Music: Rock

Before I wandered into the worlds of jazz and classical music the records below were some that I enjoyed the most, and I still enjoy listening to all of the music listed (in no particular order):

Little Feat, Dixie Chicken (1973)

J.J. Cale, Naturally (1972)

Dire Straits, Communiqué (1979)

Z Z Top,  Tres Hombres (1973)

Crosby, Stills & Nash, Crosby, Stills & Nash (1969)

Elton John, Madman Across the Water (1971)

Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II (1969)

Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)

Neil Young, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere (1969)

The Rolling Stones, Let it Bleed (1969)

Santana, Abraxas (1970)

Steely Dan, Countdown to Ecstasy (1973)

 

A Miscellany of Science Fiction Works

I have the science fiction genre to thank for my introduction to the world of books, and all of the works listed below provided an enjoyable reading experience at some point in my life:

The Man in the High Castle (1962), Philip K. Dick [Hugo Award]

Star Maker (1937), Olaf Stapledon

Neuromancer (1984), William Gibson [Nebula, Philip K. Dick, and Hugo Awards]

The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Ursula K. Le Guin [Hugo and Nebula Awards]

Dune (1965), Frank Herbert [Hugo and Nebula awards]

A Perfect Vacuum (1971), Stanislaw Lem [Translated from the Polish by Michael Kandel]

Gateway (1977), Frederick Pohl [Nebula, Philip K. Dick, and Hugo Award winner]

The Book of the New Sun (1980 – 83), Gene Wolfe [The books in the series won various awards: the World Fantasy, British Science Fiction, John W. Campbell Memorial, and Nebula]

More Than Human (1953), Theodore Sturgeon

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame (1970), Edited by Robert Silverberg

Ender’s Game (1985), Orson Scott Card [Hugo and Nebula Awards]

The Foundation Trilogy (1951 – 53), Isaac Asimov

 

Fiction that left an indelible mark

The list below contains some of my favorite works of fiction; they aren’t necessarily the books I consider to be the ‘best’ literature has to offer, but they all have a permanent place on my bookshelf (for various reasons).  There are other works that made the long-list, but I trimmed it to twelve, and I only allowed myself one book per author. I’m a little ashamed at the poor selection of female authors (only one), but it’s an honest list. It is organized chronologically, based on the order I read them.

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin

For Whom the Bell Tolls, Earnest Hemingway.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John Le Carré

Collected Fiction, Jorge Luis Borges

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Complete Stories, Franz Kafka

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami

The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro

The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner