Noel asked me to recommend a book a month for him to read, so he can broaden his horizons. After some discussion of whether he wanted a clasical education in literature or just interesting stuff to read, we modified that to one non-fiction, and one classic fiction book a month. Last month's selections were:
- Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. This is a funny any also significant piece of Russian literature. Set late in the Empire, it tells the story of a man who wants to appear to be rich so he can court a particular girl, so he's going around buying the tax burden of the souls of dead serfs from landowners, who are suspicious of him, because they would otherwise have to pay a tax on those dead serfs until the next census, and why does he want to buy dead souls, anyway?
- The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski. An excellent history of the form and storage of books through history.
While he has not (ahem) managed to finish those books yet, on account of not starting to read them until last night, I'm working on his selections for March. I'm thinking:
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. My favourite Dickens, it's the story of Pip and how everybody has great expectations of him, and he gets a bit of a stuffed head because of it.
- Trading Up by Michael Silverstein and Neil Fiske. A business book on trends in consumer spending.
Maybe he'll get to those before it comes time to make the April selections.
