I keep a running list of the ten books I would have if I could only have ten books. This year, I’ve replaced four books, so this has been a pretty remarkable reading year.
Or, I’ve changed.
It’s probably a little of both.
These books are like friends, and I have to be able to call on them at a moment’s notice. Just knowing they are on the shelf makes me feel better.
Here’s the current list:
Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer (So much wisdom and kindness that helps me to see a way to be in the world with gratitude and reciprocity.) *
The First Free Women, Matty Weingast Ed. (It’s like a companion book for me now, with such wisdom, and it feels so good in my hands. It’s missing from the picture because I’ve given it away–AGAIN–this time to a friend who just lost her mother. It’s the kind of book that can help with that.) *
Season of Fury and Wonder, Sharon Butala (Which replaced Butala’s The Perfection of the Morning, and thankfully, I don’t really have to choose between these two books since this list is not necessitated by lack of space or the need to keep everything I own in a back pack.) *
When I Was Young & In My Prime, Alayna Munce (Gosh, I loved it. I have to read it again, but for now, it’s on the list because–again–of the kindness that is evident throughout and the insight into the frailty of humans. *
Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout (Oh, how I love a difficult woman.)
The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (I’ve studied it backwards and forwards, I wrote my MFA craft thesis on it, and never tire of it. A complex telling, a fascinating character, and such insight into the human condition. What is not to love?)
Fall On Your Knees, Ann-Marie MacDonald (An epic, multi-generational story in which the plot twists and turns. The characters live on in my heart.)
Pathologies, Susan Olding (I return to this book time and again in amazement.)
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (I have only read it once and have always meant to read it again, but now I am afraid that I won’t love it as much as I once did, that it will seem inevitable to me, and somehow tired, but it stays on the list.)
In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje (It’s the hometown setting–Toronto in all it’s glory, the historicity, the complexity of the telling and the flaws, the beautiful flaws, which in the hands of a writer like this makes one wonder if they are flaws at all.)
(* new addtions this year!)
Late addition: How could I have forgotten The Summer Book, Tove Jansson? My MFA mentor, Sandra Scofield, had me read it and I am so grateful. I just took it down from the shelf to read again as summer ends. It is lovely. So make that eleven books.
Great list! I’m looking up the couple I don’t know. Just took The Stone Diaries off the shelf thinking I should read it again. Re: :Owen Meany. Somehow I missed reading this when it came out. Six years ago I listened to the audiobook, mostly driving in my car—took about four weeks—and was blown away. The fabulous narrator made me think the book was written to be read out loud. I highly recommend this literary listening experience.
this is a hard task. so. many. books. books that have enraptured, books that have saved, books that have made me laugh and cry, books that are too much, and others not enough. but i’ve changed my reading habits so my list shifts. i have perennial favourites, though.
1. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
2. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Hemingway
3. OLD FILTH by Jane Gardam
4. JESUS’ SON by Denis Johnson
5. THE REMAINS OF THE DAY by Kazuo Ishiguro
6. THE QUIET AMERICAN by Graham Green
7. OFFSHORE by Penelope Fitzgerald
right now, most of my books are in boxes and i miss them. i half-open them and rifle through, searching. it’s a dissatisfying thing to do but i don’t have bookshelves yet. next year?
rea
This is a good list. How have I never read Offshore? There are always books in boxes. Sometimes, I think a book is on my list because I read it at a time when I needed to know what it said. Sometimes, it is because I read it when I was trying to learn something about the craft and there it was, the perfect teacher. Both are about gratitude. A Prayer for Owen Meany came to me after years of studying English and almost coming to hate books as a result. If you can imagine. And then there was Owen Meany and reading was a thrill again.
Thanks for your list, Jane. Just brought 3 of them for my winter stash.
“The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have got ourselves.’
E.M. Forster
Which, I suppose, is why all of our lists are unique:
I have not re-read The Alexandria Quartet and may never do so. It rests perfectly in me and is still further down the path.
100 Years of Solitude was such an explosive book for me book exposing a whole world of passionate Latin surrealism.
Voices From Chernobyl is non-fiction – interviews that become richer and deeper than poetry – capturin the Slavic/Russian soul.
Do Not Say That We Have Nothing gave me an understanding of the Chinese Cultural Revolution that you could never find in a history book.
Mind of the Raven – I choose this one from my books on animal intelligence because it is science filled with wonder and discovery.
My Brilliant Friend. I know, I know, she pisses me off with needless cruelties and stuff, but didn’t you sometimes just sit there dumbstruck by her ability to pin it all down so profoundly?
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – translating Blake into Polish? Hunting the hunters? This is surely a path I could follow and I did really love this book.
Great list Chris. I also love 100 Years and My Brilliant Friend. I have not read Voices from Chernobyl or Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead or Mind of the Raven. What on earth have I been doing?