Post by dawnoshiro on Sept 13, 2012 5:36:59 GMT -5
I picked up an interesting book called "The Top Ten" in which famous writers were asked to pick their top ten books. I think people were free to interpret that any way they wanted (like the top ten favorite books, top ten most influential to their writing, top ten for literary merit, etc.)
Here is Julian Barnes's list:
1. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (hmm, should have seen that coming)
2. Don Juan by Lord Byron
3. Persuasion by Jane Austen
4. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
5. Candide by Voltaire
6. The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
7. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
8. The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
9. Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels by John Updike
10. Amours de Voyage by Arthur Hugh Clough
It makes me wonder whether Julian Barnes has taken a spot on any of his readers' top ten lists. I was totally surprised that he knocked my longtime favorite writer off the top spot of my own list of personal favorites:
1. Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes
2. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
3. Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver
4. The Aeneid by Virgil
5. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
6. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
7. Henry the IV part one by William Shakespeare
8. The Iliad by Homer
9. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
10. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Wow, as I was typing this I realized how hard it is to narrow it down to ten! The last three spots were the toughest to fill--I think I changed my mind at least a dozen times. Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah, Colleen McCullough's First Man in Rome, the Epic of Gilgamesh and Randy Shilts's And the Band Played On just missed the cut. I guess I was thinking about the 10 books I'd like to have on a desert island if those were the only 10 I could have...
If anyone else wants to post their list, it could be fun to see what other people regard as their top 10.
Here is Julian Barnes's list:
1. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (hmm, should have seen that coming)
2. Don Juan by Lord Byron
3. Persuasion by Jane Austen
4. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
5. Candide by Voltaire
6. The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
7. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
8. The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
9. Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels by John Updike
10. Amours de Voyage by Arthur Hugh Clough
It makes me wonder whether Julian Barnes has taken a spot on any of his readers' top ten lists. I was totally surprised that he knocked my longtime favorite writer off the top spot of my own list of personal favorites:
1. Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes
2. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
3. Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver
4. The Aeneid by Virgil
5. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
6. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
7. Henry the IV part one by William Shakespeare
8. The Iliad by Homer
9. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
10. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Wow, as I was typing this I realized how hard it is to narrow it down to ten! The last three spots were the toughest to fill--I think I changed my mind at least a dozen times. Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah, Colleen McCullough's First Man in Rome, the Epic of Gilgamesh and Randy Shilts's And the Band Played On just missed the cut. I guess I was thinking about the 10 books I'd like to have on a desert island if those were the only 10 I could have...
If anyone else wants to post their list, it could be fun to see what other people regard as their top 10.