Hank's Bookshelf

“Hey, Hank, what’cha reading?”

You know that Hank’s an eclectic reader and tends to have five or fifteen books on his bedside table at any given point, so he’s always got a few recommendations for you to chew on.

Want to see what he’s currently about? Check out the Hank READS! Goodreads widget on the sidebar to the right over yonder or click here: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/10148048-hankwsr

Following is a wee sampling of his favorite books and authors–the ones he comes back to gnaw on every so often. (Books, not authors.)

Hank loves sharing his most recent reads in periodic posts, so keep an eye out for those in the “Books” category under “Worth a Sniff”.

Hank’s Favorite Writers

Jane Austen, John McPhee, Sherman Alexie, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Mary Roach, Charles Dickens, Jon Krakauer, Emily Dickinson, Harper Lee, Robert Frost, Bashō

History & Science

The Map That Changed the World / A Crack in the Edge of the World, Simon Winchester
The Code Book, Simon Singh
The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition, Caroline Alexander
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, Alfred Lansing
Facing West, Richard Drinnon
The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson
Ghost Soldiers, Hampton Sides
Seabiscuit: An American Legend, Laura Hillenbrand
The Forever War, Dexter Filkins
In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, Doug Stanton
Shadow Divers, Robert Kurson
Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea, Gary Kinder
Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana Jr.

Fiction

Cannery Row / Sweet Thursday, John Steinbeck
People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Atonement, Ian McEwan
The God of Animals, Aryn Kyle
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
My Ántonia, Willa Cather
True Grit, Charles Portis
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
The Green Mile / The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Stephen King
Water Flowing Home / War Dances / The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie
The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Great Expectations / Innocents Abroad / Huckleberry Finn, Charles Dickens
Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
The Complete Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Poems of Emily Dickinson
Poetry of Bashō, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman

Critters

Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog, Ted Kerasote
The Social Lives of Dogs, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Animals in Translation, Temple Grandin
True Grizz, Douglas Chadwick
A Dog’s Life, Peter Mayle

Gardening/Design

A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander et al.
Plant Seed, Pull Weed: Nurturing the Garden of Your Life, Geri Larkin
Gardening with Nature /Gardening with Water/ Bold, Romantic Gardens, Wolfgang Oehme & James van Sweden
Western Garden Book, Sunset Magazine
A Place of My Own, Michael Pollan
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs
Ask Ciscoe, Ciscoe Morris
Little House on a Small Planet, Shay Salomon/Nigel Valdez

Travel

Shopping for Buddhas, Jeff Greenwald
Adventure Divas, Holly Morris
Dave Barry’s Only Travel Guide You’ll Ever Need, Dave Barry
Richard Halliburton’s Complete Book of Marvels, Richard Halliburton
Breakfast with Buddha, Roland Merullo
Travels with Charley in Search of America, John Steinbeck
Magic and Mystery in Tibet, Alexandra David-Néel
Eccentric Islands / Notes from a Small Island, Bill Holm
Sea of Cortez / Log from the Sea of Cortez , John Steinbeck

Non-Fiction

Them: Adventures with Extremists, Jon Ronson
Basin and Range / The Crofter and the Laird / The Headmaster, John McPhee
Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey
Reading the OED, Ammon Shea
Stiff / Spook / Boink / Packing for Mars, Mary Roach
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
The Kid, Dan Savage
The File, Timothy Garton Ash
My Life in France, Julia Child
The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
Truck: A Love Story, Michael Perry
A Girl Named Zippy, Haven Kimmel
At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays, Anne Fadiman
In a Cardboard Belt!, Joseph Epstein
Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder
The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls
Backlash, Susan Faludi
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar…, Thomas Cathcart & Thomas Klein
The Wave / Devil’s Teeth, Susan Casey
Everybody’s Book of Epitaphs, W.H. Howe
Time Was Soft There, Jeremy Mercer
Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan
Letters From A Nut, etc., Ted L. Nancy

Writing

On Writing, Steven King
The Ode Less Traveled, Stephen Fry
Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
The Elements of Style, William Strunk, Jr., E.B. White, Maira Kalman (illustrator)
The Essential Guide to Writing a Novel, James Thayer
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
The Writer’s Journey, Christopher Vogler
Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg