INFORMAL POLL.

[imochan]

Not fandom related! GASP.

This is, in fact, all about x-mas. I'm planning a present for a special person that I love (NONE OF YOU, HAHAHA, SORRY), and I would like to know something from you, flist, a collection of some of the smartest people I know.

If you had to pick, what were the five books that changed your life?eta: okay, okay. Here's

Comments

[blue_thundering]

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander (A short story collection, with one of the most heart-rendingly perfect, devastating stories you'll ever encounter, ever -- and if your mum hasn't read this, I think she'd really enjoy it!)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Crush by Richard Siken (poetry! and I think YOU'D really like it too!)
The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith (Just... the most comprehensive counter to everything Euro-Centric High School History leaves out: It's a veritable bible of a backgrounder to understanding contemporary African politics state-by-state.)

You've gotta share yours now, too -- you know that, right?

[blue_thundering]

Oh! Actually, I've gotta switch out the Dostoevsky with the following:

Dzhan, by Andrei Platonov.

Hope exchanges are okay!

[imochan]

I was so hoping you'd respond. Yesssssss.

Thank you, thank you! I won't reveal mine just yet - not out of egoism, just ineptitude, really. (Right now, Marquez is warring with Murakami.)

I think I remember the summer when you first read Dostoevsky? I'm going to keep it on my version of your list. ♥!

[blue_thundering]

Have you read any Mishima?

If not, your heart will ache when you start The Sea of Fertility tetralogy with Spring Snow. It is STUNNING.

Heh. Remember rereading David Eddings ad infinitum through 9 and 10, and the wild fantasy universes concocted therein?

Man, reading tastes were so much simpler before the days of Twilight!

[tucker620]

1. The Bible--I really, really liked the Book of Revelations; it seemed to go right along with the visuals reading Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne gave me? (didn't actually read any H.P. Lovecraft until after high school)And, I liked (and still do like) to wander through the Psalms and Proverbs, just because.

2. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe--red fabric cover, thick as an unabridged dictionary, think I found it with a cluster of Reader's Digest Condensed Books my mom had when she was in high school and had put up? Loved that thing!

3. Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne--checked out *repeatedly* from the library! <3

4. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien--still not sure whether the Rankin & Bass animation inspired me to find it, or if I found it first, then saw that? Either way, I'd read it several times by the time someone clued me in about the *other* books

[imochan]

Thank you!

Of course, poetry counts!

[sadcypress]

- To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
- The Liar (Stephen Fry)
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
- Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie)
- A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle)

There are reasons and stories behind each, but those are mine. :)

[imochan]

om;dfk;lasf; I think L'Engle really traumatized me as a child.

Thank you!

[sadcypress]

Oh, MAN, I have SUCH a vivid memory of finishing Wrinkle for the first time. I stayed up waaaaay past my bedtime to finish it, and I remember putting it down and saying in VERY SOLEMN TONES to my nine year-old self that this was an Important Book. I LOVE IT.

[glass_icarus]

OMG L'Engle. sdg;lsdhflkj &hearts &hearts &hearts

[crooked]

god, idk if these books have changed my life but i really enjoyed them. DOES THAT COUNT? because how sad is it that a book that really changed my life was HP & the Philosopher's Stone? it introduced me to fandom and encouraged me to further explore writing, so life = changed, in a way. BUT YOU SAID YOU WANTED OPINIONS FROM SMART PEOPLE, AND IDK IF THAT ANSWER QUALIFIES ME. D:

to kill a mockingbird, harper lee.
things fall apart, chinua achebe.
kindred, octavia butler.
pride and prejudice, jane austen.
brideshead revisited, evelyn waugh.

[imochan]

Achebe! Gossssh, this is so much fun, I should do this more often, ahaha.

Thank you!

[crooked]

FACT: I STOLE THINGS FALL APART FROM MY HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH CLASS. \o/

you really should do this more often! i like posts that make me think thoughts! <3

[duck_or_rabbit]

LOL, I stole mine too!

[helluvalot]

• PEACE LIKE A RIVER, BY LEIF ENGER. forever and ever, amen.
• dubliners, by joyce (the collection of shorts, and much MUCH more coherent than his later works. i feel like people get scared off because they're expecting the modernist stream of consciousness that gets associated with joyce.)
• the living, by annie dillard
• beowulf, translated by seamus heaney
• peter pan: or, the boy who wouldn't grow up, by j.m. barrie. i dunno, i just like the play better than the novelisation of it.

[imochan]

omgosh, peter pan.

[bogged]

Gahhhh Dubliners <33333
I may have a slightly biased soft spot for that collection simply because it contains "The Dead" and I had a literature professor last year who was a tough cynical Brooklyn native and was brought to tears while reading the end of that aloud. But really, it's lovely all around, isn't it?