Well now that I have expectations, it's only natural to break them

Ahh books, one of my great pastimes. I've read many a book in my day and age. As a child I absolutely devoured books, enough that my teachers didn't know what to do with me. I had a college reading level by the time 3rd grade rolled around, I suppose that might have played a small part in it.

Like all things I've gone through different genres in phases. Somewhere out upon the fringes of my memory I vaguely recall reading a vast amount of Hardy Boys books as a child. Merely whetting my appetite for the fantastical, this eventually developed into a hearty proclivity for horror and fantasy works. Places like Xanth, Amber and Deva were my stomping grounds for the majority of my teenage years, even up to the very cusp of my high school shenanigans. Although once there, my teachers firmly instilled unto me a righteous taste for the hegemony of great novels and the authors thereof.

My fellow peers reacted with apprehension and eventual abhorrence towards an aging man and the woes entailed by his frailty and years. The sea was a harsh mistress, our young minds were told, although one easily surpassed by the committee that required the book for all freshman English courses. Myself, I sat enraptured by the novel, unable to articulate the tremendous flood of emotions that were pouring forth from me. Naturally, in the interest of jockeying for position on the social ladder, I concealed my predilection for fear of ridicule (What?! You like Hemingway? Iain's a misogynist! Iain's a misogynist! ). However, from that point on I knew that the classics were my fodder, and my free time my...giant mouth with which to eat them.

I fear that I'm beginning to start scraping the barrel in regards to books to read at the rate that I'm going these days, although I'm sure once school starts up I'll slow down again. I'm just making up for lost time anyway, nothing to be worried about. Over the school year I think I only read one non-required book for reading, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but with a multitude of history classes and an English class to boot, I had my hands full otherwise. Easily the main highlight on the literature spectrum from that year was the discovery of What's Eating Gilbert Grape. Our focus for my English class was Iowan literature, which subsequently turns out to be a bit sparse in regards to classics, albeit moderately interesting overall. Although I certainly didn't expect such an amazing book as Gilbert Grape. J.D. Salinger-esque would be the best way to put my summary of that book. By far one of my favorite books in the last few years.

Side note: I feel like I shouldn't refer to my college courses as classes, they just sound so uninspiring. From now discourses of utmost distinction for me and only discourses of the utmost distinction.

Most of the rest of the works given to us by our English professor were fairly uninteresting, although did you know that there was not only a book, but a play and a movie written about our dear Iowa State Fair? The mind boggles. My prof. did inspire me enough to try out Shoeless Joe, the basis for Field of Dreams, though. I felt the need to expand my literary horizons. Well Dr. Broz I did. And now I'm unexpanding them.

All of this leads up to my current book list for the summer of '07. I've been quite busy it seems, considering how ultimate has been consuming my life lately. Most of these were read in a flurry of activity both before and after my trip to Maine. It seems, based upon my rankings, that I have a taste for dystopian novels, although the mood of the ending apparently makes no difference to me.

I'll spare you my layman's reviewing skills: on to the list!

Ranked in order of relative unadulterated awesomeness:
A Clockwork Orange
1984
Life of Pi
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
On the Road
Shoeless Joe

Up next, Fahrenheit 451 and the veritable tome that is Don Quixote, wish me luck.