Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum.
The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum.
The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
Rinkitink in Oz by L. Frank Baum.
Little Wizard Stories of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
Dorothy of Oz by Roger S. Baum.
Then there's Robert McCloskey, Caldecott Award-winning author and illustrator of two collections of fanciful stories about a boy growing up in Ohio during the 1940s.
Homer Price by Robert McCloskey.
Centurburg Tales by Robert McCloskey.
Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey. Don't buy this one if you have very young children. You'll end up reading it to them over... and over... and over...
Fiction
Overlook Press editions of P.G. Wodehouse What ho!
Science
Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals by Frans De Waal. Morality isn't just something we do because we're forced to do it. Moral actually makes sense from a biological standpoint. In this book, De Waal documents moral behavior in several animal species, including some of our closest relatives.
Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity by Bruce Bagemihl.
Apparently, animals are not only more moral than we give them credit for, they're also much less heterosexual than many people, including biologists, expect. The variety of behaviors carefully documented and photographed in this 768 page textbook is stunning.
The most important revelations, however, may be the ones about the human animal. The social conditioning against homosexuality is so strong that even scientists are often unwilling to openly examine the things they've seen. Bagemihl calls for a new approach to biology and zoology that will allow us to fully recognize the diversity that exists in nature, even if it doesn't fit our preconceived notions.
Philosophy
You may be right and I may be wrong, and by an effort, together we may get nearer to the truth.
- Karl Popper
Popper Selections by Sir Karl R. Popper. The best introduction to the work and philosophy of Karl Popper.
Speculative Fiction
The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein.
People tend to either love this one or hate it. Number of the Beast contains hundreds of literary references, to everything from the Bible to the Wizard of Oz, with a few stories of his own in between. Readers who aren't well-read in classics of science fiction and children's literature will miss a lot of in-jokes. It's worth reading anyway, simply because the characters - this site's namesake included - show up again in other Heinlein novels.
Preacher by Garth Ennis.
What if God decided He no longer wanted the job, and a Texas preacher possessed by the offspring of a demon and an angel decided to hunt Him down and make Him explain Himself to His creation? We'll never know, but it makes a great premise for a comic book. Preacher is blasphemous, gory, thought-provoking, and hilarious.
Towing Jehovah by James Morrow.
While we're on the subject of fiction with blasphemous premises, how would the world react to the discovery of God's dead body floating in the ocean? Although Towing Jehovah is both hilarious and bizarre, Morrow uses his premise to examine serious issues of what it means to be a moral person in a world without God.
In
Blameless In Abaddon Morrow continues his trilogy with a justice of the peace from Abaddon, Pennsylvania attempting to put God on trial for crimes against humanity. Although this is fiction, this story of a modern-day Job it could serve as a textbook on the theological problem of evil.
With the third and final book, The Eternal Footman, Morrow takes a similar approach to the subject of mortality. When God's skull goes into orbit, civilization crumbles under the weight of the constant reminder that death is the end. As millions fall prey to fatal nihilism, a schoolteacher and a brilliant sculptor attempt to find an antidote to the plague.
Copyright © 1998 Jason & Heather Steiner