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winterbadgerThe rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.
1. The Sword in the Stone, TH White
2. The Game of Kings, Dorothy Dunnett
3. Animal Farm, George Orwell
4. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
5. The White Mountains, John Christopher
6. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
7. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
8. The Adventures of Robin Hood, Howard Pyle
9. Treasure Island, RL Stevenson
10. The Last of the Wine, Mary Renault
11. The Dark Is Rising, Susan Cooper
12. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
13. Clouds of Witness, Dorothy Sayers
14. The General Danced at Dawn, GM Fraser
15. Very Good, Jeeves, PG Wodehouse
I was about to add "et seq." to those that were entries representing simply the first book I could think of my that author, all of whose work is a deep part of my life, but I realised that would include almost all of the entries.
There are so many more authors and books to add. And there are so many observations I could make or guess at about the nature of my list and what it says about me. But I think I'll just leave it there.
One thing I will say. There's no nonfiction there (with a nod to GM Fraser). Not because I don't love it and devour it, but because it affects me in a different way. I can think of a few NF titles that I've read that were good books, but few that were *great* books, that moved me and spoke to me in a way that makes me remember *that book* instead of the information it contained.
If I were to make a similar list of those books--the good NF books that I've gotten a lot from but that aren't absorbed into my heart--it might look something like this:
1. The Military Experience in the Age of Reason, Christopher Duffy
2. A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin
3. The Campaigns of Napoleon, David Chandler
4. Six Days of War, Michael Oren
5. The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson, Bernard Bailyn
6. The Proud Tower, Barbara Tuchman
7. The Thirty Years' War, CV Wedgwood
8. The Longest Day, Cornelius Ryan
9. The Franco Prussian War, Michael Howard
10. American Creation, Joseph Ellis
11. Landscape Turned Red, Stephen Sears
12. The Iron Wall, Avi Shlaim
13. All the President's Men, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
14. The Art of Heraldry, A.C. Fox Davies
15. 1066 and All That, W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman
And, no surprise there--those are almost all military and political history and include some of what I consider to be the greatest historians and exemplars of historical writing around (e.g., Wedgwood, Tuchman). Again, more than half of those entries are there to represent the corpus of work of a writer who deserves most of the 15 entries just themself--it was only with great effort that I put only one book by Tuchman instead of half a dozen.
Honourable mentions, IMO go to three nonfiction television series that, while they were television first and books after, certainly had a profound effect on my thinking, Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation", Jacob Bronowski's "The Ascent of Man", and James Burke's "Connections".
1. The Sword in the Stone, TH White
2. The Game of Kings, Dorothy Dunnett
3. Animal Farm, George Orwell
4. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
5. The White Mountains, John Christopher
6. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
7. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
8. The Adventures of Robin Hood, Howard Pyle
9. Treasure Island, RL Stevenson
10. The Last of the Wine, Mary Renault
11. The Dark Is Rising, Susan Cooper
12. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
13. Clouds of Witness, Dorothy Sayers
14. The General Danced at Dawn, GM Fraser
15. Very Good, Jeeves, PG Wodehouse
I was about to add "et seq." to those that were entries representing simply the first book I could think of my that author, all of whose work is a deep part of my life, but I realised that would include almost all of the entries.
There are so many more authors and books to add. And there are so many observations I could make or guess at about the nature of my list and what it says about me. But I think I'll just leave it there.
One thing I will say. There's no nonfiction there (with a nod to GM Fraser). Not because I don't love it and devour it, but because it affects me in a different way. I can think of a few NF titles that I've read that were good books, but few that were *great* books, that moved me and spoke to me in a way that makes me remember *that book* instead of the information it contained.
If I were to make a similar list of those books--the good NF books that I've gotten a lot from but that aren't absorbed into my heart--it might look something like this:
1. The Military Experience in the Age of Reason, Christopher Duffy
2. A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin
3. The Campaigns of Napoleon, David Chandler
4. Six Days of War, Michael Oren
5. The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson, Bernard Bailyn
6. The Proud Tower, Barbara Tuchman
7. The Thirty Years' War, CV Wedgwood
8. The Longest Day, Cornelius Ryan
9. The Franco Prussian War, Michael Howard
10. American Creation, Joseph Ellis
11. Landscape Turned Red, Stephen Sears
12. The Iron Wall, Avi Shlaim
13. All the President's Men, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
14. The Art of Heraldry, A.C. Fox Davies
15. 1066 and All That, W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman
And, no surprise there--those are almost all military and political history and include some of what I consider to be the greatest historians and exemplars of historical writing around (e.g., Wedgwood, Tuchman). Again, more than half of those entries are there to represent the corpus of work of a writer who deserves most of the 15 entries just themself--it was only with great effort that I put only one book by Tuchman instead of half a dozen.
Honourable mentions, IMO go to three nonfiction television series that, while they were television first and books after, certainly had a profound effect on my thinking, Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation", Jacob Bronowski's "The Ascent of Man", and James Burke's "Connections".
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Date: 2010-10-15 09:57 pm (UTC)And I loved 1066 and All That, too! When Kevin and I were "dating" he would read it to me over the phone, so I have really fond memories of it! Plus, I totally forgot about The Longest Day -- superb book!
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Date: 2010-10-15 10:16 pm (UTC)1066 is an old family favourite. :-) While many of the other writers are great because they show by example what good historical writing looks like, 1066 is great because the authors set out to mock bad historical writing and succeeded hilariously.