10 Books You Should Read Before You Die

I would say I have a hard time with ideas of what to blog, but that's not really the case.  I made a list of ten or so possible topics, and then I lost the list.  It's been that kind of week.

But!  Since pretty much all of you know me, you know that I am a voracious reader.  It's hazardous to put anything with words down around me--books, magazines, cereal boxes, instructions written entirely in Russian, whatever.  There are words; I must, perforce, read them.

So I decided that a list of 10 books I think everyone should read before he or she dies would be a good idea.  These are in no particular order; these are just books that have taught me a lot, or that I have enjoyed greatly.  Most of things are things I've been re-reading for years.  Without further ado...


10.  American Gods, by Neil Gaiman.
People who know a lot about mythology will enjoy this book.  People who don't know a lot about mythology will enjoy this book.  I like the style it's written in; it's the first thing I ever read by Neil Gaiman, and it caught me, and I've read everything I could get my hands on by him ever since.  It's wonderfully dark, with a little bit of humor here and there so it's not one unrelenting storm cloud.  And I learned quite a lot from the book itself.

9.  Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco.
Another one of those books I learned a lot from.  I had to read the English translation, unfortunately--my Italian's not good enough for this prose.  It's a dense book, don't get me wrong--this is not a weekend at the beach kind of read (unless you're like me, and enjoy reading ridiculously difficult books on vacation).  I love how Umberto Eco assumes his reader knows loads and loads about world religions, medieval and Renaissance history, occultism, secret societies, conspiracy theories, and hosts of other subjects discussed directly or indirectly in this book.  This is the book that The DaVinci Code wished it could be.  Simply put: read this.


8.  The Art of War, by Sun-Tzu.  
I don't reread this book quite as often as some others on this list, but it's a must-read in my opinion because it is so eminently quotable.  You can offer me your Bibles and copies of The Prophet or your Jack Kerouac, but this is probably the most quotable work in history ever.  EVER.


7.  The Once and Future King, by T. H. White.
I swear there's not going to be a lot of fantasy on this list, even though I do read quite a bit of fantasy.  But this book is different from most fantasy books.  It's more whimsical than Tolkien, less wordy and ponderous than Jordan, a bit more serious than most of Pratchett, but it's got a certain something about it...yes, at the heart it is the story of King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Gawain, Mordred, and the rest of Arthuriana (though it leaves out some of the more obscure stories)--but it's more a story about humans than anything else.  It both embraces and plays with the reverence given to Arthur stories elsewhere.  And on another note, the first "book" of the whole book was the source material for Disney's Sword in the Stone.  (Which I watched about eleventy billion times as a kid.)

6.  The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde.
It's a morality story.  And more than that, it's a morality story told by Oscar Wilde, which means it comes from a delightfully witty, twisted little place.  The evil we do to others reverberates on us--and even if you don't agree with that statement, it's a well-told story.

5.  The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins.
So let's say you're a kid, first year of college, and you've never been taught about evolution.  I mean, almost no one in your town properly understands it anyway, because we're all God-fearin' upright downright forthright conservative Protestants here, and we don't need no ape tellin' us we're monkeys!  Right.  And let's say you're a half-way logical kid, and you have no idea what the hell is going on anymore, because most of your worldview is challenged constantly now that you're out of Podunkville, population stupid.  And then you read this book for a class...this book completely changed my life.  In the best way possible.

4.  Cosmos,  by Carl Sagan.
At the risk of sounding like a dumbass talking about an incredibly thoughtful, intelligent book:  I like stars.  They're pretty.

3.  The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy.
Let people talk about "Jude the Obscure," or "Tess of the D'ubervilles."  (Actually, if we talk about "Jude," you'd assume that's the book I like more, because I somehow own 5 copies of it.  I don't know how.  Maybe I had two and they mated.)  But "The Mayor of Casterbridge" (I hate italics, and I'm only doing them in the headers for form's sake) was the first Thomas Hardy book I read, when I was maybe 14, and I loved it, and it has remained my favorite ever since, and I re-read it about once a year, whenever I can unearth it from the copies of "Jude" that litter my bookshelf.


 2.  I Know This Much is True, by Wally Lamb.
I probably should hate myself for putting something from Oprah's Book Club up here, but I don't.  Because I liked this book before Oprah did.  Also--this book concerns schizophrenia, abuse, Italian, and some other things I find interesting but I can't remember because I need to re-read this one again.  (Note:  I felt smart the first time I read it because I didn't need the footnotes for the Italian phrases.)

1.  Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.
I hesitated between this and Heller's Catch-22, but I ultimately decided I like this book better.  Not that Catch-22 isn't a good book, it certainly is, and I may include it another similar list later.  But this book resonated more with me, in that I could see some scenarios as actually plausible--and that frightened me quite a lot.  In addition to this, it has one of the best exchanges ever:

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."

"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."

"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy." 

Okay, so I don't want God.  But I really do love those lines, because they are absolutely gorgeous.


I'm sure I'll be kicking myself thinking of other books I should've talked about, but for now, I leave it open to your criticisms, glowing praises, or offers of cash.