Shelf Life » My Favorite Book

Fire and Blood: a history of Mexico by T.R. Fehrenvach

Administrator — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:20:23 +0000

The best book I read this year was Fire and Blood: a history of Mexico by T.R.Fehrenbach.As the title suggests the book is quite graphic and reads like a novel except the characters are historical. There are no clear cut heroes in the book with the good, the bad, and the ugly of all the major players in Mexican history exposed.Father Hidalgo is the most sympathetic character as is Maxmillian. The book is filled with maps both old and new to aid in the understanding of the history of this fabulous civilization.

By Mrs. Eismann

Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseini

Administrator — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 17:12:44 +0000

This may be the best book I have read in 5 or 10 years. In places it is so heart breaking that it is difficult to read. It is beautifully written and the protagonist, Amir, seems so real that you can’t help thinking it is an autobiography (it is not).

Amir, as a child, betrays his truest friend Hassan, the son of his father’s servant. Hassan is as kind and loyal a person as you will find in literature. His heart-felt refrain, “For you, a thousand times over,” still haunts me as it did Amir. The betrayal is so awful that it defines Amir’s entire life (as he tells us in the first line of the book).

Amir and his father flee Afghanistan and the Soviet supported communist government. They land in the U.S. where Amir grows into manhood and marries. As an adult Amir is unable to connect with his father and is never able to be truly happy, even with the love of a good woman. After his father’s death Amir learns that Hassan and his wife have been killed by the Taliban. Amir travels to pre-9/11 Afghanistan to rescue Hassan’s son and to attempt to redeem himself. He must face down the brutal Taliban regime, international bureaucracies, and the demons of his youth.

It is certain to become a classic.

Mr. Doyle

Ender’s Game

Administrator — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 04:17:03 +0000

Card, Orson Scott. _Ender’s Game_. New York: Tor, 1994.

OK, I have a lot of favorite books but this book has such wide appeal I am listing it as my favorite. At first glance you might think this story is rip-off of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers but Card is a much better writer than Heinlein. Heinlein is too heavy-handed with his messages. Card is more subtle and better at creating believable characters.

In Ender’s Game mankind is threatened by an insect-like alien race with whom communication is immpossible. In a desperate attempt to find a leader who can lead the Earth fleet against the inscrutable “buggers,” promising children are taken from their families and sent to “Battle School”. There, they are turned into soldiers. They are tested against each other in simulated battles. Ender Wiggin is the best of the best. He is smart, charismatic, and he has a killer’s instinct.

With each victory, the adults in charge increase the pressure on Ender and his “jeesh”, his squad of child-soldiers. The odds are increasingly stacked against him, yet he keeps winning. But will the increasing pressure break Ender? Even if he doesn’t break, is he good enough to beat the “buggers”?

This is the first in a four-part series. The others are Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind. The author also created a parrallel series centered on a different character from Ender’s Game. Bean came to Battle School even younger than Ender and is even smarter than him. He is the protagonist in Ender’s Shadow, Shadow of the Hedgemon, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the Giant. All of the books in both series are excellent.

Mr. Doyle