The Knitter’s Reading List
Here is the list that you helped to build. [Updated 6/23] The books that changed our lives, our way of thinking, or that moved us in some way… The books we love. (Yes, IÂ’m getting a bit sappy but few things on this earth mean as much to me as books—specifically novels…) There are so many fantastic books here…too many for any of us to have read all of them, IÂ’m sure, so hopefully everyone will come away with at least a few new titles to check out.
Woolf and Atwood are heavy favorites, winning multiple votes. Literary fiction (and literary fiction by women) is alive and well in the knit-blogger/knit-blog-reader world. (Encouraging indeed for this female writer of literary fiction. ) ItÂ’s also great to see quality genre show up on the list, like Ursula K Le Guin. We love her. I must admit I was THRILLED that Hemingway didnÂ’t make the list at all. Screw Papa. I hate Hemingway. There. I said it.
ItÂ’s cool to compare this list to that Great Books list, to see what thinking folk are really reading. There are many overlaps, because, yes, the Great Books list has many great books on it. But fiction is a living, breathing thing. It moves and changes. And so this list has many more modern writers, many more female writers, many fewer dead white guys. (Not to take anything away from the dead white guys. It isnÂ’t their fault they all get grouped together all the time…I mean, theyÂ’re DEAD, so we canÂ’t blame them. I blame Reagan. Yes, heÂ’s dead, but letÂ’s blame him anyway.)
I included all suggested books, whether I liked them or not. Oh that hurt! It was interesting, actually, to watch myself as I compiled the list, and to see myself react to this book or that one, to think “How many damn books by Toni Morrison do we need on this friggin list?” or “Oh, thatÂ’s just a terrible piece of trash” etc etc… (no, of course I didnÂ’t think that about any of the books you suggested. It was someone elseÂ’s suggestion.) But then I also thought “oh, I forgot how much I loved that one!” and “IÂ’ve always meant to read it” and “Hmmm, never heard of that one. I wonder what itÂ’s like”…which actually just underlines the whole point of starting this list in the first place. The books we love to read, the books that affect us… itÂ’s such an intensely personal, subjective thing. So I do not endorse all books on this list. I make no promises that you will love all of them (I sure donÂ’t). I do promise youÂ’ll love at least one of them, and have a good time with many of them.
Freed from my self-imposed ten-book constraints, I added a few books (only three, and anyway itÂ’s my blog, dammit). Added The Hours and A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham, not because heÂ’s my fantastic and beloved teacher, but because I loved those books even before I knew him; and Enormous Changes at the Last Minute by the mighty Grace Paley. ItÂ’s a short story collection. If you donÂ’t know PaleyÂ’s work, do look into it. SheÂ’s truly wonderful.
I didnÂ’t have time to fact check, so if titles are off or author names misspelled on those that I wasnÂ’t familiar with, let me know and IÂ’ll fix it. If you didnÂ’t include an author name with your entry, and I didnÂ’t know the author, I didnÂ’t include it. Likewise, drop a line and IÂ’ll correct that.
There are many books on this list that I havenÂ’t read and, on your recommendation, am now very much looking forward to. Thanks to everyone for sharing your lists!
Absalom, Absalom! — William Faulkner
Accordion Crimes — E. Annie Proulx
Ada — Vladimir Nabokov
Alice in Wonderland — Lewis Carroll
All New People — Anne Lamott
All the King’s Men — Robert Penn Warren
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay — Michael Chabon
The Ambassadors – Henry James
Animal Dreams — Barbara Kingsolver
Anna Karenina — Tolstoy
Bastard Out of Carolina — Dorothy Allison
The Beach – -Alex Garland
Beloved — Toni Morrison
Bleak House—Dickens
The Bluest Eye — Toni Morrison
The Bone People — Keri Hulme
The Book of Ruth — Jane Hamilton
Brave New World — Aldous Huxley
Bread Givers — Anzia Yezierska
The Brothers Karamazov — Fyodor Dostoevsky
Catcher in the Rye — Salinger
Chilly Scenes of Winter — Anne Beattie
The Claudine Novels — Colette
The Collector — John Fowles
The Color Purple — Alice Walker
A Confederacy of Dunces — John Kennedy Toole
Crime and Punishment — Dostoevsky
David Copperfield — Charles Dickens
Death in Venice — Thomas Mann
Dogger
Dreaming in Cuban — Christina Garcia
A Dubious Legacy — Mary Wesley
Earthsea series – Urula K. Le Guin
Eating Chinese Food Naked — Mei Ng
Emily of New Moon – L. M. Montgomery
Emma — Jane Austen
Ender’s Game — Orson Scott Card
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute – Grace Paley
Everything That Rises Must Converge — Flannery O’Connor
Experiments With Life and Deaf — Chuck Rosenthal
Falling Leaves
Far From the Madding Crowd — Thomas Hardy
Fight Club — Chuck Palahniuk
The Flounder — Gunter Grass
The French Lieutenant’s Woman — John Fowles
The Futurological Congress–Stanislaw Lem
The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald
Geek Love — Katherine Dunn
The God of Small Things — Arundhati Roy
Goodnight Mr Tom
Great Expectations — Charles Dickens
Herzog – Saul Bellow
A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham
The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret Atwood
His Dark Materials trilogy – Philip Pullman
Hopscotch — Julio Cortazar
The Hotel New Hampshire — John Irving
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
Howards End — E. M. Forster
The House of Mirth — Edith Wharton
I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream — Harlan Ellison
If I Told You Once — Judy Budnitz
In Search of Lost Time — Marcel Proust
In the Skin of a Lion — Michael Ondaatje
In The Spirit of Crazy Horse–Peter Mattiessen
Jane Eyre — Charlotte Bronte
The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
Kitchen — Banana Yoshimoto
Ladder of Years — Anne Tyler
The Lathe of Heaven — Ursula K. LeGuin
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
Little Miss Strange — Joanna Rose
Loop’s Progess — Chuck Rosenthal
Lolita — Vladimir Nabokov
The Lord of the Rings — Tolkein
Love in the Time of Cholera – Garcia Marquez
El lugar sin limites — Jose Donoso
Madame Bovary — Gustave Flaubert
The Man Without Qualities — Musil
Matlida
Midaq Alley — Naguib Mahfooz
Midnight’s Children — Salman Rushdie
Middlemarch — George Eliot
Middlesex — Jeffrey Eugenides
Mists of Avalon — Marion Zimmer Bradley
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
Motherless Brooklyn — Jonathan Lethem
Mrs Dalloway — Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch–William Burroughs
Niebla — Miguel de Unamuno
Nights at the Circus–Angela Carter
On the Road — Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Garcia Marquez
Orlando — Virginia Woolf
Our Lady of the Flowers — Jean Genet
Pale Fire — Vladimir Nabokov
Palm Latitudes — Kate Braverman
Palm Wine Drinkard — Amos Tutuola.
Persuasion — Jane Austen
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek – Annie Dillard
A Prayer for Owen Meany — John Irving
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Princess — Jean Sasson
Rebecca — Daphne DuMauier
A River Ran Through It — Norman Maclean
The Robber Bride — Margaret Atwood
Rocket to Limbo — Alan Norton
A Room of One’s Own –Virginia Woolf
Salt and Saffron — Kamila Shamsie
A Scanner Darkly — Philip K. Dick
A Severed Wasp — Madeleine L’Engle
She’s Come Undone –Wally Lamb
Slaughterhouse 5 — Vonnegut
The Sleeping Father — Matthew Sharpe
The Small Rain — Madeleine L’Engle
The Solace of Open Spaces — Gretel Ehrlich
Son of a Circus –
– John Irving
Song of Soloman — Toni Morrison
Sons and Lovers – D. H. Lawrence
Sophie’s Choice — William Styron
The Sot Weed Factor — John Barth
Spider — Patrick McGrath
The Spiral Dance — Starhawk
The Stone Diaries — Carol Shields
Stranger in a Strange Land — Robert Heinlein
Surfacing — Margaret Atwood
The Tale of Genji — Murasaki Shikibu
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion — Yukio Mishima
Tess of the d’Urbervilles — Hardy
A Thousand Acres — Jane Smiley
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Trial – Kafka
Tristram Shandy—Laurence Sterne
Tropic of Cancer — Henry Miller
Ulysses—James Joyce
Unless — Carol Shields
Valis — Philip K. Dick
Vernon God Little
Vile Bodies — Evelyn Waugh
Waiting for the Barbarians — J. M. Coetzee
The Waves–Woolf
The Weight of Water — Anita Shreve
Where the Red Fern Grows
White Teeth — Zadie Smith
Wide Sargasso Sea — Jean Rhys
Widow For One Year — John Irving
Wild Swans — Jung Chang
Wine and War — Don & Petie Kladstrop
The Woman Warrior — Maxine Hong Kingston
The Woman Who Walked on Water — Lily Tuck
Wuthering Heights — Emily Bronte
Xenogenesis Trilogy — Octavia Butler
Now, here’s a list I can get with. The other? Mostly books you *had* to read. These are books you *want* to read.
Also- Palm Wine Drinkard is by Amos Tutuola.
BTW, you will touch the Kersti. Oh yes, you will.
Posted by: Iris
Oh drat! I blogged about the book that changed my life yesterday, but forgot to comment here too. The book is War Began Tomorrow… by Boris Vasilyev.
Posted by: Vaire
Fantastic!!! Though a large proportion of them without authors names are mine, I can never remember their name!
I am shamed
Again, Brilliant List!
Jakkyxx
Posted by: Jacqueline
I like this list better! I just finished reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” for the first time and it has made me want to read other classics that I feel like I should have read by now.
Posted by: Kim
I agree with Iris. This list rocks and for sure has more books that I WANT to read. Yay us! And Yay you for putting all our top tens together. You rawk!
Posted by: Em
Awesome.
I’m printing this out.
Posted by: Rachael
Now, here’s a list I can get with. The other? Mostly books you *had* to read. These are books you *want* to read.
Also- Palm Wine Drinkard is by Amos Tutuola.
BTW, you will touch the Kersti. Oh yes, you will.
Posted by: Iris
Oh drat! I blogged about the book that changed my life yesterday, but forgot to comment here too. The book is War Began Tomorrow… by Boris Vasilyev.
Posted by: Vaire
Fantastic!!! Though a large proportion of them without authors names are mine, I can never remember their name!
I am shamed
Again, Brilliant List!
Jakkyxx
Posted by: Jacqueline
I like this list better! I just finished reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” for the first time and it has made me want to read other classics that I feel like I should have read by now.
Posted by: Kim
I agree with Iris. This list rocks and for sure has more books that I WANT to read. Yay us! And Yay you for putting all our top tens together. You rawk!
Posted by: Em
Awesome.
I’m printing this out.
Posted by: Rachael
Very Interesting…I’ve read FAR more of these, and found myself exclaiming at the memory of a few, sighing about others, and of course, jotting down Books To Read.
The Other List just made me feel like I’d overslept and missed a critical assignment and forgotten to brush my teeth.
Thanks, cari, you always get me thinking! (which is good for both my painting and my writing!)
mwah!
Posted by: greta
All day, I’ve been thinking about the titles I coulda/woulda/shoulda had on my list, & it’s so gratifying to see that nearly all of them turned up here anyway. A great, great list; though a must-read still among the missing:
The Great Gatsby–F. Scott Fitzgerald
Posted by: mindy
fo’ real? no one submitted les miserable by leo tolstoy? well, then, allow me. that and the prisoner’s wife by asha bandele, soledad brother: the prison letters of george jackson, and jonathan livingston seagull by richard bach. and i think i’ll stop there before your list doubles.
Posted by: nakachi
Yay! Yay, yay, yay! Thanks, Cari.
Posted by: alison
Now THAT’S a list. I wasn’t too impressed with the first one. Frankly, (and I apologize if I offend anyone, but hey! Gotta speak my mind), it read like a school’s curriculum for literature.
P.S. I’m SO glad I’m not the only one who isn’t a big fan of Hemingway. I fell asleep while reading The Sun Also Rises. Just writing that title made me snore.
Posted by: Becky
Hi,
Thanks so much for the post! “Wide Sargasso Sea” was written by Jean Rhys. She is an absolutely fabulous writer! This whole list making exercise has given me a great list of excuses to hit the library and book shops this summer! My addition would have to be “The Collector” by John Fowles.
kj
Posted by: kj
My addition would have to be The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. She’s an amazing writer. Her China Men is also wonderful.
Thanks for putting this together!
Posted by: sharon
What an excellent list; thanks, Cari. I’m printing it and heading off to the library today!
Posted by: Lisa
Hi there!
Dropping in from Racheal’s site.
What a fantastic list.
Can I make another suggestion? ‘The Master and Margarita’ by Mikhail Buglakov. It’s one of my favorites (along with Howard’s End).
Posted by: Jacqueline M
I have to say, I’m embarassed by how few of the books on this list have actually made it across my bookshelf! I feel inspired on one hand; on the other I am contemplating how much knitting time I’d lose if I picked up, say, “Bleak House.”
Nakachi: “Les Miserables” is by Victor Hugo.
And since we’re on the topic of beloved books, one of my personal faves is “The Prince of Tides” by Pat Conroy.
Posted by: Jon
Very fun list. I, too, felt more of a duty when reading the Canon circulating.
Matilda is by Raold Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Nothing like having a mom who’s a librarian!
Posted by: Collette
Great list! Now *this* list I’ll print out.
Ohhhh – Maxine Hong Kingston, love her! What about The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich and
Watership Down by Richard Adams? Watership down is my very favorite.
Posted by: jessica~
I just stumbled across your blog, but I both knit and have two adopted Italian Greyhounds.
And your book list is excellent.
Have you read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers? If not, I suggest it.
Posted by: Aeron
Very Interesting…I’ve read FAR more of these, and found myself exclaiming at the memory of a few, sighing about others, and of course, jotting down Books To Read.
The Other List just made me feel like I’d overslept and missed a critical assignment and forgotten to brush my teeth.
Thanks, cari, you always get me thinking! (which is good for both my painting and my writing!)
mwah!
Posted by: greta
All day, I’ve been thinking about the titles I coulda/woulda/shoulda had on my list, & it’s so gratifying to see that nearly all of them turned up here anyway. A great, great list; though a must-read still among the missing:
The Great Gatsby–F. Scott Fitzgerald
Posted by: mindy
fo’ real? no one submitted les miserable by leo tolstoy? well, then, allow me. that and the prisoner’s wife by asha bandele, soledad brother: the prison letters of george jackson, and jonathan livingston seagull by richard bach. and i think i’ll stop there before your list doubles.
Posted by: nakachi
Yay! Yay, yay, yay! Thanks, Cari.
Posted by: alison
Now THAT’S a list. I wasn’t too impressed with the first one. Frankly, (and I apologize if I offend anyone, but hey! Gotta speak my mind), it read like a school’s curriculum for literature.
P.S. I’m SO glad I’m not the only one who isn’t a big fan of Hemingway. I fell asleep while reading The Sun Also Rises. Just writing that title made me snore.
Posted by: Becky
Hi,
Thanks so much for the post! “Wide Sargasso Sea” was written by Jean Rhys. She is an absolutely fabulous writer! This whole list making exercise has given me a great list of excuses to hit the library and book shops this summer! My addition would have to be “The Collector” by John Fowles.
kj
Posted by: kj
My addition would have to be The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. She’s an amazing writer. Her China Men is also wonderful.
Thanks for putting this together!
Posted by: sharon
What an excellent list; thanks, Cari. I’m printing it and heading off to the library today!
Posted by: Lisa
Hi there!
Dropping in from Racheal’s site.
What a fantastic list.
Can I make another suggestion? ‘The Master and Margarita’ by Mikhail Buglakov. It’s one of my favorites (along with Howard’s End).
Posted by: Jacqueline M
I have to say, I’m embarassed by how few of the books on this list have actually made it across my bookshelf! I feel inspired on one hand; on the other I am contemplating how much knitting time I’d lose if I picked up, say, “Bleak House.”
Nakachi: “Les Miserables” is by Victor Hugo.
And since we’re on the topic of beloved books, one of my personal faves is “The Prince of Tides” by Pat Conroy.
Posted by: Jon
Very fun list. I, too, felt more of a duty when reading the Canon circulating.
Matilda is by Raold Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Nothing like having a mom who’s a librarian!
Posted by: Collette
Great list! Now *this* list I’ll print out.
Ohhhh – Maxine Hong Kingston, love her! What about The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich and
Watership Down by Richard Adams? Watership down is my very favorite.
Posted by: jessica~
I just stumbled across your blog, but I both knit and have two adopted Italian Greyhounds.
And your book list is excellent.
Have you read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers? If not, I suggest it.
Posted by: Aeron