Anna Armstrong's Top Ten Books

As I review my list it is apparent that historical fiction is the big winner. Who knew? I guess I’m enthralled with learning a little history while being entertained. It could also be that this seems to be the genre I’ve fallen into recently and so they are most fresh in my mind. I do love science fiction and fantasy too so I’m sure this list would be different on any given day.

Champion Dog Prince Tom by Jean Fritz and Tom Clute

This is a true story of a small cocker spaniel that set record after record, including the honor of being the first American cocker to win the national field trials and the only one to do so while holding obedience titles. I read this when I was about 9 or 10 and loved the book. I remember starting it while waiting for my mom at the St. Mary’s library. I was sitting by the large windows facing the canal and reading as the bright sunshine poured in through the windows and I didn’t want to go home.

Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

This book was a gift from an aunt. I read it when I was 10 or 11 and never wanted to the story to end.

The Eight by Katherine Neville

The Eight features two intertwined storylines set centuries apart. The first takes place in 1972 and follows American computer expert Catherine “Cat” Velis as she is sent to Algeria for a special assignment. The second is set in 1790 and revolves around Mireille, a novice nun at Montglane Abbey. The fates of both characters are intertwined as they try to unravel the mystery behind the Montglane Service; a chess set that holds the key to a game of unlimited power. I really loved the complexity of the plot line and the references to history and music.  Not a realistic story line but so much fun to read.

The Lord of the Rings  is an epic high fantasy novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien.  I was enthralled by this epic story and its vivid descriptions of characters and places. The reread is every bit as good as the first time through.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is a book by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin published in 2005. The book is a biographical portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and some of the men who served with him in his Cabinet from 1861 to 1865.  

I was fascinated by Lincoln’s ability to understand the motives and feelings of others and use that to create a respected and brilliant cabinet comprised of some of his staunchest opponents and critics.

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

This was one of the first apocalyptic novels of the nuclear age. The novel deals with the effects of a nuclear war on the small town of Fort Repose, Florida. This was my first read regarding nuclear war and was frightening.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaeffer and Annie Barrows

Through a series of letters, readers come to know and love Juliet and a variety of friends and foes on Guernsey. The characters are lovable, quirky and believable. Through the letters the story unfolds of the island’s Nazi occupation and the islander’s resistance. Who wouldn’t love pig farmer spies???

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King

This story is the beginning to a series of books about the growing relationship between Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes as they solve mysteries in great Holmes fashion. Great entertainment.

Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling

These are just some of the most imaginative books I’ve ever read. I just couldn’t wait to get my hands on the next one in the series.

Moloka’i by Alan Bennert

Rachel Kalama, a spirited seven-year-old Hawaiian girl, dreams of visiting far-off lands like her father, a merchant seaman. Then one day a rose-colored mark appears on her skin, and those dreams are stolen from her. Taken from her home and family, Rachel is sent to Kalaupapa, the quarantined leprosy settlement on the island of Moloka'i. Why do we never learn about these things in history class? It was such a fascinating story.

Some that didn’t make the cut but are fantastic too.

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman

The Thomas Covenant Chronicles by Stephen R. Donaldson

Michael Armstrong's Top Ten Books

Some notes before we begin. I’d like to reemphasize that this is the list of today. Probably would be different depending on the day. Most of these would stick around, but there are a couple borderline books that would rotate in and out depending on mood and what I’ve read recently. I also decided that no matter what, there would only be one book by each author allowed. Another note. I read books like a weirdo. I read way too fast when I’m reading for pleasure. This leads to a sieve-like memory in this case. I reread books all the time, going back through favorites to refind pieces of each book. So with that in mind, I’ve mostly chosen the books that made such an impression that they hang around in my head.

Here we go!

Last Continent - Terry Pratchett (1998)

Preaching to the choir here, but Pratchett is amazing. Ridiculously consistent, one of the funniest writers out there, and flat out brilliant. A complete toss up in terms of favorite book of his. I’m a big fan of Sam Vimes, Lu-Tze, Death, Granny Weatherwax, and Moist von Lipwig, but the book that won out today is about Rincewind and the wizards’ destruction of Australia. Anyway, he’s the kind of author that I could pick up any of his books at any time and start reading. I am constantly going back through these books.

Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami (1995)

Murakami has been a more recent obsession of mine, but I’ve been working my way through his books and have yet to be disappointed. This could easily be Kafka on the Shore or Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, but Wind-Up Bird was the first one I ever read. A sprawling book with some dry parts amidst a great deal of good, the strangeness and almost tangible atmosphere makes it one of my favorites.


American Gods - Neil Gaiman (2001)

For me, this one was actually a pretty easy choice. American Gods is definitely my favorite out of his works, though the rest are great. Shadow’s journey is incredibly fascinating to me and the depth of mythology and the skill in using it to create a cohesive story are unmatched.

Mossflower - Brian Jacques (1988)

The first author I felt ownership of, the first that I was constantly waiting for his next book to come out. Also the first time I felt like I was really reading a novel. The first non-kids book if you will. Incredibly challenging when I started reading it with its various British dialects and expansive vocabulary. Right up at the top of my list of books that I would recommend to a kid.

Summerland - Michael Chabon (2002)

“The fundamental truth: a baseball game is nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day.”

Absolutely captures the feel of summer and baseball, the cultural and almost mythological aspects of the game, and the whimsy of young adventures. I also reread this every couple of years during Spring Training.


Cat’s Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1963)

I think I may actually like Sirens of Titan better, but my inclination is to go with the first book of Vonnegut’s that I read, the one that got me hooked on his uniquely black, but optimistic sense of humor and deliberate writing style. I completely understand anyone who can’t get into these books or finds them too depressing, as maybe this quote will show, but I can’t help but find them both funny and absolutely human.

“Well finish your story anyway."

“Where was I?"

“The bubonic plague. The bulldozer was stalled by corpses."

“Oh, yes. Anyway, one sleepless night I stayed up with Father while he worked. It was all we could do to find a live patient to treat. In bed after bed after bed we found dead people.

And Father started giggling," Castle continued.

“He couldn't stop. He walked out into the night with his flashlight. He was still giggling. He was making the flashlight beam dance over all the dead people stacked outside. He put his hand on my head and do you know what that marvelous man said to me?" asked Castle.

Nope."

'Son,' my father said to me, 'someday this will all be yours.”


End Zone - Don DeLillo (1972)

DeLillo has been one of my favorites from college on with his shared interest in cultural geography and deconstruction. In End Zone the theme is small town college football and one part of it has always stayed with me. The kids on the team play a game on campus that is essentially mock assassination. Hands as a gun if you see them shoot you, then you have to pretend to die in the most elaborate and dramatic fashion possible. Some part of this silent game on a small campus in the harsh Texan heat really stood out to me. Like many of the other books on this list it’s about creating an atmosphere and inner monologue that really grabs you.


Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor - John Barth (1992)

Maybe the best book I’ve read in terms of craft, just incredible writing. The book overall is pretty good, and the created feel stays with me, but it is a long, rambling book with parts that work and parts that don’t. Even with that, this is one of my favorites to read based on his ability to turn a phrase and write with intelligence and humor.

Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster (1961)

Maybe this is where my love of puns and wordplay comes from. If you revel in words and language you should read this book. It might be intended as a book for grade school kids, but it is intelligent, entertaining, and whimsical.

“Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.”

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life - Bryan Lee O’Malley (2004)

Rounding out this list is the first book in the Scott Pilgrim series for its wonderful combination of video game, music and comic book touch stones along with endlessly entertaining characters. While the movie may not have shown this, Wallace Wells is awesome. The series starts out much stronger than it finishes, but it is one that I would probably be rereading all the time if I owned them.


Honorable Mention
Goosebumps - RL Stine
Cursor Series - Jim Butcher
Sayonara Gangsters - Genichiro Takahashi
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

Tammy Armstrong's Top Ten Books

These books are sort of more in the order I thought of them rather than in a "top 10" order. 

1. A Separate Peace by John Knowles

I grew up just 3 miles away from the private boarding school I ended up attending for 11th and 12th grades. For most of my childhood it seemed like this distant, unknowable entity - from the main road the only part of it that's visible is the tallest spire of the Gothic-style chapel peeking through the tops of the trees (yep, the very chapel where Mike and I were married). I've read this before, during and after attending Mercersburg and it's one of those books that grows with you. There's a lot more to it than that but I think it sticks with me because of my own school experience.

2. Dragonriders of Pern Series by Anne McCaffrey

I would say that Anne McCaffrey is my favorite science fiction writer, but that implies that I've read any other author in the genre and I can't think of any right now. I tried one book from the series - Moreta - at random at about age 12. It was the first and only book that has ever made me cry. I loved everything about the complex world created in the series and read every one I could get my hands on.

3. Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

What's not to love about Gatsby? This is perhaps one of the only books I've ever appreciated more for the writing style than the plot itself.

4. Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan

This book represents a lot of what I love about economics - it presents the discipline as a lens through which to view the world, and an enjoyable/intuitive one at that.

5. Borgel by Daniel Pinkwater

A little kid gets to go on a space adventure with a long-lost relative and things go crazy about every other minute. I remember something about a massive double-stick popsicle at the end of the universe, and I believe space is described as "an elliptical bagel with poppy seeds on top". Daniel Pinkwater's style is something like Douglas Adams' but directed towards 5th graders. This was one of the only books my brother and I agreed on as children.

6. Matilda by Roald Dahl

Every little girl should read this book and try to move chalk with her mind.

7. Acorna series - by Anne McCaffrey

Yep, let's go ahead and have another Anne McCaffrey series in here. This one is about a "unicorn girl" (horn and possibly hooves for feet but otherwise human-ish) who is separated from her home planet as a baby and is then found and raised by some space miners. 

8. La Monja Alferez (or: "The Lieutenant Nun") by Catalina de Erauso

This is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read. I took an oddly specific Spanish class in college to satisfy my minor requirements, and this was on the reading list. Basically, this 17th-century Spanish woman escapes her convent at age 16 by cross-dressing and hopping a boat to the New World. She generally ends up being the coolest lieutenant ever, outliving everyone around her in the most unbelievable of situations - and this is allegedly a true autobiography. I'm pretty sure she wrote her biography as a way of convincing King Phillip III to give her some money for being so awesome. She also got permission from the Pope to dress as a man. 

9. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

I resisted reading these books at first because of the fanaticism that surrounded them, and though I'm still a little embarrassed to like them (but not as embarrassed as I am  by the fact that, occasionally, I feel like re-reading the Twilight books), they are definitely some of the most entertaining books I've ever read. I'm happy to have started reading them while they were still coming out one-by-one, to feel that sense of anticipation as you waited for the next one to come out, then stayed up all night reading it trying to savor every page. I wonder what my generation's children and grandchildren will think of these books, movies, etc.

10. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

These books were really fun and, after an initial slow start, sucked me in pretty deeply. I was very impressed with them as young adult literature - they have a sneaky way of teaching vocabulary to tweens - and also a little horrified at times. I'm curious to see what they do with the movies.

Honorable Mentions: Golden Compass, Scott Pilgrim, Muppet Babies, Pride and Prejudice, Hitchhiker's Guide

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)