My Favorite Books

Defining a favorite of anything is difficult to do. Tastes change as moods change and memories fade. So, in an attempt at a measuring my favorites with something less than total subjectivity, I'm setting the following standard. My favorites are books I've read many times more than once and that I would recommend to friends without hesitation.

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Top Ten

1. Lord of the Rings (trilogy and its prequel, The Hobbit) J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Gulag Archaepeligo (trilogy) Alexander Solzenhytsen
3. The Village ... Francis J. West
4. Startide Rising ... David Brin
5. A Bright Shining Lie ...
6. In the Shadow of Man (and its sequel) Jane Goodall
7. Anna Karenina ... Leo Tolstoy
8. The Peloponnesian War ... Thucydides (particularly the Rex Warner translation)
9. Bodyguard of Lies ... Anthony Brown

The Next Ninety, by category

• Archeology
• Anthropology
• Economics
  1. Microeconomics with Calculus .. Walter Nicolson
  2. The Armchair Economist .. Steven Landsberg
  3. Capitalism and Freedom .. Milton Friedman
• Fiction
• History
  1. The Peloponnesian War .. Thucydides
  2. The Village .. Francis J. West
  3. Levers of Riches .. Joel Mokyr

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URL://boserup.qal.berkeley.edu/~gary/classes.htm