Book meme (From unagothae)

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. They don't have to be the greatest books you've ever read, just the ones that left a lasting impression. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

Seriously though, I can think of a lot more than 15 off of the top of my head in under one minute. Still, let's see what comes out:

1. The book of Ecclesiastes.

(Not going to claim the whole Bible.)

2. Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Thomas de Quincey
3. Les Fleurs du Mal - Baudelaire
4. Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying - Jeremy Taylor
5. The Anatomy of Melancholy - Rob't Burton
6. Deathbird Stories - Harlan Ellison
7. Journey to the Centre of the Earth - Jules Verne
8. The Codebreakers - Robert Kahn
9. The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind - David Diringer
10. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1954 edition
11. 78 Degrees of Wisdom - Rachel Pollack
12. Witchcraft, Magic, and Alchemy - Grillot de Givry
12a. Constitutional History of England - Henry Hallam
14. Epistle to the Galatians - St. Paul
15. The Law o the Land - Cy Rembar

Three writers I actively dislike:

Jane Austen. She lived in an exciting time of scientific discovery and stirring military conflict. Very little of this penetrates into her hothouse society of privileged women. The company of her gold-digger heroines, all of whom are obsessed with marrying money while remaining within the confines of a stifling propriety, is my personal Hell.

Ernest Hemingway. Too many periods. Not enough commas and semicolons. Seems to have inspired the USA Today prose style.

John Steinbeck. Never found the characters that interest him all that interesting.