Fifteen books that come to mind

by Bill Wren on August 10, 2009

I did one of those meme things on Facebook and thought, “Why not post them on the blog too?” The list is simply the fifteen books I’ve read that have stuck with me, which I take as the ones that immediately come to mind. Here they are:

  1. Dhalgren – Samuel R. Delany
  2. The Sot-weed Factor – John Barth
  3. Memoir from Antproof Case – Mark Helprin
  4. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  5. Foundation (Foundation Trilogy) – Isaac Asimov
  6. The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun) – Gene Wolfe
  7. Ulysses – James Joyce
  8. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
  9. Slapstick – Kurt Vonnegut
  10. Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
  11. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
  12. They Shall Have Stars  (Cities in Flight) – James Blish
  13. Fifth Business (The Deptford Trilogy) – Robertson Davies
  14. All the Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy
  15. Odes to Common Things/Odes to Opposites – Pablo Neruda

In a number of cases I’ve given an arbitrary novel title but it’s actually the collection (as in trilogy) that “sticks” with me. And the last, “Odes,” is actually two companion books which I think of as one.

By the way, most of these are favourite books but not necessarily all. In some cases (like Cormac McCarthy), it’s the first book of the author that I read but not my favourite of their work. It does, however, stick me – probably because it was first.

  • http://www.reayjespersen.com/ Reay

    What, no Good Omens?
    *tsk*

  • http://www.reayjespersen.com Reay

    What, no Good Omens?
    *tsk*

  • http://writelife.net/ Bill

    Alas, I could only list 15. :-)

  • http://writelife.net Bill

    Alas, I could only list 15. :-)

  • http://www.redpoppy.net/ Neftali

    Hi Bill. If you love Neruda, check out http://www.redpoppy.net/pablo_neruda.php
    about a documentary on Neruda and the bestselling edition of translations, “The Essential Neruda”

    “The call for a more accessible collection of Neruda’s important poems is answered with City Lights’ The Essential Neruda, a 200-page edition that offers 50 of Neruda’s key poems. The editors and translators know how to extract gold from a lifetime of prolific writing. If you want a handy Neruda companion and don’t know where to begin, this is it.”
    – The Bloomsbury Review

    “What better way to celebrate the hundred years of Neruda’s glorious residence on our earth than this selection of crucial works – in both languages! – by one of the greatest poets of all time. A splendid way to begin a love affair with our Pablo or, having already succumbed to his infinite charms, revisit him passionately again and again and yet again.”
    – Ariel Dorfman, Pulitzer-prize winner author of “Death and the Maiden”

    ” …The Essential Neruda will prove to be, for most readers, the best introduction to Neruda available in English. In fact, I can think of few other books that have given me so much delight so easily. At only 234 pages (bilingual), it somehow manages to convey the fullness of Neruda’s poetic arc: Reading it is like reading the autobiography of a poetic sensibility (granted, the abridged version).”
    – The Austin Chronicle

    Paz,
    Mark

  • http://www.redpoppy.net Neftali

    Hi Bill. If you love Neruda, check out http://www.redpoppy.net/pablo_neruda.php
    about a documentary on Neruda and the bestselling edition of translations, “The Essential Neruda”

    “The call for a more accessible collection of Neruda’s important poems is answered with City Lights’ The Essential Neruda, a 200-page edition that offers 50 of Neruda’s key poems. The editors and translators know how to extract gold from a lifetime of prolific writing. If you want a handy Neruda companion and don’t know where to begin, this is it.”
    – The Bloomsbury Review

    “What better way to celebrate the hundred years of Neruda’s glorious residence on our earth than this selection of crucial works – in both languages! – by one of the greatest poets of all time. A splendid way to begin a love affair with our Pablo or, having already succumbed to his infinite charms, revisit him passionately again and again and yet again.”
    – Ariel Dorfman, Pulitzer-prize winner author of “Death and the Maiden”

    ” …The Essential Neruda will prove to be, for most readers, the best introduction to Neruda available in English. In fact, I can think of few other books that have given me so much delight so easily. At only 234 pages (bilingual), it somehow manages to convey the fullness of Neruda’s poetic arc: Reading it is like reading the autobiography of a poetic sensibility (granted, the abridged version).”
    – The Austin Chronicle

    Paz,
    Mark

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