Pride and Prejudice
I first came across this book when my father was researching potential campaign slogans; it turned out that this one was a no-go due to copyright issues. Pride and Prejudice is a classic human-merger story about rich people overcoming a series of terrible obstacles to triumph in the end by marrying their own kind. This book was written by a girl.
The Sound and the Fury
The Sound and the Fury is actually a very long tweet that tells the story of a terrific boy who dreams of reclaiming his family’s repossessed golf course. Our hero does everything right, loves his sister a lot, and almost never sets himself on fire, but for some reason about a quarter of the way through the book the narrator changes from him to his brother, who is supposed to be ‘the smart one’ although I have my doubts. As if that weren’t bad enough, another quarter of the way through the narrator changes again to this other brother who just showed up later and somehow became the favorite child just because he makes the most money and is allegedly competent. To add insult to injury, the last quarter of the story is told by The Help. I also came across this book when my father was researching potential campaign slogans.
Animal Farm
This is a tremendous children’s story about a talking pig named Napoleon who becomes the greatest leader his farm has ever known. After Napoleon destroys Crooked Snowball in a free and fair election by easily the greatest margin of not-being-chased-off-by-dogs in history, the new leader delivers on his promise to make the farm great again by using creative solutions to bring back law and order. Throughout his administration, Napoleon is constantly harassed by jealous losers, such as the stupid old donkey who only complains and, you guessed it: Crooked Snowball! That’s right, even though Crooked Snowball doesn’t hold power and technically isn’t even still around at all, this totally corrupt swine just can’t stop causing problems for the farm. Every time Napoleon tries to score a win for the animals, the ghost of Crooked Snowball is there to trip him up, fueled by liberal rage and an insatiable love of windmills even though they obstruct everyone’s view and kill birds. Nevertheless, Napoleon persists, and in the end he wows everyone with his mastery of several terrific words and his knack for dealmaking, which he uses to create a strategic back-channel alliance with the humans (whom we actually should want to have a positive working relationship with when you really think about it).
Frankenstein
Two thumbs way up for this cautionary tale about the dangers of unsettled science. All hell breaks loose when Victor Frankenstein, an immigrant, creates a (((monster))) that is basically half Al Franken and half Jill Stein. Though it reads a bunch of books and becomes very smart and talky, the (((monster))) causes all sorts of havoc everywhere it goes, leading to a number of deaths and at least one abortion. Really makes you think.
Moby-Dick
There’s nothing more exhilarating than the thrill that comes from tracking and killing a large, majestic animal for no reason at all no matter what the so-called “psychologist” says. Moby-Dick is the timeless story of a noble hunter with the best temperament who spends nearly a thousand pages in vain pursuit of a fat white sperm whale that in no way represents his father’s love.
Crime and Punishment
I’ll be honest — I’ve never read this book. Now, in the event that someone tells you they saw me reading it, rest assured that I don’t recall what it was about. Look: did I read it? I mean, sure, of course, maybe. What happened was a close friend of mine from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant recommended it to me; I didn’t know who the author was or anything going in, but who’s going to say no to a favor from a close pageant friend? I have read this book at least three other times in secret, and my father also briefly considered this one as a campaign slogan.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
This book is primarily about adoptions.