songs and the Applachians."
*****

* *Sacred Locomotive Files* - Richard Lupoff

*****
"Sacred Locomotive Flies is novel so controversial it seems hard to believe that no one remembers it.  The redneck South conquers the universe and imposes a tough philosophy."
*****

* *Men in the Jungle* - Norman Spinrad

*****
"There was a time when Spinrad was a force to be reckoned with.  Men in the Jungle, a novel of military warfare and cannibalism, was the main reason (more than Bug Jack Barron which was also mighty influential)."
*****


*Ten Overlooked Odd Speculative Fiction Classics* - Eric Walker
---------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.sfsite.com/lists/10odd04.htm[+https://www.sfsite.com/lists/10odd04.htm+]

* *The Unholy City* - Charles G. Finney

*****
"The surreal adventures of Captain Butch Malahide of Abalone, Arizona, and his chance-met companion Vicq Ruiz in the city of Heilar-Wey, a tongue-in-cheek sarcastic funny-house mirror reflecting modern morals and mores. Charles G. Finney's Circus of Dr. Lao has long obscured this equally bizarre -- and ultimately profound -- gem."
*****

* *Mr. Pye* - Mervyn Peake

*****
"This elegant little pastel work is radically different from Gormenghast. Set in modern times on the curious isle of Sark (where Mervyn Peake had lived), it is a witty, satisfying parable in which well-intentioned Mr. Pye discovers the wisdom of cleaving to The Golden Mean as he passes from angel to devil and back, while much hilarity ensues."
*****

* *Rain in the Doorway* - Thorne Smith

*****
"Thorne Smith wrote a lot more than Topper. This, his most fantastic tale, has the flavor of a madcap R.A. Lafferty tale, as Mr. Hector Owen passes through a peculiar doorway into a Marx Brothers world in which, amid non-stop shenanigans, he learns certain important lessons. Chapter XVIII: The Partners Purchase A Whale. It's like that."
*****

* *The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr* - E.T.A. Hoffmann

*****
"E.T.A. Hoffmann, best known for his numerous Tales, also produced two novels. In this remarkably modern and stylistically sophisticated tale, he alternates the vain, bourgeois memoirs of the tomcat Murr -- whose peculiar literacy is simply a given -- against the disjointed notes of his owner, the musician Kreisler."
*****

* *Three to See the King* - Magnus Mills

*****
"Magnus Mills's sparse, taut prose tells a surreal tale of people living in tin houses scattered about a windy, dusty plain. Their eventless lives are disturbingly altered when a charismatic "king" initiates a vast communal endeavor drawing ever more of them into it; the anonymous narrator finally is himself drawn in; but shortly thereafter, things change dramatically."
*****

* *The Stirk of Stirk* - Peter Tinniswood

*****
"In this work, one with no clear parallel, Peter Tinniswood gives us a strange, skewed view of the world of Robin Hood -- a view that swings between screamingly funny (but dry) humor and a weird sense of mysticism. As in most true medieval tales, the strangeness never really has a cause or makes sense; but the Stirk, stoic supreme, remains ever himself throughout."
*****

* *Descent Into Hell* - Charles Williams

*****
"This powerful modern fantasy portrays, with surgical exactness, the decay of a soul. Steadily, willingly, blindly, Lawrence Wentworth commits evils -- not supernatural but pedestrian -- each stripping more of his personhood, till we arrive at a freezing vision of figurative (or literal?) Hell."
*****

* *A Billion Days of Earth* - Doris Piserchia

*****
"Doris Piserchia urgently needs and much deserves a revival. In this dry, wry tale of the far future, humanity has become "the Gods," and the role of humans is played -- very well -- by evolved rats. When the mysterious and unstoppable Sheen arrives on Earth, only Rik cares enough to resist his dominion. Witty, amusing, thought-provoking, and ultimately quite moving -- this is a book to savor."
*****

* *Quin's Shanghai Circus* - Edward Whittemore

*****
"There is little of the overt fantastic in this great, bloody sprawl of a novel, in which tortured souls follow twisting paths through WWII Shanghai; rather, there is a gradual stretching of the ordinary to the extraordinary. And eventually all those twisted paths converge at the final, dreadful performance of Quin's Shanghai Circus."
*****

* *Jog Rummage* - Grahame Wright

*****
"Not often can one say of a book, without hyperbole, that there is nothing else quite like it. One cannot say much about this sadly neglected wonder without spoiling some of its effect -- the bleak, weird world of the jogs is not what it seems to be -- but it is densely full of all the emotions that count, that frame for us what it means to be human."
*****

*Top Ten Absurd Classics* - Michael Foley
-----------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/apr/20/michael-foley-top-10-absurd-classics[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/apr/20/michael-foley-top-10-absurd-classics+]

*Top Ten Alternative Realities* - Sam Leith
-------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/may/11/sam-leith-top-10-alternative-realities[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/may/11/sam-leith-top-10-alternative-realities+]

*Top Ten Americana* - Stephen Jones
-----------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jun/02/top10s.americana[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jun/02/top10s.americana+]

*Top Ten Black Comedies* - Tiffany Murray
-----------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jun/13/black.comedies[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jun/13/black.comedies+]

*Top Ten Black Comedies* - Ray French
-------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/nov/13/top10s.black.comedies[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/nov/13/top10s.black.comedies+]

*Top Ten Books About Comedians* - William Cook
----------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jan/30/top10s.comedians[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jan/30/top10s.comedians+]

*Top Ten Books About Dining* - Trevor White
-------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/sep/11/bestbooks[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/sep/11/bestbooks+]

*Top Ten Books About Gardens* - Vivian Swift
--------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/20/top-10-books-about-gardens[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/20/top-10-books-about-gardens+]

*Top Ten Books About Growing Old* - Christopher Matthew
-------------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/13/top-10-books-about-growing-old[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/13/top-10-books-about-growing-old+]

*Top Ten Books About Japan* - Christopher Harding
-------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/21/top-10-books-about-japan[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/21/top-10-books-about-japan+]

*Top Ten Books About Strange Towns* - Shaun Prescott
----------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/22/top-10-books-about-strange-towns[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/22/top-10-books-about-strange-towns+]

*Top Ten Books About the Afterlife* - Tim Thornton
--------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/20/top-10-books-about-the-afterlife[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/20/top-10-books-about-the-afterlife+]

*Top Ten Books of Radical History* - Sheila Rowbotham
-----------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/26/liberation-the-top-10-books-of-radical-history[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/26/liberation-the-top-10-books-of-radical-history+]

*Top Ten Books on Color* - Peter Forbes
---------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/mar/16/peter-forbes-top-10-books-colour[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/mar/16/peter-forbes-top-10-books-colour+]

*Top Ten Books on Englishness* - Billy Bragg
--------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/oct/18/top10s.englishness[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/oct/18/top10s.englishness+]

*Top Ten Books on Place* - Sam Jordison
---------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/sep/27/bestbooks.travel[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/sep/27/bestbooks.travel+]

*Top Ten Books on the English Language* - David Crystal
-------------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/sep/20/top10s.english.language[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/sep/20/top10s.english.language+]

*Top Ten Books to Make Your Blood Boil* - Brian Schofield
---------------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/29/brian-schofield-top-10-rage[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/29/brian-schofield-top-10-rage+]

*Top Ten Conspiracy Theories in Fiction* - James Miller
-------------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/17/top-10-conspiracy-theories-in-fiction[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/17/top-10-conspiracy-theories-in-fiction+]

*Top Ten Dictionaries* - John Simpson
-------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/14/top-10-dictionaries[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/14/top-10-dictionaries+]

*Top Ten Dissenting Books* - Paul Kingsnorth
--------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/apr/29/bestbooks.politics[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/apr/29/bestbooks.politics+]

*Top Ten Eastern European Novels* - Tibor Fischer
-------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/sep/08/top10s.eastern.european[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/sep/08/top10s.eastern.european+]

*Top Ten Eccentric Middle East Books* - Patrick Tyler
-----------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/feb/25/best-books-middle-east[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/feb/25/best-books-middle-east+]

*Top Ten Eccentrics in Literature* - David McKie
------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/mar/02/david-mckie-top-10-eccentrics-in-literature[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/mar/02/david-mckie-top-10-eccentrics-in-literature+]

*Top Ten Experimental Thrillers* - Tony White
---------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/27/top-10-experimental-thrillers[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/27/top-10-experimental-thrillers+]

*Top Ten Favourite Finnish Books* - This Is Finland
---------------------------------------------------

https://finland.fi/arts-culture/top-10-your-favourite-finnish-books/[+https://finland.fi/arts-culture/top-10-your-favourite-finnish-books/+]

*Top Ten Genre Twisting Novels* - Alan Trotter
----------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/13/top-10-genre-twisting-novels-alan-trotter[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/13/top-10-genre-twisting-novels-alan-trotter+]

*Top Ten Graphic Design Books* - Patrick Cramsie
------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/04/top-10-graphic-design-books[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/04/top-10-graphic-design-books+]

*Top Ten Irish Journeys* - David Monagan
----------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/mar/16/top10s.irish.journeys[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/mar/16/top10s.irish.journeys+]

*Top Ten Irish Science Fiction Authors* - Jack Fennell
------------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/19/top-10-irish-science-fiction-authors[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/19/top-10-irish-science-fiction-authors+]

*Top Ten Literary Frenemies* - Lars Iyer
----------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/08/lars-iyer-top-10-literary-frenemies[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/08/lars-iyer-top-10-literary-frenemies+]

*Top Ten Literary Parodies* - D. J. Taylor
------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/17/dj-taylor-top-10-literary-parodies[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/17/dj-taylor-top-10-literary-parodies+]

*Top Ten Mould-Breaking Fantasy Novels* - Lisa Tuttle
-----------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/28/lisa-tuttle-top-10-fantasy-novels[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/28/lisa-tuttle-top-10-fantasy-novels+]

*Top Ten Permaculture Books* - Rianne C. ten Veen
-------------------------------------------------

https://www.permaculture.org.uk/research/top-ten-permaculture-books[+https://www.permaculture.org.uk/research/top-ten-permaculture-books+]

* *Earth Care Manual* - Patrick Whitefield

*****
"This is the complete permaculture book, bursting with useful information, photos, diagrams, tables and plant lists. It is the first major permaculture book from outside Australia, written specifically for British conditions and highly relevant for other temperate countries. It is an exploration of permaculture specifically for cooler Northern Hemisphere climates is finally here! Already regarded as the definitive book on the subject, The Earth Care Manual is accessible to the curious novice as much as it is essential for the knowledgeable practitioner."
*****

* *Permaculture: A Beginners Guide* - Graham Burnett

*****
"Whether you are aged 12 or 120, this concise yet information rich graphic guide provides the answers, and will encourage you to apply the ethics and principles of sustainability and working with, rather than against, nature to your land (whether it’s a windowbox or a 1000 hectare farm), your community and your life.

It’s a nice 76-page introductory look a permaculture — a very readable booklet to get you looking at the world, and your garden, through the permaculture lens. It’s in no way a substantial, technical how-to type manual, but rather a good inspirational dose of permaculture principles with a broad smattering of practical examples of how to apply them. In short, it’s a great tool to get one started on the permaculture pathway.

Find out: What is permaculture? Why do we need permaculture? What are permaculture ethics and the principles of working with nature’s patterns? What are the Basics of the permaculture design process? What are concepts such as Zones, sectors, edge, stacking and succession, and how they can work for us? How can you use permaculture practically in your life, home, garden, land or community, whatever your situation? Plus Practical tips, including; reading your land, saving energy, year round food from your garden and how to use your weeds….

With its concise yet information rich text and clear graphics and diagrams, Graham Burnett’s ‘Permaculture A Beginner’s Guide’ is is the perfect accompaniment to any Permaculture Design or Introductory Course, and a great ‘additional extra’ reference book to give to your students. Updated and revised third edition published November 2012 by Spiralseed."
*****

* *Permaculture Design: a Step by Step Guide* - Aranya

*****
"Are you excited about permaculture but unclear how to put it into practice for yourself? In this unique, full colour guide, experienced permaculture teacher Aranya leads you through the design process from beginning to end, using clear explanations, flowcharts and diagrams. It is based on course worksheets which have been designed, refined and tested on students over time. Linking theory to practice, he places the ethics, principles, philosophies, tools and techniques directly into the context of the process itself.

While written for anyone with a basic grasp of permaculture, this book also has plenty to offer the more experienced designer. This guide covers:  Systems and patterns ~ Working as part of a design team ~ Land and non-land based design ~ Design frameworks ~ Site surveying and map making ~ Interviewing clients ~ Working with large client groups ~ Identifying functions ~ Choosing systems and elements ~ Placement and integration ~ Creating a design proposal ~ Project management ~ Presenting your ideas to clients ~ and much more.

A great reference for anyone who has done, or is thinking of doing, any kind of permaculture course."
*****

* *People & Permaculture* - Looby Macnamara

*****
"This is the first book to explore how to use permaculture design and principles for people - to restore personal, social and planetary well-being. People & Permaculture widens the definition of permaculture from being mainly about land-based systems to include our own lives, relationships and society.

This book provides a framework to help each of us improve our ability to care for ourselves, our friends, families and for the Earth. It is also a clear guide for those who may be new to permaculture, who may not even have a garden, but who wish to be involved in making changes to their lives and living more creative, low carbon lives. People & Permaculture transforms the context of permaculture making it relevant to everyone.

Part 1 - provides a detailed introduction to permaculture design and principles as applied to people.

Part 2 - looks at the tools and techniques we can use in our own lives; how we can transform our internal landscape, enhance our well-being and be at our best.

Part 3 - investigates ways of creating harmony in our relationships and groups, through our communication and decision making.

Part 4 - explores a wider vision for our social systems, in particular health and education.

Part 5 - moves on to explore how to expand our feelings of connection across the globe.

Part 6 - focuses on how we can manifest a positive future with the use of a new design framework specifically created for people-based designs.

Including over 50 practical activities, People & Permaculture empowers readers with tried and tested tools to initiate positive change in their lives. It is a hands-on yet powerful guide to creating a sustainable world."
*****

* *Permaculture Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability* - David Holmgren

*****
"Holmgren's seminal work, drawing together and integrating 25 years of thinking and teaching to show a whole new way of understanding and action behind a simple set of design principles. Principles and Pathways draws together and integrates 25 years of thinking and teaching to show a whole new way of understanding and action behind a simple set of design principles. Relevant to every aspect of how we reorganise our lives, communities and landscapes to creatively adapt to ecological realities which shape human destiny."
*****

* *A Designers' Manual* - Bill Mollison 

*****
"Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order. This is still the classic permaculture textbook."
*****

* *The Permaculture Garden* - Graham Bell

*****
"Even the smallest back yard can be transformed into a beautiful and highly productive garden, if you work in harmony with nature. This book shows you how to plan your garden layout for easy access and minimum labour, save money by creating a beautiful garden in recycled containers, use garden crop successions for year-round harvests and healthy soil, choose the best plants for different sites and enjoy the benefits of plant communities."
*****

* *Creating a Forest Garden* - Martin Crawford

*****
"Working with nature to grow edible crops. The long-awaited definitive book on forest gardening. Martin takes you step by step through the process of designing, implementing and maintaining a forest garden. Trees, shrubs, perennials, short-lived plants and fungi can all be integrated into one system and this book tells you how to do it. Includes descriptions of many uncommon edible plants suitable for temperate climates. If you want one book on forest gardening then this is the one to get!"
*****

* *Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture* - Toby Hemenway 

*****
"The first edition of Gaia s Garden sparked the imagination of America's home gardeners, introducing permaculture s central message: Working with Nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. This extensively revised and expanded second edition broadens the reach and depth of the permaculture approach for urban and suburban growers.

Many people mistakenly think that ecological gardening which involves growing a wide range of edible and other useful plants can take place only on a large, multiacre scale. As Hemenway demonstrates, it s fun and easy to create a backyard ecosystem by assembling communities of plants that can work cooperatively and perform a variety of functions, including: Building and maintaining soil fertility and structure, Catching and conserving water in the landscape, Providing habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and animals, Growing an edible forest that yields seasonal fruits, nuts, and other foods.

This revised and updated edition also features a new chapter on urban permaculture, designed especially for people in cities and suburbs who have very limited growing space. Whatever size yard or garden you have to work with, you can apply basic permaculture principles to make it more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful. Best of all, once it is established, an ecological garden will reduce or eliminate most of the backbreaking work that s needed to maintain the typical lawn and garden."
*****

* *Earth User's Guide to Permaculture* - Rosemary Morrow

*****
"In this fully revised and expanded edition, Rosemary Morrow brings us up to date with our need to measure, monitor and reduce our ecological footprint. This book is a manual of practical permaculture. Drawing on her years of experience in Australia, Vietnam, Cambodia, India and Africa, the author communicates the essence of permaculture ethics, principles and design with enthusiasm, converting Holmgren and Mollison's rather theoretical concepts to an accessible 'here's how to do it' approach.

Rosemary Morrow is known and revered worldwide for her pragmatic and effective approach to creating permaculture systems across an incredibly broad range of environments. Rosemary has successfully implemented community-scale permaculture systems in such diverse biospheres as Uganda, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Thailand, the Middle East, Australia, and northern Europe, to name but a few. Her knowledge on how to create abundance, food security, and successful sustainable farming models, no matter what the country, is unparalleled in permaculture education today."
*****

*Top Ten Quest Narratives* - Robert Irwin
-----------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/21/robert-irwin-top-10-quest-narratives[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/21/robert-irwin-top-10-quest-narratives+]

*Top Ten Railway Books* - Ian Marchant
--------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/21/top10s.railway[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/21/top10s.railway+]

*Top Ten Slipstream Books* - Christopher Priest
-----------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/may/28/top10s.slipstream[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/may/28/top10s.slipstream+]

*Top Ten Unusual Cookbooks* - Kate Colquhoun
--------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/15/top10s.unusual.cookbooks[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/15/top10s.unusual.cookbooks+]

*Top Ten Writings from the Edge of Language* - Philip Gross
-----------------------------------------------------------

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/07/philip-gross-top-10-writings-language[+https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/07/philip-gross-top-10-writings-language+]