Greethings, Earthlings!

On Facebook recently, a meme has been going around inviting people to list 15 books that are important to them, or which will stay with them forever. I don’t generally like the sorts of stupid quiz that asks, "What punctuation mark are you?" (surely that should be "which" punctuation mark, anyway) and their tedious, meaningless ilk, but I liked this one. And I thought it would be fun to share it over here, too.

Hmm, well, just 15 books, eh? Tricky.

1. The Magic Faraway Tree , by Enid Blyton (read endlessly when a sprog, along with its various sequels, loved the lot)

2. Assorted Dr Seuss titles (a Dr Seuss was one of the first books I read all by myself, when I was 22. :)

3. All of Robert Heinlein’s juvenile novels (I know it’s cheating just to rope in an entire body of work by an author, and you are welcome to sue me over such a scandalous matter :) I read these books when I was about 14-15, exactly the right age to get the right PHWOAR! charge out of them.

4. Neuromancer , by William Gibson (first read in 1985, when it came out, and, all by itself, woke me up from a stupor induced by boring 70s/80s-era sf. Have read and re-read endlessly since–PHWOAR!)

5. Trillions , by Nicholas Fisk (actually read in high school, but was brilliant)

6. Catch-22 , by Joseph Heller (first read when about 18, and missed most of what was brilliant about it, and re-read periodically since, including a few weeks ago–one of most PHWOAR-worthy books I ever read)

7. Macbeth , by that Wm. Shakespeare (not actually a novel, but the first Shakespeare play that made a real impact on me, and has since become a favourite)

8. Labyrinths , by Jorge Luis Borges (collection of short stories, essays, brief parables, and some poetry–my favourite book to take along to doctor’s appointments, etc, when I might have to sit for a while. Utterly PHWOAR-worthy, notably "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", "The Garden of Forking Paths", "The Library of Babel", "Death and the Compass", "Funes the Memorious", and really so many others. Just brilliant! Particularly love the author’s way of mixing mystery, crime, myth, fantasy, and other elements, into a brilliant story, in all of five pages, tops. Wow!)

9. Year’s Best SF , ed Gardner Dozois (started reading these collections from the second volume, and love them to tiny bits–how I first discovered Howard Waldrop, for one, which justifies all the others, imho)

10. A Brief History of Time , by Stephen Hawking (surprised by fact I actually *got it*, and was able to finish it, several times now (including updated edition). Mostly reasonably accessible, the jokes are terrible, and just fab. Inspired me to read an enormous number of popular accounts of arcane physics matters (John Gribbin’s work, in particular), and which also inspired me to start studying philosophy, because how hard could it be after reading all this physics stuff? Answer: really hard! :)

11. I, Claudius & Claudius the God , by Robert Graves (marvellous, marvellous novels covering the reigns of the Caesars in Rome, up to, of course, Claudius. Loved these books, gobbled them up.

12. The Last Days of Socrates , by Plato (funny, sad, tragic, infuriating account of the great philosopher’s show trial and then final days, as he argues all his soppy acolytes to a standstill, and tries to get them to grok idea that Socrates welcomed death as an opportunity to fully embrace the ideas about the afterlife he had always espoused–made me all blubbery, it did)

13. Terry Pratchett’s ouevre, by T. Pratchett (again, feel free to sue me for violating the rules) (I resisted these books for many years, but once I finally actually read one, I went, "ooooooooooooh!" which was followed shortly thereafter by PHWOAR!)

14. The Stars my Destination , and The Demolished Man , by Alfred Bester (stunning, just stunning, 50s-era sf, toweringly brilliant, particularly the former, for the amazing synaesthesia bit near the end; and the latter, for the meticulousness of the detective story as well as the sf story)

15. Asimov’s Mysteries , by Isaac Asimov (collection of sf mystery short stories by the master–first read when I was about 14, made me see that mystery/crime could coexist happily with sf–a key influence)

16. At the Mountains of Madness , by HP Lovecraft (yeah, I know, one entry too many, just watch me grin)(Really should include all of Lovecraft’s work, but this one, about a doomed expedition to a remote location in Antarctica, is just stunning, in detail and mood, and of course the purplest prose in all of lit!)

(17. Infinite Jest , by David Foster Wallace (over 1000 pages of dazzling, brain-hurting, crazy, overwhelming, breath-taking and experimental prose, easily one of the most utterly gobsmacking novels I’ve ever read, mere PHWOAR doesn’t do it justice!)