Friday, October 2: Bandersnatches
ANOTHER DARN BOOK-MEME
by Steve Steinbock
I’ve got one more book-meme I’m going to throw at you. And then I’ll be done with the topic. That is, unless the bug bites me again.
This one is called Bookmania, and was sent to me by my cousin Elaine.
Rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me because I’m interested in seeing what books my friends value.
So I sat myself down with a stopwatch and started my list. Anytime I started thinking too hard, I stopped myself and wrote down the next book title that came to mind. When I was finished, I found that I’d done a pretty good job listing my favorite books. There were also some surprises. Were I to do the exercise again, I’d likely come up with a slightly different list. And here’s what I came up with, in the order I came up with them:
- Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin. This was the first book I listed, and it was a surprise. I hadn’t thought of this for years. It was a mind-expanding and gender-bending work of anthropological science fiction
- Dune by Frank Herbert. Call it word-association, but one science fiction title triggered thinking of a second. A brilliant epic that I re-read about two years ago and enjoyed even more the second time.
- Replay by Ken Grimwood. Loved this book about a man who kept re-living a chunk of his life. Each “replay” he would try doing things differently. In the end it was a moving, redemptive tale.
- Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. Am I the only person who didn’t hate this book when required to read it for school? I enjoyed Melville’s play on the styles of literature, and loved what the novel said about obsession and sanity.
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Another piece of “required reading” that I truly enjoyed.
- Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. This was the sequel to Card’s popular Ender’s Game, but I found it far more sophisticated than Game, and read it at a time in my life when it’s message really hit home.
- Out on the Cutting Edge by Lawrence Block. Perhaps not Block’s best work. Then again, perhaps it was. It was the first of his “Matthew Scudder” novels, and it’s the one that’s stuck with me the longest.
- The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. This little book changed it all for me.
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Adventure, romance, caves, islands, and the sense of injustice that every boys feels at some point in his life.
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. A great tale that gets better with every reading
- The Night of the Jabberwock by Fredric Brown. Very possibly the best piece of American literature that most literary people have never heard of. Brilliant, funny, surprising, and lots of whiskey.
- The Night People by Jack Finney. I had to pick a Jack Finney novel because I’ve read them all and enjoyed every one. I almost put Invasion of the Body Snatchers on the list. Then I remembered this short novel about grownups going on late night adventures. Nothing supernatural, but like all Finney’s writing, it is fun and exciting and comforting like a warm blanket and a hot fudge sundae. It was published in 1977 and then reprinted in Three By Finney
- Nine and Death Makes Ten by Carter Dickson. This book by John Dickson Carr (writing as Carter Dickson) was set on an ocean liner early in the second World War. Very evocative of the times.
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I read this book in a two-and-a-half day binge during which I became Raskolnikov. I didn’t kill anybody, but I did have an amazing, paranoid existential experience. Wow.
- The Big Fix by Roger L. Simon. A wild ride of a post-60s PI novel. Moses Wine is a sixties Berkley radical who has gone to seed as a private detective in LA, becoming a wisecracking, hash-smoking, Jewish updating of Philip Marlowe.
That’s my list and I’m sticking to it. Note that it’s all novels. If I were to make a list of fifteen short stories – or fifteen short story anthologies – I wonder what the list would look like.
How about you? What books have you met and fallen in love with at meaningful times in your life?
Let’s try that again:
1. SWEET THIRSDAY by Steinbeck
2. CANNERY ROW by Steinbeck (I read them in that order and they were wonderful)
3. THE CHINESE ORANGE MYSTERY by Ellery Queen
4. THE THIRD BULLET AND OTHER STORIES by John Dickson Carr (my hometown library introduced me to these two masters and changed my life forever)
5. KEY NEXT DOOR by Leslie Weatherhead (my introduction to one of the world’s greatest preachers and thinkers)
6. A MAN CALLED PETER by Catherine Marshall (inspiring biography)
7. THE FOUR PAGES OF THE SREMON by Paul Scott Wilson (Chnaged my style of preaching for the better)
8. THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN by G. K. Chesterton (Magic for a preteen)
9. SHERLOCK HOLMES STORIES by A. Conan Doyle (a compilation of stories that led me to all the others)
10.THE GIVING TREE by Shel Siliverstein (my girlfriend gave me this and it spoke to me; I never got into THE LITTLE PRINCE, though she tried)
11. HOUDINI by Milbourne Christopher (first bio I ever read in junior high school: I must have read it 10 times over the years)
12.I FORGOT TO SAY by F. W. Boreham (essays by Australian minister that are a delight — anything by Boreham is worth reading, if you can find it!)
13. THE NEW APOCALYPSE by John Sladek (where subject and style blend perfectly: about strange beliefs and their acolytes)
14. RODERICK by John Sladek (SF with on the money social commentary in Sladek’s wordplay)
15. BROKEN WORDS by Paul Scott Wilson (the sequel to the above, which I wonder why I didn’t think of when I wrote his first book down)
What amazes me is how young I was upon reading some of these the first time and how old I was for others. Makes me think that next year my list might change again. But these are all books I return to again out of a sense of nostalgia or for professional reasons.
Okay, I’ll play.
Heinlein – Stranger in a Strange Land
Westlake – Hot Rock
Stout – The Doorbell Rang
Jerome – Three Men In A Boat
Hoban – Riddley Walker
Block – When The Sacred Ginmill Closes
Perry – Island
Twain – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Pratchett – Small Gods
Vonnegut – Mother Night
Bradbury – Martian Chronicles
Doyle – The Woman Who Walked Into Doors
Ellin – Stronghold
Shepherd – In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash
Thurber – My Life and Hard Times
James Hilton–GOOD-BYE MR. CHIPS
CS Forester–CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER (3-in-1)
Michael Ende–THE NEVER-ENDING STORY
John Knowles–A SEPARATE PEACE
Anya Seton–KATHARINE
Octavia Butler–LILITH’S BROOD (3-in-1)
Endo Shusaku–THE SAMURAI, SILENCE
Emily Bronte–WUTHERING HEIGHTS
Patricia Highsmith–THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY
John Steinbeck–EAST OF EDEN
Issac Asimov–THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY
Leo Tolstoy–ANNA KARENINA
Robert Wilson–A SMALL DEATH IN LISBON
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT – Remarque
THE ROAD BACK – Erich Maria Remarque
THREE COMRADES – Remarque
CONDOMINIUM – John D. McDonald
THE BRIDE WORE BLACK – Cornell Woolrich
PHANTOM LADY – William Irish (Woolrich)
THE GLASS KEY – Dashiell Hammett
DOUBLE INDEMNITY – James M. Cain
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE – Cain
ANNA KARENINA – Leo Tolstoy
THE CROSS OF IRON – Willi Heinrich
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES – Doyle
THE REVOLT OF GUNNER ASCH – Hans H. Kirsch
THIS GUN FOR HIRE – Grahame Greene
A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS – Eric Ambler
(Whew! Didn’t think I could do it)
Wow! Ouite a mindtrip! Here’s my list. Oh, and “Pilgrimage” is by a local author I know. I was stunned that he wrote a book, let alone a 400 plus page book. It kicked me in the behind to write a novel of my own.
1 The New Reader’s Digest Treasury For Young Readers (My intro to Dr. Joseph Bell and Mr. Holmes.)
2 A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
3 Alfred Hitchcock’s Ghostly Gallery ed. by Robert Arthur
4 Goodbye Mr. Chips by J. Hilton
5 Around the World With Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis
6 Night Shift by Stephen King
7 Pilgrimage for Ecstasy by Bryan Berry
8 The Trouble With Tribbles by David Gerrold
9 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
10 The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by A. C. Doyle
11 Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers and Other Stories
12 Around The World With Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis
13 D’aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths by Inga and Edgar D’aulaire
14 Topper Takes a Trip by Thorne Smith
15 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robt. L. Stevenson
Wow, I like Jeff’s list. Wish I had thought of the D’Aulaire book. I was so happy to be able to buy a copy for my kid when she was the right age. I suspect that the Reader’s Digest was one of my first encounters with Holmes as well.
I like Dick’s list. It’s kind of a best of noir list, with a bit of war and espionage thrown in.
Rob, half of your list looks like titles I’d come up with on a different day. We have similar tastes, there. Plus, you and Jeff both managed to get some short stories.
Speaking of Jeff’s list. . . wow, D’Aulaire, Robert Arthur, and Thorne Smith. How cool is that?
I didn’t think I could come up with 15 books in 15 minutes. Then the titles started appearing in my memory! Couldn’t squeeze in “Tales From Gavagan’s Bar” or “The Complete Enchanter” both by DeCamp and Pratt. By the way I loved everybody’s lists, and Steve, I read the D’aulaire and the Smith in Jnr. High. (No, Thorne Smith was not in the school library…)
Four days late and several dollars short. . . had I read Tim’s comment more carefully, I would have commented on some of his choices. Cannery Row and its sequel (of sorts) Sweet Thursday are among my all time favorite novels, and are usually skipped over for Steinbeck’s more literary works.
And if I haven’t said it before, Chesterton’s Innocence of Father Brown and in particular, its lead story (“The Blue Cross”), are great literature, very important to the genre, and among my favorites.
Also, Tim’s selections of Silverstein’s The Giving Tree and Christopher’s Houdini. Adding the Paul Scott Wilson titles to the mix, Tim’s choices compel me to want to know more about him.
Tim, sorry I neglected your comment.