A List
This - I think - is what is/will soon be on my Favourites Shelf at home. It's really just my Fat Favourites Shelf - as it lacks sides, only fat books can go up there; others would too easily fall over & fall off my bunk bed, which the shelf is really a part of. Though they're not all *that* fat, not all of them. Anyway. I'm sure I've forgotten one or two - this is a reconstruction from memory, after all. I miss them, being 600 km away from them at the moment. Though, since two are recent favourites, these two are here with me now. But I miss the rest; hence, the list. Lists are magical. Listmaking is a ritual I need, occasionally. No time to go into details about any of these books, I'm afraid - and anyway, I find it hard to articulate precisely why I like them the way I do. Well. Feel free to google. Some of the reasons why other people like them probably resemble mine. Though I think some of my reasons really are quite idiosyncratically my own.
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(In alphabetical order, not in order of preference. There is no order of preference.)
Clive Barker: Imajica
Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
John Crowley: Little, Big
Samuel R. Delany: Dhalgren
Michael de Larrabeiti: The Borrible Trilogy
Frank Herbert: Dune
Ursula K. LeGuin: Always Coming Home
Doris Lessing: Shikasta
Wolf von Niebelschütz: Die Kinder der Finsternis
Orhan Pamuk: Das schwarze Buch
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings
Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun
Gene Wolfe: The Book of the Long Sun
Austin Tappan Wright: Islandia
***
I think I love all of them for their worlds, and most also for some specific psychological undercurrents. Similar ones, in many cases, though not in all.
Needless to say, there's literally dozens of books that only very nearly missed getting onto that shelf - or may yet make it, after a reread. (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant; Tigana; Viriconium; Gormenghast...) I don't think a favourites list can ever be definitive.
***
(In alphabetical order, not in order of preference. There is no order of preference.)
Clive Barker: Imajica
Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
John Crowley: Little, Big
Samuel R. Delany: Dhalgren
Michael de Larrabeiti: The Borrible Trilogy
Frank Herbert: Dune
Ursula K. LeGuin: Always Coming Home
Doris Lessing: Shikasta
Wolf von Niebelschütz: Die Kinder der Finsternis
Orhan Pamuk: Das schwarze Buch
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings
Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun
Gene Wolfe: The Book of the Long Sun
Austin Tappan Wright: Islandia
***
I think I love all of them for their worlds, and most also for some specific psychological undercurrents. Similar ones, in many cases, though not in all.
Needless to say, there's literally dozens of books that only very nearly missed getting onto that shelf - or may yet make it, after a reread. (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant; Tigana; Viriconium; Gormenghast...) I don't think a favourites list can ever be definitive.