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Reading this summer

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Aimless:
After a very long, very trying, and very unsettling year, I have decided I must try to find myself again, go back to a sort of beginning and pick out a  slightly different path which I may then tread in a slightly (or dramatically) different way from the previous. An important part of this endeavour will be to return to my bookish roots. However, this time, instead of immersing myself in worlds of fantasy fiction, I have decided I'll immerse myself in reading of more substance.

The thought occurred to me that I may not be the only person who'll be caught by the summer reading bug, and I thought it might be nice to see what y'all are (or will be) reading over the next few months :)

I've recently discovered the works of Oliver Sacks, in particular his collections of case-histories (although that term hardly does them justice) The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars.

Oliver Sacks, besides being a neurologist, is also a skilled writer and populariser. His writing style is intensely personal, almost intimate at times, and he approaches every case with a degree of humanity that can never be permitted in, for example, textbooks on neurology.

In addition to the remarkable accounts of some of his more memorable patients, the books are jam packed full of very interesting footnotes, quotes from texts spanning many centuries, and a large (and, of course, very interesting) bibliography. This "extra" content integrates very well with--and always enriches--the main text, and made me view the time I invested in reading them as being very well invested time indeed.

The only real complaint I have is that I now don't know which of the many references I should pursue first, having come across so many promising ones. Reader beware!

But, despite this... if you've ever wondered, for example, what it might be like to forget the very concept of "seeing"... do check out Oliver Sacks, and other writers like him (Antonio Damasio is a name that springs to mind). I think that you, too, will find the effort worthwhile :)

Cheers!

-- P

Dissy:
I recently picked up Patriot Games and The Hunt for the Red October recently, so, now I'm on a Clancy high, I'm now somewhere in the middle of Clear and Present Danger (my favourite of his novels).

I also picked up Day of Vipers, which I'm totally looking forward to, and I need to grab the next two of the trilogy.

Jackie Blue:
I just now finally got around to reading Swanwick's Jack Faust and it is brilliant.  It's a quick, to the point read, like Stations of the Tide, though not quite that short (and not quite as good, but close).

I didn't even know until yesterday about his sequel to The Iron Dragon's Daughter, which is one of the most gloriously bizarre novels I've ever read, so I'll probably read that next.

De_El:
I'm re-reading The Idiot by Dostoevsky, because it's brilliant and I love it.  Next, my friend is lending me a bunch of Philip K. Dick novels.

Jackie Blue:
Philip K. Dick is one of the three best novelists ever.

Some of his books are not masterpieces, but the sheer number of his that are more than makes up for it.

If you want to read the best first, go for:

Flow My Tears the Policeman Said
Clans of the Alphane Moon
The Game-players of Titan
A Scanner Darkly
Dr. Bloodmoney
VALIS
Counter-clock World

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