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So he has 2 connections to the Mitchell / Neppl clan.
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To praise him, up to this point, would be gilding the lily.
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But in this past issue of "The Week" he got to chose his favorite books.
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And, goodness, I love the ones he has chosen and everything he has said about each. I cannot find it online so I will have to retype his comments, because he is SO right. I say this having read 4 of them (all but Neuromancer & Air Force Gator) before ebooks. And I loved them. Particularly Sh 5.
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Card's novel about children trained for space combat is an amazing story about childhood and what it means to truly understand others and oneself. It's unfortunate that the author, who's been vocal about his anti-gay views, appears in real life to have entirely missed the points about empathy he made here, but his book is still well worth reading.
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Use of Weapons by Iain Banks
And engrossing meditation on love, relationships, betrayal and the true price of winning at all costs. Banks uses well-drawn characters to make his science-fiction fantasy worlds completing and believable. All of his books are excellent; this just happens to be my favorite. (I would add Iain M. Banks' science fiction is great, but a slog. It uses made up terms galore and is often told from a non-human perspective. I have always found them best in print on a long flight, where you have a few hours with nothing to do but get started in them. Then you can't stop.)
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Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Hilarious, insightful and profound, Good Omens is my go-to book when I need to feel better about the absolute absurdity of our world. Where else are you going to find bikers of the apocalyopse named Death and Grievous Bodily Harm.
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Neuromancer by William Gibson
This 1984 novel, which deftly weaves together intensely evocative passages with stunning insights into what the future holds, should be required reading for everyone. We haven't completely arrived at Gibson's cyberpunk future, but were well on our way. (Scott - I know, this is the book I have been told to read forever. I guess I will now.)
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Slaugtherhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
There are many great Vonnegut lines, but none quite so unforgettable as that three-word mantra, "So it goes." Babies are born, men die, tragedies and triumphs occur, and yet the world keeps spinning. It's a lesson we could all use now and them (Scott - This is my favorite book, but my favorite line is from another book when a vistor walks into a researcher's office. It is awash with papers lying everywhere, half read notes and bit of flotsam. The researcher turns to the vistor and says, "You think it's messy in here, you should see up here!" and points at his head.)
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Air Force Gator by Dan Ryckert
Proof that no matter how much time you spend agonizing over the perfect word choice, no matter how much literature you cram into your head, no matter how seriously you take yourself, there will always be someone who thinks up a story about a secret-agent aligator while watching pro-wrestling and then publishes it. And it's good our world lets that happen.
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I am so buying his book...
