So, I will add my 48 books – if I counted correctly (for I am sure that I’ve forgot something important). Weird list, I suppose, but what has love to do with the rationality.
Classics
Ecclesiastes
William Shakespeare
Hamlet
Lawrence Sterne
Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
Henry Fielding
Tom Jones
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
Alexandre Dumas, père
The Three Musketeers
Alexandre Dumas, père
Twenty Years After
Howard Pyle
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
Hermann Melville
Moby Dick
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Idiot
Still Classics, 20th century
Johannes Anker Larsen
The Philosopher’s Stone
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Father Brown stories
Aldous Huxley
The Genius and the Goddess
Mika Waltari
Incredible Joosef (
Ihmeellinen Joosef eli elämä on seikkailu)
Graham Greene
The Quiet American
Karel Čapek
The Gardener’s Year
Zdeněk Jirotka
Saturnin
J. D. Salinger
Franny and Zooey; Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
Mikhail Bulgakov
The Master and Margarita
Albert Camus
The Fall
Italo Calvino
The Nonexistent Knight
Jorge Luis Borges
Ficciones
Astrid Lindgren — almost everything and especially
Pippi Longstocking
Heinrich Böll
Irish Diary
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Muriel Spark
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Kingsley Amis
The Green Man
Robertson Davies
The Fifth Business
Robertson Davies
What’s Bred in Bone
Torgny Lindgren
The way of a serpent
Joseph Brodsky
Less Than One: Selected Essays
Vikram Seth
Equal Music
Roberto Calasso
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
Peter Hoeg
Miss Smilla’s Sense of Snow
Terry Pratchett
Wyrd Sisters (representing the Disc World series and so wittily intertextual)
Estonian writers — someone has to read and love Estonian literature :-)
Oskar Luts (1887–1953)
Suvi (1918–1919) — Summer, the sequel of the
Spring which describes a year in an Estonian village school in the beginning of the 20th century (alongside with Tammsaare’s
Truth and Justice). Archetypal characters and mild humor have made
Spring the very essence of Estonian literature. „Summer” continues with the same characters and describes their reaching adulthood. Poetic, romantic, funny and nostalgic book.
A. H. Tammsaare(1878–1940)
Põrgupõhja uus vanapagan (1939) — The Misadventures of The New Satan (or: Devil with a False Passport or: The New Devil of Hellsbottom (the latter being literal translation from Estonian)). Devil and Satan are not very good translations of the ‘vanapagan’. Vanapagan is a chtonic creature and comes from the hell, but this hell has nothing to do with burning sulphur lakes, it is more like belowground village. So this naive rural devil comes to Earth and has to prove that man can obtain redemption. An ironic and philosophical novel, it is the last masterpiece written by Tammsaare.
August Gailit (1891–1960)
Ekke Moor (1941) – Ekke Moor is a young vagabond, Estonian Peer Gynt.
Karl Ristikivi (1912–1977)
Põlev lipp (1961) — The Burning Banner (see the Ristikivi-thread)
Karl Ristikivi
Rõõmulaul (1966) — The Song of Joy
Karl Ristikivi
Rooma päevik (1976) —
The Roman Diary
Jaan Kross (1920–2007)
Taevakivi (1975) — The Rock from the Sky. Themain character is the first Estonian poet Kristjan Jaak Peterson (1801–1822).
Nikolai Baturin (1936– )
Karu süda (1989) — The Heart of the Bear. A powerful and fascinating novel about a hunter in Siberian taiga, his relationship with the wildlife and Nganasan people.Based largely on the author’s personal experiences.
Estonian Literature Information Centre
Nikolai Baturin
Kartlik Nikas, lõvilakkade kammija: lapsepõlvemartüürium (1993) —
Timid Nikas, the Comber of Lions' Manes :A Childhood Martyrdom. Indescribable but hopefully not untranslatable allegory.
Nikolai Baturin
Emil Tode/Tõnu Õnnepalu
Piiririik (1993) — Border State, available in English.
Jaan Undusk (1958– )
Kuum. Lugu noorest armastusest (1990) — Hot :A Story of Young Love. Estonian Literature Information Centre
Jaan Undusk
Maagiline müstiline keel (1998) — Essays on the magical and mythical potentials of the language in the literature, written in brilliant style.
Andrus Kivirähk (1970– )
Ivan Orava mälestused ehk Minevik kui helesinised mäed (1995) — The Memoirs of Ivan Orav, or The History as the Blue Mountains. Estonian Literature Information Centre