The Handmaid's Tale

Between September and October I put down my usual collection of science fiction and cookbooks to read books from female authors. I strongly recommend each: 1. Pride and Prejudiced by Jane Austen 2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 3. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood edit: line breaks

Jared Diamond - "Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed" (non-fiction) Iván Repila - "The Boy Who Stole Attila’s Horse": short intense novel about 2 boys who are trapped in a well Margaret Atwood - "The handmaid's tale" Khaled Hosseini - "The kite runner" Agatha Christie - "The murder of Roger Ackroyd" (very surprising plot) Andy Weir - "The Martian" Charles Dickens - "David Copperfield" Clare Mackintosh - "I let you go" Carlos Ruiz Zafón - "The Shadow of the Wind" M.R. Carey - "The girl with all the gifts"

The more I read, the more I realize that fiction has a way of teaching the same lessons as nonfiction, only in a better, humane way that is not like someone lecturing at you from a podium, but more like a friend sitting down for a heart-to-heart conversation with you. In this vein, I've started catching up on all the classics I haven't read yet, and there are a lot of them. At first, I was hesitant to dive into classics, because I thought they were hard to read and highbrow. This has mostly not been the case (with the exception of Wuthering Heights, which I found impossible to get through). To wit, the best books I've read this year include: A Tale of Two Cities - Impossible to get through the first several chapters, but after that, you're off to the races between France and England in the 18th century. Dickens used historical books as reference, but recreated the mood entirely from imagination. A better primer than anything in the news about Anglo-French relations, learning trust, and sacrifice.…

Asimov's two big universes, found in the Robots series and the Foundation series, (which turned out to be the same when he revisited them in the 70's and 80's) are simply wonderful. By far my favorite sci-fi, and among the most enduring works in the genre. I read them both every two or three years, and sometimes grab one off the shelf when I just want something to read. The early Foundation is sort of a future history version of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (I seem to recall that was intentional, actually). Asimov's autobiographies and the posthumous book of his correspondence are all fantastic and insightful. I learned a lot from them, and my admiration for the man increased even more upon reading them. Dune is also astoundingly good, though after the first three, the quality goes downhill (slowly, but surely). Definitely lots to think about.…