In honour of vacationing Jacy's five-albums post, Tearfree is going to try a five-books post. Now, it's not the five best or most important books you've read because that's kind of a daunting task. While some of the best or most important may indeed make the list, the only criteria is that, at some point in your life these books made you say "Wow!"
Here are mine:
1) The Catcher in the Rye I read it at 14 and found my soulmate in Holden Caulfield. Was totally astounded that most of my friends didn't think it was the best book ever.
2) Pride and Prejudice At 16, it was a major lesson that people are people no matter when they lived and what clothes they wore. And then of course, there's Mr. Darcy.
3) Jane Eyre I cried and cried and cried because, at 18, I knew I'd never write like that. 20 years later in a Caribbean fiction class I had to take in grad school, I closed my books and walked out of the class when everyone started calling Charlotte Bronte a racist.
4) Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Brilliant idea, beautifully written and short. Goes perfectly with Jane Eyre.
5) Scoop by Evelyn Waugh Best reporting book ever and it holds up brilliantly.
Over to you
12 comments:
Great list! I have to admit I've never read Wide Sargasso Sea (although I saw the movie); I'm going to pick it up and read it this weekend.
Doesn't it drive you crazy when your female friends say they haven't read or don't get The Catcher in the Rye — or On the Road — because it's a "guy's book"? They're missing out.
Whaaat!!!??? There's a Wide Sargasso Sea movie???!!!
Thank you, thank you for keeping us informed.
On TCITR and OTR, here's another thought. Maybe they're women who prefer sensible men. What do you think?
LOVED Scoop. Seems more apt today than in the 1920s.
Also love P nP and CAtcher - I didn't know that was a male book
There is a movie version of Wide Sargasso Sea — and a TV movie from 2006.
I first read Catcher when I was in my teens and loved it but i am scared to reread it now. What if it's not as good as i remember it being? I also feel the same way about the bell jar
Catcher holds up, but it's different the second time around.
Quite a bodice ripper movie poster for WSS over at IMDB.
Mr. R looks super buff -- not quite how I pictured him, which is George C. Scott.
Will link later
When I saw the Jane Eyre and Caribbean mention, was going to ask if you had read Wide Sargasso Sea - and lo and behold there it is. A very wise English teacher had us read both - together - for summer reading. I also read Catcher in the Rye the same year and felt transformed and fiercely loyal to it.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee touched me a lot. Read it also in high school, then again within the past couple of years and was still horrified at what occurred then.
Read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was about 10 or 11 and have re-read many times since. Eye-opening at the time, perhaps even more so since I was born and lived in Alabama until 12.
Sorry, but I have a hard time wanting to read "Catcher ...". I went to a very small school in a very small prairie town and was exposed to limited literary works. In one of my early theatre classes at university, one student (who is now a somewhat known playwright in Toronto) had it in for me, in a negative way. When he found out I had never read Catcher in the Rye, he belittled me in front of other students.
But have read the other books on your list. Was watching television in my London hotel room last fall, and thought, hmmm, this must be a movie adaptation of Wide Sargasso Sea. Sure enough, it was.
Anonymous, it's time to move on, conquer your demons, etc.
Holden hated high school bullies. He would be very upset to hear you are not reading TCITR because of this.
To a bookstore or the library immediately.
Ok, I'll do it, in spite of that university bully.
I am so late to this, but here goes
1. The Great Gatsby. I re-read it every five years or so, and it never ceases to awe and amaze.
2. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Don't let the Old West theme turn you off. A brilliant book.
3. The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan. I sobbed hard reading this book many, many times.
4. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Ditto.
5. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. Re-read it two years ago and loved it even more than the first time I read it.
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