'The Cider House Rules" by John Irving

First published: 1985
600 pages (paperback)

My third "Irving" after Hotel New Hampshire and Garp. Can't really say which one is the best, but the Cider House Rules definitely have the potential of being one of the best books by Irving. It's so full of likable characters, all with their faults and virtues, and the feeling of time passing throughout the book is so real that it's hard to accept parting with it at the end. You wanna know and continue to know those people for real. At least that's something that I felt when reading the Cider House Rules and that I also remember from reading his other books.
More than once, while reading it, I thought something like "damnit, he really IS a good writer". It's not just his characters but also the detailed background information, for instance about obstetrical procedures of that time or about picking and pressing apples on a large scale, that make the story so believable, even though everything still is a bit "larger than life" (at least my life is not THAT interesting, hope that's not just me...).
So if you haven't read anything by Irving yet, it's high time you did! And if for some reason you DON'T like it, please tell me, I'd be really curious as to why that is.
Although there are maybe four or five major characters, Dr.Larch - at least to me - is by far the most interesting, even though I guess Homer Wells is supposed to be the main hero. Dr. Larch is the doctor in charge at the orphanarium in the tiny ex-logging town of St. Clouds. He also is the historian of the place and does not hesitate to throw in a little fiction every now and then whenever it seems necessary. He is a fervent abortionist (which was illegal at that time, the novel covers the time from the 20ies to the 50ies) as well as an ether addict. Homer, starting out as one of the orphans born at St.Cloud's, at last, after several unsuccessful attempts at finding new foster homes, becomes a permanent resident there - and something like a son to Dr. Larch, who teaches him all about his trade (obstetrical procedures, that is).
Besides the two adorable nurses Edna and Angela there is one other long-term resident at the orphanarium: Melony, a big, violent girl who provides Homer with his first sexual experiences and later on makes it her life's purpose to search for Homer, after he finally gets "adopted", as a young man, by a young wealthy couple his own age whom he befriends after they had an abortion. The couple, Candy and Wally, belong to a family in the apple business. They show Homer life outside the orphanarium and he decides to stay. Things become a little more complicated, however, as Homer and Candy fall in love with each other...
The main themes of the book are abortion (the different positions towards it weighed off against each other) and orphans (Charles Dickens' David Copperfield reappears throughout the book), although there is much more in it. It's funny and serious and definitely gripping.

"Endless Forms Most Beautiful - The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom" by Sean B. Carroll

First published: 2006
350 pages (paperback)

Evo Devo stands for 'Evolutionary Developmental Biology' and is an emerging field that combines insights from animal development with evolutionary theory.
The book first explains the genetic mechanisms by which complex multicellular organisms could evolve from simple unicellular ones and then goes on to show how "tinkering" with those basic mechanisms could lead to the diversity we now observe in nature.
Carroll himself is an accomplished veteran in the field of fruit fly development and therefore can provide first hand examples from the organism that was first used to elucidate the mechanisms and genes behind animal development. One main insight was that the genes responsible for controlling developmental processes have been conserved across the entire animal kingdom, including the human branch. Another important revelation was that it's not really the genes themselves that make the difference but more the patterns in which genes are turned on and off during development by so-called genetic switches. The examples given in this book of how these switches work include the formation of limbs as well as the formation of such patterns as the stripes of zebras and the spots on butterflies. The book comes with lots of colour figures to illustrate the beauty of animal forms.

"The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" by Philip K. Dick

First published: 1964
230 pages (paperback)

Life on Mars is dull. That's why the UN has to draft (i.e. force) people to go live in the colonies there. In order to escape their dead-end existence, the colonists seek refuge in a drug called Can-D, which allows them to enter a virtual reality, where life on earth is still like in the good old days, before global warming made it into a barely inhabitable desert.
Everybody is happy with this until one day the mysterious Palmer Eldritch returns from a trip to the Prox sytems, bringing with him the new and much more potent drug Chew-Z that allows for any fantasy to come true.
The company that (inofficially) sells Can-D to the colonists is of course worried about the new competitor on the market. Barney Mayerson, after having lost both his job at that company as well as his marriage, and therefore volunteering to live in the colonies, is offered his old job back - under the condition that he will help drive Eldritch out of business by faking harmful side-effects of the new drug... As it turns out, however, the drug is more than it seems to be, as is Eldritch himself.

"Minority Report" (and other stories) by Philip K. Dick

First published: 1953 - 1969
290 pages (paperback)

Still haven't seen that movie... It's been a little while since I read this book, so the descriptions of the stories might not be a hundred percent accurate. I will also try to avoid spoilers. :-)
And just ignore the cover (unless, of course, you actually like Tom Cruise).

"Minority Report" is the first short story in this collection. You might know the plot from the movie: imagine society were able to tell exactly when somebody is going to commit a crime. Of course, you could arrest them even before they themselves know what they are going to do. Crime in this society is basically non-existent. The only people, however, who know about these "pre-crimes" are the police officers dealing with the prophecies produced by three psychic but otherwise brain dead mutants. So what if one of these officers finds his name on the list of people accused of committing a crime in the near future? How much does he really believe in the infallibility of the system?

The second story, "Imposter", puts us in the position of someone accused of being a robot sent by alien enemies to secretly take the place of an earth scientist. This robot is known to exactly look like that man and maybe even believe himself he actually is the person whose place he takes in order to detonate an atomic bomb of apocalyptic proportion ... so how can you prove you are not a robot and therefore are NOT to be destroyed to save mankind?

"Second Variety". Earth is a wasteland. The last people fight the machines they created and equipped with an artificial intelligence in order to win the arms-race with the enemy (the Russians...). The moon is the last free refuge of humanity. The machines, which were designed to kill, are evolving to become more and more cunning. Cunning enough to get to the moon? This story was made into the movie "Screamers".

"War Game" is set in the Terran Import Bureau of Standards where people test toys from other worlds for their potential harm if released on earth. One toy is a siege game where toy soldiers have to break into a fortress. The game claims to be therapeutic in teaching children (the soldiers) confidence in conquering the intimidating "fortress" of adult life. So that would be a good thing, wouldn't it? - Unless of course the game was secretly designed by its extraterrestrial inventors for a very different purpose ...

"What the Dead Men Say". It has become possible to extend life beyond death. For a limited number of times, people can be frozen and then resurrected. This also happens to Louis Sarapis, one of the most powerful industrialists on earth. Something, however, goes wrong (he does have enemies, after all) and his body cannot be revived. Yet, he does not seem to be dead. His voice is everywhere. On TV, on telephones - his thoughts seem to be broadcast from somewhere deep in space. That way he is even more powerful than ever before. But is he real or is it all just a scam?

"Oh, to Be a Blobel!" deals with the problems resulting from cross-life-form experiments. George Munster is a war veteran. The war against the Blobel home world, that is. The military transformed him into a spy by altering him in a way that makes him change into a Blobel (an amoeba-like blob) for half a day - every day, because the treatment could not be reversed. How can he lead a normal life after the war? How could he possibly have a family?

"The Electric Ant". After an accident, Carson Poole wakes up in a hospital with his hand missing. The weird thing is, he doesn't feel any pain and shortly afterwards he learns that he actually is a machine, not a human being. This comes to him quite as a shock. The reality he perceives is actually created artificially within his circuits. To find out more about how he works, he starts experimenting with himself by manipulating his electronic brain and observing the effects...

"Faith of Our Fathers" is set in communist Vietnam where everyone functions as part of a collective. What an unusual honour it is for comrade Chien to get promoted to work close to the Absolute Benefactor, the nation's great leader. Things, however, are not quite what they seem. Especially the Absolute Benefactor does not seem to be what he looks like, for instance, in the regular speeches he gives to his people on TV.

The last story was made into a movie as well: "Total Recall" with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's called "We Can Remember it for You Wholesale". A company makes good money with implanting fake memories into peoples brains. Things that otherwise would never be possible now can be, because you can't distinguish between fake and real memories. The whole package even includes items that the new memories refer to, which makes it even more realistic. Douglas Quail wants to lead the exciting life of a spy on Mars. His real job is rather dull and uninspiring, so he gets the treatment to fix up his memory. And usually, the procedure is successful. Not with Quail, however. For him it becomes more and more unclear, which memories are real and which ones are fake ...

Dick's style is straight-forward, don't expect anything too sophisticated. But the stories he invents are pure fun. He designs fictitious worlds where he examines how ordinary people would deal with problems that we don't (yet) have, but one day might. And somehow these problems don't seem too far-fetched at all, but remind us of things that we can relate to in our own world. For example, take the discussion about artificial life and the change in ethics that are required to incorporate non-human beings. (Sounds like SciFi? The South Korean government seems to disagree, because it's working on exactly that. Read this BBC article.)
In each story there is a surprising turn of events and one constantly wonders where the story will go. In some cases I found the ending a bit too obvious, but the stories are still fun. They are (mostly) from the 50s after all ... If you're into science fiction, Dick is a must-read. And this book is probably a good one to start with.

"The Human Stain" by Philip Roth

First published: 2000
361 pages (paperback)

In the second half of the book, a girl tells Faunia this little story about a tamed crow:

"I was dumping some water and he made a beeline for the door and went out into the trees. Within minutes there were three or four crows that came. Surrounded him in the tree. And they were going nuts. Harassing him. Hitting him on the back. Screaming. Smacking into him and stuff. They were there within minutes. He doesn't have the right voice. He doesn't know the crow language. They don't like him out there. Eventually he came down to me, because I was out there. They would have killed him."
"That's what comes of being hand-raised," said Faunia. " That's what comes out of hanging around all his life with people like us. The human stain," she said, and without revulsion or contempt or condemnation. Not even with sadness. That's how it is - in her own dry way, this is all Faunia was telling the girl feeding the snake: we leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error, excrement, semen - there's no other way to be here.

You could say it's a book about the extremes of life. What a determined will can make out of it and how an unfortunate beginning can ruin it. The first is true of Coleman Silk, whom we first meet as a 70-year-old, retired college professor; the second describes Faunia Farley's life, a 30-something-year-old illiterate cleaning woman at the very same College. Two apparently opposite characters that nevertheless come to a very deep understanding of each other. While Coleman looses all after he had gained everything in a long life of achievement, Faunia' s life practically ended even before it had really begun. Stripped of everything they once possessed, that's when they begin their short but intense affair. Which, of course, ends in disaster...
It's also a book about America. About racial issues and a public morality that is very eager to accuse and to righteously bring down those who transgress.
All in all it's a very mature book, probably not least because it is written from the point of view of someone who is, like Coleman, in his 70s. Large parts of the book digress from the main storyline (if there is one) to go back in time and explain how Coleman got to be who he became.
The Human Stain is definitely a very good book, but, because of its "literary" style, not always easy. The story is more or less irrelevant, it's the believability of the characters, it's the greater themes it deals with that make it a good book. Not only the main character, Coleman, is brilliantly portrayed but also the others, early abused Faunia Farley, her ex-husband Lester, who is a messed up Vietnam vet and Delphine Roux, the pretty and ambitious french professor, who wants to prove it to everyone and yet succumbs to her loneliness.
And yes, they made a movie out of it, but I haven't seen it.