Boy Without A Soul - Welcome to Damon's Home Page

Things I am Interested In

Books

My greatest passion of all is reading. Given this fact, there are certain things that I prefer to read.

In the realms of fiction, I prefer classics and literary fiction. I used to read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but, alas, I have become rather jaded of late, and a book of these genres needs to be very good to keep me to the end. Other genres that I have read and left along the way include pulp westerns, horrors and occult thrillers.

Recommended reading

Umberto Eco (Foucault's Pendulum, The Name of the Rose, The Island of the Day Before)
Italo Calvino (If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, Cosmicomics, Our Ancestors)
Franz Kafka (The Trial, Metamorphosis, The Castle)
Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary, Sentimental Education)
Iain (M.) Banks (The Wasp Factory, The Bridge, Player of Games, Use of Weapons)
John Fowles (The Magus, The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Collector, A Maggot)
Julian Barnes (A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, Talking It Over, Metroland)
Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five, Galapagos, Cat's Cradle)
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, Crime and Punishment)

Others worth looking at:

Terry Pratchett, JRR Tolkien, James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, Oscar Wilde, Martin Amis, Michael Moorcock

Outside of fiction I read subjects that will increase my knowledge and understanding of the world. In particular I like to read books on history, philosophy, physics, astronomy, biology, social commentary, language/linguistics, religion, art.

I also have an interest in comics. Well, not comics per se but some of the stories that have been published as comics and graphic novels. In particular, the works of Alan Moore (Swamp Thing, The Watchmen, V for Vendetta), Neil Gaiman (The Sandman) and Garth Ennis (The Preacher, Hellblazer) have caught my interest as intelligent and interesting pieces of work.

A list of all my books (in the US) can be found here.

Books I've Read This Year

August 30, 2008 20:00	Charles C Mann - 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus	Fascinating exploration of the last 50 years of research into pre-Columbian America
July 19, 2008 15:00	Neal Boortz and John LInder - FairTax: The Truth	While I think I agree with a lot of the underlying concepts and reasons for the proposal, some of the arguments don't have me convinced
July 15, 2008 23:00	Neal Boortz and John Linder - The FairTax Book	Too many questions about the proposal are left unanswered, with high potential for misunderstanding.
July 07, 2008 11:55	Chris Salewicz - Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer	Thoroughly fascinating and well-written biography of Joe Strummer. Recommended.
March 13, 2008 20:00	Isaiah Berlin - The Power of Ideas	Philosophy and history of ideas. Very interesting.
January 32, 2008 22:00	Reverend Billy - What Would Jesus Buy?	An interesting, amusing, and ultimately thought-provoking sermon on the Shopocalypse.
January 21, 2008 09:30	Paulo Coehlo - The Alchemist	A spiritual allegory. Quite well transalated. Somewhat simplistic, as allegories tend to me.
January 17, 2008 21:50	John Keegan - The Face of Battle	A fascinating look at the historiography of battle and in depth looks at the battles of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme.
January 09, 2008 22:23	Alessandro Baricco - City	An absorbing, if somewhat surreal, tale of tales and unusual people. Highly enjoyable.
January 06, 2008 00:09	Christopher Moore - Fluke	Mildly entertaining; not as good as Lamb, but it kept me out of trouble for several hours
December 31, 2007 14:42	Stephen Colbert - I Am America (And So Can You)	I can?
December 28, 2007 23:55	Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow - The Story of French	An enlightening coverage of the history, geography and politics of the French language
December 10, 2007 14:30	Magnus Magnusson - Scotland: The Story of a Nation	An excellent history of Scotland
November 02, 2007 16:30	Margaret MacMillan - Paris 1919	A detail look at the people invovled and meetings held to redraw Europe, Africa and the Middle East after World War I. Thoroughly engrossing.
October 02, 2007 21:00	Neil Gaiman - Fragile Things	A terrific set of short stories.
October 01, 2007 15:00	Michael King - The Pengtuin History of New Zealand	The history of my homeland, going into a lot more detail than I remember from school
August 02, 2007 00:00	Louis Menand - The Metaphysical Club	A look at some of the people who shaped American thought between the Civil War and World War I
August 01, 2007 00:00	Gordon S Wood - Revolutionary Characters	Brief biographies of the people behind the American Revolutionary War
August 01, 2007 00:00	Christopher Hitchens - Thomas Paine's Rights of Man	Interesting look into the man and circumstances that led to the Rights of Man
July 15, 2007 14:00	Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness and other tales	Wow. An utterly amazing collection of novellas. HoD itself was dense and rich and in need of a second read!
June 10, 2007 14:00	Alessandro Baricco - Without Blood	Another amazing short novel.
May 18, 2007 17:00	Alessandro Baricco - Silk	A beautiful short novel. Thoroughly recommend it.
May 24, 2007 22:00	Brian Azzarello - 100 Bullets: Six Feet Under The Gun	More of my latest graphic novel following
May 25, 2007 23:00	Brian Azzarello - 100 Bullets: The Counterfifth Detective	More of my latest graphic novel following
March 10, 2007 08:00	Thomas à Kempis - The Imitation of Christ	Getting some more religious reading in
March 07, 2007 22:00	Henry Ansgar Kelly - Satan: A Biography	A very interesting study of the character of Satan from the Bible through the writings of Christian fathers and later Christian writers. Definitely reinforced my opinion of Christianity as a inconsistent, revisionist belief system.
January 23, 2007 19:00	Brian Azzarello - 100 Bullets: A Foregone Tomorrow	More graphic novel goodness
January 22, 2007 19:00	Brian Azzarello - 100 Bullets: Hang Up On The Hang Low	More graphic novel goodness
January 22, 2007 19:00	Brian Azzarello - 100 Bullets: Split Second Chance	More graphic novel goodness
January 21, 2007 19:00	Brian Azzarello - 100 Bullets: First Shot Last Call	A graphic novel I first read when I visited Rosalie 18th months or so ago, and which I decided to acquire when I was at Criminal earlier this week
January 19, 2007 00:01	Thomas Pynchon - Against the Day	[Just started] And I've pulled out the dictionary, because I know I'm going to need it...
January 14, 2007 19:00	Kurt Vonnegut - Galapagos	Must read more Vonnegut (Can't remember when I finished these first books)
January 14, 2007 19:00	Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle	Interesting
January 14, 2007 19:00	Kurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan	Interesting
January 14, 2007 19:00	Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five	Interesting
January 14, 2007 19:00	Maureen Ogle - Ambitious Brew	Interesting