books. everyone loves books.

[fahye]

Alright, so we're playing the 15-books-I-would-take-away-to-college (or get stuck with on a desert island, whatever) game. This is an interesting exercise, because this isn't my 15 favourite books. (I love Good Omens to pieces but know it back to front by now.) My list reflects the books I'd read again and again and again and again, mostly because they have had - and are still having - a great impact on me and my style, and because reading any of these invariably makes me feel like writing. That's something precious.

Comment with your own list? I'm curious. And always on the lookout for new things, despite my staggeringly long existing to-read list.



Julian Barnes: A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters
Robert Dessaix: (and so forth)
Jostein Gaarder: Sophie's World
Neil Gaiman: American Gods, Smoke & Mirrors
Peter Hoeg: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow
Elizabeth Knox: The Vintner's Luck
Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club
Terry Pratchett: Night Watch
Tom Robbins: Skinny Legs And All
William Shakespeare: The complete works. Shut up, it's a single volume, it counts as one. I will fight anyone who claims otherwise.
Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
John Varley: The Golden Globe
Jeanette Winterson: Art & Lies
Diana Wynne Jones: Howl's Moving Castle

Comments

[jadengreen36.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm... off the top of my head, if my roof was falling in and leaking onto my bookcases, the below would be the first things I grab:

Eric Segal's The Class because it is too wonderful for words, and hits me the same way every time I read it.

Harper Lee To Kill A Mockingbird because there is no such thing as reading it too many times, and because I love Atticus, Finch, Jem and Boo.

Nelson DeMille By the Rivers of Babylon because once you start, you will not be able to put it down until it's finished. This one he wrote when he still could write, before he realized that Stuart (blech) Woods was making more money than him.

Frank Gilbreth & Ernestine Gilbreth Cheaper by the Dozen because even though it may be a 'kids' book, it's hysterical, and an interesting and humorous slice of life earlier in the 20th century. Bears no resemblance whatsoever (thank goodness) to the atrocious Hilary Duff movie of the same name.

John Jakes North and South and Love and War. I'm a canuck, but these civil war sagas (the first two novels of a trilogy) are amazing.

I'll be back later after I've been some thought into it. :->

[fahye.livejournal.com]

There is nothing wrong with a good kids' book! Diana Wynne Jones is totally not adult literature, but I love her works :)