Tuesday 26 January 2010

“Fifteen books that will always stick with you”

Rational Jenn has asked, “Which fifteen books that you have read will always stick with you?” The rules specify that you think about the issue for no more than 15 minutes and that, for good or ill, you list the first 15 that come to mind.

Like Jim Woods, I’ve added a condition that I would not repeat authors, or subjects.  Otherwise it would just be a list of fifteen Ayn Rand books.  :-)

And just because I can’t cut my list down (and don’t want to) I’ve made it a coming-of-age twenty-one instead of just an adolescent fifteen.  Just call me Mr Greedy.

Over to you now. What are the fifteen or so that stick with you?

24 comments:

bruddah said...

Is fiction OK? I am quite a dreamer so this list is pure enjoyment, not much serious stuff

Jack Kerouac, "On The Road"
Antoine St. Exupery, "The Little Prince"
Donna Gillespie, "The Light Bearer"
Brian Tracy, "Maximum Achievement"
Tracy Kidder, "The Soul of a New Machine"
Orson Scott Card, "Ender's Game"
Isaac Asimov, "Foundation (series)"
Weis and Hickman, "Dragonlance Chronicles"
Tolkein, "The Hobbit"
Stanley Jaki, "Science and Creation"
The Bible
Steven Pinker, "The Blank Slate"
Stephen Lawhead, "The Song of Albion (series)"
Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
Winkie Pratney, "The Nature and Character of God"
Niall Ferguson, "Empire"
Maurice Gee, "Going West"

PC said...

ottimo post

Jeffrey Perren said...

Some excellent - and unexpected - choices, PC. A Clockwork Orange is surprising, though, given it's sheer subjectivist nihilism. No Highway was a superb choice. Have you seen the excellent film adaptation?

(I'll provide my list later.)

Peter Cresswell said...

@Ropata: "Is fiction OK?"

I hope so, since nearly half of mine are. :-)

@Jeff: "A Clockwork Orange is surprising, though, given it's sheer subjectivist nihilism."

I first read it when I was around fifteen, and found it a great meditation on free will. I still think so. (Awful film, though.)

"No Highway was a superb choice. Have you seen the excellent film adaptation?"

It's almost the perfect Objectivist novel--and could easily be made so if the location of the wreckage was calculated rather than "predicted."

I haven't seen the film adaptation--I understood it rather undercut the intellectual component of the dramatic conflict?

Tama Boyle said...

This list of books looks shopped. I can tell from some of the pixels and having seen quite a few shops in my time.

Owen McShane said...

Arthur Ransome – Swallows and Amazons series.
Popper – The Poverty of Historicism and Open Society and its Enemies.
Hicks – Postmodernism.
Stephen Pinker –The Language Instinct
Hernando de Santo – The Mystery of Capital.
Gribben – Deep Simplicity
Freeman Dyson The Sun the Genome and the Internet

Owen McShane said...

Also
Virginia Postrel – The Future and Its Enemies.
Asimov - I Robot and so on.
Moore - Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy.
Doris Lessing - The Golden Notebook.

David said...

The Bible
The Hobbit
Atlas Shrugged
Arthur Ransome – Swallows and Amazons series
Caesar and Christ (history book) - William Durant
Economics for Real People - Gene Callahan
Meltdown - Thomas E. Woods
In Defense of Food - Pollan
The Omnivore's Dilemma - Pollan
The Amazing Bread Machine
The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal - Rand
The Permaculture Home Garden - Linda Woodrow
Discworld Series - Pratchett
Human Action - Ludwig von Mises


I'm afraid that I'm repeating both authors and subjects. But really, how narrowly should you define such subjects as fantasy fiction or economics!

Jeffrey Perren said...

"I haven't seen the film adaptation--I understood it rather undercut the intellectual component of the dramatic conflict?" Peter

"Undercut" might be a tad strong, but it is a film, and lays less emphasis on that. Still, it's a very fine movie, and for many of the reasons that made the book so good.

Willie said...

"The Book of Tofu"?

Legalise all drugs, privatise the police and the army, abolish all govt ministries, cut taxes to flat rate of 2% to pay for the courts, but ban Tofu.

There's a limit to live and let live PC and I draw the line at Tofu.

Oswald Bastable said...

The Hobbit- Tolkien
'Time Enough for Love'- RAH
'Starman Jones'- RAH
'The Wasp Factory'- Iain M Banks
'Consider Phlebas'- Iain M Banks
'The Algebraist'- Iain M Banks
'The saga of the exiles' series- Julian May
'The galactic mileu' series-Julian May
'Drinking the sapphire wine'- Tanith Lee
'A nomad of the time streams'- Michael Moorcock
'Meddlers in Time'- Yours Truely

David said...

Completely irrelevant to this blog entry, but ack.

http://msn.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10622354

lady lavender said...

Cave in the Snow - Tenzin Palmo
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson
Uncommon Wisdom - Fritjoff Capra
Fifth Business - Robertson Davies
Jane Eyre - Jane Austen
Enders' Game - Orson Scott Card
There be Dragonnes - Mary Brown
Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin
Musashi - Eji Yoshikawa
Circling the Sacret Mountain, Robert Thurman & Tad Wise
How to live forever - Colin Tompson
(picture book for kids)
The Autobiography of a Yogi - Paramahansa Yogananda

lady lavender said...

sorry Not PC, Charlotte Bronte for Jane Eyre, not Austen. Anna so disliked anything Austen! LOL, I would like Pride and Prejudice (the 4-hr BBC series in the unforgettable category though!)

XChequer said...

Fantastic list by all commentators - they have managed to include all that I would have put down (bar perhaps Peter F Hamilton's book) and thats not a cop out.

Just goes to show right minded people everywhere have taste.

Ayrdale said...

Jayne Anne Phillips "Machine Dreams"
Lionel Shriver "We Need to talk About Kevin"
Nevil Shute "The Chequer Board"
Evelyn Waugh "Brideshead Revisited"

Russell W said...

The Ominous Parallel - Leonard Peikoff (revealing disintanglement)
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology – Leonard Peikoff (clarity)
The Virtue of Selfishness – Ayn Rand (powerful)
Nancy Wake – Peter Fitzsimmons (heroic)
The History Of NZ – Michael King (thourough)
WW2 – Winston Churchill (brilliant)
Parliament of Whores – P.J. O’Rourke (humourously serious)
Libertarianism a Primer – David Boaz (a lesson in delivery)
Golda Meir – Autobiography (example of focus)
Mao - Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (complete evil bastard)
God is not great... - Christopher Hitchens (funny, lucid; inarguable)

B Whitehead said...

Ayn Rand -The fountainhead
David Boaz -The Libertarian reader
Joel Salatin -Everything I want to do is illegal
P.J O'Roarke -On the wealth of nations
Robert Pirsig -Zen & the art of motorcycle maintenance
George Orwell -Animal farm
Victor Hugo -ninety three
Benny Green -Blame it on my youth
William Golding -Lord of the flies
Robert Frump -Until the sea will free them
Sebastian Junger -The perfect storm

ngapaki said...

The Grapes Of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
Quarantine - Jim Crace
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
The World According To Garp - John Irving
Cultural Amnesia - Clive James
The Ancestor's Tale - Richard Dawkins
The Silver Sword - Ian Serraillier
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - William l. Shirer
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
American Psycho - Brett Easton Ellis
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
The Sneetches - Dr. Seuss
The Choirboys - Joseph Wambaugh
Between Thought and Expression: Selected yLrics of Lou Reed

DenMT said...

Okey dokey...

Fictional ones

Richard Brautigan - 'Sombrero Fallout'
John Irving - 'The World According To Garp'
Italo Calvino - 'Invisible Cities'
Tom Robbins - 'Another Roadside Attraction'
Umberto Eco - 'Foucault's Pendulum'
Joseph Heller - 'Catch 22'
Aldous Huxley - 'Brave New World'
Jorge Luis Borges - 'Labyrinths'
Zac O'Yeah - 'Tandoori Älg'
William Butler Yeats - 'Michael Robartes and the Dancer'

Non-fictional ones

Buckminster Fuller - 'Critical Path'
Gaston Bachelard - 'The Poetics Of Space'
Michael Braungart/William McDonough - 'Cradle To Cradle:Remaking The Way We Make Things'
Siegfried Giedion - 'The Eternal Present'
Marcus du Sautoy - 'The Music Of The Primes'
Sven-Gunnar Håkansson - 'Från Stock Till Stuga' (Classic Swedish text on time-honoured timber construction methods)

ZenTiger said...

For pure action, I'm amazed the Amazing Spiderman is not on the list. Tough call to limit it to 15 issues though.

In the adventure category, there's the Famous 5, anything where Timmy saves the day really.

Regarding War Time classics, probably Biggles.

Covering the animal kingdom, Finn the Wolfhound is a strong contender as is Watership down.

Reflecting the class struggle, then PG Wodehouse with Bertie Wooster cannot possibly be excluded?

I think in terms of creativity, a little eclectic perhaps, but The Times Cryptic Crossword is always a good read, and you never know how it's going to end.

In terms of extending ones horizons, perhaps the white pages, or if one is business minded, the yellow pages edition has a lot going for it.

To cure insomnia, surely Das Kapital, although at a pinch you could just read the John Galt radio monologue backwards. Bloody hell, things that long should have an intermission.

I can't understand why an essential such as the book by that Jane Bird. Was it Jane Ayre on the Bronte Burgers? No hang on, I remember now - it's Janes Gun Recognition Guide. Bloody good value, and a real page turner.

And on the very important topic of interplanetary travel, the true stories of John Cater and Deja Thoris living on Barsoom as reported by Edgar Rice Burroughs is useful, especially if you are proficient with a sword and prone to astral travel.

There's 10 essentials just there. Awesome dudes.

I.M Fletcher said...

OK, here's a list just from looking at what is on my shelf. I'm probably forgetting something, but...

The Bible, of course.
Stephen Lawhead, "The Song of Albion (series)" I agree with ropata 100% on that - awesome series. His King Arthur stuff is tops, too.
Nicholas Sparks, A Walk To Remember - OK, I'm a sucker, but I've read it a few times now and it always affects me.
Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash - if you're into computers and chatting and cyber-worlds this is a must. I don't agree with the Nam-shub stuff though.
William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli, Daredevil: Born Again - probably the best comic series/graphic novel I have ever read.
Mark Waid and Alex Ross, Kingdom Come comic series.
Douglas Adams, Life, The Universe, and Everything - as far as quirky comedy goes, Adams was a master.
Arthur Conan Doyle, The complete Sherlock Holmes short stories - read these when i was in high school; wonderful.
Hugh Cook, The Walrus and the Warwolf - I used to have all of his fantasy books, but this is his best IMHO. Cracking great story with everything. Hard to find now.
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury - what can you say about Bradbury? His writing style is almost poetic in places.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets From The Portuguese - probably my favourite poetry of all time.
Harry Harrison, The Stainless Steel Rat (series).
Gregory McDonald, Fletch (series) - crime drama with wit and snappy comebacks.
Ernest Hemmingway, The Old Man and The Sea.

Oswald Bastable said...

I keep reading the post and thinking 'Oh yeah- that one too!'

The way my family and I collect books, the house is in danger of undergoing gravitational collapse!

Sunshine Philosophy said...

The Talisman King&Straub
Hyperion Dan Simmons (read before hollywood ruins it)
Thus spake Zarathustra Nietzche
Dancers at the End of Time Moorcock
Asylum Van Vogt
Weaveworld Barker
My 60 Memorable Games Fischer
1984 Orwell

cripes it's a hard list to make...

Worst book
Bible