Matt's favorite books!
It's his birthday!!!
When Matt and I first met on the boat, one of the first things I learned about him was that he was a reader. Swoon!!! And not just one of those reads-only-nonfiction male readers, he loved novels, and he soon started reading every book I recommended to him. Which is impressive!! I am not good about reading books that people recommend to me at all, with my own to-be-read list always looming. I know what you’re thinking—what a keeper. Well, yeah!!
I’ve since noticed over the past seven years what Matt looks for in a book. For one, pretty good writing. He doesn’t need to swoon over a beautiful sentence, but the prose needs to be good enough that he’s basically not even thinking about it. If it’s noticeably bad, he’s out. There needs to be a riveting story, and if it has something adventurous involved, especially when it comes to memoir, all the better. He loves hard sci-fi, which prioritizes scientific accuracy and logical plausibility, especially if it takes place on a not-so-different than Earth planet. Matt is really drawn to humorous books, so that’s always a bonus. A big juicy bildungsroman novel? He’s so in. When we were on the boat and devouring books all day, he read several classics, which even I don’t do (outside of the occasional Jane Austen reread).
Since it’s his birthday, I asked him to recommend some of his favorite books of all time.
Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke is classic sci-fi (published in 1973), about an enormous cylinder that enters the solar system, the astronauts who go to investigate it, and the evidence they find of a civilization far more advanced than ours, except—there are no aliens. Guess what, we’re gonna try and find out where those aliens are.
The Long Way is a memoir by the sorta crazy Frenchman Bernard Moitessier, who sailed in the first-ever single-handed round the world race. Just after passing Cape Horn (the last and the deadliest of the three great capes) and with only weeks to his almost certain victory, he became disillusioned with the competition and turned to sail half way around the world again to French Polynesia to live a more peaceful life. Iconic behavior!
North Woods by Daniel Mason is a series of vignettes that take place at the same home in New England across hundreds of years starting with the Puritans, following cycles of history, nature, and humanity in one place. Matt has insisted I wait until the fall to read this one, since it’s very cozy (and just a touch spooky).
Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbottom is the nonfiction title on which the award winning HBO series is based, a suspenseful story of the fateful night the nuclear reactor exploded and its aftermath. It’s technical, dramatic, and expertly explains both the horrors and marvel of nuclear energy when mixed with Soviet-era massive industry.
I’ve recommend Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin before, and if y’all haven’t read it yet maybe you finally will. It’s a coming-of-age story about two best friends who start a video game company together.
Matt and I became huge Tom Robbins fans when we first started dating, thanks to Robbins’ irreverent postmodern writing and insane plots, and Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates is both of our favorites. It follows an enigmatic man named Switters who we follow across four continents in a hilarious classic Tom Robbins tale.
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is credited as the first use of the idea of the metaverse in sci-fi, thus inspiring many a Silicon Valley bro. It follows a hacker/pizza delivery driver named Hiro Protagonist in the near future where the world is run by mega corporations, the super wealthy don’t leave their mansions, and a mysterious virus called snow crash impairs both man and machine.
Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu is the uber-popular first book in the sci-fi trilogy that is set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, where a secret military project sends messages to try and contact aliens. Years later, modern citizens have to deal with the repercussions from this act of rebellion.
Nautical heads are already familiar with Master and Commander, #1 in the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian. If you like Pirates of the Caribbean, sea shanties, and painstakingly accurate naval history you’ve got to dip your toe in the 20-odd book series.