The Top Ten (and then some)

Ok -

So here's my "Top Ten" favorite books ever read. This was a much harder challenge than I expected. It seems there's quite a few criteria that must go into the selection of a top ten, especially when a person knows the difference between quality and cute, with quality being a major source of enjoyment.

Here's how I figured out my rankings: 1. The book has to "speak" to me in some way. The philosophy, historical setting, themes, or characters must "say" something to me that is deeply personal, or inspiring. 2. The book must be of exceptional quality, meeting all of the criteria of what I consider "great" literature (I'm not listing them here). 3. The book must have been read during a special time (phase) in my life that I can recall when I think of, peruse, or re-read the book (the "romance" of my life is important). 4. The book had to have made me excited to keep reading, and immensely impressed with its story/characters/narrator or what have you. 5. The book had to make me feel like I was know "in the know" or part of a special club. 6. The book must be able to be re-read many times, and never grow stale.

I guess that's it. I'm sure that I could think of a few more.

Oh, also, there's a few books that couldn't make the list that I really wanted to include, because they've meant so much to me and I'd hate to ignore them. For this reason I've included a "Runners Up" list.

And, I've "cheated" a little by failing to select ONE play by Shakespeare - I could just pick his entire works but I haven't read them all yet - and ONE book by Charles Bukowski (they're really all the same story). In these two cases the play/book I like the MOST comes 1st.


Here they are (drumroll please):

1a. To Kill a Mockingbird
1b. All of The Great Brain books, by John D. Fitzgerald
2. The Importance of Being Ernest
3. Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Comedy of Errors
4. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
5. For Whom the Bell Tolls
6. Henderson the Rain King
7. One Hundred Years of Solitude
8. The Hobbit
9. Woman, Ham on Rye, and Factotum
10. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas


Runners Up (in no particular order):

Great Expectations, the "Incarnations of Immortality" series by Piers Anthony (with "For Love of Evil" being the absolute BEST of the 7), The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, Absalom, Absalom, Lust for Life, The Sun Also Rises, A Moveable Feast, Atlas Shrugged, The Age of Innocence, East of Eden, The Brotherhood of the Grape, A Farewell to Arms, More Die of Heartbreak, The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Middlemarch, The Lord of the Rings, Love in the Time of Cholera, and The Grapes of Wrath.