The best books to get people thinking about the bigger picture

Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD, the CIA, the Sixties and Beyond is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Even though I worked in Naval intelligence while I was on active duty in Germany, during the Cold War, I was still surprised at what Acid Dreams revealed about the US government and how for example, government officials were actively searching for a drug that would make American soldiers more amenable to killing. The book details how the government set out to destroy the black culture and imprison young black leaders for mostly minor drug offenses. It further explores the ways the government secretly studied the effects of LSD on its citizens. I loved this book because it opens the reader's eyes to the radical ways some government factions tried to manipulate the masses and deceive them, using the guise of the greater good as justification.

This is a book that shares intimate glimpses into the lives of a handful of Native Americans living on an Indian Reservation in the late 20th century. The book is full of humor, irony, and wit and was later made into a popular film. There are moments that are amusing and funny, but loneliness and a sense of apathy make their way into the storyline as well, as Victor, the lead character, tries to navigate the unpredictable family life he finds himself in. As a small boy he witnesses the damaging effects of alcoholism and what it does to his father and other family members, much like Sherman Alexie did himself. Victor is deeply resentful of his father’s abandonment when he was a child, and resents his friend Thomas for admiring his father for things like eating 15 pieces of fry bread in one sitting.

Victor struggles to find his true nature and vacillates between being cynical and aggressive, and melancholy and sentimental. Tasked with the obligation of going to his father’s beat-up mobile home to get his effects and then his father’s ashes, after he passes away, Victor learns to forgive his father for his weaknesses and learns about his father and himself in the process before releasing his ashes into a river and letting go of some of the pain of the past. I enjoyed this book because it shows the human side of Native Americans struggling to survive in a hostile and isolated landscape. You learn to care about the characters as you read and find that you can’t forget them.

White Crow is a story that takes place in the early 1800s in California when it was still a territory, a part of Mexico, and before it became a state. The book details the story of a white boy, raised by Indians because his parents were killed. He becomes an Indian warrior whom they call White Crow and accept into their tribe. The book is like a western story, but much more complex. It shares the struggles of the lead character, Isaiah Crow, and how he becomes a part of the tribe. He marries an Indian woman and they have a child. Their son, Jedadiah grows up and carries on many of the traditions and customs he learns from the tribe but in a more modern California. I enjoyed this story because it's such a gripping story and Wood does an outstanding job of character development in this book. You learn to care about the characters in this book, because they seem so real and accessible, as if they really existed.

This is a book everyone should read. The language is as fresh today, as when it was published in 1925 and demonstrates a uniquely American lingo. The intensely romantic prose centers on the immorality of wealthy people and how lower-income people pay the price but the rich never do. Gatsby is a handsome “young roughneck” who cannot get over his youthful love for the now-married Daisy Buchanan. But “Rich girls don’t marry poor boys” and so their love is doomed. Gatsby makes it his obsession to earn the money he thinks he should in order to win Daisy back, despite the fact that she’s married and has a child. All the sad characters in the book are punished, like George Wilson and his wife, Myrtle, the ones who were or are poor.

The rich are able to fall back into the lush protection of their money. The last thing the protagonist Nick says to Gatsby, (who is a transparent depiction of Fitzgerald’s real-life persona) is…”They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.” This book is a masterpiece for many reasons. Namely, because the issues presented in the book are timeless and repeated decade after decade. Class, gender power struggles, wealth, and deception are all themes in The Great Gatsby and contribute to its universal appeal and it is for these reasons that I enjoyed reading this wonderful novel.

A Moveable Feast is a wonderful book for the way that it goes into such minute detail about living life in Paris France as an expatriate writer and in many ways as a rebel. The drunken nights, what they drank, how many drinks they had, it is all detailed in this book. His memories of this time in his life are vivid, warm, witty, and full of affection for those other writers of note who were also expatriates and authors, escaping prohibition in America for the free-wheeling fun of Paris and booze. The book depicts his early life as a writer, seeking the approval of other writers like Gertrude Stein and even F. Scott Fitzgerald, with whom he had something of a competitive relationship. Part of the book details the drunken escapades that he and Fitzgerald engaged in, to the point where they crashed a car, while driving drunk. The book, for any writing student, teaches the importance of details, or as Heminway was once quoted as saying, the importance of “writing the one true sentence.” A Moveable Feast is a fun book to read and insightful and informative all at the same time. The flow is perfect and it shows how Hemingway was able to write more than a few “true” sentences.