About those books...

[dreamflower]

That "100 Great Books" meme got me to thinking about what my own personal list of "must reads" would look like.

So, this is only 50, not 100, because I got tired of formatting. So there are a lot of other books that would have been on the list if I'd made it twice as long, LOL! Of course all of these are favorites, but that wasn't the only criteria--I was also going by whether they'd appeal to others as well. A lot of my favorite non-fic is rather specialized and wouldn't appeal to everyone; the same goes for a few of my favorite fiction books as well. Not everyone would have the same sentimental attachment I do to "Juliet Low, Girl Scout" or "Little Lost Bobo", two of my absolute favorite childhood books, much beloved and nearly worn out. Also, a lot of my favorites are anthologies of shorter stories, so I didn't include those either. You will notice that a few of these also appeared on that other list--no surprise there, I think! Feel free to criticize and compare my list with your own!

50 Books *I* Think Everyone Should Read:

I put these in alphabetical order, but my top five are bolded. Comments in parentheses.

1. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea--Jules Verne
2. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes--A. Conan Doyle
3. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
4. All Creatures Great and Small--James Herriot (I love the whole series, but the first book is the most charming.)

5. Around the World in Eighty Days--Jules Verne
6. At the Back of the North Wind--George MacDonald
7..The Bible--King James Version (For Bible study, I actually prefer the New International--but for beauty of language, the KJV is still the best.)

8. A Christmas Carol--Charles Dickens (If you think you know this because you’ve seen umpteen versions on TV or in the movies, you’ve really missed something if you haven’t read it for yourself.)

9. The Chronicles of Narnia--C.S. Lewis


10.A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court--Mark Twain
11.The Count of Monte Cristo--Alexander Dumas (This made a huge impression on me in the fourth grade.)

12. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
13.The Deryni Chronicles--Katherine Kurtz (The original three book series. I found the later books good reads but not nearly as fascinating as the first three.)

14. Dracula--Bram Stoker (Very captivating--there has yet to be a film version true to the book.)

15. The Dragonriders of Pern--Anne MacCaffrey (Love the whole series, but the first three are the best.)

16. Five Little Peppers and How They Grew--Margaret Sidney (I so wanted to *BE* Polly Pepper!)

17.Frankenstein--Mary Shelley (Very atmospheric and dark, another that has never had a true film version.)

18. Freckles--Gene Stratton Porter (I love several of her books, but this one truly tugs at the heart-strings.)

19. Gaudy Night--Dorothy Sayers (Lord Peter and Harriet Vane! )

20. The Golden Spiders--Rex Stout (I adore all the Nero Wolfe mysteries, but this is one of the finest.)

21. Grimm’s Fairy Tales--Brothers Grimm
22.Hans Christian Anderson’s Fairy Tales
23. Harry Potter series--JK Rowling
24. Henry V--William Shakespeare (I chose specific plays by Shakespeare--my favorite ones, not the "complete works")
25. The Hobbit--J.R.R. Tolkien (Well, of course! HOBBITS!)

26. Huckleberry Finn--Mark Twain

27. Ivanhoe--Sir Walter Scott
28. The Last Days of Pompeii--Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton (This made a huge impression on me. I had a brief fascination with Pompeii after reading this in fifth grade, and looked up all I could find out about it.)

29. The Little House on the Prairie--Laura Ingalls Wilder (My first encounter with this was having it read aloud by my third grade teacher. I’ve read it and the others several times since)

30. The Lord of the Rings--J.R.R. Tolkien (THE greatest novel of the twentieth century, a triumph of the human heart and imagination. I can‘t say enough about what this book means to me.)

31. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood--Howard Pyle (An obsession when I was in the fifth grade. The best adaptation of the story cycle, to my mind, and a charming use of archaic language.)

32. A Midsummer’s Night Dream--William Shakespeare
33, Murder Must Advertise--Dorothy Sayers (I loved undercover Lord Peter in this--he was brilliant!)
34. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd--Agatha Christie (One of Christie’s best--and I love all her books.)

35. The Once and Future King--TH White
36. Out of the Silent Planet--C.S. Lewis ( Actually the whole Ransom trilogy, but this one’s the best.)

37. Pilgrim’s Progress--John Bunyan (Maybe hard to swallow the allegory for some people, but the story was what captured me.)

38. Podkayne of Mars--Robert Heinlein (Rather dark for kid’s sci-fi, yet I really identified with Podkayne.)

39. Pride and Prejudice--Jane Austen
40. Romeo and Juliet--William Shakespeare
41. A Tale of Two Cities--Charles Dickens
42. The Three Musketeers--Alexander Dumas (The siege at La Rochelle is probably one of my favorite chapters of all time.)

43.Till We Have Faces--C.S. Lewis
44. Tom Sawyer--Mark Twain (Read this in third grade, the very first “grown-up” full length novel I ever read. I nearly laughed myself sick when Tom dosed the cat.)

45. Treasure Island--Robert Louis Stevenson
46.The Warlock in Spite of Himself--Christopher Stasheff (I enjoy the whole series, but this is still the . best.)

47. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
48. A Wizard of Earthsea--Ursula K. LeGuin
49. The Wizard of Oz--Frank Baum (As much as I adore the movie, the book has such a very special charm to it. And I loved the old Art Nouveau illustrations found in most of the early editions I had access to. My cousin had several of the books, and I always read them whenever I visited.
50. A Wrinkle in Time--Madeleine L’Engle (One of the best children’s adventures ever.)

I'd love to see some of your lists!

Comments

[shirebound]

Those early illustrations for The Wizard of Oz books are mesmerizing, aren't they? I remember being fascinated by them.

Eeee, the Five Little Peppers!! I loved that courageous family.

[dreamflower]

Oh I so loved the Peppers! I always thought that "Five Little Peppers" would have made a great family TV series (kind of like "Little House on the Prairie"). I wanted to be Polly! And Phronsie was sooo cute, I wanted to hug her!

[febobe.livejournal.com]

Peppers, yay!!!! LOVED that book - and squeed when I found Phronsie Pepper in its original (I think) edition at a used book sale last year!!!! :D

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! :D

Nice list. :)

[dreamflower]

Phronsie Pepper is one I'd like to get my hands on. Actually, I'd love to get my hands on all of the ones I don't have. I have Five Little Peppers and How They Grew,Five Little Peppers at School,Five Little Peppers Midway,Five Little Peppers Abroad and Five Little Peppers Grown-Up. I'd love to get hold of the rest.

You know, it's funny. I wish I had written down some of the ideas I had for the Peppers--it would have been fanfic. Only I didn't know anything about fanfic back then. Most of my ideas stayed in my head!

Kids today are so lucky--they know it's all right to write out the fantasies they have of their favorite books and TV shows nowadays!

[surgicalsteel.livejournal.com]

#8: Oh, my stars yes. So much amazing material never made it into any of the filmed versions - although I think the George C. Scott version probably came closest to the book.

#13: Absolutely 100% yes. The later books just got so damn dark, with favorite characters being killed off right and left (esp the Camber trilogy and the followup trilogy to that one). Good reads, but not quite as interesting for me.

And I really enjoy Stasheff's books, too! Good, easy to read, fun.

[dreamflower]

I did like the collection of short stories though, The Deryni Archives.

It's funny--K.K. was one of the founding members of the SCA Kingdom of Caid. One of my close SCA friends was a personal friend of hers back in the day.

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

Intriguing list! I'm amazed by how little I've actually read! :)

[dreamflower]

Well, IMO, you couldn't go wrong with any of the ones on that list, LOL!

[meneleth.livejournal.com]

I made a list a while ago of books I felt my daughter ought to read at some point in her life. Most are favorites of mine, but some are such basic parts of Western or American culture (like Tom Sawyer) that I want her to understand them too. I guess that my qualify as my "Best" list. I'll have to hunt it up and post it at my LJ.

BTW, I agree with *many* of your choices!

[dreamflower]

Oh, you should!

You know, except for the ones I *had* to read for school, most of the books I've read, I've never really thought about how "basic" they were--I just enjoyed reading them. But then, reading was much more a part of things than it is today.

[baranduin.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness. That's a brilliant idea for a meme!

[dreamflower]

I'd love to see what sort of lists my friends would come up with!

[topaztook.livejournal.com]

An interesting list, although I would swap out "Roughing It" for "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court" for a Twain novel beyond Huck Finn/Tom Sawyer. I think it gives a good foundation for understanding the whole "Wild West" thing in American culture. ("Yankee" is fun, but I think "The Once and Future King" covers the Camelot era, and I don't consider central switchboard operators as fundamental to American culture as the Wild West stuff.)

And "Frankenstein" is so misinterpreted by those who have only seen the movies.

I'll have to think about this -- I don't know if I can come up with 50 everyone should read.