Over at Alwyn's blog she had a meme for thirty books (or series of books) that you would crawl across glass(or similar) to get your paws onto.
So here are mine. I should add that this list should be in no way considered exhaustive, but is merely a snapshot which I though of at about 3am
1. Elizabeth Zimmermann - anything really, tart, dry and very amusing. One of the knitteing authors which changed from being a knitter to being a KNITTER.
2. Anything by Sheri Tepper - a great author for women and a great storyteller
3. The Bittermoon duology from Amy Lane - great story telling; do yourself a favour and get your hands on them - fabulous
4. Anything by Jane Austen - smart, witty, keenly observant, amusing - the best books ever.
5. But because Jane only wrote half a dozen books, how about some of Georgette Heyer's Regency romances - tongue firmly in cheek, meticulously researched and lots of fun.
6. Any Phaedon art book. Pick your three favourite artists and grab a Phaedon - beautiful erudite books.
7. Nigella Lawson cookbooks - starting with `How to Eat' and continuing through all the others' Food as prose and recipes for the time challenged and greedy.
8. The Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. Laugh out loud funny and I adore Grandma Mazur
9. Anything by Terry Pratchett - funny, incisive, great characters and parodies. A tragedy of the highest order that he has early onset Alzheimers
10. The Song of Ice and Fire Series by George RR Martin. Politics, sex, intrigue and power - brilliant and ongoing.
11. Anything by Charles de Lint. Master of urban fantasy and incredibly poetic and musical prose.
12. Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay - The 3 books in the Fionnavarr Tapestry have been read and reread and rereread. Beautiful, moving and still brings me to tears.
13 The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula K Le Guin - hell - anything by Ursula - brilliant, fabulous wonderful - read them
14. Gerald Durrell's biographical books - especially `My Family and Other Animals'. Hilarious and one of the few families which made mine look nearly normal
15. PJ O'Rourke - one of the few Republican's I'd invite to dinner - hysterical, drunken and keen observer, but often seriously politically unsound
16. Steven Donaldson - everything
18. Bill Mollison's permaculture books. How to be sustainable and have fun.
19. Stephanie Alexander - the Cook's Companion. A book I really couldn't live without.
20. PG Wodehouse - all of them - seriously, an England which perhaps only existed in peoples minds. Stereotypical, class laden and funny.
21. Yates Garden Guide. There's an answer for most things in here.
22 Terence Conran's The House Book. Full of ideas and great visuals. Unlikely to happen while there are children around, but I can dream.
23. Winston Churchill - History of the British Empire. Brilliant
24. Seamus Heaney's poetry -especially the audio books of his wonderful Irish voice reading his poems.
25. Ray Bradbury - any collection of short stories
26. Potter's book of Glazes - and entire chemistry course in one small volume
27. H Rider Haggard - Adventure stories from a time when men were men and women were scary. The source of the expression `She Who Must Be Obeyed'
28. Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series. These get better and better as they go on, in direct contrast to Lauren Hamilton who started off great and turned into badly written soft porn
29. The King James Version of the Bible. Rolling thunder of archaic, badly translated text, but so poetic and wonderful
30. John Gardener, `Grendal.' and of course the book from the other point of view `Beowulf'. Try reading it aloud in the original Anglo-Saxon. And the read Grendal to see what the monster thought about it all.
31 And one for luck. A long out of print sci book called `From the Legend of Biel' - and anything by Patricia McKillip or Robyn McKinley. Or a stack of others.
That's the list for tonight. Tomorrow it may be entirely different. Thanks for this one, Alwyn.
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7 comments:
Interesting list, I feel if our lists were a Venn diagram we'd have a fair bit in the overlapping bit!!!
Have you been sneaking into my house at night and rifling through my bookshelf?
Sounds like a lot of us would be perfectly happy if we were allowed to come into each other's houses, say, "Hi, I'm so-and-so, may I look in your bookshelves?" and just sit and read!
Oh Seamus Heaney reading his own poetry - that would be wonderful.
Those look like some good picks - and what a big range! I'm going to a try a couple of those i haven't yet!
Grandma Mazur is one of my favorites,too! I like Nigella but I'm a Julia Child fan. I already own most of her books so I don't have to crawl through anything to get them.
OMG! I made the top ten! I'm so thrilled!!! (And I feel so guilty about not doing this meme...the whole thing made my mind boggle!
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