This post has nothing to do with GIS or IT, or – for that matter – anything that I usually write about. It is, however, just as (if not more) important than most topics and issues that I regularly cover.
This week is the American Library Association’s “Banned Books Week“. Speaking personally, many (if not most) of the books that have had the greatest impact on my life are those that are on the ALA’s challenged or banned list. To me, the books that challenge my own personal convictions and make me truly examine myself as a person are those that I consider truly great. Just looking at the challenged and banned list, I can say that the following books have had a direct impact on my personal development over the last twenty or so years:
- Aldous Huxley – A Brave New World
- Ernest Hemingway – A Farewell to Arms
- Ernest Hemingway – For Whom the Bell Tolls
- Upton Sinclair – The Jungle
- George Orwell – 1984
- Harper Lee – To Kill A Mockingbird
- J.D. Salinger – Catcher in the Rye
- John Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men
- John Steinbeck – The Grapes of Wrath
- Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness
- Joseph Heller – Catch-22
- Ken Kesey – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- Truman Capote – In Cold Blood
- Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita
- William Golding – The Lord of the Flies
- William Faulkner – As I Lay Dying
Other favorites:
- Aldo Leopold – A Sand County Almanac
- Charles Dickens – A Tale of Two Cities
- Edward Abbey – Desert Solitaire
- Ernest Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea
- Erich Maria Remarque – All Quiet on the Western Front
- Jack Kerouac – Desolation Angels
- Jack Kerouac – On the Road
- Jack Kerouac – The Town and the City
- James Agee – A Death in the Family
- John Muir – My First Summer in the Sierras
- Kate Chopin – The Awakening
- Leo Tolstoy – Anna Karenina
- Leo Tolstoy – War and Peace
- Marcel Proust – Swan’s Way
- Mark Twain – The Innocents Abroad
- Vladimir Nabokov – Pale Fire
I didn’t mean to make the list so long, but, to be honest, I could go on and on. To reminisce like this makes me want to go out and read a great book. In addition to those listed above, I’ve read a number of great modern pieces of literature. Any good suggestions?
Listening to Elliot Smith – XO…