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| Book | Commentary |
|---|---|
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand | The best book ever written. No debate. The miraculous thing about Ayn Rand's fiction is that she focuses upon using plot to illustrate the philosophical root of an idea. Rather than spending a novel creating characters and trying to make them interact enough for a plot to form, her characters are sort of "ideal beings", either extreme versions of heroism or depravity or evil or apathy. You can see, through her wonderful use of imagery and storytelling, the ultimate cnsequence of a given philosophical standing. Her story will lead you through encounters with a personification of every type of flawed philosophy and subsequently debunk the theory by showing its results when taken to its logical end. No novel nor nonfiction work will ever match the splendor and grandeur of this, Rand's ultimate masterpiece. |
 The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs | Another of the greatest books ver written. But that's coming from an urban history geek. Jacobs gives one of the most comprehensive and licid accounts of the mistakes made - both today and historically - in city planning and urban development, which have resulted in decades of sprawl-decline-renewal-decay roller-coaster cycles. Unfortunately for the cities in which we live, most planners and bureaucrats do not read this book before decending upon an aging metropolis and wreaking incredible havoc. Would that they were required to do at least that before obtaining their positions. Would that they were abolished entirely... |
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World Power Foresaken: Political Culture, International Institutions, and German Security Policy After Unification by John S. Duffield | This was the primary inspiration for the direction my graduate thesis took. The book is a thorough account of the roots of German pacifism and docility in the Post-War era. Based on its history, Germany's security policy couldn't have gone any differently, is the basic arguement. With mere punishment (as in the 1920s and 30s) determined to be insufficient, but any form of neglect seen to be suicide, the only choice for the Allies after the War was to tie Germany in every way to the Alliance, through its military, consitution, and encouragement of a very docile and dependence-oriented political culture. This is a statement declaring that Germans would be unable to assume the power expected of the third largest economy and fourth most advanced military, due to their lack of a decicive sense of security without the institutions to which they are interdependently bound. |
Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite | Romance, horror, goth boys and a haunted house. This, I'd say, is Brite's best book to date. Brite has a habit of making one focus on her characters, rather than the plot. You not only identify with and sympathise for her characters, you truly love them. You want to "be" them, almost. Her literary style is focused upon making the reader care about the characters so much so that their fate drives the plot, rather than vice-versa. You don't realy care what the actual outcome is, you just want to know more and more about the very charismatic figures you're reading about. In "Drawing Blood", Brite takes Trevor, a disturbed orphan, back to his old house, where his Dad killed his entire family when he was a boy. The ghosts of that slaying still cause all manner of freakish delusions on Trevor's fragile psyche. It's exacerbated by his sudden falling for Zach, a hacker on the run. |
From Joy Division to New Order : The True Story of Anthony H. Wilson and Factory Records by Mick Middles | More a series of antecdotes than a real "story". This book traces the history of Factory Records specifically, and the Manchester music scene in general. Tied into it all are the two bands upon which the survival of Factory depended: New Order and Joy Divisions. Two incarnations of what remains my favorite musical act to this day. Few bands compare with the talent and versatility displayed by them. It's doubful any ever will. |
The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff | A very coherent academic study linking politics to philosophy, with particular emphasis upon the ideological revolution in Central Europe which led to the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, and its parallels in contemporary America. The author does not imply that America is quickly headed for dictatorship, but rarther that without a philosophical foundation, a free country is doomed, and that America has been adrift without principles for decades. One of the most engrossing books I've read, even if it was a tough read due to the complex nature of the subject. |
Cafe Europa: Life After Communism by Slavenka Drakulic | Draculic has one of the most beautiful narrative styles. But this may explain why she's one of the Former Yugoslavia's most gifted exports. Reflecting upon her life growing up under Tito's communist dictatorship and comparing it to life in Croatia today and her new life in the West with her Swedish husband, Draculic provides a very explicit and objective view with the knowledge and lucidness of someone who has lived through what most of us only saw on television throughout the '90s. From the war in Bosnia to the annihilation of the Soviet sphere of influence to the emergence of Western styles, ideals and products in the most backward parts of Eastern Europe. |
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite | Brite's characters were truly addictive when I read Exquisite Corpse for the first time. Naked necrophilic action in the slums of New Orleans. Jeffry Dhamer meets Ted Bundy meets Hannibal Lechter. In a queer bar in a decaying ghetto somewhere below the dikes of the Mississippi. What is truly amazing here is that, despite the horror of their actions and the squeamishness which fills the stomach for months after reading the book, one cannot help but identify with the emotions of a killer... |
Touching From a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division by Deborah Curtis | The story of the life and death of Ian Curtis. Unlike most books on the Joy Division - New Order story, which tend to focus upon the effect Curtis' death had on music and the band, his widow's own account focuses upon the personal life of a suicide. The signs were there, the drama was non-stop, the crying and fighting was intense. A backstage look at the events of Curtis' life and how it played out to his death, for his family and those closest to him, including the band. Not a story of a musician, but of a tormented man and what drove him mad. |
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand | As far as works of literature, The Fountainhead is probably the best example of how a novel should be written. Ayn Rand was only a 15 year veteran of English when she took up this project, but the result is probably one of the most perfect products of proper English literature. From her command of form, language, syntax and plot, one can immediately see how precise and practiced the execution of this work had to be. Rand spent years re-reading and perfecting this novel, and it shows in its beauty. Rather than relying on the dubious fate of "inspiration" often relied upon by traditional novelists, Ayn Rand set out to portray a literary version of her ideal man, and did her research and practiced her art to the fullest in order to arrive at the production of this book. The story of an individualist architect who, despite the growing resentment of a second-hander society, manages to pull his own and succeed by his own mind and his own power. |
Power and Interdependence by Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye Jr. | The "mandatory reading" for any student of International Relations. Keohane and Nye were among the first to introduce the theory of Interdependence as a modernization of the long-dominating Realism. In my own gradate thesis, I applied Keohane and Nye's theories to the post-unification German security order, and I think it showed good results. Interdependence is the state that most industrialized trading nations find themselves in today, and the theory argues that nations in such a condition can no longer play the "power politics" of the past, but instead must weigh their craving for war against the devastation such action would reap upon their economy and those of their trading partners and political or ideological allies. |
Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite | The first novel by Poppy Z. Brite, and probably the first novel I ever voluntarily read. Although I couldn't exactly identify with the characters, I felt for them. Brite introduces her vampires as a strage breed of social outcasts. Without families and living forever, they are unable to blend in with human society or even do anything other than feed off of it. The gothic gloom and dark imagery were a prime motivator for some of my own aesthetic tastes through most of my adolescence and even today... |
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Germany Unified and Europe Transformed : A Study in Statecraft by Philip D. Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice | Written by President George Bush's own security team from the era, this book traces the German reunification from the mid-80s chaos to the eventual union from the perspective of the diplomats that made it happen - both in public and behind the scenes. The deals, arguments and mishaps that could have resulted in many other fates for the German state than eventually they did. The story is rather prophetic, tracing the eventual powerlessness of the Soviet Union in the face of a West which wanted Germany as its own in spite of its past. |