Books

Classifying Books

It's very difficult to classify books. A friend of mine told me there're so many books that a writer (I can't remember the author's name) said that one must not read good books, only the best ones. And the problem remains, how to know what books are the best?

One way to find out the best books is the ancient method of "hit-and-miss", guided by the title, the cover, the summary etc. This method generally causes your library to grow with many unread or partially read books.

Another method is to ask someone, preferentially someone that has a considerably large library. You can also try the literary critique, which is generally more reliable than the cinema critique. Using this method, you generally get confined in some types of books, depending on the kind of books the ones you ask use to read.

Today, with Internet access, you can easily find people that have similar tastes for books you have. This created a third method to select books: you choose a group of readers and then purchase books with its help.

A Choice of Books

Here I present you my choices, classified in three groups: my favourite books and stories, great books and stories and recommended books and stories, this last group containing books I have not yet read but I intend to, as soon as possible. The criterion of classification is generally very subjective, but I tried to explain it for each book and story.

Note: this Page is under construction. Links marked with an "!" are not yet available.

Warning! Some reviews contain summaries of the stories. If you don't want to read them, don't follow the links marked with an "*".

The Last Unicorn (!), book by Peter S. Beagle.: One day, a unicorn realizes there're no more unicorns in the world. She then stars a quest for them. A magical book.
The NeverEnding Story (!), book by Michael Ende.: A child begins to read a book and ends entering a magical adventure to save a world.
Isaac Asimov's books and stories (!).: There're so many books that I created a special page for them, instead of listing them here.
2001 - A Space Odyssey (!), book by Arthur C. Clarke.: A research group finds an alien artifact in the Moon, leading them to Saturn. Problems with the boarding computer may finish the secret mission of the spaceship Discovery to the giant planet.
Ripples In The Dirac Sea (!), story by Geoffrey A. Landis.: Scientists discover a way to travel back in time, but one of them is doomed to live in the past and die in the present...
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias.: Few people remember to include them in the list of favourite books. If you are a great reader and/or writer, follow this link...

Dragon Riders of Pern (!), a series of books by Anne McCaffrey.: In a distant Earthen colony planet, called Pern, people have to survive the deadly attack of space spores. To destroy them, they fly on genetically designed "flaming dragons"...
Dune (!), book by Frank Herbert.: To travel faster than light, it's necessary the use of a powerful drug, which can only be found at a desert planet, known as Dune.
Ender's Game (!), story by Orson Scott Card, later transformed to a book.: To fight against an alien invader, children are trained in combat tactics. One of this children, Ender, shows a special talent in war maneuvers.
Jurassic Park (!), book by Michael Crichton.: A genetic engineering company creates, in a distant island, a zoologic park of no longer extinct dinossaurs.
Rama (!), book by Arthur C. Clarke.: An artificial artifact enters the Solar System. A small group of scientists has only a few days to investigate it, before it goes away.
We Can Remember It for You, Wholesale (!), story by Philip K. Dick.: A man wants to travel to Mars, but can afford only memories of such voyage...

Cosmos (!), by Carl Sagan.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (!), story by Philip K. Dick, later transformed to a book.
H.P. Lovecraft's stories (!). I have already read some of them.

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