The Secret Sharer - Joseph Conrad

The Secret Sharer, by Joseph Conrad, is a short book that
while lacking a particularly interesting story does offer
good insight into the true-self, better-self, higher-self
psychoanalysis contempory to his time. Conrad exploits
the good versus evil, conscious versus sub/unconscious
etc. dichotomy we all deal with but I wouldn't recommend
the book to someone unless this is exactly what they need
to read.

David

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

The picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, projects a
world where all of life's paths leads to self-destruction.
The moral of this book could be that mans chief end is to
develop his nature to the fullest by "always searching for
new sensations", and that when the soul gets sick the way
to cure it is to deny the soul nothing, for "nothing can
cure the soul but the sense, just as nothing can cure the
senses but the soul". Alternatively, Wilde may equally be
offering a sense (the book) to jolt our souls out of self
worshipping by graphically depicting the path and end that
vanity can lead to. One of my all time favourite books.

David

I, Lucifer - Glen Duncan

"I, Lucifer" by Glen Duncan, is a first person
narrative of Satan having a 1 month trial run of being
human before God wraps everything up. The book is
commentary on everything human - decadence, money,
sexuality, friendship, family, love and anything else
you can think of. A really good read with a great
twist with a whole lot of interesting facts about
religion presented in a unique perspective. If you
are after a good novel with a bit of depth, this is a
good choice.

David

The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene

Welcome to the WLW Book Club. I'll start things by mentioning that I'm finishing Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe and, although extremely well written (and edited) it waffles on far too much about how Superstring Theory is the bee's knees of all theories - even though it's completely untestable. I officially recommend the first half to people who would want to sound impressive at parties, and the second half to people who would like to sound impressive at a Star Trek convention.

- Tim