Thanks to MV for the facebook challenge of my top ten reads.
WHERE TO START????????????
I took it a bit seriously at first, because, frankly, my reading is very serious. I would have to review my entire book collection and consider each one.... big job. Hence the delay in responding.
However I decided maybe I didn't need to take it that seriously. (!)
So tonight on the way home from yoga I just decided to think about the books that have stuck with me (that is, I don't need to go to the bookshelf to remember them).
So in no order and no structure - my top reads: (I will try and put an explanation of why they resonate with me if I can in a short space of words!)
Please note all cover photos are of my exact copy!!
1) Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen ( I can pick up this book ANYWHERE in the book and enjoy reading a chapter or a few pages. Also my copy is completely falling apart and dog eared and is filled with my margin comments from English Literature in Year 12 with Dr Roz Otzen at MLC) (I would have read this book over 20 times)
2) Fifteen by Beverley Cleary (My first romance! Ends with a kiss and "going steady", love the night in Chinatown scene)
3) 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell (also included with these Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Lord of the Flies by William Golding) (Year 10 elective in literature - my "breakthrough" year of discovering the power of the novel)
4) Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins (Formed the basis of most of my way of thinking about life)
5) Hotel du Luc by Anita Brookner (I loved this book - it is about an old lady and it is just so beautifully written - I haven't read it for years )
6) Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer (I have nearly the complete collection of Heyer's. I love them. One school friend loved them too and her third daughter is Georgette. I have no sons George though!) (okay confession here I would have read this book over 50 times - whenever I need a dose of relaxation)
7) Any Tom Robbins Book - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Jitterbug Perfume, Still Life with Woodpecker, Skinny Legs & All, Villa Incognito - but probably the first and most memorable - Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (this guy, Tom, is someone I want at my dinner party - he is cooky and crazy and there is no political correctness - I think he and I are secret soulmates)
8) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - in fact all David Mitchell books - Black Swan Green, Ghostwritten (am reading The Bone Clocks now) (my entrée into sci-fi/fantasy - but just a touch of)
9) Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (my favourite laugh out loud book - GMcM though - you never got it hey?! Thought I was crazy! I can read this time and time again and enjoy it each time)
10) Down & Out in Paris & London by George Orwell (I remember the restaurant scene where he is the dishwasher - I don't remember much else other than that I loved it - another to read again?)
11) A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (this is an action thriller ... loved it)
12) Tess of the D'urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (so sad is all I remember and that she made some REALLY bad choices)
13) The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (exciting!)
14) The Call of the Wild by Jack London (beautiful beautiful book - you are the dog - my words can't do justice to explain this one - I cried and cried)
15) King Solomon's Mines by Sir H. Rider Haggard (as exciting as The Last of the Mohicans)
16) Jock of the Bushveld by Sir James Percy Fitzpatrick (another dog story - so moving)
17) Under Milkwood by Dylan Thomas (the poetry in this is so amazing and the characters so real - pity he was such a loser)
18) You all know how much I love Murakami at the moment - but particularly liked his autobiography. Favourite is probably 1Q84. Just finished Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage.
19) Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (so sad - the American Dream unravels - didn't name my children Happy and Biff you will be pleased to know)
20) Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (another exciting one)
21) To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (made me value my own time and being a woman and the freedoms we enjoy - classical Feminism)
22) The Peapickers by Eve Langley (for my friend Alison, who recommended it to me - a gun and a dog is all a woman needs) (of which I have neither ...)
23) The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (I love the ideas of beauty on the inside vs the outside)
24) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (this scared the beejesus out of me this one - what on earth was going on?)
25) Everything by Alain De Botton, but especially The Architecture of Happiness (this man moves me - it is like he reads into my soul - would LOVE to have dinner with him - I have SUCH a crush on him - even though he is bald and has a posh/wank accent)
26) The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer (my homeschool guide - forms the basis of my way of parenting and educating my children)
27) The Mind of God by Paul Davies (love astronomy and physics - next lifetime perhaps?)
28) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (another feminism book)
29) The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (very wise words - especially on marriage and children)
30) The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester (recommended by my father it is a cool story about how the Oxford English Dictionary was complied - filled with murder and insanity!)
31) The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (scary)
32) Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart by Gordon Livingston (wise words from a man who has the right to be the ultimate victim but isn't)
33) Middlemarch by George Elliot (Just a great read - I don't remember the details but it has stuck with me). Also the Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner.
I am sure there are more...... but I will sign off now. The more I think, the more I think of.....
Whoops was meant to be top 10. If I went and looked at my bookshelf it would be worse ..... It makes me so happy re reading this list. These books formed who I am I guess that is why I feel this way. Great process!
