I'm not really huge on memes, but since I saw this as a post in The Literary Stew and The B Files, I just knew I had to come up with my own list. (This meme has also been circulating in Facebook.)
Okay, so here's my list of 15 books I've read that will stay with me always (not in any particular order). You're supposed to list 15 books in no more than 15 minutes.
- I, Claudius by Robert Graves
- The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
- Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
- The Innocent by Ian McEwan
- The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
- The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
- Independent People by Halldor Laxness
- Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
- The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman by Louis de Bernieres
- The Reprieve by Jean-Paul Sartre
- The History of the Siege of Lisbon by Jose Saramago
- The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie
- Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
- The World According to Garp by John Irving
- A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
22 comments:
1.The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling
2. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery
3. A Room with A View by EM Forster
4. Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal
5. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
6. Perfume by Patrick Suskind
7. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
8. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
9. The Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde
10. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
11. The Arrival by Shaun Tan
12. Skin and Other Stories by Roald Dahl
13. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
14. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
15. Are you there God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume
Hi, Blooey! I just knew it that HP would be #1 on your list! I also loved The Westing Game. Which reminds me -- why are there no YA novels in my list?
Great list Peter! I'll have to add some more books to my wishlist. I love Brideshead also!
Hi, Mrs. B! Have you seen the latest adaptation of Brideshead? It's crap.
Perfect timing, Peter. I was compiling my 100 "classic reading before I die list", an exercise in one of my online book clubs. There's more than 15 here.
1. Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
2. Gathering Evidence – Thomas Bernhard
3. 2666 – Roberto Bolaño
4. The Plague – Albert Camus
5. Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
6. Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
7. The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
8. The Ambassadors – Henry James
9. The Woman Who Had Two Navels – Nick Joaquín
10. The Executioner’s Song – Norman Mailer
11. Grande Sertão: Veredas – João Guimarães Rosa
12. Call It Sleep – Henry Roth
13. Wind, Sand and Stars – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
14. The Emigrants – W. G. Sebald
15. The Red and the Black – Stendhal
16. A Woman of Means – Peter Taylor
17. To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
Rise, I absolutely loved The Unconsoled, especially the shifting time frames technique. I read The Executioner's Song when I was 14 I think, and I was literally floored.
Those are in no particular order, but of course I thought of HP first... It was going around Facebook too so I had ready answers that I pasted from my Notes.
Turtle Wexler rocks!
Hi again, Blooey! Hehehe. Come to think of it, I should've included The Schwa Was Here by Neal Shusterman in the list. I really really really love that YA novel.
Great list. I want to read Independent People very soon. A quick stab at this without looking at any of my lists, and the following (5) books come to mind immediately (for 15- more thought required)..LOL:
1. Rebecca; Daphne DuMaurier
2. The Great Gatsby; Fitzgerald
3. Les Miserable; Hugo
4. Silas Marner; Eliot
5. The Collector; Fowles
Hi, Diane! Oooohhh, Rebecca! I can't wait to read that one.
Fifteen? I don't know if I can come up with that. But here's mine.
1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
2. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
3. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
5. Of Mice and Men also by Steinbeck
6. Little Bee by Chris Cleave
7. Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffeneger
9.The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
10. The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway
12. The Diary of Anne Frank
13. A Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
14. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
15. The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
Ha. I made it...but it seems like there should be more. Oh well. I will have to add I, Cladius to my TBR pile, Peter, since you seem to rave about it a lot. ;)
Love your list Peter! I had forgotten about The World According to Garp, but that one did stay with me for quite awhile after I read it.
Great list!
@Helen: I love Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck! The ending was so heartbreaking.
@Alexia: I think it's still the best John Irving novel. I also loved The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, but The World According to Garp really struck a chord in me.
I don't know if I can do it in 15 minutes-but I love looking at people's lists. So insightful.
Yes, Stephanie D, I love looking at personal lists as well. But when the list's title is like "The 100 Best Novels of All Time", I tend to be skeptical.
Only one I've heard of in your list is The Grapes of Wrath, Peter!:-)
Here's mine:
The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
Canterbury Tales – Chaucer
Beowulf – The Beowulf Poet
Hrafnkel’s Saga Freysgotha - Unknown
The Iliad - Homer
The Great Abolition Sham – Michael Jordan
The Bible - Various
Mansfield Park and all the others – Jane Austen
Harry Potters – JK Rowling
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronté
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronté
The OED
Malory Towers series – Enid Blyton
The Blood Remembers – Terry Stanfill
Ferney – James Long
Think I definitely need to read some more modern stuff, by the looks of things...am going to take a selection from everyone's lists and create a modern TBR pile to get up to date! ;-)
Sorry Helen, Grapes of Wrath was on your list, not Peter's...I have heard of I, Claudius though! :-)
Off the top of my head, and in no particular order:
1. Little Women--Louisa May Alcott
2. Love In The Time of Cholera--Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3. The Name of the Rose -- Umberto Eco
4. The Hot Zone -- Richard Preston
5. Gates of Fire -- Steven Pressfield
6. Tuesdays with Morrie -- Mitch Albom
7. Vanity Fair -- William Thackeray
8. Masters of Rome series -- Colleen McCullough
9. The Five People You Meet In Heaven --- Mitch Albom
10. The Omen -- David Seltzer
11. Lord of the Rings series --- J.R.R. Tolkien
12. The Silmarillion --- J.R.R. Tolkien
13. The Little Prince -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
14. Lady Chatterley's Lover--D.H. Lawrence
15. Jane Eyre -- Charlotte Bronte
@Cynewyn: The OED! The OED!
@josbookshelf: This was quite surprising -- The Five People You Meet In Heaven.
Why surprising, Peter? You didn't like the book? A bit melodramatic? :) The message was what struck and stayed with me: that we all have a purpose in life; some more grand than others; but we are all needed, somehow. :) Well, I'd like to think that.
I guess I'm really too fond of inspirational books. My ex read this though. The ex loved it.
mine is:
1. shogun - clavell
2. Animal farm - orwell
3. Earth of Mankind - pramoedya ananta toer
4. taipan - clavell
5. little prince - st. exupery
6. the name of the rose - eco
7. da vinci code - brown
8. wind up bird chronicle - murakami
9. collected stories - maugham
10. collected stories - bradbury
11. memoirs of a geisha - golden
12. mythology class - arre
13. decameron - boccaccio
14. kite runner - hosseini
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