Hi, thanks for coming to our cyberhome. A couple of things that we love to do at our house is read and listen to good music. And we have read some great ones lately! Let us tell you a little about these books, and if you are interested in any of them, you can order them online through Amazon.com's secure server. We have ordered from them quite a few times and are very happy with their selections, prices, and service. We've made it easy for you. Just click on the book or CD that you are interested in. For your convenience, a new window will appear. Browse through Amazon, and order if you want. When you finish, close that window to return to our site.
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Lulu's Picks:
Trying to entice David, now 13 and a recalcitrant reader, and to guide Jonathan, 10 and a voracious reader, to good reading material, I dusted off my old high school classics and re-read them. Here is a sampling of 4:
And to 'tickle the funny bone' we are including links to our favorite comics' recommendation pages:
- Louise's: For Better of For Worse and Mafalda
- Stacy's: Dilbert
- David's: Calvin and Hobbes
- Jonathan's:
- Previous recommendations:
- Charlotte's Web - a great kid's book!
- Small Time Operator and Working Solo - excellent advice for the self-employed.
- The Little World of Don Camillo
- The Far Pavilions
- Diet for a New America - an eye-opener!
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three George Orwell's classic satire of the Russian Revolution is an intimate part of our contemporary culture, quoted so often that we tend to forget who wrote the original words. It is an account of the bold struggle that transforms Mr. Jones' Manor Farm into Animal Farm - a wholly democratic society built on the credo that All Animals Are Created Equal. Out of their cleverness, the pigs Napoleon, Squealer, and Snowball emerge as leaders of the new community in a subtle evolution that bears an insidious familiarity. The climax is the brutal betrayal of the faithful horse Boxer, when totalitarian rule is reestablished with the bloodstained postscript to the founding slogan: But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others....
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1984, also by George Orwell
"Outside, even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere." The year is 1984; the scene is London, largest population center of Airstrip One. Airstrip One is part of the vast political entity Oceania, which is eternally at war with one of two other vast entities, Eurasia and Eastasia. At any moment, depending upon current alignments, all existing records show either that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, or that it has always been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia. Winston Smith knows this, because his work at the Ministry of Truth involves the constant "correction" of such records. "'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'" In a grim city and a terrifying country, where Big Brother is always Watching You and the Thought Police can practically read your mind, Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. He knows the Party's official image of the world is a fluid fiction. He knows the Party controls the people by feeding them lies and narrowing their imaginations through a process of bewilderment and brutalization that alienates each individual from his fellows and deprives him of every liberating human pursuit from reasoned inquiry to sexual passion. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be. Newspeak, doublethink, thoughtcrime--in 1984, George Orwell created a whole vocabulary of words concerning totalitarian control that have since passed into our common vocabulary. More importantly, he has portrayed a chillingly credible dystopia. In our deeply anxious world, the seeds of unthinking conformity are everywhere in evidence; and Big Brother is always looking for his chance. --Daniel Hintzsche --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Was this content helpful to you? From AudioFile Orwell's classic continues to deliver its horrible vision of totalitarian society. Once considered futuristic, it now conjures fear because of how closely it fits the reality of contemporary times. West's precise pronunciation and strong, intense voice provide the narration and all individual parts. The three major characters are individualized through vocal emphasis, tone and interpretation of each character's personality. West simultaneously weaves the spell of Big Brother while subtly...
1984 is unquestionably one of the greatest books in the history of English literature. A terrifying look at the dangers of totalitarian government, it is ingeniously written and scarily realistic. George Orwell is meticulously thorough in his depiction of a world that is bleak, hopeless, and horrifying--and perhaps not as distant as we think. The writing style is factual and almost impersonal, reflecting not only the government but the people themselves, who have been reduced to unthinking robots. Protagonist Winston Smith's resistance against Big Brother (the symbolic leader of the Party) and ultimate complete acceptance and execution demonstrate the debility and irresolution of the human mind and spirit. The authoritarian government itself is eerily familiar, complete with conspiracies, cover-ups, and double-dealing politicians. While the year 1984 is long past, the book is still a relevant and potent warning of what the future may bring if we let it. The concept of 1984 is brilliant, the writing is brilliant, and it is nearly impossible not to love this book. 1984 is a definite must-read for anyone. Enthusiastically recommended;
Think about a world where thinking unorthodox thoughts about the government is a crime, punishable by torture and death. Everywhere you go you are in the presence of a telescreen, or a two way television, where people can see you, instead of you just seeing them. Microphones are placed everywhere, catching every single word you speak. This is the world of 1984. A novel by George Orwell, a novel not about what life might be, but of what it is becoming. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmare vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one man's attempt to find himself. A communist government, called Oceania are at constant war with two other similar governments, Eastasia, and Eurasia. Eternal warfare is the price of bleak prosperity. The story is about a man named Winston Smith. He lives in a time when the love of somebody is illegal, not just the act, but the feelings and nature toward one another. When Winston meets Julia, a romance sparks. But they can only see each other secretly, away from the telescreens and microphones. They soon join the underground opposition of the party, called the brotherhood. One day, the Thought Police(Some police that can read your thoughts and stuff if you have bad thoughts, they catch you) catch them in their hideout, an upper story room on top of an old antique shop. In my opinion, this novel is a very scary and timely book. The fact that this book can be non-fiction can scare the living daylights out of you. The book is fairly complicated, and the beginning is quite slow. This book is not necessarily meant to create a scare, but to warn people about what might happen in one. The last four words can create a very serious case of depression or it may leave you something to think about afterwards. I know it happened to me. Most definitely I would recommend this book, but I have to warn you that it cannot be treated like an old rag, something that you can just toss aside when you don't want it. It will take you really close to psychosis, and then toss you into a suffocating kind of depression. This is not a novel you will neglect, and it is not a book you can read without wondering about everything you think and do. You'll never hear the phrase "Big Brother is watching you" again without chills going all over you body, giving you shivers, and fear filling every little space of your body. This book can also be quite confusing to some, and boring at the same time. I am only in the 8th grade, and many of the government aspects of the book were quite hard to catch. The last 45 pages or so of this book though, was very interesting. It reminded me of a parent hitting a child if they were bad. They keep on hitting them until they learn what is right in the parent's point of view. If you are looking for a book in which you can sit down and relax, then don't try this book.
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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
""Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today--let's hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come. -
While its portrayal of the future is not as apocalyptic and frightening as that of 1984, it is indeed more worrying, since 1.We're beggining to see certain elements of it in todays world, and 2.Some elements of Huxley's future are dangeroulsy attractive. The society in which people live in the book is, one could say, almost perfect. No one has any kind of hardships or worries. You work your hours, get into a helicopter that you yourself fly, go play some Centrifugal Bubble Puppy or some Obstale Golf, go home with the girl (or boy) of your choice (which of course will be different than the one yesterday, since "everyone belongs to everyone else"), and have sex all night. Then go to work the next morning. But things rarely are what they seem, and as you deepen yourself in the story and listen to the counterpoints that John Savage discusses with the Controller, you come to realise that, while everyone is basically provided for and in a way happy, and the whole of society remains "stable" (and if they're not, they just take a Soma-Holiday); their inner lives are incredibly empty of any kind of true love for anything or anyone, or any individualism, both phisical and intelectual. Its not that they are not allowed to express themselves or to love. They're just conditioned and engineered like that. That plus the incesant cloning of the Epsiloms and Gammas, the (Human) Hatcheries, the intense promiscuity, the strange rituals and religious Zeal for "Ford", the Koskanofski groups etc, add up to make a very insane future. One which I'm afraid, if we don't look out, we are in danger of arriving at very soon. I reccomend you read this book. If you liked 1984, you're gonna love this book. While its wildely different to 1984 in the future it portrays, it is closer to happening. --This text refers to the Library Binding edition.
As critic and best-selling author Neil Postman points out so well in the introduction to his book "Amusing Ourselves To Death", we have congratulated ourselves prematurely by figuring we made it past the totalitarian nightmare state depicted in George Orwell's gripping cautionary tale "1984". Perhaps, Postman suggest, we should remember another visionary totalitarian nightmare scenario and use it to critically examine the contemporary state of social and psychological well-being. Of course he was referring to Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World, written before Orwell's by 15 or so years, and even more frightening in its own way in the world it describes. More and more, that frightening vision looks like our contemporary world. Picture his ironic portrait of a populace doped into Nirvana on "soma" (read Prozac and Zoloft), isolated and diverted by petty preoccupations in mindless trivial pursuits (read video games and internet surfing to all the porno sites), oblivious to anything not directly pertaining to themselves and totally unaware of the degree to which they are being socially, economically, and politically co-opted. Beginning to sound more familiar? Remember, says Huxley, brute force is not the only method an oligarchy can use to influence, manage, and finally control our hard-won freedoms and liberties; it can be done with over-indulgence and the deliberate fertilization and promulgation of apathy through self-absorption, as well. Even Huxley says (circa 1960, almost 30 years after the original publication) in the preface of the revised version of the book that he is alarmed as to how quickly the sort of events he figured might take a hundred years such as the appearance of political internationalism and transnational corporate entities are already arising and beginning to control more and more of the substance of our social, economic, and political lives. Just how much do we know other than what we hear and see on television, for example? Yet the electronic media is owned and managed by transnational corporations. Ever wonder why we never heard much muckraking news coverage of the NAFTA or GATT deals even though many recogized the two bills would radically change the nature of international trade? Perhaps the transnationals didn't want too much hype or fuss. Starting to feel uncomfortable yet? Still, people keep insisting this was just a whimsical work of fiction, that it was a parable, that he really wasn't serious. Want to find out more? Read this book, but do so slowly, taking notes, recognizing how many contemporary parallels there are to each of the "whimsical details" he conjures up, and then figure out in your own mind how very close he was to prognosticating just how far we have come toward the "Brave New World" in which everyone's soul and awareness is for sale. The kids are wowed by the recent movie The Matrix", yet few appreciate just how much of a fabled existence we are already living in. No pain, no sorrow, no trouble of any kind. Instead, we have our individual and collective consciousness "managed" pharmaceutically; our psyches eased into blithering bliss with "soma", our diminishing attention spans sidetracked and occupied by petty diversions and endless entertainments. Pass me the corndogs, honey! But, hey! Don't touch that dial; Regis is on! They may retry OJ! What did Bill Clinton really do with that cigar? Have you seen the latest news about the stock market? Did you get any of that new beer they're advertising? it's supposed to make me a real ladies man....What's the latest gadget? Can I buy one on-line? By the way, where are the kids? Hell, never mind, just turn up the volume; I think I know the answer to that question Regis just asked... Meanwhile, folks, our awareness of what is going on around us, our rights and our liberties are being power-washed away, obliterated, and we cannot even see it happening in front of us. We are diverted, distracted, content in our own little worlds. So welcome to our nightmare. Better beware; it just looks like Nirvana. It's really another "Brave New World"
Brave New World is a novel that everyone should read. The book is very well crafted, and the story is fascinating. The main character of the book is Bernard Marx(allusion to Karl Marx perhaps). Marx finds himself living in a world where crime is virtually nonexistent, everyone is provided for, and people don't seem to have a care in the world. It sounds like a utopia, but at what cost? The "cost" is what this novel addresses. Marx finds himself wondering why he is so unhappy, and discovers it is the system he lives under. The novel asks the question, "Is it worth losing your personal freedom to have stability and harmony in society." Huxley wrote this book to warn of the dangers that socialism can bring. I would strongly suggest that anyone interested in this novel read "Looking Backward," by Edward Bellamy. Brave New World seems almost to be written in response to Bellamy's novel. I have also noticed that people enjoy comparing Brave New World to 1984. The books are similiar in the fact that they are both "negative utopian" novels, but that's about all they have in common. Brave New World is written to show the flaws of a socialist society, while 1984 is more interested in showing the dangers of totalitarianism. Brave New World is a relatively short book, only about 200 pages. It is not a very difficult read either. The book is rich in literary merit, but is also deeply political. It is one of the few novels that can walk the political tightrope, and escape the branding of propaganda. I invite you to discover why the novel has been so successful. I don't think you will be disappointed.
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About a year and a half ago, after working for a while with a wonderful gentleman, I decided to start my own business. This is decidedly an immense step in life, and one requiring much knowledge and guidance. I found the book Small Time Operator: How to Start Your Own Small Business, Keep Your Books, Pay Your Taxes, and Stay Out of Trouble! by Bernard B. Kamorof, an invaluable resource.
The book is very thorough, covering every aspect of how to start and run a business, from permits to obtain, to how to choose a name, to what taxes to pay, plus a breakdown for the different states. It has a series of forms in the back that can be photocopied and used to keep inventory records, financial records, etc. The language is simple to understand and straight forward.
I find myself going back and reviewing different sections of my very much marked-up copy, especially around tax time. I highly recommend this book to anyone planning to start, or just having started a business.
I also got the book Working Solo, The Real Guide to Freedom & Financial Success with Your Own Business by Terri Lonier. This is also an excellent guide, but I have to admit that I didn't give it as thorough attention as I did the other one, probably because of the demands on my time. But I did read parts of it, and it complements the Small Time Operator book very well.
There are two other books that I just have to tell you about, they are my all time fiction favorites:
I have had my copy of The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareshi, for at least 30 years, and have read it at least 15 times. I think that it is a wonderful book! It relates the story of a priest in Italy that converses with Christ and has a running feud with the communist Mayor of the small mountain town where they live. The insight into human nature is thought provoking, and besides that, there are many hilarious parts.
I'm afraid that Anacom doesn't have this book right now (it's on back order), but you might find it here, or at your local library.
The Far Pavilions by M.M.Kaye is a saga that takes place in the middle and far east (mostly India), and has something for everyone: suspense, love, adventure, horror. I saw a movie made of the story, but it wasn't one tenth as good as the book.
I do have to warn you that it is a very long story. I have a two-volume hardback edition, which I bought at a yard sale, but at Anacom you can buy the paperback very reasonably priced.
There is one last book that I would like to mention at this time. This book really has changed the way we see our food supply, and the way we eat. It is Diet for a New America written by John Robbins. He is the son of one of the founders of Baskin Robbins, and as the story goes, refused his inheritance of the ice cream "conglomerate" because of the research he had done on animal products (milk...ice cream, get it?). That research has all gone into his book.
Our copy of the book was sent to Stacy by a friend, but I read it first. It is amazing and incredible the stuff in it. First it talks about animals and how sensitive and loving they are. The next section presents the cruel ways in which livestock and animals grown for food are treated and the horrible things that they are fed and injected with (hormones, steroids, antibiotics, etc) The last section presents study after study of how bad meat is for humans, and it presents alternatives to a meat based diet.
The book is written in easy to understand English, although it repeats itself somewhat. But it is definitely an eye-opener. Needless to say, we tried becoming vegetarians. It isn't easy because of the mindset we have that a meal has to revolve around a good steak, or porkchops, or chicken. But we did become vegetarians for about a year (not completely, we still ate eggs and milk and cheese). But what a difference it made. I lost ten pounds and the bloated feeling dissappeared. I have to confess that we have slipped, and are eating meat at least a couple of times a week now, but I believe that another reading of this book will set us on the straight and narrow again.
I highly recommend it!
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