Laura and I were chatting about books the other day. She mentioned one that I should read, and as I’ve recently finished a series of novels that I’ve been at for nearly ten years, I asked her for more suggestions; I need to tackle something different, you see. Something I’ve not really thought about reading. So we agreed we’d compile a Top 20. So here’s mine, in no particulary order. With reckless abandon, I’ve included such literary “no-no’s” as “graphic novels” (read as: comic books) and young children’s stories.
- Taran Wanderer, by Lloyd Alexander. The first YA book that I came across that did more than just entertain–it made me think. And, consequently, depressed the hell out of me. I think the loneliness of the titular character really affected me. Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles remain, to this day, one of the most magical series of books that I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. I wish I could go back and read them again with eight year-old eyes…
- Sandman: Dream Country, by Neil Gaiman (esp. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which was the first–and only–comic book that ever won a World Fantasy Award for best short story… they changed the rules afterward to prevent it from ever happening again). Gaiman’s Shakespeare is a very tragic figure, caught up between worlds about which he only has the vaguest idea. This particular story, paired with the last story in the Sandman run, The Wake’s “The Tempest,” I think, serve as great book-ends for a really spectacular move for the realm of comic books. Literary, mythological, and intelligent… and though I never bought the entire ten book run, these stories brought me back to Barnes and Noble day in and out to finish them up.
- The Magician’s Nephew, by C.S. Lewis. Best one in the series, in my opinion. Trippy and fun and my first experience with the ill-fated “prequel” concept.
- The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens. I think Dickens is at his best when he’s got a sqajillion characters, and the narrative jumps back and forth between them all. This novel, in my opinion, defines “Dickensian.” Swiveller is my favorite Dickens character, and Quilp is the author’s best villain, hands down. Second only to A Christmas Carol, in my opinion, which explores Dickens’ rarely-used abilities to focus his narrative… I think Chs. Dickens is proof that maybe in a hundred years, literary snobs may not be so unkind to modern-day quote-unquote hacks.
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling. Purely for the entertainment value provided. There’s very little in the way of deep theme here, but it’s my favorite of the Potter books because it deals with some heavier concepts–death and jealousy and hatred. It’s the series’ Empire Strikes Back. I like how angry Harry is in the beginning, mainly because he reminds me a lot of what it was like to be fifteen, and out of the proverbial loop.
- Look Homeward, Angel, by Thomas Wolfe. I wish I had written this. The best coming-of-age story, I think, of the past century, which may make it the best of all time. Not as difficult and ornate as You Can’t Go Home Again, but still full of Wolfe’s clever attention to detail.
- Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer. Chris McCandless was a young man who graduated from college, then sold his belongings, gave his entire savings account to charity, and took to the road. Four months afterward, he died, alone, in a rotted-out bus in the Alaskan wilderness. His story is unique, and Krakauer does a good job, I think, of weaving in and out of McCandless’ narrative with his own unique voice. Disturbing…
- Look Back All the Green Valley, by Fred Chappell. The final book in Fred’s Kirkman saga, about a writer from western North Carolina who heads home to help his ailing mother find an eternal resting place… preferably along with his father, her husband, who has been deceased ten years, but whose cemetary plot won’t hold two people. Very charming, very funny, and the author’s voice is so charismatic and down-to-earth, yet also poetic and beautiful, that you feel like you’re being read to.
- The Drawing of the Three, by Stephen King. The best out of the Dark Tower books, with the introduction of some of Stephen King’s best characters. As characterization is King’s strong point, it’s always good when he’s on his game with the folken in his stories. The later parts of this series gets a bit bogged down by theme, one the weaker tools in his craft, but the second book is exceptionally well done and entertaining.
- Hearts in Atlantis, by Stephen King. This is a collection of five stories, all linked together through their characters. The title story is about college students at the University of Maine, during 1966 and at the height of Vietnam craziness. It’s about a boy’s dormitory floor that gets so addicted to a card game that they begin to flunk out, and are subsequently sent off to war. A very amazing story, one of King’s true gems that has very little to do with the supernatural, and everything to do with people and the way they act under certain situations.
- Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier. I read this in 1999, my senior year of high school, about four years before the movie came out. The movie was atrocious, overly romantic, and inaccurate. The book was none of these things; it was a beautiful tale of chaos and the way that human beings try to make order out of that chaos. This book taught me that modern literature didn’t necessarily have to be strange and clipped and in the present tense.
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare. “If we shadows have offended, / Think but this, and all is mended, / That you have but slumber’d here / While these visions did appear.” So many people disagree, and they can keep on–this is Shakespeare’s best play, because it’s not only funny–it is bloody brilliantly amazingly hilarious. And it’s deeper than it appears, which is always fun.
- D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, by Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire. Ms. Patterson, my gifted teacher in elementary school, had a battered old copy of this, and from it I gleaned a lifelong fascination with myth and folklore, which eventually led me to…
- The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell. Both books are worth reading. Joseph Campbell does a great job of showing us what humans will do to create order from the random. Not as opulent in its style or weight (physical weight, that is) as Frazier’s Golden Bough, but that can be a good thing. It’s also not mired down by social Darwinism or sweeping judgment, either, which is definitely a good thing. Mainly the only reason why I don’t include Golden Bough on my list…
- High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby. He’s got it right, really. Relationships aren’t easy; in fact, they are a whole shit-ton of work. But so is the “whole sad, single person culture.” For awhile after reading this book, I made lots of top twenty lists. Like this one.
- The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, by Neal Stephenson. Brilliant sf, a bizarre, interweaving story, and beautiful characters. This is the only book on my list that, shamefully, I haven’t actually finished. Does that make me a bad person?
- Works of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe. Because he didn’t truck so much with longer fiction, I’ll go on a limb and say that most of Poe’s short stories are fine by me. I haven’t met one that I didn’t like. “The Masque of the Red Death” has and always will haunt my dreams every few months, and I’ve got a fondness for “The Black Cat” that I’ve never really been able to verbalize. Poe is, simply put, one of the best storytellers of the macabre, and his unreliable narrators tell betters stories than 95% of authors in that genre.
- The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I like Hemingway, but I like Fitzgerald better. The last lines of this book still make me weep, and also make me wonder if alcohol could jump-start my own writing. It then makes me wonder… what would Mr. Fitzgerald have achieved if he hadn’t, more or less, drunk himself to death at 45?
- Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk. One of the only post-modern books I can stand. It’s refreshing to read something that talk
s about the changing role of the male in modern society. A bit melodramatic at times, but the pay-off at the end isn’t Shyamalanian enough to be annoying. It’s just really neat. Although, if I hear what the second goddamn rule of Fight Club is one more time, I’ll probably go postal. I think Palahniuk said the same thing in his tenth anniversary foreward. - The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Because it taught me that letting characters go away and rest in the Grey Havens was never going to be easy…
- Shit. I’m past twenty already! Umm… let’s see. I really like Hawthorne, and Elie Wiesel, and Simon Schama’s A History of Britain. Catch-22 was fun, and John Irving’s A Prayer For Owen Meany was weepy and heartfelt and not quite as over-sentimental as the movie version. Microserfs was a neat zeitgeist sort of thing, and 1984 was a few years off the mark… maybe. But I guess I can’t list everything. Stupid lists. I have a million more books… but I’ll settle for Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy, by Jostein Gaarder. This I could not recommend to anyone past an introductory philosophy course in college, but as a high school sophomore, it proved to be the best primer for philosophy that my 15 year-old hands could get ahold of. It’s definitely a simplified history, and the skeleton plot that surrounds the lesson is childish at times, but that’s the point. It’s an introduction to thought and wonder, and making sure that you don’t ever stop asking questions.
So… that’s it. I’ve got a bunch more, and maybe I’ll post them later. I’m sure I’ve even forgotten some. I hope this satisifies everyone.
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