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A blog post with every single category marked (I'm doing this for scribefire)

Beamer's Book List

Regular reader and commenter Beamer (a Washingtonian) says this about his reading habits:

In April 2006, I purposed to try to read at least one book a month. This year I have not been so sucessful because a couple of the books I chose are quite long, but if you don't mind, I'd like to share the list of books I've read over the last two years and solicit others' opinions on them, if any.

I also try to read a Shakespeare over Christmas holiday (my company closes its doors between Christmas and New Year's Day). Last year I did not read a Shakespeare, but this year I'm reading Henry IV.

Here's a list of Beamer's list of books for the last few years. NB: Titles in bold are highly recommended. Those with asterisks are titles he found particularly worth the time spent reading.

BOOKS READ IN 2006
*Gilead – Marilynne Robinson
Housekeeping – Marilynne Robinson
*Life and Fate – Vasily Grossman
*Stalingrad – Anthony Beevor
The Killer Angels – Michael Shaara
*With the Old Breed – Eugene Sledge
*The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor – Flannery O’Connor
All for the Union – Elisha Hunt Rhodes
A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army, 1941-1945 – Anthony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova

BOOKS READ IN 2007
*Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner
Crossing to Safety – Wallace Stegner
*Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer – James L. Swanson
Christ and the Media – Malcolm Muggeridge
Farewell to Eden – Duwayne R. Anderson
*The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretative History of Russian Culture – James H. Billington
The Road to Wigan Pier – George Orwell
*The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky

Well you can tell a lot about a person by what he reads. As I did the links for these books I got a quick look at some of them. Our friend Beamer certainly likes books by Pulitzer Prize Winners, and also books about the Soviet Union's experience of World War 2.

I did read the Brothers Karamazov while at University when I did a unit on Russian Literature. I found it an interesting unit, especially when one of my lecturers was Dianne Yerbury, the Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University at the time who was an expert on Dostoevsky. Personally I found Karamazov very difficult to read and much preferred the other book I studied, Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol.

Another unit I studied at Macquarie University was Modern Russian History, taught by historian David Christian, so I am certainly cognizant with much of the time period that Beamer has been reading about. His book, Imperial and Soviet Russia, is a very interesting read.

On an aside, my interest in US history and politics stems from my time at university studying US History under John Koenig. He gave me a good mark for an essay I wrote entitled "Why did James Earl Carter fail to win a second term as president of the United States?"

From this list of books I can work out that Beamer and I have some very similar interests in terms of historical study. I'm not quite so enamoured with Shakespeare, but, as an INTJ, I guess I need to revert to being INTP once in a while to stay sane. Given that I have a BA in English Literature I really should get back to reading books again...