Why Marie Digby loves Stephen Hawking

This Irish-American-Japanese artist has fallen in love with the Philippines and the love is requited. Of her 120 million YouTube views,  a whole chunk of those viewers are Filipinos. Last July she even flew over to interpret an original Pilipino song for the first Philpop Music Festival and this November she is the guest celebrity VJ on Myx. During a break in her  VJ celebrity taping , I asked her to share her favorite books.

These are her choices:

1. A Brief History of Time by  Stephen Hawking

A brilliant glimpse into the thinking of theoretical physicists in a way that any average person can understand. It’s all the things I love about nature, time, and our  universe.

2. The Giver by Lois Lowry

This has been a favorite book of mine since I was a child. It’s about a futuristic society in which there is no pain, war, hatred, or fear... Sounds like a perfect society but it’s actually one in which all things that make us human are stripped away from us. I guess this is the book with which my love for science fiction began.

3. Night by Elie Wiesel

A chilling and touching autobiographical account of a young boy in the Nazi death camps. This book was what I read on the train that led us to one of the concentration camps in Poland called Auschwitz.

4. The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking

Another masterpiece by Stephen Hawking detailing the history of scientific knowledge about our universe, what it is and how it was created. I love how accessible Hawking makes incredibly dense matter like quantum mechanics and M-theory.

5. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

I loved the movie and I love the book as well. A story about an ultra-violent boy who is imprisoned and submitted to an experimental brainwashing program.

6. 1984 by George Orwell

Many people these days may not even know the origin of the title for the reality series Big Brother. This book is an absolute classic and is another one of my science fiction favorites.

7. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

The story of a young Irish boy living in America during the Depression era. This story really hits home because my Irish grandfather and great-grandfather went through a similar experience.

8. Aleph by  Paulo Coelho

This book was a gift from my friends this year. It’s a nice, easy read about spiritual growth, faith, and self-discovery.

9. Blindness by Jose Saramago

A riveting novel about a world in which the whole population suddenly goes blind. This is one of those books which hooks you from the first page.

10. The Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

A beautiful novel about how all of our lives impact each other in the past, present and future.

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The Reading Club recommends A Confederacy of Dunces.