Oprah, Smoprah. Here's my list.
Nov 27 '01
The Bottom Line This had nothing to do with Oprah and everything to do with me. Read it, you might discover something better than Oprah has.
Challenged by robinmichele’s list of 100 books that changed her life I set about making my list. I did not reach 100. It’s been well documented that I am just not as good as robinmichele (sob.) But here’s my list with explanations for each and in no particular order.
1. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Ah, a good gothic tale and reasonably accessible to the too smart 7th grade me who bought and read it, much to the amazement of my teachers and mother.
2. Alas, Babylon – Pat Frank
Nuclear war story written in 1959, before we truly realized what we’d done and thought we could survive all out nuclear war.
3. Tess of the U’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
Probably one of the main reasons I developed feminist leanings and the only Merchant Ivory miniseries that causes me to yell at the television. "No, Tess, don’t. It’s not your fault!" Significantly more accessible than Return of the Native.
4. Expendables – James Alan Gardner
See review: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-FF2-AE76F25-3946DAF7-prod5
5. The Interceptor – Richard Herschlag
See review: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-2190-41189C6-39A5D06D-prod2
6. Beggars in Spain – Nancy Kress
Does what sci fi is supposed to do, looks at what might happen with new technology. Probably Kress’ best book.
7. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
See review: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-232E-14F3274B-39CFAFBC-prod3
8. Animal Farm – George Orwell
I still cry when they take Boxer away. This book inspired a George Harrison song.
9. The Greenlanders – Jane Smiley
Have you ever gotten to the end of a book and been outraged that there wasn’t more? I think this book could have been another 300 pages and I would have been as happy as a pig in mud.
10. Homecoming – Cynthia Voight
Marvelous young adult novel, four children abandonded by their crazy mother in the parking lot of a mall in Maine walk to their grandmother’s house in Maryland. Wrenching, joyful, wonderful.
11. Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
The most accessible Wharton. Short, sweet, painful. There’s a good movie version starring Liam Neeson.
12. Impossible Things – Connie Willis
See review: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-5B18-521945D-39831FB3-prod6
13. The Empire Strikes Back – Donald F. Glut
Contains stuff that isn’t in the movie. Also inspired me to become a better reader because I had to learn a few words to read it.
14. The Hobbit – J R R Tolkein
Little known fact about Darkmistress. In 5th grade I transferred to a Catholic school and was tested at a 3rd grade reading level. The Catholic school sent me to a tutor which helped a little, but more importantly they had a copy of The Hobbit in the school library. By the end of 5th grade I was reading at grade level. By the end of 6th grade I was reading at a 7th grade level. By the end of 8th grade I was reading at an 11th grade level. After that they just called me "college level reading comprehension." To say that The Hobbit rescued me from a life of managing McDonalds and thinking that was a good as it got is an understatement. Does this mean your child will become a reading dynamo because of The Hobbit? No, but it does mean that the book options should be many and varied. (Darkmistress steps off soapbox.)
15. Mists of Avalon – Marion Zimmer Bradley
One of the very best interpretations of Arthurian legend around. The TNT version was very good, but the book is much better. Plus it was the only really good book Bradley wrote.
16. Enchantment – Orson Scott Card
Great story, no annoying plot holes!
17. Good Omens – Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman
What a combination! Terry Prachett, light comedy writer, Neil Gaiman astonishingly slow writer of deep stories. It’s the end of the world, the four horsemen have graduated to motorcycles (and multinational corporations) and it’s funny!
18. The Prophet – Kihlial Gibran
So it’s poetry, it’s the life altering kind and it’s short.
19. The Wild Road – Gabriel King
Starts out as The Hobbit with cats but becomes oh so much more. Cat lovers and Hobbit lovers alike will love this one.
20. Dark Tower: Gunslinger – Stephen King
My mother hated this one and I loved it. Hard to explain, but if you happen to like Victorian poetry and Stephen King, you might like this too. (The title comes from Byron’s Childe Harold To the Dark Tower Came.)
21. Dark Tower: Drawing of the Three – Stephen King
If you liked the last one there’s no stopping now.
22. Dark Tower: The Wasteland – Stephen King
Remembered by me for the annoying end. Our heroes board an insane train after making a deal with it to have a riddling contest. If it doesn’t like the riddles it just won’t stop at the end of the line smashing them all to smithereens. It might smash them all to smithereens anyway. And then there’s no way of knowing if the track is still intact. The train doors close. Turn the page. Nothing. That’s how the book ends. Fortunately for you the next installment is out. I had to wait 4 years.
23. Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass – Stephen King
No annoying ending here, but as far as I’m concerned King could keep telling this story forever.
24. I Am Legend – Richard Matheson
Matheson wrote Twilight Zones. This is absolutely the best vampire story I’ve ever read. Yes, I’ve read Anne Rice, I’ve also seen the Jean Rollin movie she lifted her ideas from.
25. Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
Not as accessible as Ethan Frome, but if follows the same basic plot line (one man, 2 women.) I avoid the movie version like the plague because the director cavalierly disregarded the main symbolism of the book. Diana was blond in the book, Madame Olensky was brunette. It meant something. In this book, everything means something.
26. Passage – Connie Willis
See review: http://www.epinions.com/content_28858027652
27. Here Be Dragons – Sharon Kay Penman
This book makes me laugh out loud and cry every time I read it, even though I know what’s coming when I open it and all the people portrayed have been dead for 800 years.
28. The Sparrow – Mary Doria Russell
See review: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-3813-1FFC1B8C-397CD22A-prod5
29. Dragon Prince – Melanie Rawn
See review: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-32F0-10B6E8BD-39C4D81C-prod3
30. Angel with a Sword – C J Cherryh
Excellent and out of print. One of the very best worlds I’ve ever seen built. Good luck finding it. I’m not loaning out my copies. By the way 31 – 36 are the rest of the series, it’s all out of print.
31. Festival Moon – C J Cherryh
32. Fever Season – C J Cherryh
33. Troubled Waters – C J Cherryh
34. Smuggler’s Gold – C J Cherryh
35. Divine Right – C J Cherryh
36. Flood Tide – C J Cherryh
37. Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
There are many fine reviews on this book and nothing I can add.
38. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – Frank Miller
It’s a graphic novel and one of the very best. It’s a peak comics experience.
39. Maus – Art Spiegelman
The Holocaust with Jews as mice and Nazis as cats. The story is marvelous and groundbreaking. I find the art somewhat annoying.
40. Sandman: Brief Lives – Neil Gaiman
I like Jill Thompson, I think Vince Locke should be shot for what he did to her pencils. In this episode, Sandman takes a holiday (Death is too dedicated to her job to even pause.) I started here and I think it’s the best place to start.
41. Sandman: Fables and Reflections – Neil Gaiman
A collection of stories that didn’t fit anywhere else in the series. My favorite is still P. Craig Russell’s even though we never see him any more.
42. Strangers In Paradise – Terry Moore
Terry draws in the Art Nouveau style favored by my husband and despite the fact that Dennis can draw rings around Terry, the story here is marvelous. The art isn’t bad either.
43. The Stand – Stephen King
My mother and I were slightly freaked out every time we caught a cold in 1984 because that was when The Stand originally took place. Any book that can do that deserves mention.
44. When Christ and All His Saints Slept – Sharon Kay Penman
See review: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-606F-49D3D76-39B18054-prod1
45. Serpent’s Tooth – Diana Paxson
Diana was Marion Zimmer Bradley’s sister or sister-in-law, I forget. Either way this is her Mists of Avalon. A retelling of King Lear set in pre-Christian Britain. I originally borrowed this book from the library and spent years searching for a copy of my own.
46. Tales From Jabba’s Palace – Kevin J Anderson
See review: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-2D79-10AF8DAE-399227F8-prod1
47. The Black Stallion – Walter Farley
See review: http://www.epinions.com/content_25380621956
48. Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish – Morgan Llewelyn
I blithely assumed that Morgan was male when I read this book because she wrote the men so convincingly. Then I read Grania and didn’t know what to think. One of the best Irish storytellers this side of the grave.
49. Interview with a Vampire – Anne Rice
Ok, just because I denigrate the woman for her lack of original ideas doesn’t mean I wasn’t thoroughly impressed by this book. If you only read one Anne Rice book, read this one. No really, only read one Anne Rice book, this one. Then search feverishly for Jean Rollin’s Living Dead Girl and be stunned.
50. Get Fuzzy – Darby Conley
If you haven’t heard of get Fuzzy, you must go to Comics.com and look it up. You’ll thank me.
51. The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
Ray, before he went completely, crazy wrote great short stories. Many of them are here.
52. The City – Clifford Simak
When dogs ruled the Earth!
53. The Odyssey – Homer
Not everybody’s cup of tea but I’m not every reader. Should you stumble across the film version with Armaund Assante watch it.
54. Your Money or You Life
See review: http://www.epinions.com/content_26309267076
55. The End of the World – Otto Freidrich
Freakishly unlocateble now, but collects several of Freidrich’s shorter books like The Kingdom of Auschwitz. This is the way the world ends, with a bang and a whimper and sometimes it just doesn‘t.
56. A World Lit Only By Fire – William Manchester
After reading this book I went around for months evangelizing it. If you have any interest in the Middle Ages this is one book you can’t miss.
57. Understanding Comics – Scott McCloud
We have two copies. One for my husband and one for me because we were forever fighting over it. All that stuff you didn’t know was happening in comics? This explains it.
58. The Coming Plague – Laurie Garrett
See review: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-67C8-45699182-3A4BBFA9-prod3
59. Toot & Puddle You Are My Sunshine – Holly Hobbie
See review: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-2088-57AFB42-39D4EF18-prod1
60. The Keeper – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Young adult novel about a boy dealing with his father slowly going crazy.
61. A Day No Pigs Would Die – Robert Newton Peck
See Review: http://www.epinions.com/book-review-2088-57AFB42-39D4EF18-prod1
62. A Wish for Wings That Work – Berke Breathed
Appeared on TV as a Christmas special once, never to be seen again. We caught it on tape and watch it annually. I read the book when ever I darn well want to.
63. I Am 15 and I Don’t Want To Die – Christine Arnothy
See review: http://www.epinions.com/content_24323722884
64. They Call It Sleep - ?
Absolutely haunting novel about a young Jewish boy and his father at the turn of the century.
65. Language In Action – S. I. Hayakawa
Out of print, but shouldn’t be. Every thing you want to know about how to manipulate the language. Hayakawa later became a senator, from Iowa I believe.
66. Prince of Annwn – Evangeline Walton
67. The Children of Llyr – Evangeline Walton
68. The Song of Rhiannon – Evangeline Walton
69. The Island of the Mighty – Evangeline Walton
Modern translation of one of the earliest story cycles or Romances. It’s got everything, undead armies, magical items, love stories and love gone awry. The Celtic equivalent of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.
70. The Splinter of the Mind’s Eye – Alan Dean Foster
Most of my feelings on the role of the Arts in society and freedom of speech came from one of Princess Leia’s speeches in the middle of the book. Then I promptly forgot about it.
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Darkmistress
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Location: Concepcion, Chile
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