The 306 Greatest Books #69 - The Social Contract

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

This is definitely not the best book I have ever read, however it was interesting nonetheless. The Social Contract was similar to the other political commentary books on the list as I'm sure most of them do not differ much in tone, but it was written around the formation of the US Constitution and it is enlightening to see how this book influenced the formation of my country. Although interesting, I would not recommend this book since it is rather dry but it does bring up some rather good points. The main few I noticed were that according to Rousseau, the US is a representative aristocracy not a democracy. Because Rousseau, along with other political philosophers of the time, thought a large country would not be stable as a democracy so it could never work. The second is that The Social Contract showed the citizens of Europe that kings were not appointed by divine right but are only in power because the people let them be. This is partially what led to the civil unrest around the same time in many European countries. It you are interested in political theory, then this book is for you, otherwise I would not bother.

The 306 Greatest Books #68 - Candide

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Candide by Voltaire. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

Candide is by the philosopher Voltaire, whose primary concern was optimism. Ironically though, the book turns out to be rather depressing, yet cheerful, at the same time. I am not sure how, it just does. It is written rather like a children's story, where there are very little embellishments and the characters zip around from place to place in a rather short time frame. But there are a lot of deaths (or supposed deaths), rape, war, slavery and other "adult" concepts making it definitely not a kid's story. The point of the story, I believe, was so that Voltaire could express his distaste for practically everything. This includes religion, war, and people's intolerance of each other (although he expresses his own intolerance rather well, a bit hypocritical). But anyway, the story is a rather interesting read, short (always a plus when your reading 300+ books), and I enjoyed it, but not enough to go on my personal greatest books list.

The 306 Greatest Books #67 - Prometheus Bound

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Prometheus Bound  by Aeschylus. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

This is one of the earliest writings that are on any of the 100 Greatest Books lists. The story is about the gods, which is typical of the Greek and Roman literature at the time. More particularly, Prometheus, the Titan who brought fire to mankind. The play takes place at the start of Zeus' punishment to Prometheus for bringing the fire, where Zeus had Hephaestus chain Prometheus to a rock to be roasted alive everyday. The play is very short, it took me only about 45 minutes to read. However, I could not find any strong "moral lesson" in it, so my assumption is that this is an entertainment piece. At first I thought the play was about Prometheus' vanity and pride and that was why he was being punished, but the more the play went on the more it seemed to be anti-Zeus with his pride. Zeus' pride is shown when Prometheus reveals that he knows the possible downfall of Zeus and he is the only one who can stop it. Zeus then proceeds to torture Prometheus more until he reveals that information. Maybe this is a piece about pride? I am not really sure. Overall, the play is enjoyable but I feel it is not strong enough to be on my list.

The 306 Greatest Books #66 - Tartuffe

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Tartuffe by Moliere. This book can be found on the Sybervision and and My Book Lists.

In their essence, plays are written to be performed and not read, so I don't often enjoy reading plays because I don't get the full experience out of them. But even with that caveat, I thoroughly enjoyed Tartuffe, enough so to put it on my personal favorites list. The play only took me about 2 hours to finish and it was very easy to follow along with. The plot is about a rich family where the father takes in a beggar, Tartuffe, and the father dotes on Tartuffe as a beloved son to the exclusion of his whole family. He even pledges Tartuffe to his daughter who is already engaged to another man. Overall, the play is very witty and invokes a pretty good moral lesson and best of all, everything works out in the end.

The 306 Greatest Books #65 - Love in the Time of Cholera

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This book can be found on the Norwegian, BBC, and My Book Lists.

Contrary to the bizarre title this is a very good book. The title just signifies the time period that takes place and is not a the basis of the story. The book is a love story with a girl whose father tries to get her married above her station and two men who both fall for the girl. The one man is about the same level as the girl and he falls head over heals for her while the other man is a very prominent doctor who is the supreme bachelor in the community. The story starts off with the woman and the doctor as an old married couple then flashes back to the beginning of the story. It then slowly moves through the lives of these three people advancing a little on one character then falling back again with another character's story. Marquez does this phenomenally so that you do not even realize that the story changes from one character's narrative to another. The story is rather riveting and it kept me worried throughout the story about all the characters. There is no clear "good guy" or "bad guy" so I found myself cheering for both of them, worried that something major would go wrong. I would definitely recommend this for anyone in a romantic mood. 

The 306 Greatest Books #64 - The Stranger

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Stranger by Albert Camus. This book can be found on the Norwegian and My Book Lists.

The Stranger is a very short and easy book to read, which I was able to finish in just a couple of hours. But that does not mean it cannot be a meaningful book. The story is written in the first person narrative about a man who is so self absorbed that he feels little or no emotion through everything that happens to him and does not realize most of his life is passing him by. The story starts with his mother's death, of which he never shows remorse for and becomes one of the reasons for his downfall in the end. Eventually, the main character is led to murder another man and his moral qualities, or lack there of, are his deciding factors. He eventually realizes his personal flaws but by then it is too late. The book is written in the "American" style that I so particularly enjoy. Short, crisp sentences that are easy to read and easy to understand. I am going to put this on my must read list because not only is it enjoyable, it also provides a pretty good life lesson.

The 306 Greatest Books #63 - The Origin of Species

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

I should preface this review with the fact that I am a paleontologist and I have been studying geology and paleontology for over 20 years. I came into reading The Origin of Species knowing full well that the text was written over 150 years ago and the science of paleontology and evolution has progressed at a lightening pace since then. That being said, I still was not sure what I was getting into when I read it. To quote my former evolutionary biology teacher "Don't read The Origin of Species unless you have to." This is a science textbook and that is how it reads. The science itself is severely out of date and the text is rather dull to boot. Since the science is not current, I recommend that someone reading this should have a basic scientific background so that they can understand where the science is questionable or not. The main problem I have with The Origin of Species is that instead of doing science experiments, Darwin typically takes observations and makes large leaps of logic to explain why his observations are the way they are. Granted this is a seminal and often interesting work of scientific history, but it is too much of a difficult read for me to recommend it.

The 306 Greatest Books #62 - The Woman in White

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. This book can be found on the Observer, BBC, and My Book Lists.

Of all of the books that I have read across these 100 greatest books lists, the genera that is by far one of the least represented is the mystery. Luckily we get an excellent taste of mystery in The Woman in White. The story focuses on a mysterious woman who recently escaped from an asylum. Through the story she crosses paths with the main character, Walter Hartright, and she ends up being intertwined with the plot of several different characters throughout the story despite not always being present in the story. Since this is a mystery I will not give away any of the more interesting plot points (potentially ruining it for people) but I will say that it is a love story and it all turns out well in the end. I recommended this book to anyone who wants to have a fun sit-down with a book, since it is very easy to read, flows naturally, and is enthralling from the get go. The climax seems to come a bit early, but even though the narrative slows down afterwards, it never stops. Overall it is very entertaining and a must read in my opinion.

The 306 Greatest Books #61 - Fathers and Sons

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Fathers and Sons (AKA Fathers and Children) by Ivan Turgenev. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

I have a tendency to like Russian literature a lot because, so far they have been all very easy to understand and read. This book was no exception, although it was a bit odd at times. The story is very well written and the language used is immaculate, however the plot seems to have lost meaning for me, especially around the end. It is about the interactions between a pair of friends, their families, and society as a whole. The older friend, Bazarov, is a nihilist (meaning he believes in nothing), and the younger is Arkady, his pupil. The plot evolves around how Arkady deals with his mentor's views and how his mentor comes to see those views over time himself. Meanwhile, all of this takes place during the time when the serfs were freed, causing conflicts that the main characters have to work around in order to maintain their principles. At the end of the story Arkady's plot ends where I felt it was going, but with Bazarov, I feel the author didn't know what to do with him so he just left him "high and dry". Overall, a good book, but not a "100 Greatest book of all time" book.

The 306 Greatest Books #60 - Silas Marner

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Silas Marner by George Eliot. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

Silas Marner is the type of book that you might want to sit back, on a nice summer evening with, and read while relaxing. For the first half of the book I felt no pulling force that often makes you want to keep on reading once you get into the book and I just read it at my leisure. But around the halfway point I hit the draw and I finished the second half of the book in two days. This is a very sweet book about a man who got screwed early in life becoming a recluse, and then he got screwed again when he had his only reason for living stolen from him. Both of these happened within the first half of the book. The second half deals with what does a person like this do when presented with an orphaned child. The book is very well written and flows smoothly but I feel it lacks that special something to place it on the 100 greatest list. So I am not going to put it on my personal greatest books list, although I do think people should read it.

The 306 Greatest Books #59 - Ulysses

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Ulysses by James Joyce. This book can be found on the Norwegian, Observer, and BBC Book Lists.

Although Ulysses is often listed as one of the best books of the 20th Century, I have some definite problems with it. My primary problem with Ulysses is it is written in an odd style, where no two chapters are similar in vocabulary, style, or even concept. Some examples include one chapter written like a play, one with newspaper type headlines, and one that illustrates the evolution of the English language over time. The story itself is based off of the Odyssey set in modern day (early 19th century) Ireland, where the author uses various quirks of language and format style to illustrate several different portions of the story. Had I read this book in a class where they could explain the information to me, I feel like this would have been a much better book, but I didn't. I did have to look up several descriptions of the book chapters online to figure out what was going on and after that the book became much better, but it is still a very difficult book to read. When reading it by yourself some of the sections are completely unintelligible, although the parts I did get I could tell where this book was groundbreaking for its time. After all is said and done though, I'm just not able to recommend this book to anyone anytime soon.

The 306 Greatest Books #58 - The Prince

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Prince by Machiavelli. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

All my life I have heard about Machiavelli and how Machiavelli portrays the "winning at any cost" type scenario. This mindset all comes back to this book, The Prince. However, that is not what I got after reading it. The book is very short, especially in comparison to the other Science and Civilization books on the list, but I also found that I got very little value out of it. The best thing I could see the book used for was as a companion book on how to rule properly. Overall, I felt the language used made the book difficult to read but at least the contemporary illusions were well explained so the book was not difficult to understand. This is definitely not in my top list of books to read, nor anywhere near it.

The 306 Greatest Books #57 - 1984

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is 1984 by George Orwell. This book can be found on the Norwegian, Observer, BBC, and My Book Lists.

Out of the four 100 Greatest Books lists, there are only a few books that appear on more than two lists. 1984 is one out of the few on multiple lists and I can understand why. 1984 is a very powerful novel dealing with possible totalitarian future society and how one might survive in such a society. The only problem I really had with this book was the utter hopelessness of it. Through every page, every paragraph of the book, you had this hope that everything may be ok and that everything turn out right in the world again. Unfortunately, after all is said and done, you knew that it wouldn't. Although this is a fascinating book to read it is very depressing but I must say that it is a definite must read, if only to warn people just might be possible. Because, well, you never know.

The 306 Greatest Books #56 - The Republic

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Republic by Plato. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.

Of all of the books on my lists, the "Science and Civilization" section of the Sybervision book list is the hardest to get through. That is for multiple reasons but mostly because the texts are often dry and uninteresting. Although, they do have bright spots here and there if you know where to look. I had started and read most of The Republic within my undergraduate Humanities class in college, which helps greatly in the understanding of these historical works. While a historically important work of literature that delves into topics such as justice and different forms of government, this is not meant to be read as entertainment. However, I am not reading this list for a history lesson and I found the text to be extremely difficult to comprehend, even with the aid of a professor. So I would have to say this is a strong not recommended for anyone reading these stories for fun. Overall, the reason for reading this is more for educational purposes than relaxation. Proceed at your own risk.