Top Ten Favorite Books (so far)...

[create_destiny]

1. Cry, The Beloved Country - Alan Paton

I read this book when I was 17 and did an hour-long oral presentation on it for a high school English class. Ten years later I re-read this book and was blown away by how much I just didn't get the first time I read it. I'm going to try to re-read this book every ten years to see what else I'm missing. Paton is an elegant writer. I have a thing for books set in Africa.

2. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I read this book shortly after I became fascinated with everything Russian. After reading this book I read Elder Ambrose of Optina by Fr. Sergius Chetverikov. Optina is a famous monastery in Russia that Dostoyevsky visited frequently. Dostoyevsky wrote The Brothers with the specific intention of depicting the real-life, clairvoyant monk, Elder Ambrose, with whom he often sought spiritual counsel. Dostoyevsky's fictional character, Elder Zosima, was modelled after Elder Ambrose and Dostoyevsky put many of the words spoken by Elder Ambrose directly into the mouth of Elder Zosima.

I also just love Dostoyevsky because he was a tortured soul and I tend to like tortured souls because I myself am a tortured soul.

3. Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis

A re-telling of the classic tale of Psyche and Cupid. I really identified with the main character's god-angst. This book gives readers a picture of what it would be like to live with an orthodox pagan worldview, not this neo-happy-go-lucky-paganism that is popular today.

4. Middlemarch - George Eliot

They knew how to write back then (1871). If you think you're a good writer, read this book and realize that you're not.

5. Out Of Africa - Isak Dineson

Breathtaking, elegant, and a fascinating look into Africa.

6. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

Another fascinating look into Africa.

7. The Chosen - Chaim Potok

A great book for young and old adults alike. A peek into the lives of Jews (Orthodox and otherwise) living in Brooklyn during WWII.

8. Love Medicine - Louise Erdrich

I read this book for a American Indian Literature class I took last fall. I love the way this woman writes and I copied entire passages into my offline journal.

9. Black Elk Speaks as told to John G. Neihardt

Another book I read for my American Indian Lit. class. I venerate Black Elk as a saint and hope to paint an icon of him some day and make a pilgrimage to his grave.

10, One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I'm reading this right now and I'm spellbound.


Honorable Mentions:
Youth of the Apocalypse - Monks John Marler and Andrew Wurmuth
1984 George Orwell
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Tonto and Lone Ranger Fist-Fight in Heaven - Sherman Alexie

***For extra credit tell me how many of my top ten books were written by women. Do not include honorable mentions.

Comments

[ygolonac.livejournal.com]

Your reads are way different than mine. I read for escape. I read fiction almost exclusively. Most of that is 'genre fiction'. I can't imagine myself getting through Jane Eyre.

[ladymorgaine.livejournal.com]

Oooooh, it looks like we have similar tastes in literature! I love "must reads" like, well, pretty much everything by Harper Lee, JD Salinger and George Orwell, but then I've never read Jane Eyre for some reason. I should do that. CS Lewis is another favorite of mine, but I've never read that particular one.

The one that really struck me on your list was Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe. I love LOVE that book! My personal opinion is that every single person alive should read that one. So simple, yet it totally blew my world view into a thousand bits the first time I read it. I have an urge now to buy several copies and distribute them to my friends.

I don't think I could even make a top ten list. So many can't even be compared. How does one compare Kafka to Homer? Or Frank Herbert? And just for starters I'd have to include everything ever written by Vonnegut... Maybe I'll write a top ten favorite authors list instead.

Based on your list, I'm going to read #s 1, 3 and 7 and maybe 8 as soon as I can pick them up.

As for your extra credit question, the answer is 3. 2 were gimmes, and the third I suspected, but wasn't sure so I looked it up. So I suppose I really only deserve a half point. :P

[punkers23.livejournal.com]

I had to read To Kill A Mockingbird in Jr year of HS. It's one of those 5 books I was forced to read and actually enjoyed....Another being Night.

I have Youth of the Apocalypse and I haven't finished it. I read some-stop-start over....I've done that like 5 times already.

[mysterylanguage.livejournal.com]

Nice list! It makes me want to make one of my own. :)

The Brothers Karamazov might just be the best book ever written. I can't praise Dostoevsky enough. I recently reread The Brothers Karamazov and was just blown away. What do you think of his other works?

I read Cry, the Beloved Country in high school and I can't say that it impressed me. But then again, I don't think anything I read before college really counts. There are only a few things I liked that I read in school (Crime and Punishment and The Chosen among them). Maybe I should give this book another chance someday.

I really liked Till We Have Faces as well. I took a class on C.S. Lewis that really opened my understanding of his work. I love The Chosen as well. For some reason, it always inspires me to be better. I've always felt that this is a book that I'll want my future children to read.

Two books from your list that I absolutely must read soon: Middlemarch and One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Going for it

[wingsonwind.livejournal.com]

3 of the authors on your list are women.