I got tagged by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shadowkat for this:
Rules (if you've been tagged, you can actually play or not play!): list 10 books that have stayed with you in some way. Don't take more than a few minutes and don't think too hard - they don't have to be the "right" or "great" works, just the ones that have touched you. Tag ten people or just a few people including me - so can see list. [You don't have to tag anyone of course.]
I’m not tagging anyone since a lot of my flist have already been tagged, but if you want to do it,I dare you by all means, go ahead!
The Brothers Lionheart, Astrid Lindgren
Ask any Swede about their favourite Astrid Lindgren book, and they'll talk your ear off for hours. Brothers Lionheart was not only the (probably) first fantasy novel I read, but also remains one of the most honest ones. It's a children's book, but it never shies away from darkness; hell, it starts with the title characters dying horribly, and goes on from there to become one of the most heartwarming stories I know even as things get very dark indeed.
Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
Arguably Slaughterhouse-Five is the most important Vonnegut novel, but this is the one I love so much I've had it tattooed on me. A very dark comedy about humanity killing itself off because finding ways to not do it is simply too hard. Puts the calypso in apocalypse. See the cat? See the cradle?
Crime and Punishment Feodor Dostoevsky (or however you choose to spell it in Latin script)
I keep coming back to this one every 10-12 years since I was 15. Every time I find something new in it. I don't necessarily agree with Dostoevsky half the time, but few other authors are as interesting to argue with. And I have the BtVS crossover fic to prove it.
The Stand, Stephen King
Not the first King I read - I think that was Christine - but the one I've read the most times, and the one I can probably quote in my sleep even though it's 1200-odd pages. Everything that ever made King great (and pathetic, and funny, and flawed, and heartfelt, and horrific, and) is in here somewhere.
Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco
Eco builds the conspiracy novel to end all conspiracy novels, peppering the text with so many references and ideas and "alternative facts" that I'm sure I've only discovered a fraction of it so far. Three publishers who get tired of having conspiracy nuts send them manuscripts decide to combine ALL conspiracies into one meta-conspiracy and sell it back to the nutcases… and it works just a little too well. I'm afraid to re-read this in the current climate, which probably means I should.
Moominpappa At Sea, Tove Jansson
The novel where the idyllic Moomin valley starts falling apart, where everyone has to grow up and find themselves, where the world becomes bigger than any of them and the wacky adventures turn out to have real consequences. I love the whole series, but this is where I can still really connect to it.
Little Man, What Now?, Hans Fallada
The story of the years leading up to Hitler's takeover... written, published and read by millions in 1932, before it happened. Fallada focuses on a young couple trying to make it in a society where all the doors are closing one by one, where violence and fascism are increasingly looking like the only possible outcome, who keep trying to do the right thing and keep finding out that it doesn't matter what they do. Both a brilliant relationship drama and a reminder that seeing it coming matters not one jot if you choose to ignore it or you're unable to act on it.
The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
So Satan and his minions turn up in Stalinist Russia and start wreaking havoc with the Perfect (by party order) Society. Oh, and they're the good guys, sort of. M&M is hilariously anarchic, but at its heart, and in that meta-story it weaves in about a lone man trying to explain to Pilate that he's NOT who everyone says he is, it tells a story about ideas turned into uncontrollable monsters that never loses its point. Manuscripts don't burn.
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
I've read this (the first four books) more times than I can count. The sheer explosion of ideas, the way he gleefully ducks and weaves around SF clichés, all the worldbuilding asides, all the satirical jabs that never lose relevance ... and that beautiful ending of the fourth novel. Sleep tight, Marvin.
Just Kids, Patti Smith
Autobiographies tend to bore me. Just Kids works not just because I love Patti Smith beyond measure, but in the way she taps back into that creative energy she had early on, trying to give both the reader and herself a proper answer to that age-old question "Where do your ideas come from", the description of her life with Robert Mapplethorpe, and the way it’s all reflected 40 years later when almost everyone else is gone in that heartbreaking Why can't I write something that would awake the dead?
shadowkat for this:Rules (if you've been tagged, you can actually play or not play!): list 10 books that have stayed with you in some way. Don't take more than a few minutes and don't think too hard - they don't have to be the "right" or "great" works, just the ones that have touched you. Tag ten people or just a few people including me - so can see list. [You don't have to tag anyone of course.]
I’m not tagging anyone since a lot of my flist have already been tagged, but if you want to do it,
The Brothers Lionheart, Astrid Lindgren
Ask any Swede about their favourite Astrid Lindgren book, and they'll talk your ear off for hours. Brothers Lionheart was not only the (probably) first fantasy novel I read, but also remains one of the most honest ones. It's a children's book, but it never shies away from darkness; hell, it starts with the title characters dying horribly, and goes on from there to become one of the most heartwarming stories I know even as things get very dark indeed.
Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
Arguably Slaughterhouse-Five is the most important Vonnegut novel, but this is the one I love so much I've had it tattooed on me. A very dark comedy about humanity killing itself off because finding ways to not do it is simply too hard. Puts the calypso in apocalypse. See the cat? See the cradle?
Crime and Punishment Feodor Dostoevsky (or however you choose to spell it in Latin script)
I keep coming back to this one every 10-12 years since I was 15. Every time I find something new in it. I don't necessarily agree with Dostoevsky half the time, but few other authors are as interesting to argue with. And I have the BtVS crossover fic to prove it.
The Stand, Stephen King
Not the first King I read - I think that was Christine - but the one I've read the most times, and the one I can probably quote in my sleep even though it's 1200-odd pages. Everything that ever made King great (and pathetic, and funny, and flawed, and heartfelt, and horrific, and) is in here somewhere.
Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco
Eco builds the conspiracy novel to end all conspiracy novels, peppering the text with so many references and ideas and "alternative facts" that I'm sure I've only discovered a fraction of it so far. Three publishers who get tired of having conspiracy nuts send them manuscripts decide to combine ALL conspiracies into one meta-conspiracy and sell it back to the nutcases… and it works just a little too well. I'm afraid to re-read this in the current climate, which probably means I should.
Moominpappa At Sea, Tove Jansson
The novel where the idyllic Moomin valley starts falling apart, where everyone has to grow up and find themselves, where the world becomes bigger than any of them and the wacky adventures turn out to have real consequences. I love the whole series, but this is where I can still really connect to it.
Little Man, What Now?, Hans Fallada
The story of the years leading up to Hitler's takeover... written, published and read by millions in 1932, before it happened. Fallada focuses on a young couple trying to make it in a society where all the doors are closing one by one, where violence and fascism are increasingly looking like the only possible outcome, who keep trying to do the right thing and keep finding out that it doesn't matter what they do. Both a brilliant relationship drama and a reminder that seeing it coming matters not one jot if you choose to ignore it or you're unable to act on it.
The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
So Satan and his minions turn up in Stalinist Russia and start wreaking havoc with the Perfect (by party order) Society. Oh, and they're the good guys, sort of. M&M is hilariously anarchic, but at its heart, and in that meta-story it weaves in about a lone man trying to explain to Pilate that he's NOT who everyone says he is, it tells a story about ideas turned into uncontrollable monsters that never loses its point. Manuscripts don't burn.
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
I've read this (the first four books) more times than I can count. The sheer explosion of ideas, the way he gleefully ducks and weaves around SF clichés, all the worldbuilding asides, all the satirical jabs that never lose relevance ... and that beautiful ending of the fourth novel. Sleep tight, Marvin.
Just Kids, Patti Smith
Autobiographies tend to bore me. Just Kids works not just because I love Patti Smith beyond measure, but in the way she taps back into that creative energy she had early on, trying to give both the reader and herself a proper answer to that age-old question "Where do your ideas come from", the description of her life with Robert Mapplethorpe, and the way it’s all reflected 40 years later when almost everyone else is gone in that heartbreaking Why can't I write something that would awake the dead?
