And now for the Fiction recommendations. (See the Non-Fiction ones below)
Choosing books out of all the books I love is rather torturous for me. So this is an impulsive, scanning-the-bookshelves-with-mine-eyes and writing titles down spur-of-the-moment kind of list.
Here we go.
FICTION
1. Jane Eyre
One of the creepiest weirdest most subversive books ever written. It stands alone.
2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2001. I loved Chabon’s first novel, Mysteries of Pittsburgh
3. Possession
I have recommended this book to friends before, and none of them could get into it. But that does not dim my recommendation! I have read it 10 times, maybe more. And I will read it again. Literature and poetry buffs will love it. But it’s also a mystery. And not until the very last sentence of the book (which is a KILLER – if you pick up this book, do not peek ahead at the last page — DO NOT) do you understand the full story. Byatt’s a great writer, in an old-school kind of way. I read one great review of her stuff, “Byatt writes as though James Joyce never existed.” I laughed out loud when I read that. It’s true. Additionally, and on a personal note, this book makes me believe in the kinship of Intellect and Love. For those of us who live primarily in the mind, love – passionate love, being “possessed” by another human being — can be daunting and difficult. I mean, love is difficult, anyway! This book gives me hope.
4. Crime and Punishment
I came to this book late, reading it for the first time a couple years ago. I literally could not believe how good it was. The writing brought me to tears at times. The insights into psychology, crime, the MIND (all before Freud, before self-help, before feng shui) are breathtaking. Dostoevsky is a genius. If you have a question about crime that is not answered by this book, then my guess is that it is a stupid question and not worth asking. Just my opinion. Great book.
5. The Dead
The Dead is the greatest short story ever written.
6. Atonement
I read this one recently. I can’t really speak about it articulately because it is one of the most tragic books I ever read. It affected me almost physically. I finished it, and sat still, stunned. I could feel myself trying to block it out IMMEDIATELY, I could feel myself trying to talk myself out of the implications of the book. So all I can say is: this book had an enormous impact on me. Also: The man can write. He is one of the best there is. I consider this one a Must-Read.
7. The Things They Carried
Oh, what an incredible book! Tim O’Brien also wrote the famous Going After Cacciato
8. The Catcher in the Rye
The “Smells like Teen Spirit” of literature.
9. Moby Dick
Yes, I know, I know, the book, on some level, is a big mess. The narration starts out first person: “Call me Ishmael.” But somewhere in the middle of the book, Melville switches to omniscent narrator. We are privy to Captain Ahab’s private moments, his private thoughts, which Ishmael could not know. We get 30 separate chapters on every different part of the whale. You start off the book with a normal plot, and somewhere along the way, you find yourself in a marine biology class. YES, I KNOW ALL THAT. But still: this BOOK! Oh my GOD! This BOOK!! You just have to GO with it, you have to give up your expectation of a linear plot, and just let Melville take the wheel. I read it in high school and grumbled my way through it, and read it again, a couple of years ago – and found it to be, second only to Ulysses
10. Harriet the Spy
Harriet was my idol when I was 10 years old, and Harriet remains an idol today. She is why I first took up a pen and paper. She’s as immortal a literary character as Anna Karenina. This book is one of my all-time favorites, ever, always.
Harriet the Spy, right on – started carrying notebooks because of her, scribbling away. Still do. Who knew she’d be the inspiration to legions?
i like possession, but it doesn’t have the magic of “elementals”
No Fountainhead? And Hemingway, what about Hemingway?
Lately it seems I can’t finish any novels. I’ve been doing the short fictions. Tobias Wolfe, Raymond Chandler. I need instant gratification.
Val:
I do like Hemingway but for whatever reason, it’s just a taste thing, he doesn’t GET to me in the way some other authors do. i know that’s sacrilegious but it is true. I can recognize his gift, and I like all his books but they aren’t books that i would go back to, again and again, like Crime and Punishment is, or whatever.
and THANK YOU for reminding me of Tobias Wolfe. I read his stuff years ago and it blew me away. I have no idea where my copy went … so I will have to pick it up again.
Another great collection of short fiction is “The Way Water Enters Stone” by John Dusfresne. I love the way he writes.
Sheila,
As a fellow redhead and former devotee of Harriet I can recommend that you read Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River. I’d be curious to see if you think it has the same punch in the stomach feel as Atonement. Couldn’t put either one of them down and the character development in both was intense. Thanks for your recent thoughts on the 9/11 documentary. As someone who escaped the towers I often have the urge to scream when I feel that the media or certain critics have become detached.
Dostoevsky is a genius, but my favorite of his is The Brothers Karamazov. It’s more ambitious and expansive than Crime and Punishment – just an extraordinary work of art.
I have to admit that it’s been a very long time since I read either book. I’ve been lax in my reading for many years now. The day-to-day grind can make it all-too-easy to not find the time, but I think it’s time for that to change.
Brothers Karamazov is one of my dad’s favorite books.
i agree about finding it hard to find the time … There’s so much to read, so much I HAVEN’T read … I have a lifetime reading list going at all times, which causes me anxiety at times!!
thanks for writing.
I’ve been acquiring large numbers of books without reading them for what seems like forever now. Let’s just say, the backlog is daunting.
One good story in that regard relates to a hiking trip I went on a couple of years ago in Texas. On the way back home, we took the opportunity to stop off in Archer City. That’s Larry McMurtry’s hometown – the inspiration for The Last Picture Show and its sequels. McMurtry has moved back there and opened up a massive used book store in several previously vacant buildings. The really cool (but weird) thing was McMurtry himself was there in the store that day. I wandered around the stacks for a couple of hours and found a few things to buy, but never did work up the nerve to say anything to him. It really is strange to be in the presence of someone to whom you feel a connection, at the same time knowing that no actual connection exists.
I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say, so I took the prudent (or cowardly) route and said nothing.
Mike R:
I had heard about Larry McMurtry’s second-hand bookstore. Amazing. There’s a book of collected essays on depression called Unholy Ghost – and McMurtry wrote an essay for the book. He had something like triple-bypass surgery – a huge heart operation – and during his recovery, he lost the ability and the desire to read for pleasure. Because of this, he was plunged into a clinical depression – He lost all sense of who he was – without reading. I have tears in my eyes right now. He wrote about it with such eloquence, such agony.
He finally recovered – very slowly – and was able to start reading again. But he still feels, a bit, like a ghost of who he once was.
I have heard that that is a common response to major heart surgery.
Anyway – thanks for the story!!
Either I hadn’t heard that story about McMurtry’s problem, or I only had the vaguest awareness of it. It has some strong echoes for me. When my racing career went into what will probably end up being permanent mothballs a couple of years ago, I felt a great loss of identity. For a guy whose entire life has revolved around letters, I’m sure that losing the ability to take pleasure in reading wouldbe a devastating event. It would be a tremendously difficult thing for me to cope with, even with my semi-atrophied reading muscles…
Mike –
Yeah, I hadn’t heard that Larry McMurtry suffered in this way either until I read Unholy Ghost last year. Other writers are relatively famous for being depressed – William Styron, for example. But McMurtry?
And that his story had to do with his sudden lack of interest in the written language … very moving.
If Hemingway doesn’t “get to you” what about William Faulkner? For some reason, most people I’ve run across who like Faulkner don’t really care for Hemingway. Maybe it’s regional/cultural thing (Southern vs. Midwest)?
As a young adult I read and quite enjoyed My Antonia by Cather. Once I was at work and listening to the local news on NPR when they aired a blurb about a fund-raising auction at a nearby library which included a signed, first edition of My Antonia. So I left work to go bid on it, but lost out to someone with deeper pockets. Of the ones on your list that I have read: I have no special feeling or memories about the Bronte book other than its potboilerish, almost macabre plot and setting that for some reason always makes me think of heavy damask curtains and dark wood paneling; everyone I know who has read the Salinger book is affected in about the same way.
Although I think Tobias Wolff + T.C. Boyle are the best storiewriters EVER and are therefore HIGHLY recommended, I agree with you, and totally so, that The dead by James Joyce is the best storie ever written. It’s awesome. But did you see the film (John Houston’s last)? It’s a masterpiece too! I’ll never forget the singing aunt at the party, Anjelica Huston crying because of the memories of a boy that probably died for her, and at the very end: the snow falling slowly on the dark landscape (and the dead). Great, great film.
Frank:
And lovely comments like yours, coming so long after I wrote the original post, is why I hesitate to close comments after a certain amount of time!
Yes, indeed, I saw the movie and agree with you. I resisted seeing it because I love the story so much and I also thought: How on earth will they film a story which mostly takes place on the surface of things?? Until that last stupendous paragraph, that is …
Also: John Huston? Of the African Queen and Maltese Falcon? How would HE film it??
Shows you how wrong one can be.
I comPLETELY agree with you about the singing scene at the party. That’s when I really realized: Oh, okay … they get it … they get it … The singing aunt, and then the slow pan of all the objects in the house – lace doilies, old photos, silver tea services … They looked like relics of a time gone by. As indeed they were.
Brilliant. So painful.
Thanks for commenting. :)
I loved Possession too.
Have you discovered The Kite Runner or any of Rushdie’s stuff? Very different from each other, but remarkable and powerful, at least for me.
And Jhumpa (Lahiri)’s stuff isn’t half bad either!!!