Book meme (From unagothae)

[ihcoyc]

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.

Comments

[unagothae.livejournal.com]

Ecclesiastes is the first book I think of when I think of the Bible. It's the first book I read when I started reading the Bible again.

Of all of the letters from Paul, Galatians is the one I'm least familiar with. I'll give it a read the next time I open my Bible.

Did I even mention that you have been a strong influence for me to not just give up on the Bible and never look at it again? I mean that as a high compliment.

I used the 1954 Encyclopedia Brittanica to write several reports while I was in grade school. My report on the ancient Egyptians got the highest marks in the class. My report on the imports and exports of Turkey was given poor marks for outdated information. Still, I think learned more from that project than anybody else because I knew early on that my country wasn't the only country in the world that changed through time. Back then, the media was still portraying many countries, especially in the Middle East, as if they never changed.

The books that were not already on my list have been added. So glad you stole this!

I had several Austen books on my list, but removed all but one because trying to read Pride and Prejudice hurt my head. I saw the movie adaptation and was just about bored as it is possible for me to be. I'm considering giving Persuasion a chance because somebody told me it was the least boring of her works. No guarantee that I'll actually get through it. I just want to make sure I've made up my own mind about her.

I always get Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck confused. I don't like Mark Twain either. Most of those famous American authors annoy me with their flag waving, machismo, and misogyny. I don't like the music of Gershwin either, which is related because he's practically considered a national symbol, much as are Twain, Steinbeck, and Hemingway.

There's something about things that are classed as "all-American" that just bugs me. I think it's the glorification of the individual over society. While I value autonomy and innovation, I think that it's the root of some really ugly sentiments when taken to an extreme. I think it works best when balanced with social awareness, something really lacking in the portrayals of those "great American thinkers".

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Funny, I never thought of Twain as flag-waving. Kind of the opposite, in fact.

[ihcoyc.livejournal.com]

No, Twain isn't really like that, nor is Stephen Vincent Benet, nor Ambrose Bierce, nor Joshua Branch Cabell, nor H. L. Mencken. Those, along with the obvious ones (Poe and Hawthorne) are my favourite American "classic" writers.

It annoys that the standard model of American literature prioritizes social realism, when our true gift to the world is tales of grotesque fantasy. Entire literary movements can be traced back to Poe, in both verse and prose. He easily eclipses most other writers except maybe for Goethe in historic resonance. Poe is the true grandfather of all of the South American magic realists, and especially of Borges. As well as all detective fiction, and most science fiction. He is just our most important author, even if he never wrote a "great American novel".

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Social realism is the greatest literary hoax ever to be played upon the reading public.

[unagothae.livejournal.com]

My error. That was supposed to be "dick-waving".

[oddlystrange.livejournal.com]

Not keen on Hemmingway either to be honest, even though he was a friend of my grandfathers. Just seemed too dull and trodding.

I do however like Steinbeck quite a bit. I seemed to breeze through his prose.