Top 5s
Originally published at spitkitten dot com. You can comment here or there.
Interesting.
Recently, one of my colleagues, the fabulous Douglas Lucas, asked on our class’ email list about our absolutely favorite novels/books of all time, ever.
I thought and thought and thought about it. There are so many books I love, but if I had to commit forever to just five, the list would look something like this:
- The Waves, Virginia Woolf
- By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, Elizabeth Smart
- Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (novel told in short stories)
- Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Lover, Marguerite Duras
All highly stylized literary fiction, nary a spec fic title among them. There are so many spec fic books I adore-most recently, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi-and many I wind up recommending over and over again (The Scar by China Mieville, Ammonite by Nicola Griffith, Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild, all things John Kessel), and they would have made an appearance if this was a top ten. But…
Yarg. A hard list to write. As I said in my email response to the group,* “I think it’s easier to whittle down my top 5 songs or paintings or brands of eyeliner.”
*yes, indeed, I just quoted myself.