On Vox: Books of a Lifetime
KT once told me about someone she met that enjoyed talking to. She asked him for a list of 5 books she should read in her lifetime. She enjoyed the list. I loved that idea so I am asking you, dear friends, what 5 books would you tell me I must read before I leave this earth? Comment back please!
If I could only bring 5 books with me on a desert island and/or to my death bed, this would be my list*
*subject to change at any time and I am cheating by throwing in a 6th so I can get my poetry in there too
Twilight Sleep
Edith Wharton
Anything by Edith Wharton is amazing. I love her to pieces. Her stories of Old New York are timeless but this one is pure magic.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*Sigh* He is one of my favorite authors, dead or living, hands down. I'm sad though because I've read everything--including his short stories, autobiography and magazine articles so I may have to reread this again soon for another fix
On Love: A Novel
Alain de Botton
My generation's "Unbearable Lightness of Being" (just cheated again!) Hilarious and poignant--and love the diagrams (pre-Eggers)
Where the Red Fern Grows
Wilson Rawls
Ok. This is a kids book. But this is not for the faint of heart. One of my first real-life (and not Hollywood) crushes was Mr. Loffler--my 4th grade teacher who read this out loud to us every day after lunch. One chapter a day. As we got towards towards the end, he started crying and tearing up so much that he couldn't finish the book and it became a home work assignment. When I finished it at home, I had to sleep downstairs on the couch, next to my parents room and with my dog right at my feet for quite a while. I cried like a baby over this book for a good week. I don't know if a book has effected me that much since.
As She Climbed Across the Table: A Novel
Jonathan Lethem
Thus began my Lethem fetish.
Book of Poetry: Tie (extra cheating)
Satan Says (Pitt Poetry Series)
Sharon Olds
A line from "The Victims" to entice you--it's really powerful--all the poems are:
"Now I pass the bums in doorways,
the white slugs of their bodies gleaming through slits in their
suits of compressed silt,
the stained flippers of their hands,
the underwater fire of their eyes, ships gone down with the lanterns lit,
and I wonder who took it and took from them in silence
until they had given it all away and had nothing left but this"
Collected Poems 1947-1980
Allen Ginsberg
I don't believe this fella requires an introduction.
Originally posted on lauriert.vox.com