« October 2008 | Main | December 2008 »

Best Fiction I've Ever Read

I recently received an email from a friend that was one of those "get-to-know-each-other" chain letters. Normally, I would send those straight to the bit bucket. But this one actually made me sit and think for a bit. Instead of replying to the email, I've decided to turn this into a blog post to give me a little more breathing space to explain what I like about these books.

I'm well aware that few (or possibly even none) of you will care about this. If you fall into that mammoth category, feel free to skip this post. But for the few who do care, here is my list, with the books listed in order of increasing wonderfulness. Also note that I've leveraged a self-imposed rule on myself to not include more than one book from any one author. Otherwise I would have to include all three Lord of the Rings books, as well as a slew more from Orson Scott Card - which would make for a boring list.

5. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
This book has been on my radar for a long time. I first heard about it in high school. It was supposed to be "a classic", which in high school I took to mean "incredibly boring". A few years ago, I went through a nostalgic period and began re-reading all of the books I had read in high school, to see if any of them were actually any good (hint: some were). After getting less than an hour into it, I was in love. I can completely conceive of how this book could have inspired a generation of young people to adopt the Beat lifestyle. It made me more than a little sad that I was born too late to have experienced it. After every reading session, it was all I could do to not jump in my car and just start driving. Kerouac's style is more than just energetic - it's frantic.

4. Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury
This book is a pretty significant deviation from Bradbury's typical fare (which I also enjoy, by the way). This book is more of a collection of Bradbury's actual childhood memories, all mashed into one magical, fictional summer. I read it at least once a year, and I read it much more slowly than I typically read a book. I like to savor the feelings this book triggers in me, and stretch out that rosy nostalgia as long as possible. I always finish this book with an audible sigh. As soon as the kids are old enough to be read "chapter" books, I plan to start reading this book to them.

3. Dune - Frank Herbert
For a long time, I avoided the established sci-fi classics. I think high school had turned me off to anything labeled a “classic”. So even though I was a sci-fi nut, I didn’t read Dune until I was in my late 20s. This book has done a lot to influence some of my views on life, including the realization that self-reliance is one of the most important traits a person can foster in themselves. Conviction, loyalty, cleverness, ability - these are all qualities present in the heroes of this book, and qualities that I am at least trying to build up in myself.

2. Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien
Since the day I first finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it has been the yardstick I have used to measure every story touted as "epic" by its reviewers. It was this series that led to my early interest in Dungeons and Dragons - all I wanted was to capture just a little of the grandeur and scale of Tolkien's world and share it with my friends. When it was announced that the books were being turned into movies, I was very skeptical. Almost every other Hollywood-interpretation of a book I had loved had ended in disaster. And while I am not keen on every decision Peter Jackson made in creating the films, I will definitely say that he wrung every ounce of "epic" out of those books as he brought them to the screen. Just writing this now makes me want to go back and watch the trilogy again.

1. Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card
Much of Orson Scott Card’s work speaks to me on a very fundamental, emotional level. Two of the strongest themes in his books are personal strength and compassion. His protagonists are individuals who discover untapped wells of strength within themselves to overcome nearly insurmountable adversity. This is a trait that I value highly in people, and is also one of the reasons I challenge myself constantly. Card’s characters also heavily influenced by their compassion for others, almost to a fault. Some of his characters are almost completely driven by compassion, as is Ender Wiggin in Speaker for the Dead. Every time I read this book, I reevaluate my personal relationships, and try to reconsider how much compassion I am showing to the people I care about. I’d bet that if Lori kept a journal, you’d be able to go back and guess when I had read this book again. :)

I've found that when it comes to reading for pleasure, there are two types of readers. Some people read a book once, and then are done with it. And some people will read a favorite book over and over. I fall into the second camp. Between every 3 or 4 new books I read, I re-read at least one old favorite. I've probably read each of the books in the list above at least a half-dozen times - some probably many more times than that.

Runner's Up:

Bluebeard - Kurt Vonnegut: My favorite of Vonnegut's books. For a long time Vonnegut was my favorite author, in fact. Aside from a few odd books, you really can't go wrong with anything he's written.
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk: While I actually like several of Palahniuk's books even better than this one, Fight Club makes a good introduction to his work. Anyone who has seen the movie will already be familiar with his style, which will make the book easier to follow.
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Tom Robbins: My dad recommended this book to me. For the longest time I didn't bother to check it out - based on the title I had assumed it was a non-fiction book chronicling someone's globe-hopping trip. Boy was I wrong. This book was my gateway to modern absurdist fiction, which is a genre I've come to love.
Lord Foul's Bane - Stephen R. Donaldson: I found this book in our attic, when I was about 15 years old. I have since read all of Donaldson's work. He tends to write about anti-heroes, and the depth of his characters are usually quite staggering compared to other authors of the genre. Definitely a thought-provoking book.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams: I've probably consumed the Hitchiker's Guide dozen of times, in its various forms. I've read the book, listened to the original radio serial, seen some of the TV show, and watched the movie. It was this book, read as a teenager, that introduced me to the dry wit of British humor and I've been hooked ever since.

Posted under Stories by Joel on November 30, 2008 02:19 PM | Comments (2)

Eli and Carter

Nothing to special to say about this one - just a cute pic of Eli and Carter together. They're dressed almost identically, which was a complete accident.

Posted under Photos by Joel on November 29, 2008 09:10 AM | Comments (0)

Recipe - Sun Relish

Sean and I made this late last summer. We picked the peaches ourselves, and picked up the peppers from a local grower. It's delicious, but I can't figure out what to put it on. Anyone got any ideas?

Posted under Recipes by Joel on November 28, 2008 09:41 PM | Comments (0)

We Be Jammin'

Over the last couple of weekends, I've made batches of both strawberry and raspberry jam. Both are certified delicious! I think I will be making another batch of each so that we'll have some to give away at Christmas. Sean helped me with both batches. He loves to help me cook, and he gets so proud when Lori makes him a sandwich with the jam he made. We're planning to make some blueberry jam over the long Thanksgiving weekend. I hope it goes well this time. We tried blueberry jam a couple of weeks ago, but overcooked it. Once it had cooled in the jars, it was as hard as a rock.

Posted under Projects by Joel on November 27, 2008 09:37 AM | Comments (0)

Latent Superpowers...?

I think I may be developing superpowers. As far as I know, I haven't been exposed to radiation, mutagens, spider-bites, or extraterrestrials. But how can I be sure? I wouldn't want to accidentally crush anything with my super-strength. A few weeks ago while demolishing the old porch, I bent my hammer - the hammer I have owned and used for probably 5-6 years now with no problems - nearly in half. A week or two before that, I bent a spaded shovel in half while trying to dig up a horrible-looking (and foul-smelling) bush next to our porch. I wonder if I can punch through concrete walls? Hang on a sec...

Ouch.

Posted under Stories by Joel on November 26, 2008 07:52 AM | Comments (0)

Sean's First School Picture

Sean had his first school picture taken a month or so ago. Now, you've all seen the pictures we've taken of him. It is impossible to get that boy to sit still for more than three seconds at a time. Frankly, Lori and I weren't expecting much from these school pics. So you can imagine our surprise when we opened them up and saw the photo you see here. We are still trying to figure out what the photographer must have done to get Sean to cooperate. My money is on drugs, but Lori is convinced it must have been a bribe.

Posted under Photos by Joel on November 25, 2008 07:18 AM | Comments (0)

42 Words of Wisdom: #11

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."

- Douglas Adams

In the evenings over the last couple of weeks, I have been doing some research online into how to go about starting a garden. Next year, I would like to start a garden somewhere in our yard with the kids. The goal here is threefold. First, I'll learn something new and have fun doing it. Second, the kids will (hopefully) have fun helping, and (again, hopefully) learn how hard work can pay off in the end. And third (and potentially most importantly), we can save some money on our grocery bills. I'd also love to grow enough to can some of our harvest, so we can enjoy it through the winter. And making some homemade salsa from ingredients that all came from our own garden would be pretty cool, too.

Posted under News by Joel on November 24, 2008 09:05 AM | Comments (0)

Nerdbots

I love these things. The couple that builds these uses items found at antique stores and bits and pieces from the hardware store. I'd love to make one of these myself. They're cute and charming. I showed Sean the website, and he loved looking at the pictures of all the robots.

Posted under News by Joel on November 23, 2008 08:42 PM | Comments (0)

Special Rocks

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but last summer we started collecting rocks from the places we visited with the kids. I was hoping that it would give them a trigger to help them remember things we had done as a family. It seems to be working. The rocks are on the windowsill above our kitchen sink. Sometimes Sean catches sight of them while helping me cook or wash dishes, and tells me about them and where they come from. We've got a "special rock from the beach", a "special rock from Maudslay park", a couple of "special rocks from the Saco River", and a "special rock from the mountain". I'm hoping to keep this up next year. Who knows, maybe it will eventually lead to an interest in rock-hunting or geology. At the very least, though, it gives him a way to remember special moments we had, which is enough for me.

Posted under Stories by Joel on November 22, 2008 09:53 AM | Comments (0)

Batman's Roadtrip

This is the last of the things I found on those old backup CDs. When I took a roadtrip a few years ago, I took a Batman action figure along with me, figuring I could pose him in funny places, and put a "Batman's Roadtrip" section on my old website. I forgot to snag a picture of him in half the places I visited, but I did manage to get a few - as you can see below. In the first shot, Batman is expressing his ire at the rain that thwarted his planned hike. The second shot was taken at a lake in Arkansas whose name escapes me. The third shot is Batman just chilling at the hotel, and the final two shots were taken atop Mount Carrigain in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Posted under Projects by Joel on November 21, 2008 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

Happy Head Horde

Yet another discovery made while digging through old backup CDs. This was a little project I had started, but it never really got off of the ground. The plan was to start a webcomic using these action figures. I was going to take photos of them, and then add in speech bubbles and Batman-style action messages and put it all on the web. The good guys you see below were going to be called "The Happy Head Horde". The guy with the red fists was called "Atomic Willy", the guy in the brown trenchcoat was "Handsome Dan", and the bird guy didn't have a name yet. The aliens you see in the last photo were going to be one of their adversaries. They didn't have a name yet, but they were going to be a boy-band from outer space, as you can tell from their juvenile posturing.

Posted under Projects by Joel on November 20, 2008 06:02 AM | Comments (0)

Rocket Cam

Another thing I found while digging through those backup CDs was this image. Back when I was working at CATSAT, a group of guys I worked with used to get together on weekends to launch model rockets. At one point, I took apart an old digital camera I had, and got a friend to help we work out a circuit for triggering the shutter automatically. I tried putting this camera in a rocket several times - I think I must have built a half-dozen rockets in the course of this experiment, and all of them crashed into the earth shortly after launch. But on one launch, I managed to get a single picture before the rocket's inevitable plunge to its dirt destiny. The resolution is low, but the pic is still pretty darn cool, isn't it?

Posted under Projects by Joel on November 19, 2008 06:56 AM | Comments (0)

Chopstick Assassin Productions

I was digging through some old backup CDs, looking for old episodes of a podcast I used to listen to. In the process of looking through all of those CDs, I found the image you see below. Some of you may remember this image from the old website I used to run, back when I was in college at RIT. That page existed from then until just a couple of years ago, when the hosting contract finally expired. At one point, I had a stack of these made up as stickers. I put one on my old Escort, and then promptly lost the other 499 stickers. I've gone looking for them several times, but have never managed to find them again.

Posted under Stories by Joel on November 18, 2008 06:43 AM | Comments (2)

Sean's Drawings - Little Guy

Check out Sean's latest drawing. It's an evolution of the guy he used to draw a few months ago. But now he's got a lot more detail in his face, and he's gone from 4 simple limbs to legs complete with shoes and arms with hands. Amazing!

Posted under Projects by Joel on November 17, 2008 08:44 PM | Comments (0)

Costumes

Lori and I had been talking about buying some extra costumes after Halloween this year, to give the kids some extra dress-up clothes. Since last Halloween, Sean and Carter have both been wearing Sean's pirate costume all the time. So this year, we grabbed a few costumes off of the clearance rack, and they've been loving them ever since. Carter still has another couple of costumes that aren't in these pictures - maybe we can get pics of those soon.

Posted under Photos by Joel on November 14, 2008 09:30 AM | Comments (0)

42 Words of Wisdom: #10

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."

- Douglas Adams

I know, I know - it's been a long time since I posted one of these. But lately I've taken a renewed interest in increasing my posting frequency. So here's to the resurection of "42 Words of Wisdom"! This one hits especially close to home. As some of you may know, I recently discovered that the previous owner of our house had built the front porch himself, and had botched it. When he attached the ledger to the house, he didn't bother using any flashing. So due to the lack of $10 worth of flashing, water has been seeping behind the ledger for years. Once I tore down the porch and pulled off the siding, I found that a significant amount of the house's framing that was behind the porch had rotted out. At this point I've got all of the rotted wood replaced, and that section resided. But now I've still got to build a new porch - hopefully before the winter sets in. This going to end up costing us hundreds of dollar, and costing me hours and hours of time, just because someone couldn't be bothered to spend $10 and 5 minutes to install flashing - which is not exactly a closely-guarded secret of professional contractors. On the plus side, I was never really happy with the original porch and don't mind the chance to rebuild it the way I'd like to. I just would have preferred to hold off until next year to do it.

Posted under Stories by Joel on November 13, 2008 01:19 PM | Comments (0)

Anagrams

I recently came across an anagram generator online, and played around with it a bit. Unfortunately, if the words you put in contain enough letters, you get tens of thousands of potential anagrams - which makes finding the good ones a bit difficult. But after only looking through the first page of results, I did find a few interesting ones.

The Salad Days => A Deadly Stash

I like this one. It makes it sound like the things I am posting here are somehow dangerous to you, my loyal reader. Beware! Pictures of cute children within! Enter at your own risk!

The Salad Days => Dad Steals Hay

This one just struck me as funny. I swear, I have never stolen any hay. I may have "borrowed" hay and forgotten to return it, but that was forgetfulness, not malice.

Sean Lord => Also Nerd

This one resonates with me. I would love for Sean to grow up and be a geek like his Daddy. I need somebody to play videogames with. So here's to our future nerd!

Posted under Stories by Joel on November 12, 2008 01:32 PM | Comments (1)

Recipe - Penn. Dutch Apple Cake

My mom used to make this when I was kid, and I could never get enough. I'm hoping to make it soon myself, as soon as I get the right pan.

Posted under Recipes by Joel on November 11, 2008 03:37 PM | Comments (0)

Recipe - Peach Butter

Sean and I made this one about a month ago. It was the first recipe I ever tried to can. The kids love it, and from what I hear Tracy does as well. We picked the peaches ourself at a local orchard, and we planted the pits from the peaches this past October. Hopefully we'll see some trees sprout up next spring.

Posted under Recipes by Joel on November 10, 2008 03:34 PM | Comments (2)

Recipe: Pat-Flat Cookies

I'm working on putting together a family cookbook of all our recipes, and doing the individual recipes scrapbook-style. When it's all done - which probably won't be for another year, as each recipe needs to be cooked, photographed, and a page created - I'm going to publish a small run through Blurb.com as Christmas gifts next year. Here's the first of the recipes I've made a page for - Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, otherwise known as "Pat-Flat Cookies".

Posted under Recipes by Joel on November 9, 2008 03:29 PM | Comments (0)

Amesbury Town Playground

A friend recommended a new playground to Lori - the Amesbury Town Playground. As you can see, the kids loved it. I've yet to see it myself, but I'm looking forward to checking it out. Only one downside, although hopefully they've learned from the experience. Sean sat in the very center of the spinny-thing (as you can see in the photo below), and after the other kids spun it for a while, he threw up. Hee hee. Live and learn.

Posted under Photos by Joel on November 8, 2008 03:24 PM | Comments (0)

Halloween 2008

We're going to have to hit my mom up for whatever pictures she took - as this is the only picture we have of Sean in his costume. And we don't have any of Carter. They sure did love Halloween though. This was Carter's first year trick-or-treating, and she got the idea right away. Coming down the stairs from the first house, she reached into her bucket, pulled out the candy bar, and said to Lori "open this please, mommy?". It wasn't until three houses later that we were able to convince her that we didn't have to open each piece immediately.

Posted under Photos by Joel on November 7, 2008 03:18 PM | Comments (0)

Paige

Since we started having kids, we have taken almost no pictures of the dogs. I wonder how they feel about that. I'll bet they do a lot of grumbling when I'm not looking about getting the bum end of the stick. So here's a picture of Paige that Lori took recently. Personally, I think she looks very cute. In pictures, at least, she's not showing her age yet.

Posted under Photos by Joel on November 6, 2008 03:14 PM | Comments (0)