Favorite books listing, part one:
So somebody suggested a few weeks ago that I put together one of those lists of my 100 favorite books of all time, or my list of the 100 greatest books of all time, which are entirely separate things. I can't do the second list, if only because I immediately hit the wall of defining the word "great," or more specifically, what makes a book great.
But the first list presents its own problems. For one, my list of favorites constantly changes. I mean, many years ago - many, many, many years ago - James Michener's Hawaii was on the list, which is a horrifying thought now. And defining "favorite" can have its own problems: I can mention the books that have had a huge influence on me - Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel and The Collapse, or The Way We Never Were, but these are not exactly the books that I turn to with a cup of tea in hand. But even there, I have different types of favorite books - books that I turn to for comfort reading; books that I madly quote from; books that I reread for the pure story. And although I definitely have a taste for (and a reputation for having a taste for) academic and pretentious books, many of my favorite books are pure fluff. So I redefined favorite books as books that I have visited often enough that reading them has the same wonderful feel as having a long, good talk with a good friend over excellent tea and cookies, or snuggling with someone in front of a good movie or TV show. That's the feel of a favorite book.
So, reduced to fifty (more or less), and broken down into groups of ten for ease of readership, here are the books that have become friends. And before everyone jumps in to yell at my taste, or lack thereof, the obligatory disclaimer: in no case should these be taken as indications of literary quality; in fact, this list has at least one unquestionably dreadful book on it that I love anyway. And to prevent shouts of "YOU LIKE GAIMAN BETTER THAN-" whatever, the ranking is pretty arbitrary. Also, I'm positive I've left out at least twenty favorite books. And also also, ok, yes, I cheated a little. You'll see where.
:
50) The Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery, Volumes 1 through 5. It's difficult to explain precisely why these books have such a hold on me. I would have said, earlier, because the frank tone of the journals gives the feel of talking to a friend, or because I often have a need to read about the lives of other writers (I have professional writers on my friends list for a reason), or simply because she had the art of making her life feel fascinating. These days I reread her journals for a slightly different reason: my growing interest in how we shape the personas and masks we use to interact with the world. Montgomery deliberately created and destroyed and wore and then created and destroyed and wore (in an endless cycle) multiple masks and veils (in both a real and literal sense - several pictures show her wearing veils): the mask of the devoted wife and mother; the mask of the happy author. And in the journals, the selves behind the masks: the agonized, tortured self who fell passionately and wrongly in love, who struggled with depression, who sometimes just had to vent. Perhaps because they illustrate journalizing as the art of masking and unmasking at once, of using writing to study, identify and hide the self. This fascinates me.
49) (tie) Seven Sunflower Seeds/Friday's Tunnel, John Verney. These two are, alas, going to jump right over the heads of my American and younger readers, since they pretty much failed to make it in the U.S. at all and from my understanding have been out of print in England for years. This is just wrong, since Verney has an insane sense of humour which manages to connect an attempted overthrow of a Mediterranean government, implausible physics and a tunnel and cheese into one utterly hilarious book that incidentally manages to take several well aimed potshots at the U.S. and British political systems. If you can find these books (they're two of a long series) definitely hunt them down.
48) Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norvell. I hesitated before putting this on the list, since honestly, I haven't exactly read this book enough to say that we're friends yet. But we might be, since our initial acquaintance was a warm and friendly one. I also might be friends with The Time Traveller's Wife one day, a book I almost put in here, but didn't. That is a friendship also in its initial stages, and perhaps, if I do this again in five years, I'll have more to say about both of them.
47) The Well of Lost Plots, Jasper Fjorde. Not that Thursday Next and I have known each other for very long, either. But after she had the characters from Wuthering Heights endure anger management therapy, and then was forced to endure the banalities of Enid Blyton, I realized that we would be almost certainly be long term friends, indeed.
46) The First Four Books of Poems, W.S. Merwin. I had a hard time choosing between Donne and Merwin here, and realized that I pick up Merwin more often, so he won. This is the sort of book that I open, read a page, shut my eyes, and put back down, feeling slightly healed, and feeling slightly more beauty in the world.
45) Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie. Actually, I could have thrown a lot of Agatha Christie novels in here - essentially, pick one of her twelve best, and place it here. Christie is a fiendishly clever and frequently underrated writer; part of the problem, undoubtedly, is that she continued to produce mystery novels until she was well into her 80s, and although two of the late novels (Endless Night and The Pale Horse) are pretty good, most of them are awful, a setup for parody and cruel critical judgement. But her 10 to 12 great ones are great: wonderful, brilliant little mental puzzles. With murders.
44) Magic's Pawn/Magic's Price, Mercedes Lackey. I'm on record for not liking much of Lackey's later work, which has become self-derivative and formulaic (need we have a rape in every novel she gives us? And can we at least try for a variation on the misunderstood child theme? Geesh.) And I don't even think these two are Lackey's best novels - I think her best work was with the Diana Tregarde novels, the urban fantasy/mystery/horror novels starring an improbable witch/romance novelist. Those three books, on a whole, are sharper and better written than her other works, although I find her digression into shouting "there's no such thing as writer's block" in Jinx High highly annoying. (Not that I have much room to talk about digressions.)
Magic's Pawn/Magic's Price are the beginning and ending of a fantasy trilogy (the second, Magic's Promise, is a fairly weak read) about a gay man with tremendous powers attempting to get his parents to accept him, and also to accept himself, intertwined with a love story. The books made an immediate impact on many queers, both validating and giving hope of reconciliation. It's a validation I often need, and often find myself rereading.
43) (tie) The really classical stuff: The Histories, Herodotus. And for those thinking, wow, talk about an academic and pretentious entry into a list of fluffy books, let me just say: Folktales. War. Betrayal. Cats running into burning buildings and saving people. The Delphi oracle shouting ignored bits of doom. Sexy hot women. Why aren't you reading this? Most of the work, alas, is almost certainly not history and much is almost certainly not true, but it's wonderfully fun reading.
Not enough sex for you? Not enough incest? Cheer up: I almost named The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius instead. Like so not academic and pretentious. It's got, like, sex! And filthy gossip! And incest! And lots and lots of superstition! And Roman emperors murdering and going nuts and doing icky games with small boys in the Blue Grotto at the Isle of Capri! If I were being academic and pretentious, I'd lie here and start talking about the wonder that is Tacitus and the grim and insightful chills I get from his take on the same subject, but Tacitus just does not have enough incest.
42) The Thirteen Days of Christmas, Jenny Overton. Which pretty much kills the academic pretentiousness. Um. Ok. yes, it's a children's book, and yes, it's a children's book that's been forgotten by everybody but me, and yes, worse, it's a children's book based on "The Twelve Days of Christmas." And ok, yes, I read it every year, one chapter a day, at holiday season. Set in the 17th century English countryside, the plot is simple - Francis loves Annaple, but Annaple does not think he's romantic enough. So, on Christmas, he gives her a partridge in a pear tree. And….well, you can probably guess the rest. It's still hilarious, even after 20 reads. And out of print, alas.
41) The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 3. Hey, I'm in it :) With a story that many of my readers name their favorite. So, yay.
Running to office now: more later.
But the first list presents its own problems. For one, my list of favorites constantly changes. I mean, many years ago - many, many, many years ago - James Michener's Hawaii was on the list, which is a horrifying thought now. And defining "favorite" can have its own problems: I can mention the books that have had a huge influence on me - Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel and The Collapse, or The Way We Never Were, but these are not exactly the books that I turn to with a cup of tea in hand. But even there, I have different types of favorite books - books that I turn to for comfort reading; books that I madly quote from; books that I reread for the pure story. And although I definitely have a taste for (and a reputation for having a taste for) academic and pretentious books, many of my favorite books are pure fluff. So I redefined favorite books as books that I have visited often enough that reading them has the same wonderful feel as having a long, good talk with a good friend over excellent tea and cookies, or snuggling with someone in front of a good movie or TV show. That's the feel of a favorite book.
So, reduced to fifty (more or less), and broken down into groups of ten for ease of readership, here are the books that have become friends. And before everyone jumps in to yell at my taste, or lack thereof, the obligatory disclaimer: in no case should these be taken as indications of literary quality; in fact, this list has at least one unquestionably dreadful book on it that I love anyway. And to prevent shouts of "YOU LIKE GAIMAN BETTER THAN-" whatever, the ranking is pretty arbitrary. Also, I'm positive I've left out at least twenty favorite books. And also also, ok, yes, I cheated a little. You'll see where.
:
50) The Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery, Volumes 1 through 5. It's difficult to explain precisely why these books have such a hold on me. I would have said, earlier, because the frank tone of the journals gives the feel of talking to a friend, or because I often have a need to read about the lives of other writers (I have professional writers on my friends list for a reason), or simply because she had the art of making her life feel fascinating. These days I reread her journals for a slightly different reason: my growing interest in how we shape the personas and masks we use to interact with the world. Montgomery deliberately created and destroyed and wore and then created and destroyed and wore (in an endless cycle) multiple masks and veils (in both a real and literal sense - several pictures show her wearing veils): the mask of the devoted wife and mother; the mask of the happy author. And in the journals, the selves behind the masks: the agonized, tortured self who fell passionately and wrongly in love, who struggled with depression, who sometimes just had to vent. Perhaps because they illustrate journalizing as the art of masking and unmasking at once, of using writing to study, identify and hide the self. This fascinates me.
49) (tie) Seven Sunflower Seeds/Friday's Tunnel, John Verney. These two are, alas, going to jump right over the heads of my American and younger readers, since they pretty much failed to make it in the U.S. at all and from my understanding have been out of print in England for years. This is just wrong, since Verney has an insane sense of humour which manages to connect an attempted overthrow of a Mediterranean government, implausible physics and a tunnel and cheese into one utterly hilarious book that incidentally manages to take several well aimed potshots at the U.S. and British political systems. If you can find these books (they're two of a long series) definitely hunt them down.
48) Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norvell. I hesitated before putting this on the list, since honestly, I haven't exactly read this book enough to say that we're friends yet. But we might be, since our initial acquaintance was a warm and friendly one. I also might be friends with The Time Traveller's Wife one day, a book I almost put in here, but didn't. That is a friendship also in its initial stages, and perhaps, if I do this again in five years, I'll have more to say about both of them.
47) The Well of Lost Plots, Jasper Fjorde. Not that Thursday Next and I have known each other for very long, either. But after she had the characters from Wuthering Heights endure anger management therapy, and then was forced to endure the banalities of Enid Blyton, I realized that we would be almost certainly be long term friends, indeed.
46) The First Four Books of Poems, W.S. Merwin. I had a hard time choosing between Donne and Merwin here, and realized that I pick up Merwin more often, so he won. This is the sort of book that I open, read a page, shut my eyes, and put back down, feeling slightly healed, and feeling slightly more beauty in the world.
45) Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie. Actually, I could have thrown a lot of Agatha Christie novels in here - essentially, pick one of her twelve best, and place it here. Christie is a fiendishly clever and frequently underrated writer; part of the problem, undoubtedly, is that she continued to produce mystery novels until she was well into her 80s, and although two of the late novels (Endless Night and The Pale Horse) are pretty good, most of them are awful, a setup for parody and cruel critical judgement. But her 10 to 12 great ones are great: wonderful, brilliant little mental puzzles. With murders.
44) Magic's Pawn/Magic's Price, Mercedes Lackey. I'm on record for not liking much of Lackey's later work, which has become self-derivative and formulaic (need we have a rape in every novel she gives us? And can we at least try for a variation on the misunderstood child theme? Geesh.) And I don't even think these two are Lackey's best novels - I think her best work was with the Diana Tregarde novels, the urban fantasy/mystery/horror novels starring an improbable witch/romance novelist. Those three books, on a whole, are sharper and better written than her other works, although I find her digression into shouting "there's no such thing as writer's block" in Jinx High highly annoying. (Not that I have much room to talk about digressions.)
Magic's Pawn/Magic's Price are the beginning and ending of a fantasy trilogy (the second, Magic's Promise, is a fairly weak read) about a gay man with tremendous powers attempting to get his parents to accept him, and also to accept himself, intertwined with a love story. The books made an immediate impact on many queers, both validating and giving hope of reconciliation. It's a validation I often need, and often find myself rereading.
43) (tie) The really classical stuff: The Histories, Herodotus. And for those thinking, wow, talk about an academic and pretentious entry into a list of fluffy books, let me just say: Folktales. War. Betrayal. Cats running into burning buildings and saving people. The Delphi oracle shouting ignored bits of doom. Sexy hot women. Why aren't you reading this? Most of the work, alas, is almost certainly not history and much is almost certainly not true, but it's wonderfully fun reading.
Not enough sex for you? Not enough incest? Cheer up: I almost named The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius instead. Like so not academic and pretentious. It's got, like, sex! And filthy gossip! And incest! And lots and lots of superstition! And Roman emperors murdering and going nuts and doing icky games with small boys in the Blue Grotto at the Isle of Capri! If I were being academic and pretentious, I'd lie here and start talking about the wonder that is Tacitus and the grim and insightful chills I get from his take on the same subject, but Tacitus just does not have enough incest.
42) The Thirteen Days of Christmas, Jenny Overton. Which pretty much kills the academic pretentiousness. Um. Ok. yes, it's a children's book, and yes, it's a children's book that's been forgotten by everybody but me, and yes, worse, it's a children's book based on "The Twelve Days of Christmas." And ok, yes, I read it every year, one chapter a day, at holiday season. Set in the 17th century English countryside, the plot is simple - Francis loves Annaple, but Annaple does not think he's romantic enough. So, on Christmas, he gives her a partridge in a pear tree. And….well, you can probably guess the rest. It's still hilarious, even after 20 reads. And out of print, alas.
41) The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 3. Hey, I'm in it :) With a story that many of my readers name their favorite. So, yay.
Running to office now: more later.