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February 24, 2004

Books

Some background: a few years ago, the Modern Library came up with a list of its 100 Best Books of the 20th Century. That inspired my predecessors at Harvard Book Store to make their own top 100 list, which is now being updated. They asked us all for a handful of titles that have amused, informed or changed us in one way or another.

Me being me, I sent off a list and immediately started second-guessing myself. Each day since then, I've thought of two or three titles I missed. But I have a website, so I can do my own list (just 20, not 100; I don't think you or I could get through that):

(PS - the links all go to order pages on the H.B.S. website. Don't be afraid to pick up a couple!)

20. Ball Four, Jim Bouton. I picked this up in high school because I heard it was the first baseball book to tell it like it is from a player's perspective. Following Bouton's 1969 season with Seattle and Houston, even 15-year-old me could see that this was a special sports book.

19. The Waste Land and Other Poems, TS Eliot. I'm not a big poetry fan, but T.S. speaks to me somehow. "The Hollow Men" is my favorite.

18. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, W.P. Kinsella. Field of Dreams, my all-time favorite sports movie, is based on Kinsella's Shoeless Joe. I liked this book better, but can't picture a movie based on it. The story, of a rip in space and time that allows the Chicago Cubs to play an infinite game against a team of all-star hayseeds, is magical and beautiful.

17. Our Dumb Century, The Onion Staff. The Onion turns its hysterical eyes on the 20th Century. Try and count how many "trials of the century" there were, or how often France surrendered.

16. Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich. Ehrenreich spends a year working crummy jobs for crummy pay to see how people do it, and if there's any hope for the working destitute. I was ready not to like it -- it must be nice to have the luxury of throwing in the towel and running back to your real life -- but she tells the dismal life stories of her coworkers with real empathy and understanding. This book confirmed why I'll never give Walmart a nickel.

15. The Tripods Trilogy, John Christopher. I'm a sucker for stories of disaster and post-apocalyptic landscapes; this one was my first and favorite. A young boy, knowing that he'll soon enter an adulthood of slavery to a race of invaders, runs away instead to seek a Resistance. His encounters with the shattered world of the past make for a very clever story.

14. Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott. I have a friend who hates Anne Lamott, so don't tell her that this is the book that's most inspired me to want to try to think about being a serious writer.

13. The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce. I wish this turn of the century had a chronicler as wicked, mean and honest as Mr. Bierce.

12. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl. Horrible, horrible things happen to horrible, horrible children. What more could you ask for?

11. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood. In the world of the future, a brutal theocracy has taken over America. Women like the protagonist are stripped of their identities and forced to breed children for the infertile ruling class. Buy it while it's still fiction.

10. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole. Ignatius Reilly is a bombastic blowhard with lots of big ideas and no real skills. Turn him loose on New Orleans and watch absolute comic genius ensue. The fact that this, maybe the best American novel of the century, was so snubbed by publishers that the author killed himself over the rejection -- well, that says something.

9. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Mark Twain. It's kind of hard to pick a favorite Twain book, but here you go. See my earlier comments about Bierce.

8. The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson. Bryson's other travel books -- he's done Britain, Europe, Australia and the Appalachian Trail -- all probably should be on the list as well, but I decided to be fair to all the other authors and pick my favorite. He is a hilarious, amiable, everyman traveling companion; his observations are by turn poignant, thoughtful, and oh-my-god-you-have-to-read-this-part funny. I'd follow Mr. Bryson just about anywhere.

7. The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde. Nobody has ever combined social criticism, plot-twising and overall impertinence the way Wilde did. But you knew that.

6. Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger. A cliche? Maybe. But everyone who read it in high school, convinced that there was more to life than the dreary sameness of high school, desperate for confirmation that someone else was out there feeling the same isolation and confusion, knows why this book still gets to me a little.

5. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland. Maybe when you write a book about disaffected Microsoft peasants who leave to start their own software company, it becomes dated the second the ink is dry. Maybe the novelty of email and twentysomething entrepreneurs wore off between the hardcover and first paperback editions. But please don't dismiss this as a product of the past; this book has some of the most permanent, real, vibrant characters I've ever read. And dammit, I'm man enough to admit I cried a little at the end.

4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams. The tale (this and its four sequels) of Arthur Dent, rescued from the Earth just before it's destroyed, is partly an epic tale of interplanetary adventure. It's also a framework for Adams to go on countless digressions about -- yes -- life, the universe, and everything. And it's all hilarious in a very British way. I don't know if I can fully trust anyone who's not a Hitchhiker's fan.

3. A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn. A real high school would either supplement or (better yet) replace their standard US History textbooks with this essential retelling of the nation's story by the people who really created it. Reading this book made me suspect everything the powers-that-be ever told, or will tell, me.

2. 1984, George Orwell. Now more than ever. Our here, Winston Smith, tries desperately to find some escape from a political system designed to crush and bury any individualism or thought. I'm not the first to suggest that the world of Big Brother looks closer now that it did even in the heyday of totalitarianism. But if the shoe fits... (Incidentally, the John Hurt movie version of this is perfectly faithful to the book and incredibly well-done. Check it out.)

1. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne. Part of me wishes I could claim that my all-time favorite book was something deep, thoughtful and weighty. But I can't claim that with a straight face. This book, about a remorseless 15-year-old hell-bent on winning the girl of his dreams, is absolute comedy gold on every single page. In fact, I may start it again tonight.

Already, I feel like I could have expanded the list - no Vonnegut? Mark Leyner? Kafka? James Morrow? Dave Barry? Good points all. But screw it. At this time, these are my favorites. That's why I put it on the Web and not on stone tablets.

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Comments

Posted by: GreenieGirl | February 24, 2004 11:04 AM

Posted by: Andy | February 25, 2004 12:22 AM