fave books

[bar_bar_ella]

*cough* This started as a comment on f13tch3r's journal. I got a little carried away. A bit. Maybe. :) I had to re-edit the comment about four times before LJ would let me actually post it there 'cos it was too long! :D Anyway, I thought it might be useful to post it here, just for whatever future reference

Comments

[penguin2]

But but but Hamlet's not a book!

:D

[bar_bar_ella]

I have several editions on the shelves that disagree with that. ;D

(does that mean Another Country's not either? *wink*)

[penguin2]

Hee. Actually, we have a collected Willie - now that's a book :D

In no particular order:
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Insomnia - Stephen King
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
The Watershed - Arthur Koestler
Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury
The Double Helix - Francis Crick and James Watson
The Story of English - ed. Crum/Cran/MacNeil
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Yes, I'm serious.
All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Remarque
The Final Programme - Michael Moorcock
Bellwether - Connie Willis
Shogun - James Clavell
The Magic Goes Away - Larry Niven
I, Claudius/Claudius the God - Robert Graves
Gray's Anatomy. Yes, again, I'm serious.
A Short History of Planet Earth - Ian Plimer
Time Enough for Love - Robert Heinlein
...and the twentieth title keeps changing...

[bar_bar_ella]

Heeee, my collected Wicked Will is actually two rather lovely, leatherbound, heavy books... :) I almost put my copy of The Sonnets on this list, too, actually.

Oooh - your list has got me thinking why I didn't include at least one bloody dictionary! Dammit. ;D So many lost hours just flipping through various ones... *sigh*

[greylock]

You know, I'd have completely failed if this were a quiz.
I'da picked maybe one-quarter of those books at most.
Some, like My Brother Jack make sense on reflection, and some like Stalking Tender Prey make me confuzzed.

I've read few of them, mind, and thinks like Mercer and Walker I suppose I never consider books ... eh.

I could not define 100 good books, much less 20. I salute you!

[bar_bar_ella]

...Mercer and Walker I suppose I never consider books ... eh.

The spine and pages and words and such don't give 'em away? ;)

Over the past decade (at least), my reading has become more and more non-fiction and MUCH less novels. And yet... a list like this, being a far-back-reaching fondness thing as it is, has mainly novels. Odd, really.

I could not define 100 good books, much less 20. I salute you!

*bows* I'm sure I could easily stretch "My Desert Island Books" (heh) to 100 without even breaking a sweat. But the concept of actually grading them from 1-to-whatever would be an impossibility, I'm sure. I don't think I could even put just these 20 into a numbered thingy...

[_inbetween_]

Got most of those (incl. Brother Jack, unread).

[bar_bar_ella]

You've got taste, love. :)

Hey, is that J as he is off-screen-ish?

[_inbetween_]

Mhm, though he used to read w/o glasses, this is the only snapshot we got so far.

[bar_bar_ella]

Particularly yummy, I must say. ;)

But then, I've always had a thing for men in glasses. Though... the combination of the glasses AND the way his hand's curled like that... and, of course, the throat... gods!

[bar_bar_ella]

Envy for that book, darlin'! ;)

[svartalfur]

I'm so with you regarding the first five, but after that, oh shock, I don't know most of them. ;D

Though I'd love to know how Proust can change your life. The "recherche" certainly changed my reading habits, but my life, dunno...