Your 50 favourite books

[e joseph]

Originally Posted by hdw

I don't have 50 favourite books. There's an element of pretentiousness and one-upmanship in all these lists. It's like putting your 1,000 favourite tunes on your iPod. How the hell can anyone have 1,000 favourite tunes?

Harry

I find the lists interesting to peruse. It's certainly helped me add a few more books to the ever expanding "to be read eventually" list.

And don't encourage me to list my 1000 favorite songs.

[Daniel del Real]

I know it can be pretentious to pick 50 books and set them as your favorites but I like those lists because I have the opportunity to check other people's masterpieces and this way find new gems in my literary finding. So, I don't see nothing wrong with some literary pretentiousness

[promtbr]

Originally Posted by Daniel del Real

I know it can be pretentious to pick 50 books and set them as your favorites but I like those lists because I have the opportunity to check other people's masterpieces and this way find new gems in my literary finding. So, I don't see nothing wrong with some literary pretentiousness

Couldn't agree more! I have never understood the lists posted as anything pretending to any form of academic or critical judgement of literary merit, merely our 50 (or so) books at the time of the postings, that spoke to our inner Bloom, that we connected with in some lasting meaningful way, so I respect them greatly as being opinions of avid, passionate lovers of world literature. (the true readers that we are! hooo rah etc...)

And I like e-joseph's idea, if editing is not an option, how about a new thread, Our 51 favorite books?

Cheers

[nnyhav]

Originally Posted by promtbr

Couldn't agree more! I have never understood the lists posted as anything pretending to any form of academic or critical judgement of literary merit, merely our 50 (or so) books at the time of the postings, that spoke to our inner Bloom, that we connected with in some lasting meaningful way, so I respect them greatly as being opinions of avid, passionate lovers of world literature. (the true readers that we are! hooo rah etc...)

"our inner Bloom" is a rather frightening concept, since it suggests we're performing kenoses here.

you never did the kenosis kid

(what is it with translators? this thread got started after another started dissing lists as such.)

[Sevigne]

I am an insomniac who last slept through the night in 1965. I find that making favorite book lists helps me to fall asleep.

I don't think that list making is pretentious. All the lists here are a mixture of the eclectic and the "usual suspects" of world literature.

As noted by others these lists can be culled for additions to one's own TBR pile. Thus they are functional as well as decorative.

[saliotthomas]

Plus it is our favorite list of at certain time,highly subjective and ephemeral.No one said it was good choices.

[Colette Jones]

Originally Posted by titania7

Harry,
I think you have a marvelous point! Making a list of one's 50 favorite books is somewhat pretentious, isn't it? But that's rather the point, I think. I suppose what I'm saying is, I was certainly trying to impress as many people as I could with my list. . .and I daresay I wasn't the only one with such mischievous intentions! Oh, dear, does this mean I'm just a shameless little imp?

~Titania

Harry and Titania7,

I can't see how making a list of your favourites can be pretentious unless they aren't really your favourites, and you're "pretending" they are.

Am I taking things too literally again?

[e joseph]

I may make an even more pretentious list of my favorite books that I haven't read.

And more importantly, someone mentioned earlier that D.G. Myers' list was short on books past 1965. This gives me just enough room to sneak in another question: anyone have any favorite books in the last decade? Say 2000 through the present? Or, any books in the last decade that we'll all still be reading 50 years from now?

Right now, I'm only going to offer two, as it's before coffee and the ol' memory is a little suspect. Roberto Bolano's 2666 and Aleksandar Hemon's The Lazarus Project.

[Colette Jones]

Originally Posted by e joseph

I may make an even more pretentious list of my favorite books that I haven't read.

That made me smile. My list would be pretty damn good.

Originally Posted by e joseph

anyone have any favorite books in the last decade? Say 2000 through the present?

Absolutely -
I'll Go to Bed at Noon - Gerard Woodward
The Gathering - Anne Enright
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
Mailman - J Robert Lennon
Mother's Milk - Edward St Aubyn

My current read, Home by Marilynne Robinson, might just be up there... surprisingly, as I didn't like its doppleganger Gilead.

Edit: Thought of more since posting:

Kieron Smith, boy - James Kelman
Sputnik Caledonia - Andrew Crumey
His Illegal Self - Peter Carey
The Way the Crow Flies - Anne-Marie MacDonald
The Other Side of the Bridge - Mary Lawson
The Holy City - Patrick McCabe

[e joseph]

Thanks for the increasingly expanding list Colette. I have to admit you're sending me into research mode on most of those titles (very very unsurprising actually). You fared better than me on this topic as I'm still holding to 2 books; a few good ones, but a lack of great. Let's see if my standards drop a bit...

[SilverSeason]

I've never tried to make a 50 favorites list. For one thing, I'm stuck in the 19th century and these books are mostly more recent. Also, the limitation to one book per author grates on me. Suppose I prefer some other book by that author?

I did take the 50 books list and sort them into categories:

Books that belong on my 50 Favorite Books List
( 2) Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (1881)
( 3) Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
(10) George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
(14) Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust (1934)
(20) Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
(26) Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart (1939)
(44) Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896)


Books that I have read but would not put in my 50 Favorites
( 5) F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)
( 6) Willa Cather, My Ántonia (1918)
( 8) Saul Bellow, Mr Sammler’s Planet (1970)
( 9) E. M. Forster, Howards End (1910)
(12) Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent (1907)
(15) Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure (1895)
(17) Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence (1920)
(18) Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim (1954)
(21) C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–56)
(23) Henry Roth, Call It Sleep (1934)
(27) Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)
(29) Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter (1948)
(32) Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1895)
(38) J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
(39) Iris Murdoch, The Flight from the Enchanter (1956)
(43) Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prarie (1935)
(46) Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
(47) Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men (1946)
(48) J. F. Powers, Morte D’Urban (1962)


Authors I have read, but not this book
( 1) Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)
( 4) James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
( 7) Philip Roth, American Pastoral (1997)
(16) William Faulkner, Light in August (1932)
(25) Barbara Pym, Less Than Angels (1957)
(28) Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926)
(30) Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2004)
(34) D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love (1920)
(37) Robert Graves, I, Claudius (1934)


Authors not read at all
(11) Janet Lewis, The Wife of Martin Guerre (1941)
(13) Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier (1915)
(19) J. G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur (1973)
(22) Esther Forbes, A Mirror for Witches (1928)
(31) Randall Jarrell, Pictures from an Institution (1954)
(24) Elizabeth Taylor, The Soul of Kindness (1964)
(33) Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano (1947)
(35) David Garnett, Lady into Fox (1922)
(36) Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin (1939)
(40) L. P. Hartley, Eustace and Hilda (1944–47)
(41) Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood (1952)
(42) Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900)
(45) Richard Wright, Native Son (1940)
(49) Christina Stead, The Man Who Loved Children (1940)
(50) Flann O’Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)

[DreamQueen]

Here goes (in no particular order):

1. A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens
2. Cloud Atlas, Mitchell
3. The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky
4. Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
5. The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov
6. I Am a Cat, Soseki
7. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Murakami
8. The Woman in White, Collins
9. The Gourmet Club, Tanizaki
10. Bambi, Sultan
11. The Pillow Boy of the Lady Onogoro, Fell
12. Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, Erdrich
13. Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, Ling
14. Oscar and Lucinda, Carey
15. True History of the Kelly Gang, Carey
16. Love in the Time of Cholera, Marquez
17. Confessions of a Mask, Mishima
18. Pride and Prejudice, Austen
19. Watership Down, Adams
20. A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, De Mille
21. Mad Shadows, Blais
22. Pamela, Samuel Richardson
23. Charlotte's Web, White
24. A Swiftly Tilting Planet, L'Engle
25. The Ancient Child, Momaday
26. The Crow Road, Banks
27. Snow Crash, Stephenson
28. The Mill on the Floss, Eliot
29. Snow, Orhan Pamuk
30. Translations, Friel
31. We, Zamyatin
32. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, A. Bronte
33. Jane Eyre, C. Bronte
34. The Golden Compass, Pullman
35. At Swim-Two-Birds, O'Brien
36. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
37. Leave it to Psmith, Wodehouse
38. Such a Long Journey, Mistry
39. The White Bone, Gowdy
40. number9dream, Mitchell
41. The Complete English Poems, G. Herbert
42. The Complete Poems, B. Jonson
43. Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke
44. Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, Kushner
45. My Name is Red, Pamuk
46. Green Grass, Running Water, King
47. One Good Story, That One, King
48. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Foer
49. Execution Poems, Clarke
50. Go Tell it on the Mountain, Baldwin

[Bookmaniac]

my 30 favourite books, I'll complete later.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
1984 by George Orwell
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
ULYSSES by James Joyce
WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard
ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
DUNE by Frank Herbert
THE STAND by Stephen King
THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert Heinlein
NARCISSUS AND GOLDMUND by Hermann Hesse
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert Heinlein
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute
BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon

[Sevigne]

My bosses study "tech" at the "church" of scientology so I've seen some of the texts. Does anyone know what language they are written in? I can't make any sense of the garbled syntax and fragments of sentences.

[Daniel del Real]

Originally Posted by Bookmaniac

my 30 favourite books, I'll complete later.

BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard

MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard? Really?

[titania7]

DreamQueen,
What a marvelous list of favorites! I must say, I am delighted to see you included so many books that are close to me own little heart, including two by my beloved Dostoevsky . And it it indeed fortunate you didn't forget Jane Austen as I'd have had to send you a pm about that! Ms. Austen is without peer. In fact, while on the subject, I must confess, I was a wee bit disappointed not to find Persuasion on your list. But, nevertheless, I'm quite impressed by your choices. Indeed, methinks you have superb taste in books.

~Titania


"There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in others can equal. . ."
~Jane Austen, Persuasion

[titania7]

Originally Posted by Colette Jones

Harry and Titania7,

I can't see how making a list of your favourites can be pretentious unless they aren't really your favourites, and you're "pretending" they are.

Am I taking things too literally again?

Yes, Colette, I'm afraid you were taking things a bit too literally. In case it wasn't obvious, my remarks were purely tongue-in-cheek . Indeed, the only way I think that making a list of 50 favorite books could be inordinately pretentious is if a) a person compiled the list purely with the intention of impressing other people and/or b) a person tried to insinuate or imply that their list of 50 favorites was in some way "definitive." Thankfully, I don't think any of us at this forum have either of these nefarious motives.


~Titania

[miercuri]

I have refrained from posting anything here because I simply can never make up my mind. I know there are many books I have not yet read and which I might end up loving, also other "book loves" of mine prove, in time, to be only flings.
There are a few books which have in many ways defined me as a reader, which I have read at the right time and perceived with great intensity. I them keep very close to my heart and their presence on this so called list is permanent.

The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
Nostalgia - Mircea Cartarescu
The Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
The Last Temptation of the Christ - Nikos Kazantzakis
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
Romanul adolescentului miop - Mircea Eliade
Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

edit: I see I listed 10 so I'll add another one just because I like odd numbers
L'ecume des jours - Boris Vian
edit2: and there are two more which definitely need mentioning
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
edit3: and now I realize I have forgotten about these two
Blindness - Jose Saramago
Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
It seems that I was intially right, about refraining from posting anything here.

[Colette Jones]

Originally Posted by titania7

In case it wasn't obvious, my remarks were purely tongue-in-cheek ...


~Titania

Titania7, it wasn't obvious.

You're not the only one to do it, but the excessive use of in posts here at WLF has rendered the little creature meaningless to me.

Just my observation, and solely my problem, I'm sure.

[Eva]

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