MW: Serenity Now! MadamaB’s Top Ten Books
Posted by: madamab on: May 30, 2010
- In: books | Morning Widdershins | Open Thread
- Comment!
Don't mess with MadamaB's Books
Goddess bless our Chatblu! Just when we thought we would be stuck in dark depression forever, she brilliantly came up with yesterday’s Top Ten post. Ah, music does indeed have charms to soothe the savage breast, and we were all in such need, indeed.
As many of you know, I am an avid reader; so avid that, although I think e-Readers are the coolest gadgets EVAH, I can’t afford one – not because of the gadget itself, but rather because of the sheer number of books I would end up buying. (Our public library gets quite a bit of business from me.) So, my top ten list will be made of books! (Er, not literally.)
Here are my faves, in no particular order. Yes, some cheating and fudging are involved, but it’s only so that my top ten won’t become 100, so I do hope you’ll forgive me. Onward!
1) The Lord of the Rings series, including the Hobbit and the Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkein.
The forces of nature and peace versus the machinery and destruction of war; the ancient battle is made transcendent by some of the most gorgeous prose ever written.
2) Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury.
Nothing so eloquently explains why we need knowledge, books and history as this desperately hopeful masterpiece about a culture which has grown to despise them.
3) 1984, by George Orwell.
Orwell’s horribly brilliant novel accurately describing life in America under the Bush-Obama regime, uh, I mean, describing a dystopia in which the State controls everything, even…your mind.
4) The Toynbee Convector, by Ray Bradbury.
This is the short story whose name I couldn’t remember until DYB valiantly found it for me (my hero!); the one about a man who pretends to invent a time machine and shows the world that it’s never too late to save ourselves…from ourselves.
5) To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.
The clarity and simplicity of Harper Lee’s prose, and the idea that greatness can be found in ordinary people; these are the things that make this story indelible to me.
6) The Thomas Covenant Series, by Stephen R. Donaldson.
A time-traveling leper saves the Earth, not once, but several times, with the help of amazing companions, both dead and alive. Stephen R. Donaldson wields his pen with a precision that wounds and heals.
7) The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King.
This is one of the scariest, deepest, most enjoyable group of pop novels you could ever read. Not nearly as well-known as his horror fiction, and it will never be turned into a movie; but it has a cult following that is so rabid as to be almost annoying to the author (yes, I read the author’s notes at the end. Geek alert!) And, unlike others I’m highlighting, it has a happy ending! Well, um…sort of. I just found out that a new book in the series, called “The Wind Through the Keyhole,” is due out soon. Suweeeeeet!
8. The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gillman.
A woman on bed rest to help cure her “temporary nervous depression” slowly becomes fatally obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in her room. A metaphor for the oppression of women by the patriarchy, and an ending like a shock of cold water poured directly on the brain.
9) Mysteries written by Teh Wimminz. (Told you I was going to cheat!)
I love mysteries and thrillers written by both men and women, but there are some truly excellent female writers out there that make me giggle and gasp. Janet Evanovich with her sexy, zany Stephanie Plum series; Laura Lippman, a Baltimore native like myself, with her valiant, unconventional heroine, Tess Monaghan; Kathy Reichs, whose brilliant, socially awkward heroine, Dr. Temperance Brennan, has become a successful (although somewhat more photogenic) television character; and of course, Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, the grandest dames of them all.
10) The Princess Bride, by William Goldman.
The man who wrote wildly successful screenplays like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Marathon Man also wrote this incredibly whimsical, hilarious, heartbreakingly lovely book about the romance and reality of “Wuv, twue wuv.” This book is far, far better than the movie, simply because there’s so much MORE of it. Four words, people: The Zoo of Death.
Well, after some difficulty and (ahem) a LOT of fudging, those are my top ten picks. And you? Don’t worry about limiting your list to ten; no need to work that hard on a lazy Sunday on a holiday weekend! Just share your favorites with us. The pleasures of reading never grow old, and can cheer the sorest heart and the most wearied soul.
I’m off to a barbeque at a friend’s place. Enjoy your Sunday, and I wish you: Serenity Now (without the insanity later)!
50 Responses to "MW: Serenity Now! MadamaB’s Top Ten Books"
May 30, 2010 at 9:18 AM
This list is a work-in-progress! Geez, I haven’t even had my coffee yet.
Best American Novel: “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald ( Runner-Up: “My Antonia” by Willa Cather )
Best English Novel: “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen ( Runner-Up: “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte )
Best Russian Novel: “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevski ( Runner-Up: “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoi )
Best Yiddish Novel ( because I majored in Jewish Studies ): “Shosha” by Isaac Bashevis Singer ( Runner-Up: “Satan in Goray” by Isaac Bashevis Singer )
May 30, 2010 at 9:34 AM
Morning all!
Beata – in the Yiddish genre, I like “Night” also. Chat, “Charlotte’s Web” and the “Oz” series are my favorite children’s books. 
Your lists are great. So many books, so few numbers.
May 30, 2010 at 9:51 AM
MB, Elie Wiesel’s “Night” is a classic in Holocaust literature – no doubt about it.
Most Powerful Novel About The Holocaust ( IMHO ): “Badenheim 1939″ by Aharon Appelfeld
May 30, 2010 at 10:09 AM
For HT:
Best Canadian Novel: “The Blind Assassin” by Margaret Atwood ( Runner-Up: “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz” by Mordecai Richler )
May 30, 2010 at 10:38 AM
Best Noir Crime Novel: “The Blue Hammer” by Ross MacDonald ( Runner-Up: Anything else by Ross MacDonald! )
May 30, 2010 at 10:42 AM
Yay! Book lists! I love these posts because it lets us share our favorites. Here are my favorites, in no particular order…
1. “Rubyfruit Jungle” – Rita Mae Brown
2. “Schindlers List” – Thomas Keneally
3. Mysteries – Anything written by P.D. James
4. “The Power of One” – Bryce Courtenay
5. “Blind Your Ponies” – Stanley Gordon West
6. “The Worst Hard Time” – Timothy Egan
7. Palate Cleansers (what I call light reading used to take a break from more intense reading) – Anything written by John Grisham
8. Horror – I have to agree with Chat, “It” by Stephen King is the only book I’ve ever read that gave me nightmares.
9. Spy Books – “Spy Hook”; “Spy Line”; “Spy Sinker”; Trilogy by Len Deighton (which reminds me, I’m going to re-read them this summer) I love a good cold-war spy novel.
10. “Child 44″ – Tom Rob Smith –Not an overall great book because of an unnecessary plot turn at the ending, but the author does a brilliant job describing the constant, grinding misery and oppression of living in a communist totalitarian state. It’s worth the read.
May 30, 2010 at 11:03 AM
Best Children’s Book: “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott ( Runner-Up: Any Winnie-the-Pooh story by A.A. Milne )
Best Cozy Mystery: Anything by M.C. Beaton
May 30, 2010 at 11:34 AM
Oooh, Child 44 was great, Janicen.
“It” is incredibly scary. Stephen King is a mad genius! I would put some of his short stories up in that category as well. “The Boogeyman” made me afraid to go to sleep for weeks.
May 30, 2010 at 11:36 AM
Love M.C. Beaton! Hamish MacBeth and Agatha Raisin are treasures.
See you all tomorrow – I’m off to my BBQ in Wild Whippany, New Jersey!
May 30, 2010 at 11:45 AM
Grapes of Wrath ~ Steinbeck
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit ~ Winterson
The Queen of the Damned ~ Rice
The Mists of Avalon ~ Bradley
State of Fear ~ Criton
The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 ~ Marx
Contact ~ Sagon
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women ~ Faludi
May 30, 2010 at 11:49 AM
Oooh, Child 44 was great, Janicen.
Yes, MB, it made me understand why Eastern European immigrants in the U.S. are so conservative and rabidly anti-communist. They’d rather have anything than what they lived through.
LaTDa, “State of Fear” was an eye-opener. I really enjoyed it.
May 30, 2010 at 11:58 AM
Janicen: My mother absolutely loved the Len Deighton “Spy” trilogy. I did too!
Best Spy Novel: “Smiley’s People” by John le Carre ( Runner-Up: Anything by Daniel Silva )
May 30, 2010 at 12:07 PM
Yes, Janicen, For me, antithesis: I have always held “Climate Change”, the shift for “Green Jobs”, being “forced” to shift from our complacency-energy source of oil, was at core an Economic, Societal Institutional, and Physiological shift. Could go either way: social Democracy or what we are seeing now: The entrenchment of Coroporatism to attempt to control such a paradigm shift. Reading the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 gave me a deeper understanding of State of Fear. It is like what MB came up with long ago. Clusterf@ck. Which I interpreted as ClusterF@ckism.
May 30, 2010 at 12:14 PM
I meant Psychological shift @ 15, but a Physiological, perhaps evolutionary shift of the human species could occur too. Depends, I suppose, if our sub conscious and collective conscious could handle such a shift.
May 30, 2010 at 12:19 PM
Cough cough
“Clusterfuckiness” was my word, LTD…;-) “clusterfuck” has been around for a long time!
May 30, 2010 at 12:19 PM
Sorry. Didn’t mean to get so heady. I think our music session yesterday reopened some synapses in my brain this morning.
May 30, 2010 at 12:21 PM
I also love P.D. James. Right now, I am reading her “Death in Holy Orders”.
May 30, 2010 at 12:23 PM
Oh, yes, evolution of a new word: Clusterf@ck, Ckusterfuckiness, to the societal condition of clusterfuckism. Sorry, MB. I knew that your word evolved clusterfuck to deeper meaning. One, because I will never forget it. LOL
May 30, 2010 at 12:29 PM
John Grisham is wonderful, and “Pelican Brief” may well be his best.
May 30, 2010 at 12:45 PM
“Child 44″ was interesting. The atmosphere he sets up is great. Although, like Janicen, I found his plotting to be clunky and in the end – downright silly.
My list will take a few minutes to compose…so stay tuned!
May 30, 2010 at 12:59 PM
This isn’t a true “Top 10″ in the sense that the order will change based on my mood and a title or two will drop out this week to return a few weeks later. So the order and the content itself is quite fluid. But for today….this is it.
10) Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston. It’s the first of the so-called Hank Thompson trilogy. (The sequels are “Six Bad Things” and “A Dangerous Man.”) Huston is a pulp writer, but this is pulp with a surprising moral core and a heart in the center. And his prose is quite lovely (with lots of f-bombs, but lovely nonetheless.)
9) The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.
8) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (love the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation. Their translations of Russian classics are the ones to have.)
7) Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling. Most people who say they hate this series haven’t actually read it!
6) The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. Both hilarious and heart-breaking.
5) Howards End by E.M. Forster.
4) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
3) The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. Devastating.
2) The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
1) Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. It makes me want to tear my hair out every time I read it. I don’t know what Brontë was smoking when she wrote this.
Honorable mentions should be made to (these are the titles that will move into the top 10 on occasion): The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The Two Captains by Veniamin Kaverin.
May 30, 2010 at 1:05 PM
Oh, and on the subject of e-readers: I have a Kindle. And MB you might be right to stay away from it – I have bought about 100 books I still need to read. I’m not kidding – there are about 100 books on there waiting to be read. You won’t be able to help yourself. But the Kindle is an amazing device.
I just thought of another title that should be in the “Honorable Mentions” list: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest by Stieg Larsson. A magnificent, thrilling conclusion to an exciting trilogy.
May 30, 2010 at 1:06 PM
I see we share many of the same tastes!
I love Collins’ “The Moonstone”. Also his “The Woman in White”.
I think I prefer Wharton’s “The House of Mirth” over “The Age of Innocence” but it is a toss-up.
May 30, 2010 at 1:40 PM
Beata> I think “The House of Mirth” and “The Age of Innocence” are so different. “The House of Mirth” is very emotional – it’s a hothouse of anger and rage from a woman who was still part of the world she was describing. By the time Wharton got to “The Age of Innocence” she’d been living in France for many years and she was writing about events that took place decades earlier. Her tone is very cold and cynical and sarcastic. I’ve always thought of “Mirth” as getting thrown into a pot of boiling oil, and “Innocence” as icicle slicing through your brain. But both in a good way! LOL.
Wilkie Collins was great. His books are long and he gets long-winded, but something huge happens in every chapter (it had to because it was serialized) and you can’t stop reading!
La-t-da> “The Hours” is on my Kindle, but remains unread. I loved the movie.
May 30, 2010 at 2:05 PM
DYB: That is an excellent analysis of Wharton. I have a much more immediate, emotional reaction to “Mirth” but can read “Innocence” with some sense of detachment.
May 30, 2010 at 2:17 PM
Best Novel By An Indiana Author: “An American Tragedy” by Theodore Dreiser ( Runner-Up: “The Magnificent Ambersons” by Booth Tarkington )
May 30, 2010 at 2:48 PM
Okay, chat. I remember have to read the epic poem “Beowulf” in first year Literature. I have always found it quite haunting though I do not remember all the details.
May 30, 2010 at 3:13 PM
“Beowulf” is the bane of ever high school student’s existence! LOL. I never had to read it, but the language is notoriously impenetrable. I should give it a try one of these days!
May 30, 2010 at 3:40 PM
After I thought of it, DYB, it makes me want to go and read it again. Something about this environmental disaster made me remember it. I remember a monster, maybe the power of female, chasing Beowulf on his epic underground journey. I can’t remember if he was able to kill her or not. If so, she could be her fossils could be resurrecting to kick some butt.
May 30, 2010 at 3:58 PM
Geez, darn you Madama, darn you!
I have too many to pare it down to 10! In addition to all those already mentioned:
Re narrative poetry, I reread the Aeneid (Virgil) The Illiad and The Odessy (Homer) at least once per year, as well as Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh and so many others. I also have a fondness for Greek plays – The Oresteia (Aeschylus), Oedipus the King (Sophocles), Medea (Euripides), Lysistrata (Aristophanes) etc.
Yes, Beata, I love the Blind assassin, but I love anything Attwood writes. Alias Grace, The Robber Bride, The Handmaids Tale and so many more. I also like Michael Ondataaje – In the Skin of a Lion, The English Patient etc, and Shauna Singh Balwin – The Body REmembers, Tiger Claw. Of course, there are too many to name, and I think I’m at 10 already.
Sci-Fi – agree with Madama re The Covenant Chronicles, and anything Bradbury, also Arthur Clarke – 2001, 2010, Childhood’s End, Rendevous with Rama etc, Thomas Miller – A Canticle for Leibowitz, H.G. Wells – War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, Richard Matheson’s I am Legend, Frank Herbert Dune series, Assimov’s Foundation series – too many more.
Fantasy – too many to address – The Dragonriders of Pern series – Anne MacCaffery, Obviously everything Tolkein wrote, Geoffrey McGuire – Wicked, Ursula K. LeGuin – The Wizard of EarthSea, anything Marion Zimmer Bradley, anything Guy Gavriel Kay, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Zelazny anything, Saberhagen – Swords and Lost Swords series – too many more
Children’s books – Lucy Maude Montgomery – Anne of Green Gables and all it’s sequels, Madeline L’Engle – A Wrinkle in Time series, Baum’s Oz series, Carroll’s Alice’s adventures in wonderland, anything Doctor Seuss, Mark Twain Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Fin – too many more.
Mystery – again, too many to list – love P.D. James, Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes),Colin Dexter – Inspector Morse series, Josephine Tey – The Daughter of Time, anything Raymond Chandler (Phillip Marlowe series) Dashiell Hammet – The Maltese Falcon, Edgar Allen Poe – Murder in the Rue Morgue, John Sandford – Rules of Prey and subsequent sequels, Jeffery Deaver – The Blue Nowhere and the Lincoln Rhyme series (Bone Collector etc) – again, too many more
Poetry – my favorite book is Suzanne Goyette – The True Name of Birds, but again, I like too many to list. I have the Norton Anthology, The Oxford Book of English Verse, Oxford Book of American Poetry and a few other volumes, including the complete works of John Milton, E. Pauline Johnson, Lord Byron, Alfred, Lord Tennyson etc.
I should stop now before I put everyone to sleep. Guess I’ve exposed what I do with my spare time, when I’m not visiting here and a few other places.
And before anyone gets the bright idea, I have just as many movies as I do books, and I’m even more boring about them.
May 30, 2010 at 4:08 PM
We’ll see about the movies, too. Do you want to talk books some more, or shall I put up a movies thread???
May 30, 2010 at 10:32 PM
Bummer…just checking in now and I missed this whole conversation! It’s been a long, long day what with with driving and spending the afternoon and evening with Mom.
Some of my favorite books in no particular order except for my all time fave:
Number one favorite book: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I’m a real Irving fan but I honestly think this is his best. I was bawling my eyes out (make that gut wrenching sobs) for the last twenty pages.
Then
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
To Kill a Mockingbird
Charlotte’s Web
All the Wrinkle in Time books
Animal Farm
The Handmaid’s Tale
All the Mary Poppins books by P.L. Travers – so much better than the Disney version.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Chesapeake by James Michener
Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger (actually, anything by JD Salinger)
The World According to Garp
The Cider House Rules
There are more…
Comments are closed.
L 2012 – Support Your Local Lefties!
Recent Comments
 | madamab on New Year’s Eve Widdershi… |
 | Eddie on New Year’s Eve Widdershi… |
 | HT on New Year’s Eve Widdershi… |
| madamab on New Year’s Eve Widdershi… |
| madamab on Happy New Year – We… |
May 30, 2010 at 8:36 AM
Here’s my “Best of Genre” list, with a few ties:
(1) Best Science Fiction: “The Andromeda Strain” by Michael Crichton. Who knew how close we’d be to that with MERSA and VRE?
(2) Best Satire: “Catch-22″ by Joseph Heller. Anyone who has ever worked in any form of bureaucratic environment (large or small) can relate.
(3) Historically based: Tie between “Hawaii” by James Michener and “The Killer Angels” by Michael Shaara.
(4) Best Biography/Autobiography: “The Diary of Ann Frank”.
(5) Best Children’s Book: Tie. The “Madeline” series by Ludwig Bemelmen, and “Peter Pan” by J.M. Barrie.
(6) Best Horror: “It” by Stephen King.
(7) Best Stream of Consciousness Novel: “Catcher In The Rye” by J.D. Salinger
(8) Best Heroic Fantasy: “Watership Down” by Richard Adams. (“Traveler” is also very good.)
(9) Best Short Stories: “Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor”, which includes the classic “Everything That Rises Must Converge”.
(10) Best Southern Gothic: Tie between “To Kill A Mockingbird” (Harper Lee’s only book) and Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying”, which is told from multiple perspectives, including the deceased from her casket.