My Favorite Books
November 13, 2003
Of All Time:
1. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
2. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
The rest I can't possibly order. But I'll categorize all my favorites, including the above two. Books marked with an asterisk sit on my "special shelf" alongside the two aforementioned books:
Books that could be used to teach philosophy:
- Siddhartha by Herman Hesse*
- Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville*
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera*
- Life of Pi by Yann Martel
- The Life and Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee
- Atonement by Ian McEwan
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
Stories for romantics, swooners and sighers:
- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez*
- On Love by Alain de Botton*
- The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank*
- Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
- The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho*
Rapturous prose:
- Edinburgh by Alexander Chee, winner of the Whiting Writers' Award*
- The Salt House by Cynthia Huntington*
- Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
- As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
- The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
- The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
Stories I didn't want to end:
- Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni*
- The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri*
- The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
- Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Books that get the hankies wet and the eyes swollen:
- The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
- Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (repeated)*
- The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (repeated)*
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Solid masterpieces in word, plot and character:
- Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf*
- Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
- A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
- The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
- The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
One book that doesn't seem to want a category:
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami*
Short fiction:
- The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
- Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri*
- Woodcuts of Women by Dagoberto Gilb
- East, West by Salman Rushdie
- Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie (actually this is a novella)
- Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera
- Anything by Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri or Haruki Murakami
Poetry:
- Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
- The Essential Rumi Trans. by Coleman Barks*
- Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems Edited by Nathaniel Tarn*
- Anything by W.S. Merwin
- World War I poets
Drama:
- Art by Yasmina Reza
- Copenhagen by Michael Frayn
- The Crucible by Arthur Miller
- Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
- A Doll House by Henrik Ibsen
- No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
Favorite straight-up philosophy:
- Chuang Tzu*
- Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki*
- The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche*
- The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche
- Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle*
- The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche
- Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das*
- The Yoga Sutras by Patanjali*
Non-fiction:
- Freedom in Exile by The Dalai Lama
- Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
- The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
- The Broken Cord by Michael Dorris
- We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch
- A Personal History by Katherine Graham
- Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman*
- A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
- A Natural History of Love by Diane Ackerman
- The Diary of Anne Frank
- Living Well is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins*
Yoga books:
- Light on Yoga by B.K.S. Iyengar
- Yoga Gems by Georg Feuerstein
- Resonate With Stillness: Daily Contemplations by Swami Muktananda and Swami Chidvilasananda
- Yoga Mind and Body by Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center
- Mudras: Yoga in Your Hands by Gertrud Hirschi
- Relax and Renew by Judith Lasater
- Anatomy of Movement by Blandine Calais-Germain
- Partner Yoga by Cain Carroll and Lori Kimata
- Babar's Yoga for Elephants by Laurent De Brunhoff
Lastly, books I hated:
- Possession by A.S. Byatt
- Wit (a play) by Margaret Edson (okay, I didn't read this. I saw it -- and I would never want to read it.)
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevksy (never finished it)
- The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevksy (never finished this either)
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (also never finished)
- She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb (pure torture -- can't believe I made it through without trying suicide or entering therapy myself)
- In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
- The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
* Books that sit on my special shelf with Mrs. Dalloway and Love in the Time of Cholera.
Please give me more ideas on what books to read. Some things I want to hit next: A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Norwegian Wood by Murakami, Gandhi: an Autobiography, Youth by J.M. Coetzee and I want to revisit The Canterbury Tales. But if you have something better to suggest, let me know. Also, if you want more info on any of the books above, or if you want to know why I loved (or hated) any of them so much, just email and ask. And let me know what you thought of the ones you've read -- esp. if you hated one that I loved or vice versa.
Lastly, if you want to see your own favorite reads listed on my site, send them on, and I'll create a page of your recommendations.
Archive
Soup Opera
July 24, 2003
When it comes to food, ignorance isn't bliss.
Pixels and Polls
June 13, 2003
The face that won't be launching a thousand ships.
Rituals of an Ex-New Yorker
February 23, 2003
Why crowds, dirt and feeling cramped make me say, "Home Sweet Home."
Sublime and Subpar: The New York vs. The L.A. Subway
October 29, 2002
When it's been months since the last time you feared someone might push you in front of an oncoming train, then you begin to realize how much you love the New York subway.
Many Me
August 24, 2002
Thanks for sending in your votes to Google. Laurashin.com is now on Google, and it is one of the first results that comes up under my name. It is also the number one result for "argentine tango, oxford, england," as my recently acquired friend Alexi informed me. But more on that later.
August 15, 2002
The first (not best) thought.
|
