Writing Seeking Reading

[radiantfracture]

What books are you most glad to have read?

What books are you most glad to have in your mind as objects, if that's how you have books-- to revolve and contemplate --

or as nodes in your web of thought, if that's how you have them -- for their connections to other books or for their illumination of you know Life or science or art --

or as blotches of blurry colour, if that's how you have them -- for the pleasure or surprise or wonder they gave you?

What books would you most wish never to forget? Which have lodged in your spine and made it stronger? The really key keys to your mythologies. The non-negotiables.

I wish to plan my reading better this year, but while I have perhaps two hundred unread books lying about desperate to be taken up, I have limited time and there's a snowy blank where the urge towards the next book might usually be found. (And a snowy blank all 'round.)

So -- off the top of your head -- through old habits of mind or new revelations or sheer perversity -- what would you most not want not to have read?

Sans advice, I will finish Howards End and Party Going and probably go on to Red Shift, since that's what Backlisted recently covered (in n extraoooordinary [DING DING DING] episode, found here.

Cheers for any thoughts at all you care to share.

{rf}

Comments

[radiantfracture]

Or if that's too much responsibility, you know, just suggest something neat.

{rf}

[kenjari]

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon
The Lions of Al-Rassan, by Guy Gavriel Kay
Thomas the Rhymerm by Ellen Kushner

[radiantfracture]

Thank you! What makes those ones the ones?

[kenjari]

For Thomas the Rhymer, not only is it beautifully written, but I read it in early adolescence and I think it was the first book I ever become deeply emotionally involved with.
The other two are two of the best books I've ever read and I'm just exceedingly glad to have had the experience of reading them.

[watervole]

I have a lovely little copy of Omar Khyaam that my grandmother gave me. Both beautiful, good to read and a memory all in one book.

[radiantfracture]

What a wonderful constellation to have all enfolded in a little space. Which translation is it?

I went through a phase in university when I was constantly giving out copies of The Rubaiyat -- birthdays, marriages, even people who were about to go travelling and didn't need any more weight in their luggage.

And yet now, you know, I don't think I have a copy at all.

{rf}

[watervole]

Fitzgerald -though I forget which one of his.