Books I love
which is to say…
Books I read and re-read
over years,
or carry with me,
or keep on my shelves,
or see in my dreams,
or ponder when I’m eating
oatmeal.
John Barth, The Sot Weed Factor
John Barth, The Tidewater Tales
John Berger, Ways of Seeing
Rick Bragg, All Over but the Shoutin’
Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men
Steve Callahan, Adrift
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Nigel Cox, Phone Home Berlin
Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre
Kate DeCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
James Dickey, Poems 1959-1969
Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
Michael Ende, Momo
Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate
Susan Fletcher, Eve Green
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish
John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Michael Frayn, Copenhagen
Eugenia Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind
Nikolai Gogol, The Overcoat
Barbara Gowdy, The White Bone
Guenther Grass, The Tin Drum
Grimms’ Fairy Tales (the original un-sanitized version: scary s good!)
Heinrich Heine, Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen (Germany: A Winter’s Tale)
Hermann Hesse, Krieg und Frieden (If the War Goes On)
Homer, The Odyssey
Miles Hordern, Sailing the Pacific
Keri Hulme, The Bone People
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany
Janosch, Oh Wie Schön Ist Panama (Beautiful Panama)
Lloyd Jones, Mr. Pip
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
Jumpha Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies
Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved
Jack London, The Sea Wolf
Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
Robert McCloskey, Make Way for Ducklings
Robert Munsch, The Paper Bag Princess
Sten Nadolny, The Discovery of Slowness
Peter Nichols, Sea Change
Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, Breakthrough
Michael Ondaatje, Coming Through Slaughter
Annie Proulx, Heart Songs (short stories)
Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials trilogy
JK Rowling, Harry Potter series
David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
Maurice Sendak, Mommy?
Dr. Seuss, The Butter Battle Book
Zadie Smith, White Teeth
William Styron, Sophie’s Choice
Graham Swift, Waterland
Miriam Thoews, A Complicated Kindness
Christopher Tilghman, In A Father’s Place
Mark Twain, A Confederate Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
William W. Warner, Beautiful Swimmers
Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men
Larry Watson, Montana 1948
Christa Wolf, Der geteilte Himmel (A Divided Heaven)
Christa Wolf, Was Bleibt (What Remains)
Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again
Books you love
Tell me your favorites, too!
Glow Worm 
Check out:
The Passion Dream Book by Whitney Otto
This is a book that definitely haunts me. Love the 2 female protagonists.
Thank you, Deneen! It’s on my library list for next week!
Hmmm… Top Five, post Barth:
David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
E.B. White, One Man’s Meat
William Zinsser, On Writing Well
Alvah Simon, North to the Night
Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father
I said Top Five, but that will surely change tomorrow.
It’s about time I read Obama’s book, Tim. I’ve made a note of the others — except Alvah’s, which has been in my shelf for years. Thanks for your (ongoing, updated) list. How good to see you here. And by the way, do check out Christopher Tilghman if you don’t already know him; an honest, lyrical Chesapeake voice.
Oh Mich! Here’s a fascinating and well-written book: The Promised Land by Mary Antin. It’s been around almost a century but I recently read it. Have you? If not, I will send you my copy!
Thanks Elle Mae! I will add it to my list and look forward to the conversations we’ll have once I’ve read it!
Glad to see “Owen Meany” in your list. It is Kate and my favorite (each on our own, our minds have not yet fully fused). I bet you will like “Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
Thanks, Fred! Love the suggestion, do not know the book. It’s also on my library list now, too. Love some of Irving’s later work too, but nothing compares to those earlier books — Setting Free the Bears, Garp and OM. For me, anyway.
Dear Michelle, Try my memoir, A Liberal Educatioin.
Ah, Yes, Tom, I’d love to add that to my list!
I see you’ve got A Piece of My Heart (Richard Ford) in your queue. I’m wondering what led you there.
I hear an interview with Ian McEwan, in which he commented favorably on Richard Ford. I like McEwan lots, so I took the recommendation–thought I’d start with Ford’s first novel, A Piece of My Heart.
I’m about only 30 pages into it and haven’t decided what I think about it. My first impressions on the book are here: http://kberkeblog.wordpress.com/.