Sorry in advance...phylhrmnixApril 25 2007, 20:59:22 UTC
So, somewhere between stuffy classics-for-classics-sake and Star Wars novels:
1. Kurt Vonnegut - Welcome To The Monkey House. I'm a sucker for short stories, and nobody's going to argue with Vonnegut being immediate, alive, and timeless.
2. Roald Dahl - The BFG. I mean, don't make me choose between his books for children. This could just as well be Matilda.
3. Eric Schlosser - Fast Food Nation. 'cause you just gotta know. This might go hand in hand with Lies My Teacher Told Me.
5. Bill Watterson - The Complete Calvin & Hobbes. I don't care if it's cheating to include the whole of it. It's necessary.
6. Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. I know you know, you know, you know.
7. Annie Dillard - An American Childhood. Perhaps the most personally resonant, beautifully told account of growing up precocious and coming into awareness I've ever read. The texture of her language floors me.
8. J.D. Salinger - The Catcher In The Rye. A teenage holdout, I know, but it's important to hear and to know the voice of the endearingly damaged. This could have easily been one's Rushdie-of-choice instead, for substitution's sake.
9. James Joyce - The Dubliners. You're not some kind of simpleton, are you? You HAVE read Joyce, haven't you? Pretension aside, this is about as accessible (and tolerable) as Joyce gets. Brilliant etc etc.
10. Antoine St. Exupery - Le Petit Prince - Spoken for.
...right, sorry, thrown together in the span of 15 minutes of so, but hopefully of use.
1. Kurt Vonnegut - Welcome To The Monkey House. I'm a sucker for short stories, and nobody's going to argue with Vonnegut being immediate, alive, and timeless.
2. Roald Dahl - The BFG. I mean, don't make me choose between his books for children. This could just as well be Matilda.
3. Eric Schlosser - Fast Food Nation. 'cause you just gotta know. This might go hand in hand with Lies My Teacher Told Me.
4. Chuck Klosterman - Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs. Accessibly hip, keen-eyed, and thought-provoking.
5. Bill Watterson - The Complete Calvin & Hobbes. I don't care if it's cheating to include the whole of it. It's necessary.
6. Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. I know you know, you know, you know.
7. Annie Dillard - An American Childhood. Perhaps the most personally resonant, beautifully told account of growing up precocious and coming into awareness I've ever read. The texture of her language floors me.
8. J.D. Salinger - The Catcher In The Rye. A teenage holdout, I know, but it's important to hear and to know the voice of the endearingly damaged. This could have easily been one's Rushdie-of-choice instead, for substitution's sake.
9. James Joyce - The Dubliners. You're not some kind of simpleton, are you? You HAVE read Joyce, haven't you? Pretension aside, this is about as accessible (and tolerable) as Joyce gets. Brilliant etc etc.
10. Antoine St. Exupery - Le Petit Prince - Spoken for.
...right, sorry, thrown together in the span of 15 minutes of so, but hopefully of use.
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