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Almost all of my favorite books are science fiction - because SF often seems to be the only real literature of ideas in our age. It is one of the only kinds of literature that allows one to question our society from the bottom up, and the books I like best are those that make us think about alternate ways of living, loving, working, and designing society... we are so often bound by our own small minds and perceptions - science fiction allows us to fly free.. without the constraints of reality. On my all time favorite list are these two books: "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. LeGuin because it really makes one think about the kind of society we live in and its limitations. It is the story of an alien from a very anarchist society who comes to a planet Earth that is somewhat like the U.S., but more totalitarian. His observations, are somewhat like that of a de Toqueville, with unusual insights even about the way furniture is designed. The other book is "The Family Tree" by Sheri Tepper. It's partly a mystery, partly a saga about humans and animals and ecology, a meditation on freedom and slavery, on genetic engineering and animal experimentation. At first you don't really know what is going on... there are two stories and they don't seem to have any relationship, one taking place in the present and one several thousand years in the future... but in the end it all comes together with some fairly amazing surprises.

Reviewed by Margot A., Author and NPR correspondent

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