Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Books!


In case you are wondering, this photo is just because.
It's unrelated to my ramblings, which are soon to follow.
Ceiling of a Wat (temple) in Thailand.

Cee has started a collaboration - and she's hit on a favourite of mine: Lists. Oh, how I love lists! So, though I cannot promise that I will consistently post a list on each Monday, I am most enthusiastic about posting lists.

And she's chosen a great one to start: books.

Just before I start, here's another tangent:

The wonderful Judy Horacek has a great cartoon with the caption:
"Behind every great woman...
There's rather a lot of lists."

In no particular order:

Book I:-
Thea Astley's It's Raining in Mango
Gorgeous and evocative writing, so pungent with the sense of North Queensland.

Book II:-
Roberto Calasso's The Marriage of Cadmus & Harmony
I read this instead of studying for my exam on Classical Mythology in first year university. I got exceedingly high marks on that exam ;-) When I grow up, I want to write just like Roberto.

Book III:-
Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller...
A thoroughly thought-provoking and quite hilarious book of twists and turns, swings and diversions.

Book IV:-
Duong Thu Huong's Paradise of the Blind
I would read everything by this most humane of authors. This work struck me most powerfully.

Book V:-
Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood
Isn't it good?

Book VI:-
Milan Kundera's Immortality
and almost everything else by Milan Kundera, but reading this always makes my throat catch.

Book VII:-
Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon
This novel swims as you read it - the lines are blurred through your tears.

Book VIII:-
M John Harrison's The Course of the Heart
Heart stopping magic.

Book IX:-
Margaret Atwood's Negotiating with the Dead
A wonderful read for (want to be) writers everywhere.

Book X:-
Martha Nussbaum's Poetic Justice
Because I hope to be an ethical lawyer and I believe literature will take me there. Martha Nussbaum seems to believe so too and she's a much more complex thinker than I ever will be.

I find it difficult to limit myself to ten books - and I usually recommend to people based on what I know of them; this List is the ten that would undoubtedly appear if you kept at me about what book to read ...

What ten books would you recommend?

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