15 Recommendable Books

by Sparrow, August 04, 2009

My friend Krista Bremer sent me this note on Facebook:

 

Rhys Chatham's 15 Books query

 

Ali asked me to think of 15 books off the top of my head that were significant for me. It was an interesting exercise, and fun! Rules: Don't take too long to think about it...

 

Here is my list of "15 Recommendable Books":

 

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

The Holy Bible (King James version)

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne*

A Passage to India by E. M. Forster

The Caretaker and The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter

The Talking Cure by Christopher Hampton

Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain

Short Novels by Henry James

Benito Cereno by Herman Melville

Walden and An Essay on Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Stories by Saki

The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton

Selected Poems by W. H. Auden

The Quiet American by Graham Greene

Naked Lunch by William Burroughs

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

*The most recent book that I read.

 

Notes: The first three titles came to me immediately, and decisively (perhaps influenced by In Search of J.D. Salinger by Ian Hamilton, an investigative biography I recently finished).  I read A Passage to India within the last two years -- read it quite quickly, which is unusual for me -- often exclaiming, "This is the greatest novel of the 20th century!"  I am one of the only living persons who loves Emerson's poems, so I want to advertise him.  Christopher Hampton is another of my heroes -- one of the few who is alive.  I admired the film Carrington, which he wrote and directed, and his translation of the play Art by Yasmina Reza.  Hampton has a brilliant historical sense, and is virtually unknown to literary readers.  (I'm proud that 3 plays are on my list!)  I just started Tom Sawyer Abroad, and feared it was wrong to list a novel I haven't finished, so I changed it to Huckleberry Finn -- then re-changed it.  "A good list should include the excitement of beginning a book," I thought.  The Quiet American was my favorite novel in 1983; I would choose The End of the Affair now, but I am honoring my youthful self.

 

Last week, I wrote the poem:

 

Question

 

Who is your favorite English Buddhist?

 

The only answer I can give is G. K. Chesterton.

 

I wrote this list impulsively, so it went over fifteen.  You may trim it down mentally, if you like.  (Rereading my list, I discover that I'm a anglophile.)