Reading Safeena

safeena:

• Catch-22 (Hilarious, intricate, and a portrait of war that is simultaneously tragic, comic, desolate, and awesome.)
• The Hobbit (Expert, wondrous, awe-inspiring, and a journey worth embarking on and revisiting time and time again.
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Beautiful, heart-breaking, heart-making, sweet, sad, lovely.)
• Cloud Atlas (Dream-like, rich, brilliant, modern, challenging, a tale of many and one, all at once.)

It’s just been a really fucking great break. 

Starting tomorrow morning! I figured I should read it because my sister adores it and has fabulous taste. Also she has the second and third installments at home so I won’t have to pine for them. In her words, it is a fantastic story, even if it’s not overly-flowery in it’s telling of it. I’m stoked!

It was so fantastic— very much what I’ve heard of Wilde and his reputation through the ages. The best thing about the novel is the incredible insight from Oscar Wilde on himself, art, beauty, and the world through his narration and through his characters revelations. That, and the story! What an original idea. It takes you back in time, too. I love the socialite lifestyle of the 19th century! I have a whole mess of beautiful quotes to share with you, but it’s 4:16 AM and I probably should sleep a little. :)

300 Books I’ve Read or That My Friends Have Read That I (and You) Should Read

Special Thanks To: All my beautiful, intelligent, and well-read friends for the suggestions.

Note: I’ve read a few of these and plan to read all of them. I’ll be publishing some of my favorites and favorite quotes from the books on readingsafeena.tumblr.com if you’re interested! Let me know what you think of the books too, if you’ve read or will read them!

Also, for those of you interested, I’ll be starting a sort of book club for those in the Berkeley area where we all read one or two of the books from this list and all get together to meet new people, talk books, drink wine, and eat food. Let me know if you’re interested!

• 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
• 1984 by George Orwell
• 2001: Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey
• The Tempest by William Shakespeare
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
• A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
• A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemmingway
• A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
• A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
• A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
• A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
• A Separate Peace by John Knowles
• A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
• Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons by Ann Rinaldi
• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
• Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix
• Ana Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud
• Antigone by Sophocles
• Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
• As You Like It by Shakespeare
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
• Atonement by Ian McEwan
• Babysitter’s Club by Ann M Martn
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Black Beauty by Ana Sewell
• Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon
• Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
• Bossypants by Tina Fey
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
• Cajas de Carton by Francisco Jimenez
• Captain Underpants by Dave Pilkey
• Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roal Dahl
• Charlotte’s Web by EB White
• Chelsea Handler
• Cirque du Freak by Darren Shahn
• City of Thieves by David Benioff
• Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
• Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky
• Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
• Dead Zone by Stephen King
• Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
• Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Dubliners by James Joyce
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foher
• EE Cummings
• Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman
• Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
• Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
• Essays: Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foher
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foher
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
• Fight Club by Chuck Palaniuk
• Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Alborn
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• Four Quartets by TS Elliot
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger
• Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt
• Frindle by Andrew Clements
• Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
• Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
• Gilgamesh
• God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
• Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Goosebumps by RL Stine
• Gossip Girl by Cecily con Ziegesar
• Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• Green Angel by Alice Hoffman
• Gryffin and Sabine by Nick Bantock
• Gulliver’s Travels by Lemuel Gulliver
• Hamlet by Shakespeare
• Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
• Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Admas
• Holes  by Louis Sachar
• Hot Zone by Richard Preston
• House of Sprits by Isabel Allende
• House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
• Howard’s End by EM Forster
• I Am America, and so can you! by Stephen Colbert
• I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Illiad by Homer
• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
• Inferno by Dante
• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
• It by Stephen King
• It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
• King Lear by Shakespeare
• Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
• Life by Keith Richards
• Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
• Little Children by Tom Perrotta
• Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Lolita by Vladimir Nobokov
• Look at the Birdie by Kurt Vonnegut
• Looking for Alaska by John Green
• Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien
• Lush by Natasha Friend
• Macbeth by Shakespeare
• Magyk by Angie Sage
• Matilda by Roald Dahl
• Maximum Ride by James Patterson
• Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
• Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eufenides
• Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare
• Mildred Pierce by James M Cain
• Mindset by Carol Dweck
• Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
• Murder in the Cathedral by TS Elliot
• My Antonia by Willa Cather
• My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
• Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keene
• Naomi in the Living Room by Christopher Durang
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
• Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
• Nine Stories by JD Salinger
• Night by Elie Weisel
• Nuts  by Tom Topor
• Odyssey by Homer
• Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Omnivore’s Dillema by Michael Pollan
• On the Road by Jack Kerouac
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Our Town by Thornton Wilder
• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
• Paradise, Lost by John Milton
• Pendragon by DJ MacHale
• Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice
• Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
• Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
• Prophecy of the Stones by Flavia Bujor
• Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
• Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters and Seymour by JD Salinger
• Rebel Angels by Libba Bray
• Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
• Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
• Sabriel by garth Nix
• Saffy’s Angel by Hilary McKay
• Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama
• Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
• Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
• Setting Free the Bears by Barbara Kingsolver
• Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Shogun by James Clavell
• Siddartha by Herman Hesse
• Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
• Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
• Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
• Skeleton Key by Anthony Horwitz
• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• So You Want to be a Wizard? by Diane Duane
• Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire
• Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder
• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
• Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• The Alchemist by Paul Coehlo
• The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes by Anne Mazer
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• The Bible by God
• The Big Short by Michael Lewis
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
• The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
• The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller
• The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbury
• The Ends of the Earth by Robert Kaplan
• The Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen
• The Federalist Papers by James Madison
• The Firm by John Grisham
• The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
• The Future of Life by EO Wilson
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• The Good Soldier by Ford Madox
• The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
• The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
• The Hours by Michael Cunningham
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde
• The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
• The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
• The Last Lecture by Randy pausch
• The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy
• The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammett
• The Messenger by Lois Lowry
• The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma
• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
• The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway
• The Outsiders by SE Hinton
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
• The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
• The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
• The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea by Yukio Mishima
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Sea Wolf by Jack London
• The Shadow of the Wind by Ruiz Zafon
• The Shining by Stephen King
• The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
• The Stand by Stephen King
• The Stranger by Albert Camus
• The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
• The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
• The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
• The Winners Stands Alone by Paul Coelho
• The Witches by Roald Dahl
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
• This Earth of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
• Time Machine by HG Wells
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelson
• True Grit by Charles Portis
• Turnabout by Margaret Peterson Haddix
• Tweak by Nic Sheff
• Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
• Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
• Walden by Henry David Thoreau
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• War of the Worlds by HG Wells
• Warrior’s Don’t Cry by Melba Patillo beals
• Watchmen by Alan Moore
• Water for Elephants by Sarag Gruen
• We by Yvgeny Zymyatin
• Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut
• What Every American Should Know About Who’s Really Running America by Melissa Rossi
• Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
• White Fang by Jack London
• Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf? by Edward Albee
• Wicked by Gregory Maguire
• Winesburg, Ohio y Sherwood Anderson
• Wither by JG Passarella
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris
• Youth in Revolt by CD Payne
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig

Another note: This list took forever to compile and I got a bit lazy, so if there are spelling mistakes, please do let me know!

Einstein’s Dreams was captivating, delicate, and intricate. It was a beautiful mix of physics, creative writing, imagery, metaphor, and Einstein all written by a theoretical physicist.

The Plot: The book is written in a series of vignettes, which are dated renditions of the fictional dreams of Einstein about his various ideas on time. It is interluded with bits about Einstein and his family and friends, and his desire to express those dreams and ideas about time. The vignettes place you in different worlds in which time operates in a way that totally changes the framework of how we function and interact. More than a tale of physics and space-time, though, the novel is about the human experience, the nature of man, no matter what time frame he may be in, and what is important, what is beautiful, and what it means to be human. 

Favorite Quotes:

“It is a world of impulse. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning, each touch has no past or future, each kiss is a kiss of immediacy.” —Page 32

“The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.” —Page 49

“Some say it is best not to go near the center of time. Life is a vessel of sadness, but it is a noble life to live, and without time there is no life. Others disagree. They would rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen. like a butterfly mounted in a case.” —Page 56

Notes: The book is a quick and fascinating read. If you’re looking for something to read piece by piece over a few nights, or something you can sit down and read at all at once, this book is a great choice. Definitely recommend!