Just Readin'

After writing my non-fiction recommendations a little while ago, I got to thinking about what my fiction recommendations would be. These are a little bit harder, because I read a lot more fiction than non-fiction and there are so many wonderful books that I could recommend. To counteract this problem, I've decided to write a series of blogs about my favorite books. As someone who reads a lot, I usually find it hard to answer the question, "what is your favorite book?", it's like asking a parent to pick their favorite child. However, after much thought and deliberation, I have decided to that Ivanhoe , by Sir Walter Scott, is my favorite book. Ivanhoe , in my view, is an unlikely classic. In the words of my friend's father, who is an English professor at Penn State, Ivanhoe is the classic "that no one ever reads". I can understand that; it's a story about chivalry, love, and honor and other virtues that are looked upon as 'medieval' in t...

So, I recently realized that I haven't reviewed any non-fiction yet on this blog. I feel that that's a little unfair to non-fiction, because I've read some excellent pieces of non-fiction in my life. The reason I haven't written about non-fiction yet is that I haven't really read any non-fiction in a while. So, I've decided to give you a list of what I think is really, really good non-fiction. Granted, all of it's been about historical events/figures, but if you're interested in that sort of stuff, I've got some great recommendations for you. 1) The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough - I originally read this book for a class and it was a great experience. This was a great book, with the readability of a novel and an especial emphasis on the stories of the survivors. It covered more than just the actual event of the flood and the most interesting part of the book was the section on the aftermath, which assessed weather or not the flood was a man m...