Robert, funny, I loved my college English courses. Not the DIScourses, necessarily but I was definitely exposed to more texts than I would have found on my own...and the discourse wasn't too bad, either. But, my prof. thought I was a genius, so anything I said was smart, I guess...

SS:

My profs hated me because I just wanted the p'shat, the simple explanation. What was the book about? They were also, many of them, crypto and not so crypto Marxists.

I also did not swallow some of the great books as being so great. To wit: "The Great Gatsby," which is not so great, in fact it is shallow and immature. And "Heart of Darkness." Which is supposed to be great because of indirectness, but it's so indirect it does not connect. Deeply, deeply flawed works.

I also loved my English courses in university, and as I was majoring in English, there were many of them. My favorite was "Portrait of the Jew in French and North American Literature." That was no doubt my third or fourth time since high school, studying Wiesel's "Night" and presenting its themes and ideas to my classmates.

I've always enjoyed the "art of interpretation" -- just like a script that an actor and director interpret for you, Robert, I interpret images and metaphors and themes in writing.

You enjoyed illustrations as a child; I enjoy cover art, page layout and design...and working in publishing allows me to view -- and interpret -- these aspects of a book rather freely.

Thank you!

My proudest semester of college produced "alphabet grades": A,B,C,F. I worked just as hard for the F as for the A - just not at what the instructor wanted to see. Once I laughed out loud in a seminar at an obscure point a prof was trying to make. I'm not some surly rebel, not by nature. And I learned a heck of a lot from some very bright minds. But if I could do it all over again, I would have audited all my courses without reading any theoretical articles and, for the most part, without even writing analytic papers.

Let there be no confusion: Literature (all of it - novels, stories, poems, movies) is the Chicken. Literary criticism is the Egg. And the chicken came first.

I always thought I would *love* my lit classes, because I enjoy reading so much. And to some extent I have... But I still prefer reading on my own and discussing the works with a few good friends or on the blogs. In class, people have a tendency to repeat the same thing over and over, with a very self-congratulatory attitude. The teacher/professor gives us indirect or direct clues as to what we *should* be seeing, and people, without even noticing it, wind up repeating the professor's POV. I hate chewing over and over the same point. I don't see much original discussion. That's the part that bores me.

Advice to college students: Be a sponge. Soak up everything. Squeeze it all out. Then see what you're left with. Rinse and repeat.

Jeremiah,
I don't think your statement applies solely to college students, but to *life* students...every experience should be absorbed for what it's worth, what you can take away from the experience and claim as your own. That's what makes us individuals.
(solely my "interpretation.")

I have always loved to read, but I rarely enjoyed trying to pick a book apart. I don't believe that every line is a metaphor for life or that there is always a deeper meaning.

hmmmmm...just trying to figure out how to work babke into this one...

Randi, how about "you can't judge a babke by its cover"?

Pearl: POY-FECT!

Could I ask our good commenters to list their 10 favorite novels of the moment?

I'll start:
In no particular order.

1. Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. In Search of Lost Time - Marcel Proust
3. A Tale of Two Cities - Dickens
4. Oliver Twist - Dickens
5. David Copperfield - Dickens
6. Moby Dick - Melville
7. Middlemarch - George Eliot
8. The Good Soldier - Ford Maddox Ford
9. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
10.The Makioka Sisters - Junichiro Tanizaki

1. Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse
2. Any novel by John Fowles. They are all written in completely different style and excellent.
3. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
4. Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
5. Roads to Freedom - Sartre
6. Immortality - Milan Kundera
7. Veronica Decides to Die - Paulo Coelho
8. The Island of the Day Before Yesterday - Umberto Eco
9. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
10. Transparent Things - Nabokov

I can't even supply 10 books, but here are a few off the top of my head (not counting The Hebrew Kid, of course):

1. Night -- Elie Wiesel (okay, not quite a novel, but my all-time favorite book)

2. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence; Canadian author; book is filled with Biblical symbolism)

3. The Rich Man (Henry Kreisel; another Canadian author)

4. Call It Sleep (Henry Roth)

Thanks so much. One of the reasons I ask is because Seraphic Secret readers are so smart I know that I'm going to get some titles I've never read and should. Here, I've already gotten some books I've never even heard of. I can tell; the pile on my night table is going to grow.

Obviously, I am partial to historical fiction:

1. A Soldier of the Great War - Mark Helprin

2. The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe

3. The Good Earth - Pearl Buck

4. The Hope - Herman Wouk

5. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

6. The Caine Mutiny - Herman Wouk

7. The Alienist - Caleb Carr

A quick list:

1. The Notebooks of Malte Laure Briggs - R.M. Rilke
2. No Place on Earth - C. Wolf
[1 is a nurturing, 2 a cautionary, tale for anyone who wants to be a poet]

3. Rene - R. Chateaubriand
4. Jane Eyre - C. Bronte
5. Wuthering Heights - E. Bronte
6. Heart of Darkness - J. Conrad
7. Sophie's Choice - W. Styron
8. Dostoevsky - take your pick of his great 4 (C&P, Idiot, Devils, Brothers K.)
9. Faulkner - take your pick of his great 4 (Sound&Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, Absalom! Absalom!)
10. The Old Man and the Sea - Hemingway

Other Mentions
Contemporary: From a Sealed Room - R. Kadish
(I really don't care for contemporary fiction, but this one made me cry.)
Monumental: War and Peace - Tolstoy
(It may sound pompous to include, but everyone, esp. young men, should read it as early in life as possible. Reading it at 27, I felt like I'd missed the boat.)

Jeremiah:

Oy-vey, more books I never even heard of. The pile becomes a hill.

Well, if anyone is looking for short reading you can email me for the "Top 10 Most Popular Jewish Children's Books"

Jake, are any of "my books" on that list? :)

Well, read the list and you'll see why not.

There are at least 3 kinds of dedicated writing.

Writing "for the pages": making a name or money and becoming the "talk of the town", not to mention the target of all kinds of lustful propositions.

Writing "for the sages": actually transmitting knowledge and dearly-bought wisdom knowledge to the current generation.

Writing "for the ages": as close as you might get to echoing the holy texts while inhabiting mortal flesh. It means mastering Lao Tze *and* Sun Tzu. But this means having to fall on your sword every day. You've got a shot at it if the first question this brings to mind is not, "Why?" but: "Is my sword sharp enough?"

Jeremiah:

In "writing for The Sages," as you put it, you will find that the Sages of Torah, blessed be their names, never sign their names to their holy books. They sign by the names they take from the Torah, or from their hometown. It's a way of dispensing with the idea of self. It's way of saying that the work is not original; that it's simply a continuation of the holy tradition that has been handed down from generation to generation. In fact, all the way from Sinai.

Modern writers pursue originality. It is seen as desirable and the height of genius.

The Sages of the Torah flee from this mode of thinking, and see it as the worst form of egoism and without Torah validity.

Just thought you'd like to know.

" ... all the way from Sinai." Have to let that sink in...

Jeremiah:

It is called, the Oral tradition. G-d transmitted it to Moses, from Moses to Joshua, from Joshua to The Elders. Eli received it from The Elders and from Phineas, etc.

You may want to check out Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, Volume One, or in English, The Book of Knowledge. He gives the Mesorah, the tradition in the first chapter.

I had much the same experience after a couple of years of English Lit. in high school. But in my case I hated having to parrot back what the teacher said instead of creating and justifying new analyses that fit the facts better. I still remember the grades on my Final: "Very interesting, but wrong. D." Soured me on English literature for three years, and on Flannery O'Connor and James Joyce forever.

Solomon:

My suggestion with Joyce is read "The Dubliners," they are beautiful, especially "The Dead." And then read "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."

You can skip "Ulysses." Everybody else does. Impenetrable, unless you have several reading guides, and that is not how a novel should be read, I'm very sorry.

Robert, thanks for getting this list going. Trusting Seraphic Readers - I can't wait to get to the library with these lists!
Here are my favorites:
1. The Source - James Michner (Should be required reading for any Seraphic Student).
2. Marjorie Morningstar - Herman Wouk - (My grandmother read this book in her day - still relevant). Also LOVED The Caine Mutiny
3. Anything by Sholom Aleichem, Bernard Melamed, Elie Weisel, Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov
6. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
7. Gone With the Wind
8. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
9. Faye Kellerman's first Peter Decker/ Rena Lazarus mystery
10. Jephta's Daughter - Naomi Regan
and one more for the road:
Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
Hey, I can't not include:
Stargirl (Young Adult) Jerry Spinelli
The Dune Series- Frank Herbert
Anything by Isaac Asimov (Especially Foundation Series)
and of course, The Hobbitt & Lord of The Rings
(Pearl - How can you forget Mrs. Mike, Eh?)
Robert - Could we do a top twenty list, next?

Yael:

Fire away with your Top 20. Please.

Oy vey, this is a hard question for me to answer. Suddenly I feel like a deer in the headlights. But, I'd hate not to play, so here is part of my constantly evolving list.

1) Tolkien- LOTR and The Hobbit
2) Stephen Donaldson- Thomas Covenant Series
3) Eddings: The Belgariad
4) Salinger- The Catcher In The Rye
5) I am a fan of Nelson Demille books.
6) Used to love Tom Clancy- Clear And Present Danger was especially good.
7) The Three Musketeers
8) Huckleberry Finn- Mark Twain

Jack:

Oh gosh, I love "Huckleberry Finn." Makes me weak in the knees. Should have been on my list instead of all the Dickens. But with him, I just get carried away.

Again, I could just keep going and going:

1. Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
2. Ellis Island - A perfect novella by Mark Helprin. This little novella made me weep the first time I read it. Do not miss it. Of everything on my list, this is the one to read.
3. A Guest for the Night - S.Y. Agnon
4. The Yeshiva - Chaim Grade. Much better than the overrated Singer.
5. Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott. Oh, my gosh, Rebecca.
6. Kristin Lavransdatter (all III volumes) - Sigrid Undsted.
7. The Chivalry of Crime - Desmond Barry. A great, great western. The murder of Jesse James.
8. Death Ground - Another novella, this one a classic western by the most underrated writer of our time, Ed Gorman. Guilt in the old west. It's perfect.
9. The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - by Ron Hansen. JJ keeps popping up.
10. The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton - by Jane Smiley, a great contemporary novelist.
11. My Name is Charlotte Simmons - Tom Wolfe, another great contemporary voice.

"Sometimes, you have to take a short detour to get where you belong."

...and sometimes it's a longer detour, but as long as the road is well-marked and still serviceable, it should be okay. Because we know that it's not always the destination, but the journey that offers more meaning.

Okay, just stuff that comes into my mind.

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. (Emma and Persuasion are also amongst my favourite books, but I will only list Austen once. Robert has it exactly right when describing P&P as a fine guide to personal integrity. Emma is possibly even more so, although it is perhaps a little more didactic about it).

The City and the Stars, by Arthur C Clarke. (Discovering this book at age 13 confirmed my suspicions that the world and indeed the universe was far far bigger and greater than anything had confirmed to me before. This was in the days when seeking out knowledge was hard).

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles. This is a book with a great sense of place. The evocation of the Cobb in Lyme Regis is really something. (It's the same place that Austen set part of Persuasion, but Austen was never really interested in a sense of place. Fowles was).

The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle. (I love Sherlock. And this is by far the best of the long stories).

A Deepness in the Sky, By Vernor Vinge. (This contains my favourite non-human character in all of Science Fiction, and I am once again a sucker for stories told on cosmic scales).

Another five books that I love as distinct from merely like are not immediately coming to mind. Maybe later.

How could you forget The Godfather

oooooooo, I love, love, love, to Kill a Mockingbird, and Huckleberry Finn. (look at that, I made a comment without mentioning babke).

Pearl:

Oh gee, we should publish, "Seraphic Secret's Pearls of Wisdom."

Lovely, and true. And I thank you.

In no particular order:
1) Tent of Miracles -- Jorge Amado
2) In This House of Brede -- Rumer Godden
3) The Lucia novels of E.F. Benson
4) The Ordways -- William Humphrey
5) Possession -- A.S. Byatt
6) Bleak House -- Dickens
7) The Waters Under the Earth -- John Moore
8) Gone With the Wind -- Margaret Mitchell
9) To Kill A Mockingbird -- Harper Lee
10) The Franchise Affair -- Josephine Tey

I confess to an inability to finish Lord Of The Rings. Been trying for over thirty years and have given it up.

Michael:

I've been waiting anxiously for you to jump in. I too love Austen's "Persuasion." And agree with you about "Emma." I must admit that my love for "P & P" is also deeply felt beyond all reason because Ariel ZT'L, loved the book.

Confession #1: I have never read Arthur C. Clarke.

John Fowles. Sigh. What can I say, but... his work just did not click. That was, admittedly years ago. I am older. You people are very smart. I have enormous respect for you. Hence, I will give the old boy another shot.

The hill grows into a mountain. Soon I will need rope and carabiners.

Confession #2: I have seen the original Hollywood version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles." I was not blown away. And so, well, did not bother with any of the books.

I'm that shallow, yes.

Are they really good?

Vernor Vinge. Is this name for real? Is this an Englishman, a Frenchman, perhaps someone from Ceylon? Wait, isn't that where Arthur Clarke used to live? I am getting cosmically confused.

Confession #3: I have tried to read Sci-Fi several times. Each time I have found the writing to be, um, typing.

I so want to like Sci-Fi and yet only really like it in comic book form.

Help! I am willing to strap on oxygen to climb the mountain that grows in Casa Avrech.

More, Michael, more.

And BTW, I read "King Leopold's Ghost," as you suggested.

The Belgian's murdered between 4 and 8 million Africans in their Congo Colony. This is a Holocaust. There is no other name for it.

I have some questions, Michael, please help me out if you are able to.

Or anybody.

And if any Belgians are reading and can respond, please do.

1. Have the Belgiums paid reparations to The Congo and the people of the Congo?
2. Do the Belgiums have chapters on this Holocaust in their school textbooks?
3. Do they teach this ghastly part of their national history in depth in their Universities?
4. Or do they only spend time on how awful Israel is to the poor Arabs?
5. How, pray tell, do the Belgians have the chutzpah to establish an International Court of Justice, at The Hague?
6. Was "King Leopold's Ghost" a best seller in Belgium?

I recommend this book highly and will blog about very soon.

I have a theory that when you read a novel that absolutely knocks you out you remember the circumstances in which you read it for always, as well as the physical details of the edition of the book, etc. Even though you are lost in the book, you are also more aware of your surroundings.

I can recall exactly when and where I read most of the above.

Randi:

I am going to sit down with "Huckleberry Finn" and Babke, and I have a feeling that I will experience a bit of heaven.

Sal:

Oh my goodness, what an interesting list, thanks so much.

I'd like to point out that Harper Lee has so far, I think, made three lists.

The movie of TKAM is also wonderful. The opening credits, by the great Saul Bass, perfect.

An observation about Dicken's "Bleak House." The opening scene, look, I even refer to it in filmic terms, is, well, here is Dicken's description of:

"Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it roils defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city."

The prose continues for a few more brilliant paragraphs, and let me tell you it is one of the greatest opening shots of a film never written for a film.

The book is another example of Dicken's particular genius.

Okay, now that I've gotten what I know out of the way, here's what I don't know, in fact, never heard of.

1. Rumer Godden
2. John Moore
3. Josephine Key

Would greatly appreciate it if you would tell us more about these three.

Thanks so much.

As far as I know, the Belgians paid no reparations to the Congo. They tried their best right up through independence to deprive many of the natives of a modern agricultural economy -- that would have upset the master-slave relationship between the "Negroes" and the pygmies. The Belgians then forbade the natives to fish with nets or dynamite during famines.

I read one account in a 1950s-vintage Reader's Digest book that aid was received in the form of heavy Belgian woolens distributed by the Catholic Church. This program was so popular in Belgium that it squelched all the desires of the royal family, the clergy, and the colonial bureaucracy to actually improve the lives of the Congolese.

Woolen clothes for a country located on the equator, but no agriculture for the pygmies. And no apologies. This is the justice of the country that now hosts the International Criminal Court for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war criminals.

Robert, there are so many and all I can come up with right now are: (not in order of preference, only memory)
1. Pride and Prejudice
2. The Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper (my fave in 7th grade and when re-reading it 5 years ago I agreed with my 14 year old self)
3. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings....all of them
4. Gone with the Wind (sorry, it is what it is)
5. The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher (probably too novelly for you Eng Lit types ;) )
There's more, and I'll post when I remember.
wait....
ALL the Nancy Drew series....read and re-read as a child.

Solomon:

Just as I suspected. This from a country where Israel is regularly pilloried and demonized in the press as a "cruel colonial occupier."

Belgium: A country that commits genocide and then consciously erases that national memory.

A land that makes no effort to pay reparations--moral or economic--has no business hosting an international court of justice. It is grotesque.

Where are the smart, moral lawyers?

The blood of millions of Congolese murdered and horribly mutilated, raped and sold into slavery calls out to you.

When we moved into our current home 2 1/2 years ago, I got rid of so many of my books, but hung on to several. I just checked out my shelves for a few "keepers":

--several by Canadian author Mordecai Richler

-- The Family Carnovsky by I.J. Singer (I bought my copy in Haifa, January 1984)

-- Regina by Leslie Epstein

-- The Gate Behind the Wall: A Pilgrimage to Jerusalem by Samuel Heilman

-- The Fifth Son by Elie Wiesel

Okay, here goes (in no particular order):

1. Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins
2. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver (speaking of the Belgian Congo - hey, maybe I AM as smart as the other Seraphic commenters :P)
3. The Sound and the Fury - Faulkner
4. Sophie's World & The Solitaire Mystery - Jostein Gaarder
5. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving (I do feel weird putting this one on, but I do love it)
6. The Cornish Trilogy (The Rebel Angels, What's Bred in the Bone, The Lyre of Orpheus - I just love these titles, never mind his actual writing) - Robertson Davies
7. A Canticle for Leibowitz & Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman - Walter M. Miller
8. The Awakening - Kate Chopin
9. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
10. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (probably not a favourite of most...)

That's just what I can think of off-hand, with my books all packed up in boxes back in Canada...

Pearl: I think I should reread The Stone Angel...maybe I'd actually like it the second time around.

Robert: ...and about The Great Gatsby, well, the first time I read it, I liked it, but the second time it showed up on a course list of mine, I found it deeply disturbing. I guess it was a success, if that's what Fitzgerald was aiming at.

Pearl:

Interestng factoid about Leslie Epstein: He comes from a screenwriting family. His father and uncle wrote "Casablanca." He also wrote a little known but very interesting "Jewish Western" called "Pinto & Sons." It doesn't quite work, but it's a compelling attempt at something different in American Jewish storytelling.

SS:

Gosh, I forgot all about Robertson Davies. Have not read him in years. Have to get back in the saddle and reread him. See how I feel about the work now. Canadian, no?

Jostein Gaarder? Not a clue. Scandinavian?

Barbara Kingsolver. You know, I like the book, but then I made the mistake of reading some interviews with her and oh gosh, she's an America hating leftie of the worst sort and I'm not the kind of person who can separate the dancer from the dance.

In the end, all novels are moral landscapes that deliver a political message and Ms. Kingsolver is my ideological enemy of the deepest sort. After reading interviews and several America-hating essays I will never be able to read/abide/love/tolerate any of her fiction again.

Sad, no?

Why would you feel funny about including John Irving? he's a fine, if uneven writer.

Ah, Kate Chopin. She faced the big question that runs through all of fiction, in fact that obsesses American and European fiction from "Pamela" onwards:

What is society to do with unmarried women?

Really and truly, that's what most books are, at the core, about.

Kate Chopin's answer was truly radical and she suffered horribly for it. Her hometown library banned "The Awakening." So did hundreds of women's book clubs.

I've been waiting for this book to appear on someone's list.

Good for you.

Zora Neale Thurston. Sigh. She was an anthropologist. An accomplished novelist. And yet, she ended her days as a cleaning woman, and so poor that she was buried in an unmarked grave. Alice Walker took the time to track it down and mark it. A true mitzvah. "Their Eyes..." is a pretty remarkable work which confronts the big question about unmarried women, but in the context of black culture. It's a fierce book.

Faulkner. I'm split about Bill. On the one hand, I find some of his work just plain nutty and impossible and, I believe, the fruit of too much liquor. He was, we must never forget, a drunk. But, I have to admit that "Light in August" exerts a not too healthy pull on me.

"The Great Gatsby." I have to tell you, my heart sinks when my kids have to write essays on it in high school. I help them, but I feel like a total fraud, because that's what the book is.

You know how I know it's not great? Daisy. We suspect she's shallow, and she is shallow. And you know what, all the main characters are revealed as shallow.

Duh. How much work does that take? How interesting is that? Not very.

And take a look at how short their scenes are. Almost screenplay short.

Unreliable narrator? Well yeah, Fitzgerald didn't have a notion what he was writing about.

A great novel argues for something. I have no idea what Fitzgerald is arguing for. And neither did he. And please, don't tell me it's about the corruption of the American Dream. That old chestnut does not fly.

No, the book was written when Fitz was what, 29? He was immature and so is the book. There is no wisdom in this book. None.

There is more wisdom is every Raymond Chandler novel than in the entire Fitzgeral canon.
Oh my gosh, I forgot to include, "The Big Sleep" on my lists. Faulkner worked on the screenplay, with six other screenwriters.

(BTW, Fitzgerald was a terrible screenwriter. He always felt he was too good for the movies. Well, excuuuuuuse me!)

That "Gatsby" has become a certified masterpiece, an American classic, is one of the truly whacky end-plays in American letters.

And then all that business in the end: "So we beat on, boats aginast the current... blah, blah, blah."

Beautiful, poetic. But the lyrical image has nothing to do with anything; it makes no sense in the context of the story.

I'm a writer. I have notes everywhere. I'll bet the farm Fitz pulled out a scrap of paper with that sentence on it, and cried out: "Wow, that's great, I think I'll use it," and he just shtupped it in the novel.

Smoke and mirrors. Perfect for naive undergrduates and professors who like to wax eloquent about the evils of American capitalism.

Oh, dear, I have gone on, haven't I.

I just hijacked my own blog.

Sorry.

Robert, I remember going down as a young person into the bowels of the old library in our town with my parents, and checking out the Hardy Boy mysteries. That actually led to reading at a more mature age the entire corpus of Sherlock Holmes books, given to me as a Chanukkah gift by my dad..and now I read the wonderful series of novels written by Laurie R. King, with Holmes now married to a plucky younger woman who happens to be Jewish...there are other Holmes-wannabees, but I particularly like King's versions.

Top 10 in no particular order:

1) Twain's "The Innocents Abroad"-not strictly a novel, nor a straightforward travelogue, but an intro. for me to Twain's humor and and wit. Also, "Life on the Mississipi", in the same vein but with domestic travel instead of international. Both are so much more than travel writings.

2) Orwell's 1984. Toss up with his Animal Farm for brilliant commentary on politics.

3) Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo-read also when young, and still one of my favorite plots.

4) The Sea Wolf by Jack London

5) Heart of Darkness by Conrad

6) Dicken's David Copperfield.

7) The Last of the Just by Andre Shwarz-Bart

8) The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. Fictionalized account of Gettysburg, which is an eerie monument to war; the book made it come alive for me.

9)Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

10)In the Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke...or read almost any of his detective novels of the Dave Robicheaux series; some of the best and most evocative writing out there...also his White Doves at Morning, which is a Civil War book but is set in the same locales as his Robicheaux books...southern Lousiana. Powerful book, this last one, and can be read without having read any of the others.

Can I add just a few honorable mentions? Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls...Dashiell Hamett's The Maltese Falcon...Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" for a different political message, but made fun instead of prolix and dull...anything by Jules Verne (returning to theme of childhood), the Master and Margaritha by Bulgakov, Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck (though his most fun is Sweet Thursday and Cannery Row, both go together and are just warm and fun, while G of W is much more wrenching.

Hard to limit to ten, so forgive me if I went beyond the boundaries!

Hi, Maurice! (Wow, someone else is online at this time.)

I'd just like to add, for Pearl's interest, since you said Elie Wiesel's Night is your favorite book: Wiesel wrote a complementary blurb for that 'honorable mention' I mentioned, "From A Sealed Room". (maybe you already know, but just wanted to make sure you did).

Jeremiah, we both should be sleeping, but it is nice to know someone else is out there in Insomnia City!

I read Night as a child. It was too intense and I was too young, but the child of a survivor and I wanted to understand what he had gone through. He didn't talk about particulars until much later..but he had grown up not 100 miles from Wiesel and when they met years later, they knew the same rabbis and honoraries in their respective areas...Night deserves to be read as the most direct, stark reminder of what the camps were; but not by anyone until they are well into their teens and able to deal with it.

I also did want to add for Robert that I was one of those goofy kids that read..and re-read..LOTR. I don't know if it is truly great literature, but it was...fun and exciting and bold and with big themes...classy and heady stuff for 15 year old boys, but some of us remained 15 even as the numbers have now turned around in order..and we were had a taste in heaven watching the movie trilogy.

And while on fantasy, I want to add Gulliver's Travels...Wind in the Willows...Charlotte's Web...and Brave New World. I'll shut up now.

Hi, again. Don't "shut up" - if not now, then later.

Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter ... it's all the same to me (no offense intended).

The most interesting thing I remember about "Night" is that an early draft ran several hundred pages - so the 100 or so that remain are ... well, they just ... ARE.

There's no way in heck that I'd be able to list my ten - or even twenty - favorite books. There are just too many that I've loved, each in its own way, but can't say which I've loved more and which less. For example, my favorite Irving is "The Cider House Rules," but it is of a genre so different from, say, "The Sound and the Fury" that there is no comparing the two (truly a case of apples and oranges). I loved reading Wouk's "The Winds of War" and War and Rememberance," but my pleasure in reading these was totally different from that of reading Stendahl's "The Red and the Black."

By the way, majoring in French Literature was a very different experience from studying English Lit. We actually discussed and analysed the works' content - especially each novel's historical and social context, and how these shaped and affected the book's characters. In my English classes, however, my experience was like yours - the analysis was so technical as to ruin the reading pleasure. There is one exception, however, and that is poetry. I found that analysis actually increased my appreciation for and love of both French and English poetry (I write my senior thesis on a poem by Yves Bonnefois, a contemporary French poet, and thoroughly enjoyed the process.

All that said, I count many of the books mentioned in the comments so far among my large number of favorites, and would like to add a few others to the mountain. (This list is far from exhaustive - I made it by glancing over what happens to be on my bookshelf right now.)

I was recently introduced to Robertson Davies; having read "Fifth Business" with my book club, I intend to read the remainder of the Deptford trilogy, as well as his other works, as soon as I can.

I love most of the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, especially "One Hundred Years of Solitude."

Voltaire's "Candide" is a truly great French novel. I also loved Fielding's "Tom Jones" (also from the 18th Century, but from England).

I know she's a flaming leftist, Robert, but I still think that Arhundati Roy's "The God of Small Things" is a truly brilliant novel.

Margaret Atwood is uneven, but her "The Blind Assassin" definitely deserves to be read.

For historical-novel-lovers, I heartily recommend Madison Smartt Bell's trilogy on the founding of Haiti, especially the first novel, "All Souls' Rising."

I have loved reading all of Kazuo Ishiguro's books, and especially liked "The Unconsoled." It's not a straightforward-plot-type book, but I think it's very well worth the effort.

For grownups who like good literature for young people, I strongly recommend the Israeli writer David Grossman's books for youth, especially "Someone to Run With."

My list would be incomplete without E. Annie Proulx's "The Shipping News."

Two perhaps less artistic but very enjoyable books I've recently read are Arthur Golden's "Memoirs of a Geisha" and Khaled Housseini's "The Kite Runner."

And I've already mentioned my enjoyment of Dostoyevsky's novels, especially "The Idiot," which made me cry at the end every time I read it.

Sorry - my comment is long enough as it is, and now I've taken up even more space by pressing the "post" button twice. Luckily cyberspace is almost as infinite as real space.

Maurice:

Lovely, lovely list. I'm particlarly happy to see "The Killer Angels" there. As I looked at my list I realized that I was absent great war fiction and one of my favorite writers of all time--I have every one of his books--is Bernard Cornwell. His Sharpe series, which follows a single ruffian soldier through the Peninsular Campaign, is bloody and acccurate and just beautifully written, and shame on me for having neglecteted the sublime Mr. Cornwell.

Thank you also for including the very great George Orwell. I fear we take his genius for granted. He understood the evils of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Taliban, Jihad, etc. all to clearly.

I have a big bone to pick with Mr. Conrad and his dark heart, which I will blog about.

"Catch 22," Oh, yes. Though, gee, doesn't it come close to saying, Let's not fight this war. Just a thought.

Confession: Never read "Last of the Just." It's time, huh?

"Sea Wolf," oh, yeah!

Dumas' "Count," another big, yeah!

Never read a word by James Lee Burke, but gee willikers, what a great title. I'm ready to plunge on your solid recommendation.

No problem with expanding your list. The history of literature is long. How can we possibly whittle our love down to ten, or twenty or even a hundred?

Thanks so much. I always get gold from you.

Sara:

I was so hoping we would hear from you. And what a varied list.

The Red and the Black, oh boy, what a fine, fine novel. Same for Candide and Tom Jones. Seminal works, and just brilliant.

Have not read Roy for stated reasons. Call me small minded, but I see no reason to spend time on my ideological enemies, when there ar so many whom I love and who would love me. Loving literature does not mean being a masochist.

Sigh, cannot bear Margaret Atwood, there is something of the hard lady in her and her Rube Goldberg plots and characterless characters.

I have heard that Madison Smart Bell is worth reading and Haiti is hell on earth and therefore has my full attention.

Ishiguro is good. No arguments from me. I just don't all excited.

David Grossman. Call me crazy, but I loved The Zig Zag Kid.

Loved The Kite Runner. Absolutely adored every word.

I never knew you did your Senior thesis on poetry. Sara, you constantly amaze.

Jeremiah:

There's "From a Sealed Room Again." Okaaaay, I'm ordering it. Sheesh.

Regarding Elie Wiesel. My favorite of his books is easily "The Gates of the Forest."

I worked with Elie on adapting it into a script. Elie had not a clue that film is an entirely different media from novels. He insisted that my script not depart in any way from his book.

I was stuck. I revered the man, yet knew he was dead wrong.

It was never made.

Robert, who really needs Oprah's Book Club when we've got the Seraphic University Book Club....!

Oh...and Robert...? Get some sleep! I think you're just too excited over these growing book lists. The time on my last comment is 3:47, but it's 6:47 in Toronto. The time on your last comment is 3:35 -- that's 3:35 in L.A.

Like I said, get some sleep!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Robert, glad to oblige

Rumer Godden was an English author, who died recently aged 91. "Brede" is her best-known work - the story of a successful career woman who becomes a Benedictine nun. You would recognize her as the author of "Black Narcissus", which was made into that fabulously beautiful movie. She was brought up in India and several of her works are set there.

John Moore is not well-known - he only wrote one or two novels. "Waters" is a study of post-WWII changes in England, seen through the eyes of two families: minor aristocrats and their gardener.

Josephine Tey? Well, I'm having a spell, here ("
having a spell" is Texan for plotzing) that you don't know her. "The Daughter of Time" makes it into the top 10 of anyone's Best Mystery Ever list, "Franchise" into the top 100. I had to really struggle to choose between the two. Scots solicitor's daughter, "Tey" is a pen-name.

P.S. Do NOT watch the made-for-TV of "Brede". It is foul.

Robertson Davies? Bliss. Just finished "Tempest-tost", about a Little Theater production of "The Tempest".

What a lovely topic, thank you.

Re: Catch 22. Robert, I agree, it doesn't solve anything, I didn't become an anti-war person because of it...I probably already was, but that was in a far different time in my life (i.e. before learning anything!) I just love the manic comedy of the book, and I can use the phrase 'catch 22' a great deal in the ER. However, as people get younger (sounds better than me getting older), fewer know what the phrase means.

Jeremiah...I actually forgot about Potter, but I became an avid reader of each novel as it has come out. It's not great literature, in the sense that LOTR isn't, but it's...eminently fun and readable, and the last one I gobbled up in 2 sittings. Rowlings touches on many of the same things I loved about LOTR... tight-knight friendships, real caring for other, humor, loyalty (something often given short shrift in our world)..the fantasy is just a foundation for the interpersonal...but it's also a dark world with evil characters pushed by their own twisted agendas...these books transcend the usual fantasy or sci-fi genre and become decent literature. I really care about what happens with Harry and his friends!

Also, I agree about "Night"...leaving much shorter made it infinitely more powerful.

I remember watching the miniseries "Holocaust" on TV many years ago, and my dad was complaining that it was too watered down, that the atrocities shown were nothing compared to what he had experienced...and I told him that most Americans watching TV could not tolerate SEEING the full truth. The fact the series was on at all was better than nothing, and it WAS talked about a lot and opened up eyes of those who knew nothing about the Holocaust.

I think "Night", though more 'graphic', shocks and hurts even more because it is just enough...more and few could or would read it. It is too hard to comprehend, whether that is right or wrong. Most just can deal with the idea of such evil in small doses. To some extent, unfortunately, that' why we have such abysmal ignorance of world events..it's more fun to read about Brittney Spears, J-Lo or whomever than it is to read about the doom and gloom going on in the world. But just as one starts to sink into the abyss while reading Night...it quickly comes to a close. In 300 pages...too many would not make it and would lay it down and go pick up "People Magazine". And I would understand that.

Robert, this is a wonderful topic, and I too have been writing down other people's suggestions and I have any number I want to go read; reading is my addiction, and you have aided and abetted that problem, since I know have this new list to pile onto my old "wish list"...BUT I AM NOT COMPLAINING; it's wonderful to be among other literate booklovers as this group, and I thank everyone for their suggestions and you for bringing it up.

Okay... I'll give it a try. My problem is that I like authors series, all of their books, but it seems some other folks here do the same :-)!

1. Frank Herbert, anything by him starting with "Dune."
2. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion," all of it.
3. Sherlock Holmes, all of it
4. Anything by the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe! An incredible story teller, unfortunately mostly in Hebrew or Yiddish.
5. Asimov, anything, even his non-fiction.
6. JD Robb (A pen name for Nancy whatshernames scifi), amazing character development over a series
7. Mark Twain, anything. He represents America and all that we are for me.
8. Harry Potter series.
9. Marcus Lehmann books. Love how he presents our values and history.
10. Tom Clancy's early volumes. Once he got to the one where he resolves Israel, I gave up on him. "Hunt for Red October" was probably the best.

I could add more possibly, but as you can see I like series. I like the ability of the author to develop the characters and their ideas to a great degree, instead of one novel and you're in and out, while still bringing a fresh story every time.

Aside from Shakespeare. Miserable antiSemite that he was.

Just for you, in films I will always place "Casablanca" on top. Not only is the moral dilemma real and caused by outside forces instead of bad choices, the actor makes the right moral decision in the end!

I forgot to include Treasure Island, the Harry Potter Series, The Phantom Tollbooth, Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote.

This is kinda just off the top of my head here:

1. "Starship Troopers" by Robert Heinlein.
2. "Dune" by Frank Herbert.
3. "Lord of the Rings." Middle book was a little slow, though.
4. "The Hobbit" by JR Tolkein. Maybe belongs with #3.
5. I've read all the Dan Brown books and enjoyed them -- there, I've said it. I also enjoy candy bars although I know they are terrible.
6. I'm currently reading "Matches" by Alan Kaufman which is a fascinating book but VERY DIRTY and graphic.
7. All the Harry Potter books.
8. "The Hunt for Red October" by Tom Clancy.
9. "The Caine Mutiny," also "Winds of War," pretty much anything written by Herman Wouk.
10. "Ender's Game" Orson Scott Card.

6. JD Robb (A pen name for Nancy whatshernames scifi), amazing character development over a series

JD Robb is aka Nora Roberts, a top-selling women's fiction author. (as we, in the business, prefer to say insead "romance author.")

JD Robb is aka Nora Roberts

She also works as a professional wrestler under the name Aron Strebor.

Jack:

"The Phantom Tollbooth?" I'm sorry, I'm drawing a complete blank. Can you fill us in?

Robinson Crusoe, one of the greatest books ever. I love Daniel Defoe. He made novel writing into respectable work! He turned writing into an activity of the middle class who wanted to make money. Entrepreneurs as scribblers. My hero.

Have you read "Roxana?" No?
1. Run to local library.
2. Check it out.
3. Read.
4. Be amazed.
5. Again, this is a novel that is obsessed with the question: What is society to do with unmarried women?

Hmm:

Hmm, very interesting list.

Again, I have to confess ignorance when it comes to sci-fi. I have tried, oh how I've tried "Dune" and "LOTR" but for some reason they just never took.

Let me digress and act as shield for WS.

Calling Shakespeare a "miserable antiSemite is, ahem, not quite fair. Technically you might be correct. But look, there were no Jews in England when Will was alive. They had all been expelled. Any Jews that were in England were hidden Jews.

Shakespeare's unfortunate attitide towards Jews merely reflected the general Christain attitude held by the majority of Englishmen at the time.

Gosh, one could argue, and much ink has been spilled that the portrait in "The Merchant of Venice" is "subversive for its time" and quite sympathetic towards its Jew.

I don't know the play well enough to argue either way. I am, I freely admit, way out of my depth in Shakespeare studies.

However, I do know a Jew hater when I read one.

F Scott Fitzgerald was.
Ezra Pound was.
TS Eliot was.
Nikolai Gogol was, horribly, just read and cringe through the magnificent "Taras Bulba."

And here's why I'm spending so much time on this:

I take charges of antiSemitism very seriously and I believe that when we label somebody as antiSemitic, well, they darned well should be.

For in the end, the more elastic we allow the term to become, the less meaning it has.

As it is written: "Life and death lie in the power of the tongue."

Jack:

Really? Is she a good wrestler, with literary pins?

Well, This is becoming a real salon (Hallelujah!). Some responses:

1. LOTR, Potter: If other people like 'em, fine. Just don't tread on me.

2. "Holocaust": I'm just too young to have seen it - and writing about writing about the Shoah (the beginnings of a better name for it) is risky - but Bill Styron has some stern words about that miniseries in the last 2 pages of his essay, "Hell Reconsidered" from "This Quiet Dust" (originally, NY Review of Books, 6/29/78).

Partly, it's a professional writer's commonsense - "When drama erodes into melodrama one of the warning signals is the appearance of token figures...." - partly, it's his own gloss on that bottomless subject - "We shall perhaps never even begin to understand the Holocaust until we are able to discern the shadows of the enormity looming beyond the enormity we already know."

A quick comparison: Styron's prose, unlike Wiesel's, is mellifluous and expansive. By it, he refuses to relinquish a probing innnocence - partly his, partly "American" - when approaching Evil. Whereas Wiesel - esp. in Night - sifts through the wreckage of innocence destroyed. In mind's eye he winces with every sentence. Remember the final image, in front of the mirror?

In any case, that second sentence quoted above - about discerning enormities behind enormities - I've found very instructive.

3. "Genocide" (documentary): When I was in 5th or 6th grade, we took a class trip to see this. With Orson Welles narrating, it managed to strike an awed respect into this 11 year-old. (I remember rooting for it on Oscar night - and got my wish.) For Big "O" fans, it's worth noting as a performance in itself.

Robert: how can I bribe you to hear more of your impressions of Mr. Wiesel? ("Failed" projects can be very instructive for other ones.)

Hi Robert,

This link explains more about the Phantom Tollbooth.

Jeremiah:

How can you bribe me?

One word: Babke.

Seriously, I was/am/always will be in awe of Elie Wiesel. Those who died are holy martyrs. Those who survived are holy witnesses. I have, had no right to tamper with Elie's memories. In short, I was foolish, no arrogant to believe that I could solve the creative problems.

As Elie said to me: Sometimes silence is the best we can hope for.

I feel so behind in my reading! I haven't read too many novels lately. When I was in high school I was OBSESSED with E.M. Forster, who wrote A Room With a View (a story based partly in Italy). I knew the movie by heart and even took two years of Italian, in case I ever went to Italia'.... one day!

I also like:
Evening Class - Maeve Binchy
The Five People you Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
Ritual Bath - Faye Kellerman

That's it for now - good Shabbos to all!

Rachel :)

Re that "From a Sealed Room": one of Rachel Kadish's concerns is to address how we continue to remember the Shoah now that its last direct survivors are passing away. Silence or not.

way outa my league here, but doesn't anybody like gordon korman? well, his early books at least. a.c.s. you out there?

speaking of words - couldn't help myself, but this post with comment has about 9600 of them. words, that is.

;-)

Josh,
Shavuah Tov.
FYI: Gordon Korman is from Toronto. I think he was Scholastic Books's youngest writer ever signed on. He's done well for himself, to say the least. My oldest, who's 10 1/2, is now reading Korman's books.

Rachel:

Thanks so much. I'll tell Faye that she's on a list with E.M Forster. She'll be pleased.

BTW, "A Passage to India" is a fine Forster novel too and David Lean's adaptation is superb.

Josh:

Who is Gordon Korman?

5 words:)

I think Shakespeare being an antiSemite would be my excuse for not reading any of his works :-). Yes, there are far more dangerous and true antiSemites published, dead and alive.

I had not known TS Elliot was a Jew hater. The others never interested me.

SciFi as good writing might only be appreciated if you want your issues taken out of the context of our current world and its history. Sometimes it's easier to take the point the writer makes because it has no conflict with our viewpoints and worldview.

For example, Dune might have bothered me if it was written as polemic against Messiahs within our world history. After all, we believe in it. But taken out of context, in a world completely unrecognizable to me, I can see the point while rejecting it at the same time.

But anyway, you wanted books, not book discussions. If we were to go past 10, I would add Michael Crichton's books. After every one, I've ended up reading through piles of non-fiction to figure out where his fiction came from.

g. korman - well of course you can always google him, but the short of it - he's authored a bunch of the most enjoyable books i've ever read. of course, they are geared towards 10 year olds and are about 100 pages long.

i refer to his first dozen books or so, not the pile of stuff he's written more recently. the macdonald hall stuff.

told you i'm outa my league here. but since i've started... i found The Scribe (p. feldheim) to be one of the few (non seraphic press) authentically jewish "kosher" novels around, and a touching story as well.

Josh:

I found out about Korman. I actually discovered a few of his books in Ariel's ZT'L room.

"The Scribe," huh? Okay, I'm always on the lookout for a good, kosher novel. Thanks. Even if I didn't publish it.

Here to second The Scribe. Haunting and beautiful. But you have to enjoy the mystical in Judaism. A pure litvak couldn't enjoy it :-).