Reading lists…
So lots of people are posting that “Great Books” list and bolding the titles they’ve read. I was tempted to do it too. I went through the list, bolded my titles and all that… But as I was doing it, I was thinking Who MADE this list? And why One Hundred Years of Solitude when Love in the Time of Cholera is a better book? Why is it acceptable to read only one sixth of a novel (Swann’s Way)? No, no…of course it’s fine to just read volume one, but shouldn’t a great books list include the WHOLE book?
The list, it reads like it was compiled in the fifties. I call for a recount. An overhaul. Things like this are so subjective…but that’s what blogs are for, yes? Rampant subjectivity. So here’s what I propose. I will tell you what my top ten books are that I’ve read and that have impacted me. The books that changed my life, or my thoughts for a period of time, or that just moved me… only ten though. And then I want to hear from you, want your top ten. And we’ll see what we come up with.
So here goes. My top ten books (at the moment. Subject to change as soon as I read another fantastic book.)
1. Hopscotch — Julio Cortazar
2. In Search of Lost Time — Marcel Proust
3. Midnight’s Children — Salman Rushdie
4. Middlesex — Jeffrey Eugenides
5. Death in Venice — Thomas Mann
6. Lolita — Vladimir Nabokov
7. El lugar sin limites — Jose Donoso
8. Mrs Dalloway — Virginia Woolf
9. The Flounder — Gunter Grass
10. Niebla — Miguel de Unamuno
Oh…that was hard. So many books clambering to get into that tenth spot. Maybe I should have made it a top fifty. Anyway…those are mine. How about you?
I can never come up with a completely accurate list when asked, but some of my favorites (off the top of my head):
“The Temple of the Golden Pavilion” Yukio Mishima
“Absalom, Absalom!” William Faulkner
“Mrs Dalloway” Virginia Woolf
“The Tale of Genji” Murasaki Shikibu
“A Thousand Acres” Jane Smiley
“Beloved” AND “Song of Soloman” and probably “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison
“Sophie’s Choice” William Styron
“Jane Eyre”, “Wide, Sargasso Sea” and “Tess of the d’Urbervilles”
I know I am probably forgetting one of my all-time favorites, but that’s a taste. Thanks for sharing your list.
Posted by: Annie
good idea! i haven’t read any of your top 10!
how about how many banned books we’ve read?
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm
Posted by: katie
I’m afraid to post my “reads” vs. “not reads” for fear of appearing illiterate. 🙂
Posted by: Leslie
John Barth- The Sot Weed Factor
Posted by: Rebecca
Yeah, who made that list? There are other works by the authors on the list that I prefer (Absalom, Absalom come to mind).
My top ten? Too hard. I’d put both Solitude and Cholera there. The Trial. The Bluest Eye. Anna Karenina. Palm Wine Drinkard.
Too hard. So many books. Ow.
Posted by: Iris
I choose not to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.
😉
really wondering when was the last time I read a Fiction Book….
Posted by: claudia
Excellent idea. Off the top of my head, and in no particular order, then:
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Motherless Brooklyn – Jonathan Lethem
White Teeth – Zadie Smith
Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
Bastard Out of Carolina – Dorothy Allison
Bread Givers – Anzia Yezierska
Howards End – E.M. Forster
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
Mrs. Dalloway (natch) – Virginia Woolf
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon
Apologies to all the books I forgot that deserve to be on this list.
Posted by: Em
Great idea… here’s the best i can do with feeble brain on a Friday night:
Catcher in the Rye – Salinger
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream -Harlan Ellison
The Solace of Open Spaces – Gretel Ehrlich
A River Ran Through It – Norman Maclean
The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. LeGuin
Far From the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
Rocket to Limbo- Alan Norton (started me at age
10 on a lifetime of science fiction)
Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
…i LOVE seeing everyone’s lists… thanks!
Posted by: caroline
Chilly Scenes of Winter, by Anne Beattie
Animal Dreams, by Barbara Kingsolver
The Claudine Novels, by Colette
Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
Palm Latitudes, by Kate Braverman
Valis, by Philip K. Dick
Eating Chinese Food Naked, by Mei Ng*
Dreaming in Cuban, by Christina Garcia
All New People, by Anne Lamott
Little Miss Strange, by Joanna Rose
*Mei Ng lives in Brooklyn
Posted by: Lisa
The Bone People — Keri Hulme
Okay, that stays in my top ten. As for the other nine, I can’t. I just can’t. I’ve been sitting here staring at the screen for five minutes, letting the best ones flit through my head — I flirt with them, but not sure if I can give any other book the absolute guarantee it would shove another book out of the ten. Hulme, yes. Hell, yeah. All else subject to further notice.
Posted by: Rachael
First many compliments to Cari for your blog. I read it regularly but have never left a comment before because I never knew what to say. I tend not to have favourite books but favorite authors and favorite cultures/languages. So I read a lot of 19th century English literature (Austen & Eliot are my favourites)and a lot of Italian literature (I like Dante but my favourites are Boccaccio, Leopardi and Svevo. Strangely I don’t read many books in my native language (Danish) but one Danish writer I like a lot is Henning Mortensen.
Posted by: Lone
My favourite top ten are (In no particular order):
Matlida
To Kill a Mocking Bird
The Color Purple
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
Falling Leaves
Slaughterhouse 5
Pride and Prejudice
Fight Club
Vernon God Little
Dogger
Goodnight Mr Tom
You will note a high portion of mine are classic childrens books. Quite frankly, I think alot of adults turn their nose up at a perticuarly fine piece of writing because it has been marketed for the 11yrs or under. Also, I was going to include Midnights Children, but I’ve only read about a third of it since buying it a year ago. It’s excellent detail leaves me thinking about it’s characters for weeks after so I don’t feel the need to progress untill I’ve digested my last passage of reading!
Posted by: Jacqueline
I am thrilled and overwhelmed by the fact that you’re the first person I have ever ”met” who has read anything by Gunter Grass !
I,too,highly rate The Flounder.
Posted by: Emma
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
Waiting for the Barbarians – J. M. coetzee
the Earthsea series – Urula K. Le Guin
The PDF Reference v 1.5 – Adobe (no plot to speak of, but outstanding character development)
Posted by: David
I just have 2 all-time favorites:
She’s Come Undone –Wally Lamb
A Confederacy of Dunces –John Kennedy Toole
3333
Posted by: ms. amy
I’ve been reading these lists as they hit other blogs. I’m a Canadian, so I would like to suggest a some Canadian authors and the books they wrote that changed my perception of the world:
“The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood (every young feminist’s nightmare; if you have not read this, I suggest you RUN to the nearest book-store / library for this one)
“The Stone Diaries” by Carol Shields (ok, she was born in the US, but lived in Canada from 1957 on and when she died last year, she became the first novelist whose passing I mourned. This book won a Pulitzer)
“Unless” by Carol Shields
And now that I’m looking at my crowded bookshelf, I’m thinking that a little summer lit review might be in order… my brain has begun to atrophy after a long winter…
Thanks for the revised list. I was shocked that the original didn’t include more recent “must reads”. I mean, Jane Eyre was an incredible book, but when I read it during my Women’s studies English class, it didn’t shatter my perception of reality as much as Margaret Atwood’s novels did at the time.
Posted by: Stephanie VW
I was so thrilled to see your post. I’ve been seeing the list and noted that what I have read was mostly done in high school. Here is mine–books that I couldn’t put down. A varied list in no certain order:)
A Room of One’s Own–Virginia Woolf
The Lord of the Ring’s Trilogy–
Wine and War–Don Kladstrop
Mists of Avalon–Marion Zimmer Bradley
A Handmaid’s Tale–Margaret Atwood
Princess–Jean Sasson
Salt and Saffron–Kamila Shamsie
The Spiral Dance–Starhawk
Orlando–Virginia Woolf
In The Spirit of Crazy Horse–Peter Mattiessen
I’m looking forward to reading books off all your lists. hmmmm I could see a book group forming from this.
Posted by: Deb
Man, it’s been a long time since I could honestly call myself a reader. I read a ton when I was around 20, and I can think of a few books that I loved then for various reasons:
“In the Skin of a Lion” — Michael Ondaatje
“Surfacing” — Margaret Atwood
“On the Road” — Jack Kerouac
“Kitchen” — Banana Yoshimoto
More recently:
“Middlesex”
“Wild Swans” — Jung Chan (memoir)
I wish I could look at my bookshelves to jog my memory, but all my books are in storage. I got rid of a lot when I left the country, but I kept ten boxes of books, so clearly there are others I’ve read in the last ten years that I’ve loved. But I can’t remember. I’m going to go and cry now. Oh, and write down your top 10 titles and all the ones in the comments.
Posted by: alison
I can never come up with a completely accurate list when asked, but some of my favorites (off the top of my head):
“The Temple of the Golden Pavilion” Yukio Mishima
“Absalom, Absalom!” William Faulkner
“Mrs Dalloway” Virginia Woolf
“The Tale of Genji” Murasaki Shikibu
“A Thousand Acres” Jane Smiley
“Beloved” AND “Song of Soloman” and probably “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison
“Sophie’s Choice” William Styron
“Jane Eyre”, “Wide, Sargasso Sea” and “Tess of the d’Urbervilles”
I know I am probably forgetting one of my all-time favorites, but that’s a taste. Thanks for sharing your list.
Posted by: Annie
good idea! i haven’t read any of your top 10!
how about how many banned books we’ve read?
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm
Posted by: katie
I’m afraid to post my “reads” vs. “not reads” for fear of appearing illiterate. 🙂
Posted by: Leslie
John Barth- The Sot Weed Factor
Posted by: Rebecca
Yeah, who made that list? There are other works by the authors on the list that I prefer (Absalom, Absalom come to mind).
My top ten? Too hard. I’d put both Solitude and Cholera there. The Trial. The Bluest Eye. Anna Karenina. Palm Wine Drinkard.
Too hard. So many books. Ow.
Posted by: Iris
I choose not to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.
😉
really wondering when was the last time I read a Fiction Book….
Posted by: claudia
Excellent idea. Off the top of my head, and in no particular order, then:
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Motherless Brooklyn – Jonathan Lethem
White Teeth – Zadie Smith
Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
Bastard Out of Carolina – Dorothy Allison
Bread Givers – Anzia Yezierska
Howards End – E.M. Forster
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
Mrs. Dalloway (natch) – Virginia Woolf
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – Michael Chabon
Apologies to all the books I forgot that deserve to be on this list.
Posted by: Em
Great idea… here’s the best i can do with feeble brain on a Friday night:
Catcher in the Rye – Salinger
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream -Harlan Ellison
The Solace of Open Spaces – Gretel Ehrlich
A River Ran Through It – Norman Maclean
The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. LeGuin
Far From the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
Rocket to Limbo- Alan Norton (started me at age
10 on a lifetime of science fiction)
Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
…i LOVE seeing everyone’s lists… thanks!
Posted by: caroline
Chilly Scenes of Winter, by Anne Beattie
Animal Dreams, by Barbara Kingsolver
The Claudine Novels, by Colette
Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
Palm Latitudes, by Kate Braverman
Valis, by Philip K. Dick
Eating Chinese Food Naked, by Mei Ng*
Dreaming in Cuban, by Christina Garcia
All New People, by Anne Lamott
Little Miss Strange, by Joanna Rose
*Mei Ng lives in Brooklyn
Posted by: Lisa
The Bone People — Keri Hulme
Okay, that stays in my top ten. As for the other nine, I can’t. I just can’t. I’ve been sitting here staring at the screen for five minutes, letting the best ones flit through my head — I flirt with them, but not sure if I can give any other book the absolute guarantee it would shove another book out of the ten. Hulme, yes. Hell, yeah. All else subject to further notice.
Posted by: Rachael
First many compliments to Cari for your blog. I read it regularly but have never left a comment before because I never knew what to say. I tend not to have favourite books but favorite authors and favorite cultures/languages. So I read a lot of 19th century English literature (Austen & Eliot are my favourites)and a lot of Italian literature (I like Dante but my favourites are Boccaccio, Leopardi and Svevo. Strangely I don’t read many books in my native language (Danish) but one Danish writer I like a lot is Henning Mortensen.
Posted by: Lone
My favourite top ten are (In no particular order):
Matlida
To Kill a Mocking Bird
The Color Purple
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
Falling Leaves
Slaughterhouse 5
Pride and Prejudice
Fight Club
Vernon God Little
Dogger
Goodnight Mr Tom
You will note a high portion of mine are classic childrens books. Quite frankly, I think alot of adults turn their nose up at a perticuarly fine piece of writing because it has been marketed for the 11yrs or under. Also, I was going to include Midnights Children, but I’ve only read about a third of it since buying it a year ago. It’s excellent detail leaves me thinking about it’s characters for weeks after so I don’t feel the need to progress untill I’ve digested my last passage of reading!
Posted by: Jacqueline
I am thrilled and overwhelmed by the fact that you’re the first person I have ever ”met” who has read anything by Gunter Grass !
I,too,highly rate The Flounder.
Posted by: Emma
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
Waiting for the Barbarians – J. M. coetzee
the Earthsea series – Urula K. Le Guin
The PDF Reference v 1.5 – Adobe (no plot to speak of, but outstanding character development)
Posted by: David
I just have 2 all-time favorites:
She’s Come Undone –Wally Lamb
A Confederacy of Dunces –John Kennedy Toole
3333
Posted by: ms. amy
I’ve been reading these lists as they hit other blogs. I’m a Canadian, so I would like to suggest a some Canadian authors and the books they wrote that changed my perception of the world:
“The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood (every young feminist’s nightmare; if you have not read this, I suggest you RUN to the nearest book-store / library for this one)
“The Stone Diaries” by Carol Shields (ok, she was born in the US, but lived in Canada from 1957 on and when she died last year, she became the first novelist whose passing I mourned. This book won a Pulitzer)
“Unless” by Carol Shields
And now that I’m looking at my crowded bookshelf, I’m thinking that a little summer lit review might be in order… my brain has begun to atrophy after a long winter…
Thanks for the revised list. I was shocked that the original didn’t include more recent “must reads”. I mean, Jane Eyre was an incredible book, but when I read it during my Women’s studies English class, it didn’t shatter my perception of reality as much as Margaret Atwood’s novels did at the time.
Posted by: Stephanie VW
I was so thrilled to see your post. I’ve been seeing the list and noted that what I have read was mostly done in high school. Here is mine–books that I couldn’t put down. A varied list in no certain order:)
A Room of One’s Own–Virginia Woolf
The Lord of the Ring’s Trilogy–
Wine and War–Don Kladstrop
Mists of Avalon–Marion Zimmer Bradley
A Handmaid’s Tale–Margaret Atwood
Princess–Jean Sasson
Salt and Saffron–Kamila Shamsie
The Spiral Dance–Starhawk
Orlando–Virginia Woolf
In The Spirit of Crazy Horse–Peter Mattiessen
I’m looking forward to reading books off all your lists. hmmmm I could see a book group forming from this.
Posted by: Deb
Man, it’s been a long time since I could honestly call myself a reader. I read a ton when I was around 20, and I can think of a few books that I loved then for various reasons:
“In the Skin of a Lion” — Michael Ondaatje
“Surfacing” — Margaret Atwood
“On the Road” — Jack Kerouac
“Kitchen” — Banana Yoshimoto
More recently:
“Middlesex”
“Wild Swans” — Jung Chan (memoir)
I wish I could look at my bookshelves to jog my memory, but all my books are in storage. I got rid of a lot when I left the country, but I kept ten boxes of books, so clearly there are others I’ve read in the last ten years that I’ve loved. But I can’t remember. I’m going to go and cry now. Oh, and write down your top 10 titles and all the ones in the comments.
Posted by: alison
Jung Chang wrote “Wild Swans”.
Posted by: alison
Here’s my list:
All the King’s Men–Robert Penn Warren
The Futurological Congress–Stanislaw Lem
Nights at the Circus–Angela Carter
A Scanner Darkly–Philip K. Dick
Our Lady of the Flowers–Jean Genet
The Brothers Karamazov–Fyodor Dostoevsky
The French Lieutenant’s Woman–John Fowles
the Xenogenesis Trilogy (also published in one volume as “Lilith’s Brood”)–Octavia Butler
Persuasion–Jane Austen
Loop’s Progess & Experiments With Life and Deaf (first 2 of a trilogy)–Chuck Rosenthal
Every else’s lists are reminding me of a lot of things I’ve been meaning to read for a long time. There are also some names I’ve never heard before, which is cool too.
Posted by: susan
Hoo, boy. Top 10 that changed the way I read? The way I write? That I still devour at least once a year? Best stories, best use of language? All of the above?
Lolita–Vladimir Nabokov
Madame Bovary–Gustave Flaubert
Jane Eyre–Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights–Emily Bronte
Great Expectations–Charles Dickens
The House of Mirth–Edith Wharton
Everything That Rises Must Converge–Flannery O’Connor
I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream–H. Ellison
Naked Lunch–William Burroughs
Alice In Wonderland–Lewis Carroll
Posted by: Mindy
Do I know you? Did you go to Bard?? A Rodewald disciple? I think I recognize the bottom half of your face and you are linked to Phuc (my old PC. PS, my maiden name is Schlosser)….
Here’s some of my faves – no particular order:
If I Told You Once-Judy Budnitz
Crime and Punishment-Dostoevsky
Spider-Patrick McGrath
She’s Come Undone-Wally Lamb
Geek Love-Katherine Dunn
The Book of Ruth-Jane Hamilton
The Sleeping Father-Matthew Sharpe
The Hotel New Hampshire and Widow For One Year-John Irving
Posted by: melanie
Although I tend to freeze up when asked for a list of all-time-favorite anythings — I really liked taking a moment to consider books that impacted the way I thought in some way.
Emily of New Moon – LM Montgomery
Emma – Jane Austen
The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Rebecca – Daphne DuMauier
The Beach – Alex Garland
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek – Annie Dillard
His Dark Materials trilogy – Philip Pullman
The Small Rain & A Severed Wasp – Madeleine L’Engle
Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Posted by: jena
Great idea! Interesting, isn’t it? What makes a book great? Good literature seems to be in the eye of the beholder. I certainly feel like numerous books on the original list as well as others which have been nominated are highly overrated. And I’m sure many I’d nominate would be held the same! I can’t contribute wisely as I haven’t read any fiction in so long, but I enjoyed this post and the comments.
Posted by: jenifleur
Where the Red Fern Grows – on my top ten, but not sure where.
April
Posted by: April
Thanks for starting a new list, this gives me some ideas of what I could read next. Here are my favorite books so far (no particular order)and actually most of them are by my favorite authors:
-A dubious Legacy (Mary Wesley)
-The Robber Bride (Margaret Atwood)
-Son of a Circus (John Irving)
-The weight of water (Anita Shreve)
-Ladder of Years (Anne Tyler)
-Midaq Alley (Naguib Mahfooz)
-Accordion Crimes (E. Annie Proulx)
-The woman who walked on water (Lily Tuck)
-The God of small Things (Arundhati Roy)
-David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
Anyone have the copy of “Interviewing Matisse” by Lily Tuck? Difficult to find.
Susanne
Posted by: Susanne
I almost forgot one of my all-time favourites!
A Prayer for Owen Meany — John Irving
Posted by: alison
hey lady. i am reading hopscotch right now. well i finished it up to chapter 56 the first time. now i am doing the re-read with the optional chapters.
Posted by: carolyn
I can’t say any book has “changed” my life. But I’m an avid fiction reader, and over the years I’ve certainly learned much about life and how to live it from the books I read. Here’s my list of the books that have “stuck” with me.
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn – Betty Smith
Mrs. Mike – Nancy Benedict Freedman
East of Eden – John Steinbeck
100 Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (and I preferred this one to Love in the Time of Cholera, although they are both worth reading)
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Fall On Your Knees – Ann-Marie MacDonald (another excellent Canadian author)
Marjorie Morningstar – Herman Wolk
Lord of the Rings trilogy – Tolkien
Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand (I find much to dislike about her philosophy, but there was a time when I was enthralled by her novels. We all grow up.)
There are so many more. How do I limit to 10? I’m too old to limit to 10! What about Forever Amber, Gone With the Wind, Mila 18, Diary of Anne Frank? I see books on the lists preceding this that I enjoyed so much….The Bone People, God of Small Things, Rebecca, The Mists of Avalon, She’s Come Undone, The Bread Givers, etc. ad infinitum. What a rich world literature gives us! I could go on for a long time.
Posted by: Sharon
Jung Chang wrote “Wild Swans”.
Posted by: alison
Here’s my list:
All the King’s Men–Robert Penn Warren
The Futurological Congress–Stanislaw Lem
Nights at the Circus–Angela Carter
A Scanner Darkly–Philip K. Dick
Our Lady of the Flowers–Jean Genet
The Brothers Karamazov–Fyodor Dostoevsky
The French Lieutenant’s Woman–John Fowles
the Xenogenesis Trilogy (also published in one volume as “Lilith’s Brood”)–Octavia Butler
Persuasion–Jane Austen
Loop’s Progess & Experiments With Life and Deaf (first 2 of a trilogy)–Chuck Rosenthal
Every else’s lists are reminding me of a lot of things I’ve been meaning to read for a long time. There are also some names I’ve never heard before, which is cool too.
Posted by: susan
Hoo, boy. Top 10 that changed the way I read? The way I write? That I still devour at least once a year? Best stories, best use of language? All of the above?
Lolita–Vladimir Nabokov
Madame Bovary–Gustave Flaubert
Jane Eyre–Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights–Emily Bronte
Great Expectations–Charles Dickens
The House of Mirth–Edith Wharton
Everything That Rises Must Converge–Flannery O’Connor
I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream–H. Ellison
Naked Lunch–William Burroughs
Alice In Wonderland–Lewis Carroll
Posted by: Mindy
Do I know you? Did you go to Bard?? A Rodewald disciple? I think I recognize the bottom half of your face and you are linked to Phuc (my old PC. PS, my maiden name is Schlosser)….
Here’s some of my faves – no particular order:
If I Told You Once-Judy Budnitz
Crime and Punishment-Dostoevsky
Spider-Patrick McGrath
She’s Come Undone-Wally Lamb
Geek Love-Katherine Dunn
The Book of Ruth-Jane Hamilton
The Sleeping Father-Matthew Sharpe
The Hotel New Hampshire and Widow For One Year-John Irving
Posted by: melanie
Although I tend to freeze up when asked for a list of all-time-favorite anythings — I really liked taking a moment to consider books that impacted the way I thought in some way.
Emily of New Moon – LM Montgomery
Emma – Jane Austen
The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Rebecca – Daphne DuMauier
The Beach – Alex Garland
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek – Annie Dillard
His Dark Materials trilogy – Philip Pullman
The Small Rain & A Severed Wasp – Madeleine L’Engle
Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Posted by: jena
Great idea! Interesting, isn’t it? What makes a book great? Good literature seems to be in the eye of the beholder. I certainly feel like numerous books on the original list as well as others which have been nominated are highly overrated. And I’m sure many I’d nominate would be held the same! I can’t contribute wisely as I haven’t read any fiction in so long, but I enjoyed this post and the comments.
Posted by: jenifleur
Where the Red Fern Grows – on my top ten, but not sure where.
April
Posted by: April
Thanks for starting a new list, this gives me some ideas of what I could read next. Here are my favorite books so far (no particular order)and actually most of them are by my favorite authors:
-A dubious Legacy (Mary Wesley)
-The Robber Bride (Margaret Atwood)
-Son of a Circus (John Irving)
-The weight of water (Anita Shreve)
-Ladder of Years (Anne Tyler)
-Midaq Alley (Naguib Mahfooz)
-Accordion Crimes (E. Annie Proulx)
-The woman who walked on water (Lily Tuck)
-The God of small Things (Arundhati Roy)
-David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
Anyone have the copy of “Interviewing Matisse” by Lily Tuck? Difficult to find.
Susanne
Posted by: Susanne
I almost forgot one of my all-time favourites!
A Prayer for Owen Meany — John Irving
Posted by: alison
hey lady. i am reading hopscotch right now. well i finished it up to chapter 56 the first time. now i am doing the re-read with the optional chapters.
Posted by: carolyn
I can’t say any book has “changed” my life. But I’m an avid fiction reader, and over the years I’ve certainly learned much about life and how to live it from the books I read. Here’s my list of the books that have “stuck” with me.
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn – Betty Smith
Mrs. Mike – Nancy Benedict Freedman
East of Eden – John Steinbeck
100 Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (and I preferred this one to Love in the Time of Cholera, although they are both worth reading)
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Fall On Your Knees – Ann-Marie MacDonald (another excellent Canadian author)
Marjorie Morningstar – Herman Wolk
Lord of the Rings trilogy – Tolkien
Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand (I find much to dislike about her philosophy, but there was a time when I was enthralled by her novels. We all grow up.)
There are so many more. How do I limit to 10? I’m too old to limit to 10! What about Forever Amber, Gone With the Wind, Mila 18, Diary of Anne Frank? I see books on the lists preceding this that I enjoyed so much….The Bone People, God of Small Things, Rebecca, The Mists of Avalon, She’s Come Undone, The Bread Givers, etc. ad infinitum. What a rich world literature gives us! I could go on for a long time.
Posted by: Sharon