Your 50 favourite books

[beelzebubbles]

Hi I thought I would interrupt this internet spat by answering the posted query. I included some trashy novels in the interests of veracity.

1. Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland—Lewis Carroll
2. James and the Giant Peach—Roald Dahl
3. Sabbath’s Theater—Philip Roth
4. Cat’s Eye—Margaret Atwood
5. Letting Go—Philip Roth
6. The Thanatos Syndrome—Walker Percy
7. Giles Goat Boy—John Barth
8. Sexus—Henry Miller
9. Crime and Punishment—Dostoevsky
10. Persuasion—Jane Austen
11. The Golden Notebook—Doris Lessing
12. An Erotic Beyond: Sade—Octavio Paz
13. The Magus—John Fowles
14. The Crying of Lot 49—Thomas Pynchon
15. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting—Milan Kundera
16. Underworld—Don Delillo
17. Humboldt’s Gift—Saul Bellow
18. Love in the Time of Cholera—Gabriel Garcia Marquez
19. Lolita—Vladimir Nabokov
20. The Heart of Darkness—Joseph Conrad
21. Orlando—Virginia Woolf
22. 1984—Gerorge Orwell
23. Song of Solomon—Toni Morrison
24. Brave New World—Aldous Huxley
25. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil—John Berendt
26. Song of Kali—Dan Simmons
27. Madame Bovary—Gustave Flaubert
28. Women in Love—D.H. Lawrence
29. Passage to India—E.M. Forster
30. Lovers and Tyrants—Francine du Plessix Grey
31. Tough Guys Don’t Dance—Norman Mailer
32. The Red and the Black—Stendahl
33. Perfume—Patrick Suskind
34. My Sister, My Love—Joyce Carol Oates
35. Cat’s Cradle—Kurt Vonngut
36. Cheri and The Last of Cheri—Colette
37. Him and Me—Alberto Moravia
38. Absolutely Positively—Jayne Ann Krentz
39. Jude the Obscure—Thomas Hardy
40. Vile Bodies—Evelyn Waugh
41. Good Omens—Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
42. American Gods—Neil Gaiman
43. All Creatures Great and Small—James Herriot
44. Acts of Love—Judith Michaels
45. What’s Bred in the Bone—Robertson Davies
46. Satan: His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kassler, J.S.P.S—Jeremy Leven
47. Possession—A.S. Bayatt
48. The Witches of Eastwick—John Updike
49. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas—Gertrude Stein
50. A Case of Curiousities—Allen Kurzweil

[titania7]

Oh that is a wonderful list, Janet!! Yes, thanks for contributing to the thread. After all, this is supposed to be the place where everyone who wants to do so is able to share their list of 50 favorites books. Speaking of which, my list has changed since I first joined the WLF. I need to make a new list! I should add that to my things-to-do-soon list .

You included several of my personal favorites, including Women in Love (I couldn't live without a copy of that book in my collection) and Jude the Obscure, and even though there were certain aspects of The Red and The Black that I didn't adore, Stendhal remains one of my favorite authors. He offers so much penetrating insight into human nature. Edith Wharton was a big fan, too. I don't whether or not you've read any of Wharton's work yet, but going by some of the other authors you've enjoyed (such as Forster), you might look into Wharton's work. The House of Mirth is my #1 favorite, but both The Age of Innocence and The Custom of the Country (what a minx that Undine Spragg was!) are just so good I cannot speak highly enough about either of them.

I'll probably make more comments on your list when I have a chance.

Wishing you all wonderful things. . .

Titania (Alexis)

PS Orlando was extraordinary, wasn't it?

[beelzebubbles]

Originally Posted by titania7

I don't whether or not you've read any of Wharton's work yet, but going by some of the other authors you've enjoyed (such as Forster), you might look into Wharton's work. The House of Mirth is my #1 favorite, but both The Age of Innocence and The Custom of the Country (what a minx that Undine Spragg was!) are just so good I cannot speak highly enough about either of them.

Orlando was extraordinary, wasn't it?

Thanks for your recommendations, Alexis. I have always meant to read Wharton. I just haven't gotten around to it. I read Ethan Frome for school when I was a teen. I am not sure what kind of introduction that is to her work. It always seemed a strange book to foist on teenagers as was Steinbeck's The Pearl. I guess the powers that be just assumed we would be glad they were short.

Strange book, Orlando. Still it was easily assimilated by the voracious reader of science fiction and horror that I was. The only thing out of the ordinary would be Orlando's fastidious sexuality. The way Orlando morphs gender in order to escape sexual advances is interesting. Most novels whether sexually positive or not are rife with it. Woolf seems to be one of the few who deals directly with a distaste for the act. Odd, that so few do as ambivalence is not as uncommon in the real world as it is in the fictive one.

[duchess.diana]

Originally Posted by beelzebubbles

Hi I thought I would interrupt this internet spat by answering the posted query. I included some trashy novels in the interests of veracity.

(. . .)

9. Crime and Punishment—Dostoevsky

One of my favorites, too.

Originally Posted by beelzebubbles

18. Love in the Time of Cholera—Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Just finished it! Magnificent.

Originally Posted by beelzebubbles

19. Lolita—Vladimir Nabokov

Brilliant.

Originally Posted by beelzebubbles

28. Women in Love—D.H. Lawrence

Read this at Alexis' urging. Loved it.

Originally Posted by beelzebubbles

32. The Red and the Black—Stendahl

One of my favorites. Julian Sorel intrigued me.

Originally Posted by beelzebubbles

36. Cheri and The Last of Cheri—Colette

Yes! I'm a big admirer of Colette's work.

Originally Posted by beelzebubbles

47. Possession—A.S. Bayatt

Splendid and unforgettable. I keep trying to get Alexis
to read it. . .


Thanks for sharing your list, Janet. As I told Liam, who has been attempting to persuade me to post my 50 favorites to this thread, I'll do so I soon as I have a chance. I'm in a show right now. . .and have other complications in my life. So, making lists isn't a priority, I'm afraid.

--Diana

[beelzebubbles]

Thanks for sharing your list, Janet. As I told Liam, who has been attempting to persuade me to post my 50 favorites to this thread, I'll do so I soon as I have a chance. I'm in a show right now. . .and have other complications in my life. So, making lists isn't a priority, I'm afraid.

Fabulous, I love the theater. Break a leg.

[Liam]

Finally, here’s my very own Top 50 Favorite Books list (of course, I cheated!). I expect it will change, and continue to change in the years to come, but the numbers 00, 01, 11, 16, 28, 29, 39, 41, 42 and 50 are probably my lifelong “constants.”

…

Antiquity:

00. [] The Holy Bible (specifically The Book of Job, The Psalms, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, The Book of Isaiah, The Lamentations, The Gospel of John).


01. [] Homer: The Odyssey (Ὀδύσσεια)—I prefer Robert Fitzgerald’s translation from 1961.


02. [] Aeschylus: The Oresteia (Ὀρέστεια)—I prefer Robert Fagles’ translation from 1975.

...

The Middle Ages:

03. [] Beowulf (8th century) and other Old-English Elegies [The Seafarer, The Wanderer, The Wife’s Lament, The Husband’s Message, The Ruin].


04. [] The Saga of Burnt Njal (Brennu-Njáls Saga; 13th century).


05. [] The Táin (Táin Bó Cúailnge; late 11th century) and other medieval Irish poems [All Things to All Men, The Blackbird Calling from the Willow, The Island with a Bridge of Glass, King and Hermit, Líadan Tells of Her Love for Cuirithir, Manannán Describes His Kingdom, The Old Woman of Beare, Summer Has Gone].


06. [] The Mabinogion (ca. 1350) and other medieval Welsh poems [Y Gododdin, The Elegy of the Thousand Sons, O God, God of Formation, The Battle of the Trees, The Song of the Wind, The Song to Mead, Song of the Horses, The Song of the Little World, The Death-Songs of Taliesin, The Calends of Winter].


07. [] Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320-1370): [poetry].


08. [] The Pearl Poet (Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, Cleanness, St. Erkenwald; late 14th century).


09. [] Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400): The Canterbury Tales (+ the Dream Visions).


10. [] Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375): The Decameron (1353).

...

Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment & the 1700s:

11. [] William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Sonnets (1609), Hamlet (1601), King Lear (1606), The Tempest (1611).


12. [] Robert Herrick (1591-1674): Hesperides [The Dream, All Things Decay and Die, Corinna’s Going a-Maying, The Lily in a Crystal, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, The Apparition of His Mistress Calling Him to Elysium; 1648].


13. [] Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill (1743-1800): The Lament for Art O’Leary (Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire; 1773).


14. [] Denis Diderot (1713-1784): Jacques le Fataliste et Son Maître (1796)—I prefer J. Robert Loy’s translation.

...

The 1800s:

15. [] William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): Lyrical Ballads (1798).


16. [] Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875): The Complete Fairy Tales (Eventyr; 1835-73).


17. [] Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884): The Kalevala (1827-42)—I prefer Eino Friberg’s translation.


18. [] John Ceiriog Hughes (1832-1887): Evening Hours (Oriau’r Hwyr; 1860).


19. [] Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam A. H. H. (1849) and Idylls of the King (1874).


20. [] Christina Rossetti (1830-1894): Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862).


21. [] Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849): The Complete Tales of Mystery and Imagination and The Raven (1845).


22. [] Emily Dickinson (1830-1886): The Complete Poems.


23. [] Henry James (1843-1916): The Portrait of a Lady (1881).


24. [] William Sharp (1855-1905): The Sin-Eater (1895), The Washer of the Ford (1896), Where the Forest Murmurs (1906) + poems and dramas [From the Hills of Dream (1901), Closing Doors (1905), Through the Ivory Gate (1900), The Hour of Beauty (1905), The House of Usna (1903), etc].

...

The 20th century (first half):

25. [] Joseph Conrad (1857-1924): Heart of Darkness (1899).


26. [] Arthur Machen (1863-1947): The Hill of Dreams (1907).


27. [] William Butler Yeats (1865-1939): Collected Poems (1889-1933).


28. [] James Joyce (1882-1941): Dubliners (1914) and Ulysses (1922).


29. [] Virginia Woolf (1882-1941): Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927).


30. [] D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930): St. Mawr (1925).


31. [] Laurence Binyon (1869-1943): Lyrical Poems (1887-1928), Narrative Poems (1887-1904), and The Madness of Merlin (1947).


32. [] Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1888-1964): Meek Heritage (Hurskas Kurjuus; 1919) and The Maid Silja (Nuorena Nukkunut; 1931).


33. [] Bolesław Leśmian (1878-1937): Sad Rozstajny (1912), Łąka (1920), Napój Cienisty (1936), and Dziejba Leśna (1938).


34. [] Marina Tsvetaeva (Марина Цветаева; 1892-1941): Collected Poems (1910-41).


35. [] Seán Ó Faoláin (1900-1991): Bird Alone (1936).


36. [] Dino Buzzati (1906-1972): The Tartar Steppe (Il Deserto dei Tartari; 1940).

...

The 20th century (second half):

37. [] Samuel Beckett (1906-1989): Waiting for Godot (1952).


38. [] H. E. Bates (1905-1974): Love for Lydia (1952) + short-stories [A German Idyll, The Cowslip Field, The Watercress Girl, etc].


39. [] J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973): The Lord of the Rings (1955) and The Silmarillion (1977).


40. [] Richard Adams (1920—): Watership Down (1972).


41. [] Ray Bradbury (1920—): Dandelion Wine (1957) + Collected Short Stories (1947-96).


42. [] Ferenc Juhász (1928—): The Boy Changed into a Stag Cries Out at the Gate of Secrets (A Szarvassá Változott Fiú Kiáltozása a Titkok Kapujából; 1955) and other poems [in particular, Four Voices: Non-Maledictory, in Lament and Supplication (Vers Négy Hangra, Jajgatásra és Könyörgésre, Átoktalanúl); 1956].


43. [] Liam O’Flaherty (Liam Ó Flaitheartaigh; 1896-1984): Desire (Dúil; 1953).


44. [] Seamus Heaney (1939—): The Haw Lantern (1987), Sweeney Astray (1983), Seeing Things (1991), The Spirit Level (1996), District and Circle (2006), Laments (1995), and Beowulf (1999).


45. [] Jack Clemo (1916-1994): Selected Poems [A Calvinist in Love, The Flooded Clay-Pit, Christ in the Clay-Pit, Clay Land Moods, Lunar Pentecost; 1988] and The Awakening: Poems Newly Found (2003).


46. [] Patrick White (1912-1990): The Eye of the Storm (1973) and A Fringe of Leaves (1976).


47. [] Gerald Murnane (1939—): Inland (1988) + short-stories [When the Mice Failed to Arrive, Sipping the Essence, Landscape with Artist, Emerald Blue, etc].


48. [] Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990): The Alexandria Quartet (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea; 1957-60).


49. [] John Fowles (1926-2005): The Magus (1965).


50. [] A. S. Byatt (1936—): Possession (1990) and Angels & Insects (1992).

...

Cheers,
L.

[Mirabell]

Wow, very nice list. May have to buy some books off it. YOu are evil.

[Daniel del Real]

Oh Liam you cheater!
Those are not top 50 books, are top 50 authors!
However it was very nice to read it and shows you took some time to do it.
Congrats

[Liam]

Oh Liam you cheater!
Those are not top 50 books, are top 50 authors!

I know, I totally cheated, but I encourage the rest of you to do the same. I tried to boil it down to a mere 50 titles and felt my heart skip a beat (and NOT in a good way, ).

You are evil.

Well...



Laterz,
L.

[Ramblingsid]

Beezlebubbles that is a fine list indeed.

Looking at my list I realise that I am very light on the 19th Century while you have Austen and Hardy and so on. I suppose that is where we differ because while I have read some at least of the nineteenth century classics even some Dostoevsky they were not the books that I remembered setting my hair on end, my pulse racing and having that sense of unputdownability (the literary world's bouncebackability) about them. I often felt uplifted by them but mostly I tend to feel a little alienated by them. I can look at them, admire them, marvel at the technique, the skill, the artistry but sometimes I wonder whether they were written for a different age and different people - I had this feeling most recently after reading Tess of the D'Urbevilles.

But there is so much in your list that I can joyfully endorse. Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl - marvellous!. Aldous Huxley, E M Forster, Robertson Davies, Evelyn Waugh, John Fowles - lovely jubbly!

How A Passage to India didnt get into my list I don't know - must have forgotten it.

And there is so much thats new to me and which I can explore - Margaret Atwood, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, A S Byatt etc etc

A much more well rounded list that mine Beezlebubbles - I am forced to admit

[Ramblingsid]

And, Liam another fine and interesting list.

My reading doesn't go back in time as far as yours - though I would be willing to include the King James Version of the Bible in my list simply for the wonderful english. I am not a very religious person as you may have guessed.

And your list made me think of George Herbert, Andrew Marvell and John Donne - how did I leave those out.

I am interested by your inclusion of Lawrence Binyon who I only really know of from anthologies - "The Burning of the Leaves" - is it?

And Jack Clemo - somewhere I am sure I have a collection of his but it is so long ago....... I shall have to go hunting

There's so much in the 20th century that I agree with Heaney,Yeats, Fowles....

The only trouble is every time I read someone else's list I think of others to add to my own! I must be heading for 60 by now let alone 50. And what about R S Thomas! I left him out as well - Doh!

[john h]

I thought I would add a partial list for the simple reason that it contains some books I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere.

1. Forgetting Elena--Edmund White
2. Mysteries--Knut Hamsun
3. The Transit of Venus--Shirley Hazzard
4. The Fountain Overflows--Rebecca West
5. The Death Of The Heart--Elizabeth Bowen
6. Brown Girl, Brownstones--Paule Marshall
7. The Sheltered Life--Ellen Glasgow
8. Dusty Answer--Rosamond Lehmann
9. The Horned Man--James Lasdun
10. Canone Inverso--Paulo Maurensig
11. The Dream Life of Sukenov--Olga Grushin
12. The Secret History--Donna Tartt
13. Veronica--Mary Gaitskill
14. The Dog Of The South--Charles Portis
15. The Pilgrim Hawk--Glenway Wescott

[Liam]

Originally Posted by Ramblingsid

My reading doesn't go back in time as far as yours - though I would be willing to include the King James Version of the Bible in my list simply for the wonderful english. I am not a very religious person as you may have guessed.

And your list made me think of George Herbert, Andrew Marvell and John Donne - how did I leave those out.

I am interested by your inclusion of Lawrence Binyon who I only really know of from anthologies - "The Burning of the Leaves" - is it?

And Jack Clemo - somewhere I am sure I have a collection of his but it is so long ago....... I shall have to go hunting

There's so much in the 20th century that I agree with Heaney,Yeats, Fowles....

I don't think you absolutely HAVE to be religious to enjoy the Bible. But if you are, that's just one more dimension to it, among many. I can tell, because I get this feeling every time I read Bhagavad-Gita, that I'm reading something vast, and yet it fails to move me spiritually because I'm not a Hindu. I enjoy the colorful language, and the poetry, and the "story," and yet I don't feel cleansed, or hopeful, or at peace.

Not (quite obviously) because Bhagavad-Gita is incapable of producing these states of mind, but because I'm not part of the tradition, so the effect is "lessened" (or, as is the case with the Koran, entirely lost on me [I just don't get that book] ).


Ah, I simply adore the Metaphysical Poets, but I had to stop at SOME point, so I cut them out (as well as the Romantics, I mean, where are Keats and Blake and Shelley?) Besides, as Daniel rightly points out, I was already cheating to begin with! (I actually think I was able to squeeze around 75+ titles in, instead of the original 50).

I'm surprised you're familiar with Binyon, although being British, perhaps that's only natural and proper (he was, after all, quite famous in his day). He is all but unknown in this country. I myself first encountered him through a reference in a book about Tolkien, where it said that Tolkien *may* have borrowed the phrase "Westernesse" from one of Binyon's poems.

And Jack Clemo--YES, indeed!--what a life! I'm tempted to do a thread on him, although being a religious poet, I believe hardly anyone will actually bother to comment, .


Cheers,
L

[beelzebubbles]

Originally Posted by Ramblingsid

Looking at my list I realise that I am very light on the 19th Century while you have Austen and Hardy and so on. I suppose that is where we differ because while I have read some at least of the nineteenth century classics even some Dostoevsky they were not the books that I remembered setting my hair on end, my pulse racing and having that sense of unputdownability (the literary world's bouncebackability) about them. I often felt uplifted by them but mostly I tend to feel a little alienated by them. I can look at them, admire them, marvel at the technique, the skill, the artistry but sometimes I wonder whether they were written for a different age and different people - I had this feeling most recently after reading Tess of the D'Urbevilles.

Well, it all depends where my head is at, whether I can climb into a 19th century novel or not. Sometimes I am eager to read a more dense work of fiction than at other times.

I remember The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Idiot and Mansfield Park were slow going for me. Who knows why? Other times, I relish fairly trashy novels. it oftentimes feels as if your eye need barely register the words to understand the jist of the story and be sated for the moment when reading genre books. And then there are the times when you pick up something by Michael Crichton and you think, "Yuck, why did I bother with this tripe."

I find it less a matter of taste, though that certainly plays a part, than attention span.

I hope I am ready for something challenging because Midnight's Children is what i have on my plate now.

[beelzebubbles]

Originally Posted by john h

13. Veronica--Mary Gaitskill

Oh I didn't know she had written another novel. That is going to be what I buy with my Border's gift card. Thanks John

[titania7]

Liam,
Your list overwhelmed me, dear. You are so thorough. One of these days your fastidiousness is going to rub off on me . I am currently looking for classes in Fastidiouness. . .or, alternatively, a 12 Step Program about how to overcome an addiction to sloppiness. No matter how well I think I edit something I've written, my live-in professional editor comes along and finds at least five or six mistakes. It can be. . .well, frustrating! And, at times, I feel like one frustrated diva indeed *pout*.

Anyway, congrats on that list! You should be proud. I'm glad you like Virginia Woolf so much, incidentally. To The Lighthouse was a revelation for me. In fact, I must re-read it sometime soon.

~Alexis (Titania)

"First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak."
~Epictetus

[Ramblingsid]

You are right John H its an interesting 15. There are certainly some names there that I am not familiar with and some I know that I should know better. Elizabeth Bowen, James Lasdun and Edmund White fit into the latter category without a doubt. And I should overcome my resistance to Rebecca West I feel - I tend to associate her with black and white films with very english "gels" in them.

Thanks for that John H - thought provoking choices

[titania7]

Originally Posted by Ramblingsid

You are right John H its an interesting 15. There are certainly some names there that I am not familiar with and some I know that I should know better. Elizabeth Bowen, James Lasdun and Edmund White fit into the latter category without a doubt. And I should overcome my resistance to Rebecca West I feel - I tend to associate her with black and white films with very english "gels" in them.

Thanks for that John H - thought provoking choices

Ramblingsid,
First of all, I want to apologize for the fact that I haven't yet commented on your list of 50 favorite books. Yes, I was not on-line when you posted it as it was during the time that I did not have a computer that could be used.

You mention Elizabeth Bowen in this post, and I cannot help but comment as I have just read her wonderful novel, To the North. Some ten years ago I read The Death of the Heart, which affected me deeply at the time. Although I haven't re-read The Death of the Heart in recent times, I think To the North is a more finely wrought and more mature work. Bowen's short fiction has been something I've enjoyed through the years. Her supernatural stories are wonderful. . .and, overall, she is the sort of writer whom you can depend on, which says something about the overall quality of her work.

As for Rebecca West, she is one of the few women authors whom I relate to. Knowing something about her life and the sort of woman she was, I feel a kinship with her. However, the only book of hers I have read thus far from start to finish is The Thinking Reed. I would recommend starting with that, should you be interested in reading her. None of her other novels really drew me in, although Sunflower has definite possibilities. Her brilliance is undeniable. It is the way she oft-times expresses herself that I have difficulty with. Her thinking patterns are intricate, and this is a good thing. . .but she often, I think, gets carried away sharing details that are in some ways not essential to the plot of her novels. As I read more, I will have more thoughts on Dame Rebecca. I would almost prefer reading her non-fiction as my fascination with her has more to do with who she was than in what she wrote. I would love, for example, to read some of her personal correspondence. I suspect it would be very revealing.

~Alexis (Titania)

"A man must make his opportunity as oft as find it."
~Francis Bacon

[Ramblingsid]

Now that is a coincidence Titania as the one Rebecca West title in my parent's house as I grew up was "The Thinking Reed". Not that it was likely to attract the interest of a teenage lad at the time. Still, that and your recommendation surely means that I just have to get my hands on a copy

[john h]

I knew that as soon as I hit the submit button I would think of some other books that deserved to be on my list. Sure enough, here are five more, the last, I promise.

16. The Village In The Jungle--Leonard Woolf
17. The Silent Cry--Kenzaburo Oe
18. The Widow's Children--Paula Fox
19. The Romance Of Eleanor Gray--Raymond Kennedy
20. Nocturnes For The King Of Naples--Edmund White