In the absence of anything really important to talk about, I have decide to present a list: my top ten favorite books of all time. The compilation has resulted in some problems (as anyone who knows me can imagine). I have tortured myself much longer than was necessary in order to parse the pantheon of good reads down to the essential 10. Not my 10 recommendations. Not my 10 fiction or nonfiction. Not my 10 most inspiring or most enlightening or whatever. These are the basic ten books that I have enjoyed over my thirty-two years in existence on this earth. Nothing more or less. If I was to present a summer reading list to potential Rhodes scholars, I would probably delve deeper into my repertoire in order to come up with the most satisfying, well-rounded list of literary influences that a young mind should feed upon. This is not that list. This list is just a top ten favorites list. It represents the upper realm of the grammaticannon. Do with it what you will. (i.e., suggest your own lists in the “slap me” section)
Here ’tis:
10. Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying by Wolfgang Langewiesche
9. Richard III by William Shakespeare
8. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
7. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
6. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
5. London Fields by Martin Amis
4. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
3. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
2. The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
1. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Good lord, mine is so pedestrian in comparison.
My top ten favorite reads as I can recall today (in no particular order):
1) All Over But the Shoutin’ – Rick Bragg
2) Morgan’s Run – Colleen McCullough
3) The Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling
4) The Outlander series– Diana Gabaldon
5) The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman (anything by Gaiman, but TGB is my current favorite)
6) The Wheel in Time series – Robert Jordon (this series will finish with 15 books, talk about dedication on my part since I’ve been reading this series for 16 years already and book 13 will release in Nov)
7) The Ship Who Searched – Anne McCaffery/Mercedes Lackey
8) Twilight series – Stephanie Mayer (I know, I know…*hangs head in shame* they’re like crack though, once you start reading you can’t help yourself)
9) The Smoke Jumper – Nicholas Evans
10) A Walk to Remember – Nicholas Sparks
Nice list! I’m going to have to check some of those out (but not Twilight… tsk tsk). How fantastic is it that the #8 plus ‘)’ equals a smiley with shades? 8 is the coolest number. I always had a suspicion. That guy’s a badass.
Oh, this has been driving me nuts since I read it yesterday. I think I’m putting too much emphasis on “Top Ten” – like I’ll be defined by this list somehow. Anyway, I’m going to give you a partial list right now while I think about it some more. These four are on the locked in – it’s the rest I’m having trouble with.
BAG OF BONES by Stephen King: This has one of the scariest passages in any King book, ever. It also has some of my favorite King characters. I could probably fill the Top Ten with his books alone, but I’m trying to represent a wide range here. But maybe I’ll come back with that King Top Ten later…
WONDER BOYS by Michael Chabon: Chabon seems more interested nowadays in showing off what a deep vocabulary he has, rather than just writing a good story. But this is a good story. Like BAG OF BONES, it’s about a writer, so maybe that has something to do with why I like them so much. And I love the movie, too.
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA by Ernest Hemingway: Greatest “one that got away” fishing story ever.
THE HELLBOUND HEART by Clive Barker: Absolutely surreal and terrifying. I like the HELLRAISER movie, but this, the original source material, beats it by a country mile.
I’ve got too much work today to keep thinking about this. But I know I will anyway.
Oh, and kudos to Katy for the Rick Bragg and Neil Gaiman selections.
I’ve never read any Chabon, which is sad because Wonder Boys the movie is one of my all time faves. And I’m all for compiling more narrowly focused lists (best poetry, best Shakespeare plays, etc.). For Stephen King, for example, I could do a “top 10 reasons why SK should have finished his Dark Tower series before being struck by that van that might as well have killed him”. *grin*
Okay (Blu, Katy, anyone): Here’s something that has been on my mind for weeks. I hear Neil Gaiman’s name all over the place nowadays. I know he writes fantasy stuff and that the Coraline movie was based on something of his. But why the phenomenon? Why should I read him? Why is everybody talking about him and why am I the last to know?
You really should read WONDER BOYS. It’s, err, WONDERful. :)
I’m going to ignore the obvious attempt to bait me with that comment about the Dark Tower series, and instead present my Top Ten King.
1. BAG OF BONES – scary, heartwrenching, beautifully written. Probably the one I’ve read the most.
2. The DARK TOWER series – say what you will about the last three books, but taken as a whole it’s an amazing achievement. If I had to pick one favorite, it would be WIZARD AND GLASS.
3. SALEM’S LOT – vampires take over an entire small town. Terrifying vampires.
4. PET SEMATERY – maybe his scariest book, and one that I may never be able to read again. A chunk of it has to deal with the death of children, and now that I’m a dad I can’t dismiss that stuff like I used to. Tragic and downright scary.
5. THE SHINING – maybe the best writing King ever did. Multi-layered – everytime I read it, I find something new.
6. DIFFERENT SEASONS – four novellas that showed he could do more than horror. “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” = the movie SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, and “The Body” = the movie STAND BY ME. Those are two great movies. The stories are better.
7. NIGHT SHIFT – all his early short stories. Short and to the point. Some ridiculous premises (a grass-eating man, a possessed laundry presser), but nothing but fun.
8. THE GREEN MILE – a poignant meditation on growing old and dying. A stunning Jesus parable. And a cautionary tale of how sin, no matter how good the intention, may follow us wherever we go.
9. THE STAND – end-of-the-world type stuff, even scarier with stuff like the pig flu running wild.
10. DUMA KEY – after one reading, I’d call this his love letter to art in all its forms, and how sometimes it can save your life.
And now, to be fair, my picks for his five worst:
THE TOMMYKNOCKERS – in his book ON WRITING, he says he wrote most of this one coked to the gills, with cotton swabs up his nose because the coke made his nose bleed. Definitely reads like something written by someone whacked out of his mind.
ROSE MADDER – dull, dull, dull. And incomprehensible. I think he was probably high when he wrote this one, too.
CARRIE – hey, it’s his first novel, and it just didn’t age very well.
THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDAN – snoozefest about a girl stumbling around the woods, listening to a Red Sox game and being stalked by a bear.
IT – about half of this book is great – the stuff about the kids growing up in a small town. He captures a 12-year-old’s summer perfectly. But it’s got the worst ending in the history of endings – and ending that would probably get him stoned to death in some third-world countries. Just awful, and it ruins about 500 pages of good.
We’ll get into Neil Gaiman later.