Nij's book list

No. 1: The Bible
just joking

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar - Roald Dahl
Great story about a super-rich guy who learns meditation and finds that he can beat the casinos with his new found meditative powers.

The Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse
Proper literature about a bloke who goes through a traditional education and learns about the important things about education, and the futility of pure academia for academia's sake. Hesse won the Nobel Prize after this book.

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Story about an old man that goes fishing, in simple clear powerful language. Hemingway won the Nobel Prize after this book too.

1984 - George Orwell
I reckon the most prescient speculative fiction written (apart from maybe Brave New World, below). About a world where governments piss on our civil liberties in the name of protecting citizens.

A Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
A book about eugenics and how we're being conditioned to be happy and shut up. Also how free thought is perceived by governments to be dangerous.

Chocolat - Joanne Harris
A colourful story about a chocalatier single mum in rural France setting up shop in a small religious town that's visited by gypsy folk.

Wild Cat Falling - Mudrooroo
An australian story about at young part-Aboriginal fella that gets out of jail and tries to understand the world outside. Kind of about the justice system too, and about how the jail system is geared for re-offending.

The Odyssey - Homer (translated by Robert Fagles)
A swashbuckling epic from the good old days when men had beards and sailed around the world in ships to loot and pillage. The Fagles translation makes it readable in a normal-book kind of way.

The Journey - John Marsden
A story about a young lad in rural Australia who goes on a walkabout/coming-of-age journey and grows into a man.

Robot Series - Isaac Asimov
Far seeing series on the future of robot-human interactions.

Foundation - Isaac Asimov
A story about the historical organisation of power in human society, but set in space in hundreds of years from now.

Julie of the Wolves - Jean Craighead Geroge
One of the most beautiful stories in the world about an Inuit girl who joins a wolf pack, set amongst a backdrop of the modernisation of traditional life. This book makes you want to go bush and stay there.

Danny the Champion of the World - Roald Dahl
Bloody awesome kids book about pheasant hunting

King Leopold's Ghost - Adam Hochschild
Opened my eyes to what happened in Africa and the colonisation of the Congo by Belgium and King Leopold. Really well written.

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
A story about a leader of a village in Nigeria, and the influence of Christian missionaries on the fabric of traditional life.

Tomorrow When The War Began - John Marsden
I think about this story every time I go on a bushwalk. It's about a group of Aussie teenagers that go on a long walk and then find out that Australia has been invaded.

Looking for Alibrandi - Melina Marchetta
Story about a teenage girl growing up as an migrant's daughter in Sydney

Genesis - Bernard Beckett
Kind of a mix between A Brave New World and I, Robot, but a cool book about Artificial Intelligence and how humanity will one day interact with it.

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Story about the life of a Geisha in Japan and the relationships she goes through.

Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin
An amazing true-story about China before Deng Jiaoping, woven through the tale of an incredible ballet dancer.

Little House on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder
A beautiful story (series) about a family heading west to live on the American frontier. It reminds me of the important things.

Blueback - Tim Winton
A kids story about a lifelong encounter with an old blue groper.

How the Leopard Got It's Claws - Chinua Achebe
Both a kids story about animals, and a strong commentary about political control in Africa.

Dirt Music - Tim Winton
A sinewy tale of love and music and the West Australian bush landscape

The Greatest Estate on Earth - Bill Gammage
A sweeping book on the evidence for widespread Aboriginal land-management in Australia through the use of selective burning. It helps imagine what an amazing place Australia would have been in 1788, and makes me want to set fires every time I go on a bushwalk to clear all the dense-arse scrub.

The Fault in our Stars - John Green
Super beautiful and funny page-turner about two young teenagers with cancer who are in love. Sparkingly well written.

The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
An incredibly gripping book about love and revenge and a prison break and power in the age of swordfights and pirates.

The Pearl - John Steinbeck
A powerful story about a bloke who finds a big pearl, and then gets it nicked.

Dark Emu - Bruce Pascoe
A book that will become required reading for every high-school student in Australia. About indigenous custodianship of Australia; Aboriginal cities, and astronomy, and aquaculture, and animal husbandry, and the oldest baking of bread in human history, and careful sophisticated management of landscape through fire. Gently and beautifully, this book exposes the incredible racism-through-omission of Australian education.

Boy Swallows Universe - Trent Dalton
A brilliant story with detail and poignancy and pathos about a little kid in a crime-dense neighborhood of Brisbane. A cracking read, with so much texture and humour and realness.


Woohooo!!!!