Favorite books, audio books, comics, and other readable materials

So I've had my "what I'm reading" list up for quite a while (here), but many who look at that just ask "So which are the best?" This page attempts to answer that question - and also allows me to list a few books that I finised before that other list started in August 2005.

Favorite books

These books are most of my favorites, and include most of the very few books I've read multiple times. Listed in no particular order.

• The Man Who Tried to Save the World: The Dangerous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of an American Hero (by Scott Anderson) - perhaps my favorite book ever, this describes the life of Fred Cuny, a truly remarkable man who lived an inspiring life helping those in war ravaged parts of the globe. He eventually disappeared into the tragedy of Chechnya, and was never heard from again. The author is a war journalist who tries (perhaps too hard) to find out what happened. Brilliant book about a brilliant life.
• Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (by Jack Weatherford) - excellent non-fiction, my favorite book of 2006. There is so much more to Khan's story than I knew, and it is really shocking to realize just how much he managed to do.
• Omon Ra (by Viktor Pelevin) - first read during my Russian novel class at Carleton, a modern novel with a highly unusual take on the Soviet space system.
• Popular Music from Vittula (by Mikael Niemi) - a magical mix of dream and reality, a novel of growing up in a tiny town in the north of Sweden.
• American Gods (by Neil Gaiman) - probably my favorite author, and my favorite of his works. Made me think a lot, about religion, history, myth, and America.
• French Revolutions (by Tim Moore) - a travel book in the great tradition of bumbling British adventurers. In this one he sets off to ride the route of the Tour de France, with little preparation. Full of fascinating trivia and history about the race itself, as well as some terribly entertaining misadventures. I've read many of his books, and this is my favorite (followed closely by the audiobook Frost on my Moustache).
• Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books (by Aaron Lansky) - a gift from my sister, I started reading and couldn't put it down. Exactly what the title says, but filled with many wonderful anecdotes about books and the people who love them. Great book, I'd recommend it to anyone.
• The Shadow of the Sun (by Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski) - I love his writing. Beautiful imagery from a journalist present and many memorable moments of the 20th century. This book focuses on his time in Africa. I had to pull Becky aside at many moments and force her to read or listen to passages, they were so well written. His work "The Soccer War" is also excellent.
• Master and Margarita (by Mikhail Bulgakov) - allegory of the 30's in Moscow under Stalin. A classic of the times, and a very enjoyable read.

Favorite audiobooks

Some wonderful books are terrible when narrated; the following books, whatever their merits or subject matter, worked better than I could ever have expected as audiobooks.

• The complete Harry Potter series, narrated by Jim Dale. He has a unique and seemingly perfect voice for every character, as hard as that is to believe. The narration is excellent.
• Seabiscuit (by Laura Hillenbrand) - I'm not a fan of horse racing, and picked this up somewhat reluctantly, but it was incredible. I don't know that the retelling of the races could possibly have been as thrilling if without the narration.
• Ghost Soldiers (by Hampton Sides) - non-fiction account of a nearly impossible rescue of forgotten soldiers in a Japanese prison of war camp near the end of WWII. This may have been the first audiobook that kept me in the car for extended periods, just to hear what happened next.
• Frost on my Moustache: The Arctic Exploits of a Lord and a Loafer (by Tim Moore) - a very funny travelogue, whether or not you're as obsessed with Iceland as I am.
• Darkness at Noon (Arthur Koestler) - a rather dark account taking place primarily in the mind of the lead character, as he wrestles with the communism that has turned on him. Great novel, and another that kept me hanging on for the next word.
• Everything is Illuminated, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer) - each of these were special in their own way. The narration of each is alternately funny and heartbreaking; there are spots when you know something truly terrible is coming, and you can't slow down or speed past it - you just have to wait for the narrator to go at his own speed.
• Atonement (by Ian McEwan) - another tear jerker, where you almost need to turn it off because it's so painful to continue listening. But very well done, and lovely writing.

Hard to put down

These books that kept me from doing anything else, because I simply could not stop reading.

• Non-fiction
  • The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston's Racial Divide (by Dick Lehr)
  • Outwitting History (by Aaron Lansky) (yes, it's in the list above, but it also falls into this category)
  • Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World (by Tracy Kidder)
  • Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster (by Svetlana Alexievitch)
  • Killing Pablo (by Mark Bowden)
  • Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time (by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin)
  • The Johnstown Flood (by David McCullough)
• Fiction
  • Stieg Larsson's Millineum Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest)
  • Out (by Natsuo Kirino)

Graphic fiction and non-fiction

Over the past few years, I've gotten into a lot more graphic work, beginning after I read an excerpt of Joe Sacco's wonderful war reporting from Serbia. I've collected some of the best here; for what it's worth, all but the Neil Gaiman were are non-fiction.

• Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (by Guy Delisle) - an account of this French artist's work assignment in Pyongyang. His spare drawing style matches perfectly with the subject matter.
• The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders (by Didier Lefèvre, Emmanuel Guibert, and Frédéric Lemercier) - an unusual mix of comic art, photography, and story telling about a very rough time in a very rough place. The photographer almost died on his trip to cover the MSF trip; some of the photos, such as those taken when he is sick and abandoned on a mountain pass, really carry a powerful punch.
• The Complete Persepolis (by Marjane Satrapi) - growing up in Iran under the Islamic Revolutionary Government. Good art, good story, not surprised it was made into a movie.
• The Sandman (Neil Gaiman) - actually a series of graphic novels (put together from a series of comics), I've read volumes one through four. The seem to get better and better, volume four was brilliant.
• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (by Alison Bechdel)

Unexpected pleasures

For the most part I didn't know what to expect when going in to these. They may not quite make it into the "all time favorites" list, but they're very close. A variety of genres, for the right person they could be among the first books I suggest.

• Fiction
  • Cloud Atlas (by David Mitchell)
  • How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone (by Saša Stanzši?)
  • The People of Paper (by Salvador Plascencia)
  • Icelander (by Dustin Long)
  • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (by Junot Diaz)
  • Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett)
  • The Prestige (by Christopher Priest) -- made into a very good movie, which wisely (in my opinion) dropped the outer "modern day" part of the story.
  • Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned (by Wells Tower)
  • Mine All Mine (by Adam Davies)
  • Chronicler of the Winds (by Henning Mankell)
• Non-fiction
  • Banvard's Folly (by Paul Collins)
  • Homage to Catalonia (by George Orwell)
  • Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures (by Bill Schutt)
  • Easter Rising: A Memoir of Roots and Rebellion (by Michael Patrick MacDonald)
  • The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs And Men in a Race Against an Epidemic (by Gay Salisbury)
  • Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier (by Alexandra Fuller)
  • Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times: A Collection of All Original Essays from Today's (and Tomorrow's) Young Authors on the State of the Art --and ... Hustle--in the Age of Information Overload
  • Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner)
  • King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (by Adam Hochschild)
  • Charlie Wilson's War (by George Crile)
  • A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (by Dave Eggers)
  • Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands (by Michael Chabon)
  • The Monster of Florence (by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi)
  • Stumbling on Happiness (by Daniel Gilbert)
  • The Braindead Megaphone (essays by George Saunders)
  • The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks (by Susan Casey)