30 Day Book Challenge: Day 14

by sj

Wow.  It’s 11:45 pm on Thursday night as I start writing this.  You should know a few things.

  1. I’m still pretty ragey after watching the debates earlier.
  2. I had to start drinking to get through the aforementioned debates.
  3. I’m kind of pissed that people are comparing my dear Enver Gjokaj to Paul Ryan.  Jerks.

So – you have a slightly tipsy+very angry sj writing this post right now.  You’re getting the first book I think of.

A Book That Should Be On High School Or College Required Reading Lists

(aka – damn, that’s a long title)

I’m not going to bother giving a description (see point #2 up there), but you can read it at the goodreads page for the book.

This was one of my first PKD books.  I’ve read it several times since high school, and it was one of the first books I can remember forcing on people.  I’ve been through several copies since then because PEOPLE DON’T RETURN THINGS.

It’s scary, it’s plausible, it’s a total mindfuck (like most of his stuff).

Go read it.  According to my gr page, only 4 of my friends have read this book.  THAT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

If you love me, you will read this book.  Even if you don’t like it, we can still talk about it.

Sound good?  Good.  Because that sounds great to me.

(No more drunken posts for a while, promise.  I have to prep for Read-A-Thon on Saturday still!)

18 Comments to “30 Day Book Challenge: Day 14”

  1. Oh! I remember this one – I read it High school, many many many years ago (I don’t even want to count.. *sigh*). I really liked it; it’s a proper dystopia, with evil men doing evil things and it also depicted how easily things could have gone completely different. Might have to re-read it actually.

    • I just re-read it a year or so ago, and it still scares the crap out of me because it’s SO EASY to imagine that things could have happened like this.

      If you re-read it, let me know so we can talk about it!

      • Just looked it up on Amazon – apparently, Penguin thinks it’s a great joke to set the price of the Kindle edition higher than the paperback. Personally, I don’t get the joke. *grump*

        • Yes, I think it’s ridiculous that a digital copy of a 50 year old book should still cost the same as a new ebook. But it’s not like Penguin asks for my input, I guess?

  2. An excellent book, thorough in it’s portrayal of a humbled America. I remember being particularly fond of the dialogue. Genius to bring the influence of losing a war right down to it’s effect on language.

  3. What a wonderful cover! I haven’t read any PKD yet. I’ll try to add it to my reading list if it won’t scar me for life. Thanks for the non-spoilery posts.

    • I don’t think it will scar you at all. It’s not like it’s violent or overtly sexual or anything. It takes a while to get into the flow of it because there’s a lot of new vernacular, but in a nutshell, it’s a slice of what life COULD HAVE BEEN LIKE in America in the 60s had the Axis won WWII.

  4. I love you, so I shall read this. Maybe I’ll even read it for the ‘thon.

    • It’s a pretty quick read, so it might be good for that. I’ve talked to people recently that I made read it 15 years ago who say they still think about the things it brought up.

  5. I’m kind of afraid to read this. Since having a kid, I’ve become much more Nazi-phobic.

  6. I’ve really been wanting to read this one. That it comes with such a high recommendation means I better get my butt in gear! :)

  7. Ahhh. Antoer one I missed somehow. And I love what-if history type books. Have you read any Harry Turtledove? He does the best alternate history stuff ever.

Comments make us happy. Leave lots of comments. Just don't be a snapebag or you'll face the wrath of dodisharkicorn and your comment will be deleted. Or we'll make fun of you. Or both. Probably both.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,037 other followers

%d bloggers like this: