Collection
Welcome to my library! I have a lot of other books that I've chose to omit because I don't take pride in owning them (I liked Harry Potter when I was 12, okay?) but this should be a fairly comprehensive list!
Currently reading:
To be read:
Fiction
- 1984 by George Orwell
- A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Cat's Cradle by Curt Vonnegut
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Feed by M.T. Anderson
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
- Here Lies Daniel Tate by Cristin Terrill
- I Hope You Stay by Courtney Peppernell
- It Devours! by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor
- Sherlock Holmes: Classic Stories (Barnes & Noble) by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories (Vol. 1) by Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch (Vol. 1 & 2) by Daniel Kraus
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Comics
- Problem Sleuth (vols. 1-5) by Andrew Hussie
- The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in Tibet by Herge
- The Adventures of Tintin: The Shooting Star by Herge
Beatles
- The John Lennon Letters edited by Hunter Davies
- John by Cynthia Lennon
- Paul McCartney: The Lyrics edited by Paul Muldoon
Birds
- A Sky Full of Birds by Matt Merritt
- The A.O.C. Checklist of North American Birds: Seventh Edition (1998)
- The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Western Region by Miklos D. F. Udvardy (1977)
- Bird Guide: Land Birds East of the Rockies by Chester A. Reed (1951)
- Birdpedia: A Brief Compendium of Avian Lore by Christopher W. Leahy
- Birds of Iowa by Stan Tekiela
- Birds of North America (Eastern Region) by Fred J. Alsop III (Smithsonian Handbook)
- Field Guide to the Birds of North America by Jon L. Dunn and Jonathan Alderfer (Nat. Geo)
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig - 2.5/5
If I had to choose one word to describe this book, it would be "alright." I didn't hate reading it, but I felt like it's thesis was bland and all over the place. The main character is highly unlikable, and if I hadn't been reading it for a book club, I probably wouldn't have finished it. Admittedly, I do enjoy the concept of living/observing other iterations of your life; it's an interesting hypothetical that really makes you reflect on what your life could have been if you made different choices or followed different paths. The ending is sweet and there are some surprises throughout the course of the plot, but it didn't win me over. It's definitely worth a read if you're interested in plots revolving around mental health, but otherwise it's not that interesting.
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut - 4.5/5
Absolutely loved this book! I'd probably give it a 4.5/5. I'm really a sucker for anti-war books and Vonnegut, so this was immediately interesting to me. It can be ridiculous and hard to understand, but it's central to the thesis of the book: war is pointless and silly! Oftentimes you'll see anti-war books in a gritty "war never changes" type of format. No problem with that, but it's refreshing to see a different perspective. It really gave me a Dr. Strangelove sense of goofiness. I came up with one theory about how this book could be interpreted realistically based on the idea of Tralfamadore sounding like a prescription medication of some sort. Maybe somebody else online came up with this too, but I just thought of a cracked-out, aging, possibly dementia-riddled Billy Pilgrim high off of something, desperately trying to interpret the trauma of war. That's another strength of the book: it's open to a lot of interpretation. I would say that's why a lot of people don't enjoy reading it, because they don't want to have to look into anything subtextually or think outside the box about it. Either way, I really enjoyed it. It makes me want to re-read Galapagos, another silly one by Vonnegut.