A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History - Manuel De Landa

A pretty interesting take on how and why Western society evolved the way it did based on a less Eurocentric premise. De Landa has me raising my eyebrows fairly often, but he makes a good case for all his theories.  Will I ever finsih this book???

Sudden Origens: Fossils, Genes, And The Emergence Of Species -  Jeffrey H. Schwartz

This book proves to be more than just a detailed look at the origins of humanity.  What you get is a critique of the search for the origins of humanity as well.  It seems humans are cognitively weakest when dealing with their own meaning and evolution.  So far a fascinating read and a myth-buster for everything I ever learned about Darwin's Evolution and the real story of human evolution.

Monkey Brain Sishi: New Tastes in Japanese Fiction - Alfred Birnbaum (editor)

When I bought this book I was mostly interested in Haruki Murakami's short story.  I picked it up again this month for something to read for few minutes and was drawn in.  There are a lot of different types of stories here: science fiction, erotica, feminist, or just plain weird.  Alfred Birnbaum is my favorite translator of Haruki Murakami's writing, so I was eager to see what else he had selected for this 1991 collection of stories.  So far, sooo good.

A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami (translated by Alfred Birnbaum)

I read this book as a lark several years ago and was instantly shocked and amazed by the material.  Murakami¹s fiiction is truly unique.  In A Wild Sheep Chase, the average Japanese protagonist is shocked out of his 9-5 world by an unusual event and sent blindly through a maze of psychologically challenging scenarios to unravel the secret of a legendary sheep with a star on its back and why some people are willing to kill just to dream about it. A Wild Sheep Chase makes the top ten because it was my first Murakami book, but subsequent books by him rank equally high on my list: Dance Dance Dance, The Elephant Vanishes, The Windup Bird Chronicles, Hard Boiled Wonderland, and now After the Quake as well. All deliver with the same unusual charm.

The New Thought Police - Tammy Bruce

Tammy Bruce is an unusual political author simply because she refuses to fall into the proscribed stereotypes.  Her writings about the politico-psychological war of ideas in America is refreshingly unique in it¹s viewpoint.  She comes from deep inside the secret world of special interest groups and exposes the hypocrisy and murky dealings of the leaders of those groups. A must read for anyone interested in social issues in politics.  If you're a fan of conspiracies and the political underword (a la 1984) you'll be doubly fascinated with her writing.

VALIS - Phillip K. Dick

Phillip K. Dick is my favorite science fiction writer.  He has a knack for powerful plots that have been snatched up and made into a lot of movies (Minority Report, Blade Runner, Paycheck, Total Recall.)  This novel is very different and has made my top ten because of that.  It details the psychological breakdown of a man and his encounter with the supreme being through the gnostic gospels.  At the time Dick wrote this book, the Nag Hamadi Codex had only just been translated into English and the writing held within fueled his formulation of an alien deity controlling space and time through living information. 

House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski

This is a fascinating book which looks, at first glance, to be as impossible to read as Finnegan¹s Wake actually is.  However, once you settle into Danielewski¹s style and get a firm footing on the plot, things become clearer.  The house in question is many things.  The story lines which inhabit several layers of footnotes and footnotes to footnotes loosely tell the tale of a film maker who discovers his new home is larger inside than outside.  The literary, film, mythological, and architectural references are so thick that you may find yourself adding yet another layer of footnotes to your copy of the book as it sucks you in.  In terms of graphic design, it is magnificent.  The layout mimics the storyline and uses a dizzying array of typographical tools to construct this house of pages.  I've given this book to numerous people as gifts as well.

A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle

The first time I read A Wrinkle in Time, I was in the sixth grade. As a twelve year old, you don't pick up on the subtle themes in L'Engle's writing as easily as you do ten or twenty years later but, they do make an impact. It was not until I had read the series again a few years ago that I realized how much influence it had had on me through the years. Each of the books in the "Time Quartet have been surprisingly rich (The Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters.) Folding Space, civilizations within our cells, the great flood, sentient stars... mezmerizing and loaded with profound wisdoms.

T-Zero - Italo Calvino

Calvino is another one of those authors I stumbled onto and ended up sailing through everything they had written. My first Calvino experience was with Invisable Cities, a beautiful tribute to Venice. It was unseated by T Zero because of the tantalizing scenarios constructed in this collection of lyrical moments strunf together. The origen of birds, mitosis, the ocean of blood. Science instantly became romantic. I can go back to T Zero repeatedly for inspiration. Other great moments in Calvino reading: Under the Jaguar Sun, The Baron in the Trees, Marcovaldo and Cosmicomics.

The Gnostic Gospels - Elaine Pagels

The Gnostic Gospels isn't a translation of the now famous Nag Hamadi Codices or of Q or of any particular text. What Pagels does in this book is investigate the evolution of gnosticism from a powerful component of early Christianity to Heresy. Using the writings of the early bishops of orthodox Christianity and the texts I mentioned, she paints a rich picture of the first centuries of the religion and how , and why, the battle between the Church and the Christian raged. A very entertaining and informative read. Along with VALIS this book really went a long way to bringing me to a better understanding of the church I was raised in.

Fragments for a History of the Human Body - Michel Feher (Editor), et al

This is a three volume set of books from Zone publications (3-5) which brings together an eclectic group of essays and studies of the human body. From mythology to early dentistry, puppets to lingistics, just about every corporeal topic you couldn't imagine is detailed. All three of these books are among my most prized possessions and there is a forrest of post-it notes hanging out of each volume marking something exceptionally interesting. Obtaining these books marked a turning point in the energy level of my thesis work. Incredibly smart and intoxicatingly strange.

Schismatrix Plus - Bruce Sterling

Schismatrix is a recent addition.  I like Bruce Sterling's fiction because there are so many levels to its genius.  The Schismatrix world is set about 45 years from now in an era where humanity has begun establishing communities in space.  A series of colonies orbitting the moon, the mining of Saturn's rings, Earth, horrified by the moral implications of the technological advances of its offspring has become isolated.  Space is inhabited by post-humans.  Mechanists who have pushed prosthetics to their limits and Shapers who have mastered genetic engineering.  The opposing ideologies clash in political, economic and philosphical chaos as humanity seeks to transcend the bounds of the fourth prigoginic level.

Bad Beginnings (A Series of Unfortunate Events - Book #1) - Lemony Snicket

I saw a huge display devoted to the cult of Lemony Snicket at Barnes & Noble on night... I went home and read a few pages online at amazon.com and owned the first three books in this series of (eventually) thirteen the next day. A gothic childrens book... fantastic. No happy endings, and an air of utter gloom and doom which is actually made very humorous by the author's insistance that you stop reading immediately to avoid the inevitable dispair. You could call it a black comedy for kids, which here means it's a very unique series of books. I wish they'd had these books when I was younger but I probably get a bigger kick out of them now. The three protagonists are the very intelligent Baudellaire orphans who have inheritted their parent's fortune... but they are continually hunted by their evil uncle Olaf who is a master of disguise and turns up in every book sooner of later. I'm at book the 12th and counting.  The movie based on books 1-3 is out now and contains some usefull information about the lives of the three orphans that does not appear in the books and predictably leaves out plenty of the charm that Mr. Snicket put into them.  Don't think for a minute that either medium contains the true story!  Check out Lemony Snicket's web site as well.

Sexing the Cherry - Jeanette Winterson

I found Sexing the Cherry one night in an irish bar in Venice ccalled "The Fiddler's Elbow." An Irish friend who also lived in Venice had it in her coat pocket one night. I popped it open and read a paragraph at random... Within minutes I had discovered the "english bookstore" and had my own copy the next day. Jeanette Winterson practically underlies my entire time in Venice. Her books were borrowed in turn by every member of our studio there and by the time we returned to the states, I owned four of them. Sexing the Cherry is hard to describe but is beautiful to read. Several characters narrate their own stories which ocurr around the time the Anglican and Catholic church split in England. Winterson has a flare for convincingly narrating as several distinct personalities. Other Winterson books to take note of: The Passion, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Written on the Body