Inspired by High Fidelity

[altariel]

Top Ten Books

1. Persuasion, Jane Austen
For making me sad and happy at once.

2. The Fox and the Hedgehog, Isaiah Berlin
For summing up my PhD in a single sentence.

3. Four Quartets, TS Eliot
For the wisdom and the knowledge.

4. Textual Poachers, Henry Jenkins
For celebrating my way of life.

5. The War Poems, Wilfred Owen
For the pity.

6. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
For everything.

7. Unfinished Tales, JRR Tolkien
For everything else.

8. A Compass Error, Sybille Bedford
For second chances.

9. How to Suppress Women’s Writing, Joanna Russ
For a voice.

10. The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin
For being the perfectly crafted book.

11. (My list.) Truth and Method, H-G Gadamer
For doing what it says on the tin.


Top Ten Children’s Books

1. The Far Side of Evil, Sylvia Engdahl
For hope, and resilience, and promising me the stars.

2. Spiderweb for Two, Elizabeth Enright
For seeing adventure in the everyday.

3. Comet in Moominland, Tove Jansson
For the words ‘melancholy’ and ‘meerschaum’, one of which I use too often, and one of which I’ve never used enough.

4. A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett
For making eccentricity OK.

5. The Silver Chair, CS Lewis
For Jill.

6. Bridge to Terebithia, Katherine Paterson
For knowing about grief and the power of the imagination.

7. Apple Bough, Noel Streatfeild
For homecomings.

8. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
For being The Hobbit.

9. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin
For making me want to go to places of learning run by the Establishment.

10. Danny the Champion of the World, Roald Dahl
For being rare in his books, and concerning love.

Comments

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Your list of children's books provoked quite a discussion at work. I'm not sure I can make a good top ten but I'd definitely have to include 'Red Shift' by Alan Garner, and 'Alice in Wonderland'. Also 'Comet in Moominland' and 'Wizard of Earthsea' from your list. Hmmm. 'Where the Wild Things Are' would have to be in there too.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Glad it proved interesting.

I read Red Shift for the first time last month, and it impressed me a great deal. I don't think I would have 'got' a word of it as a kid.

I've not read 'Where the Wild Things Are'.