Adam's 2020 Quarantine Reading List

• Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon

  Excellent noir detective novel. Stolen treasure, murder, dames, all the good stuff.

• Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep

  More good noir detective work. Cool cars, alcohol, mansions, hit men, also dames. Yet more good stuff.

• Lowry, Lois. The Giver

  Second time I got to read this. Fantastic book just the same as before. Movie was totally carried by the fact that Jeff Bridges is the Giver. Super thought-provoking too.

• Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  Yep, all of them. I've read some of them multiple times but this was the first time I read them all to completion myself. My dad used to read them to me, so I only "listened" to the last couple. Always great, always better than the movies. And I pick up more and more forward- and backward-looking references when I read them in a row.

• Miller, Rand, Miller, Robyn, Miller, David. Myst: The Book of Atrus, Myst: The Book of Ti'ana

  The great first two books in the Myst novel series. My favorite is the second, it gives all of the meat-and-potatoes lore behind the D'ni, The Art, and The Fall that I always wanted. The first is good too, and I recommend book-and-game nerds read Myst: The Book of Atrus after playing Myst: Masterpiece Edition and before playing Riven: The Sequel to Myst.

• Miller, Rand. Myst: The Book of D'ni

  Probably my least favorite of the three Myst novels. It's fascinating and has lots of dark themes like enslavement. I recommend reading this one after Riven and before Myst III: Exile.

• Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet

  The last time I read this was probably in the sixth grade, and it was one of the few books I was really glued to then. It's still a great story about survival, nature, getting mauled by moose, etc.

• Grisham, John. Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer

  Also a re-read for me. I kind of sort of wanted to be a lawyer growing up and this book was the "I can do it too!" book. It's still a good crime, evidence, trial style lawyer book. I need to read the sequels.

• Wells, H.G. The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man

  These are three of my favorite H.G. Wells novels. The Time Machine is super weird though and now that I'm re-reading it I'm picking up on a ton of Communist undertones. Dr. Moreau is fantastic. I love all books that take place on a desert island and this one really creeps me out with the doctor's surgically-humanized animals. Invisible Man is so short it's worth reading on a weekend just to know what it's about (spoiler: a man who is invisible).

• Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island

  Dude, I watched Treasure Planet when I was a kid and I was really into it for like a month. Now I finally got to read the real thing and there's a reason why this is one of those perfect examples of literature. It's the absolute perfect, truly American story about pirates, treasure, and sailing ships.

• Dick, Harold G. The Golden Age of the Great Passenger Airships: Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg

  I'm a huge rigid airship junkie. They're freaking awesome, I wish they were still around. I hate flying, and not because of the act of being in the air but because airships make it seem more comfortable, luxurious, and adventurous than a half a bag of peanuts, motion sickness, and recycled oxygen. If you're at all interested in Zeppelins and you can only read one book, this is the only book worth reading. It chronicles the author's experiences actually flying on and operating Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg, their flight logs, how they worked, how they were flown, and the history behind their creation and demise. It's awesome.

• Brown, Dan. Digital Fortress

  Great story, I actually listened to this audiobook while painting our house right around the start of 2020. It's an awesome story with an intelligent, sleuthy programmer and her globe-trotting professor significant other tracking down clues. It's got supercomputers and hackers and espionage and murder and viruses and it would be perfect if I knew nothing about cryptography or computing in general.