John Armstrong's Top Ten Books

OK, you cowards. I'll go first. First I would like to say that if you wait until your list is perfect, you will never contribute to Marshmallow Fight. This is not my Top Ten List of favorite books. It is my top ten list of favorite books today. As my list explains at the end, tomorrow's list would probably be different. I also didn't go downstairs and go through the bookcases. That seemed like cheating. So this is my list off the top of my head. Luckily, I am an editor for this series, so if I need to, I can go in next week and change this post. Here we go. I'm charging up the Taser, so you'd better get your list in soon. I'm just saying. 

Not in any particular order:

Godel, Escher, and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979)

Douglas Hofstadter

The most amazing book about how mathematics, logic, music, and art go together. I read this when I was still a beginning teacher (8th year of teaching, which is still a beginning teacher), and it affected my outlook on mathematics and teaching in many ways. Every year I pick it up and read some of it again and am still surprised about how it makes me look at things in a different way.

David and the Phoenix (1957)

Edward Ormondroyd

I read this when I was fairly young and it has stuck with me all these years. I found a copy on e-bay when the boys were younger and bought it so that they could read it also. For me it was all about having a sense of wonder in the world and being awake to new possibilities. Unfortunately, that theme has been appropriated lately by really stupid books about vampires and werewolves.  This book is in its own class.

Lord of the Rings (1954)

J. R. R. Tolkien

I have read this series four or five times since high school. Wikipedia lists it as the third best selling novel of all time.  It is always a fun read and each time I realize I had forgotten something that happened in the books. I reread the whole series again after watching all three movies back to back one weekend this winter.

a.  Summerland (2002)                          b.  Shoeless Joe (1982)

Michael Chabon                                    W. P. Kinsella 

I re-read these every other year at the start of the baseball season, along with watching Field of Dreams and Major League, when we hear those four magical  words: “Pitchers and catchers report.” Summerland is an all ages fantasy that takes a young boy on a journey to save magical worlds through baseball.  Shoeless Joe is the book that Field of Dreams was based on and a book that just seems to have everything come together as perfectly as it can. I know that the tremendous amount of time involved was frustrating at the time, but looking back twenty years later, I can safely say that coaching my sons in Little League baseball was one of the best times of my life. I hope they get the chance to do the same as they get older. As Terence Mann says, "The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball."

A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959)

Walter Miller, Jr.  

Probably 60% of what I read is science fiction and/or fantasy. I enjoy the fantastic worlds and ideas that good writers develop. A Canticle for Leibowitz was the first science fiction book I ever read. The story covers six hundred years of toil by the Monks of the Order of St. Leibowitz in Utah who are trying to restore science and knowledge to a world annihilated by nuclear war. It opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz himself, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma."

American Gods (2001) / Stardust (1998)

Neil Gaimin

I couldn’t decide which Neil Gaimin book to include, so I am essentially including all of them. I have a deep and abiding love for mythology and fairy tales. These books speak to the need to understand how we came to be who we are. 

Small Gods (1992) / Going Postal (2004) / the Tiffany Aching series

Terry Pratchett

Definitely my favorite author of all time. The Discworld series of novels numbers about 50, including related books like Where’s My Cow, which is the bedtime book Sam Vimes reads to his son (I have a copy downstairs). They all are comic gems and cultural masterpieces. I laugh and see the world a little differently each time I read a new one. It makes it even sadder to know that Pratchett has been hit by early stage Alzheimer's in the last few years. 

The Master and Margarita (1940?)

Mikhail Bulgakov

Except when I first read it in college, it was titled Ма́стер и Маргари́та and was extremely slow reading. The first novel I read in Russian (well, some of it anyway). At the end of those two years of college Russian classes, I bought the book to read the whole thing in English. Made much more sense this time around and I have read it twice since, though not for several years now. It is a darkly comic novel about the pain and anguish of being a writer in Russia.

A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)

Bill Bryson 

If you have wondered how we know the things we know about science, this is the book for you. Bryson starts with the primordial soup and works his way through every discipline of science, telling the stories of how our knowledge came to be. He gives the official story, but also tells about the less well-known people who discovered it earlier and were ignored until someone later came along and took the credit. A large book, but a quick read.

The Dresden Files (2000 – present)

Jim Butcher

A series of books about Chicago’s first and only wizard private investigator, Harry Dresden. When the Chicago police department has a case that looks a little on the weird side, they hire Harry as a consultant to unravel the mystery. It even became a TV mini-series on SciFi channel for a short while in 2007. Both the books and the TV show are a lot of fun. Especially fun to see my adopted hometown of Chicago featured in a novel. 

 

On a different day, these might have made the top ten:

The Redwall series by Brian Jacques (maybe they make Mike's list)

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams (hope it makes Nate's list)

Watership Down Richard Adams (everybody loves bunnies)

Ender’s Game Scott Card (the start of the whole Ender series)

Chaos James Gleick (a book about a new mathematical field)

The Belgariad David Eddings (reread this series this winter)

Mistborn Trilogy Brandon Sanderson (excellent fantasy series)