1996 Christmas List
- 1.
What's Right, by David Frum, 1996. $9.60. A collection of his
magazine articles on politics and culture. Lots of apt phrases and good ideas, and
inspiration for the rest of us to try to write so well.
- 2.
The Hercule Poirot Mystery TV series, $20 per episode,
1992. Agatha Christie is not half so good on paper, maybe because much of the
pleasure in watching this series comes from the interwar English civility and
scenery.
- 3.
The Dark Wind, by Tony Hillerman, 1982. $4.79. A top-notch Jim
Chee novel, about Hopi Indians (as well as Navahoes) and cocaine being lost in the
desert.
- 4.
Game Wars: The Undercover Pursuit of Wildlife Poachers, by Marc
Reisner, 1991. $8.80. An exciting book about poaching in Louisiana. True
crime, but with fish and game violations instead of axe murders.
- 5. The HTML computer language. This is what one uses to write
up a WWW page.
It is easy to use, well-designed and good for formatting, in its limited way.
- 6.
Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest: True News of the World's Least Competent People
, by John Kohut and Roland Sweet, 1996. $7.96.Curious stories of strange
happenings, drawn from their column in the free newspapers.
- 7.
The Problem of Pain , by C.S. Lewis, 1940. $4.80.Not about pain
so much as life, experience, God, and salvation. Good ideas such as man's feeling
for the numinous and the moral, and how belief in God combines both.
- 8. Indigo Lactarius. A blue fall mushroom that is easy to
recognize, and edible, though one would hardly believe it.
- 9.
The Wallace and Gromit animations. 1996. $22. There are at least
three of these half-hour English animated films about a cheese-eating inventor and his
dog. I found them oddly gripping in their mix of homely English ways and bizarre
inventions, and very funny.
- 10.
Making Saints: Inside the Vatican: Who Become Saints, Who do Not, and Why...
by Kenneth Woodward, 1991. $11.20. Woodward is a journalist who
interviewed Vatican insiders on the politics and theology of saint making.
- 11.
Bob Vila's Toolbox, by Bob Vila, 1993. A book on portable
hand and power tools-- not a how-to book, but a book on the tools themselves.
- 12.
Lectures on Jonah , by Martin Luther, 1526. $22.99. Here one sees
Luther not as polemicist, but as teacher, and as a good one, too.
Other Good Things of 1996 that I didn't put on my list above.
Back to the
Rasmusen Recommended Books page.
Last updated: December 17, 2003. All prices subject to change. Maintained by
Eric Rasmusen, Erasmuse@Indiana.edu .