Y’all are a little too smart for yesterday’s book meme. And you read this site from work. The results weren’t what I had expected. To compensate, here’s a second book meme with which to play:
Over the weekend at Baraita — one of my favorite weblogs — Naomi posted a list of her ten Most Important books. Tracing the meme, I found that it started with here’s luck, who describes it like this:
[This list explores] the notion of one’s own Ten Most Important Books. Not favorite books, or best books, but the most important. Truepenny pointed out that such a list requires not only picking the most important books but deciding what “most important” means in one’s own case. I said that in her case I would imagine there would be some books that are most important to her as a writer, and others most important as a reader. And then she noted that of course there are those books that are important because they got us through difficult times (middle school, anyone?). And so on and so forth.
Here are my ten Most Important books, in the order I read them:
- 1. The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron
- This book is representative of an entire class of books that I read between second and fifth grade: childrens’ books of adventure. Similar books include: Bertrand Brinley’s The Mad Scientists’ Club; John D. Fitzgerald’s The Great Brain; Isaac Asimov’s David Starr, Space Ranger; Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien; and Beverly Cleary’s The Mouse and the Motorcycle.
The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed philosophers with it: to think tat everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?
And from there Kundera explores the nature of mind and spirit, body and soul, the “weight” of life, the nature of love, the concept of language, and the existence of God. I started the book a Christian becoming and agnostic; I ended it an agnostic becoming an atheist. I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being again years later, and it didn’t have nearly the same effect as it had the first time. It couldn’t possibly.
There you have it: my ten Most Important books. What are yours? (If ten’s too many, share five. Or three. Or one.)
Co-incidentally, scrubbles just linked to a similar collection of peoples’ 10 favorite novels. (I’m guessing that this will be the eventual permalink.)
1. The Bible
2. Senaca the younger-Complete works
3. Meditations-Marcus Aurelius
4. Julius Caeser-Shakespeare
5. Lord of the Rings-J.R.R. Tolkien
6. Silence of the Lambs-Thomas Harris
7. The Last Don-Mario Puzo
8. Call of the Wild-Jack London
9. Slaughterhouse Five-Kurt Vonnegut
10. Shogun-James Clavell
1. The Bible
2. Senaca the younger-Complete works
3. Meditations-Marcus Aurelius
4. Julius Caeser-Shakespeare
5. Lord of the Rings-J.R.R. Tolkien
6. Silence of the Lambs-Thomas Harris
7. The Last Don-Mario Puzo
8. Call of the Wild-Jack London
9. Slaughterhouse Five-Kurt Vonnegut
10. Shogun-James Clavell
1. The Bible
2. Senaca the younger-Complete works
3. Meditations-Marcus Aurelius
4. Julius Caeser-Shakespeare
5. Lord of the Rings-J.R.R. Tolkien
6. Silence of the Lambs-Thomas Harris
7. The Last Don-Mario Puzo
8. Call of the Wild-Jack London
9. Slaughterhouse Five-Kurt Vonnegut
10. Shogun-James Clavell