BOOK LISTS

I like book lists whether compiled as the “Top 100 of the Year”, or the “Top 100 Novels of All Time” or, more modestly, lists of favourites from authors, and the lists of the many individual annual literary prizes.  The lists are fun and may lead one to dis bycover new books; they certainly illustrate the breadth and depth of reading that can be done; and sometimes they are frustrating because they reinforce the knowledge that no matter how long you live, you will never read all of the books that you would like to.

Nevertheless, in the spirit of discovery, following are various lists that one might peruse for pleasure or as guides to new reading.  I will update the lists as I come across new information.

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Best Books by Kiran Desai

Ms. Desai won the Man Booker prize for 2006 for her novel The Inheritance of Loss.  She has a strong pedigree as her mother is the accomplished novelist Anita Desai.  The following list appeared in The Week Magazine (January 19, 2007).  The comments are by Ms. Desai.

Herzog by Saul Bellow.  The dark grapplings one associates with Russian authors transported to America, where they become hilarious viewed through the lens of college politics and batty girlfriends instead of peasant uprisings.  And there’s the remarkable Bellow sentence.

The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki.  Tanizaki’s slow patience and his ability to do melodrama without being melodramatic… makes me very jealous.  The Makioka Sisters also has one of the most memorable last lines in literature:  “Yukiko’s diarrhea persisted through the 26^th , and was a problem on the train to Tokyo.”

Voss by Patrick White.  A quest to explore the Australian desert as a religious, a redemptive journey.  White is called the Dostoyevsky of Australia, and it’s true his obsession with the subject of man nailed upon the cross is parallel.  The intersection of this obsession with the colonial enterprise makes Voss a frightening book, still pertinent today.

Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo.  Ghosts of the past never seem to be exorcized from Mexico – a country that seems to offer its citizens a constant horizon from which to depart to the surreal.  The narrator begins to consider himself dead in his journey back to a feudal, ruthless Mexico, a deserted town populated by insistent phantoms.  (Note: this is included in the Guardian list of the Top 100 Books of All Time; see below)

A Bend in the River  by V.S.Naipaul.  Naipaul was the first fiction writer, I think, to draw the lines between Africa, Asia, Latin America-to capture the relationship of the entire post-colonial world with the West.  This particular book, with its bleak portrayal of how big wars pervert even the remotest places, changed the way I wanted to write about India.  Perhaps no story should be seen in isolation.

Shame by Salman Rushdie.  Another book that continues to be pertinent.  There’s a scene in which the American ambassador in Pakistan is telling someone that, well, the States must support a military dictatorship in Pakistan because of the problem across the border in Afghanistan.  Rushdie has his finger on the pulse of something vitally true to the past of this region, to the present, and if things continue along, the future.

Twelve 20^th Century Classics  by Michael Ondaatje

Kim by Rudyard Kipling

Victory by Joseph Conrad

The Professor’s House by Willa Cather

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Wolf

Wolf Solent by John Cowper Powys

Light in August by William Faulkner

Call it Sleep by Henry Roth

An Imaginary Life by David Malouf

The Three Lives of Lucy Cabrol, from Pig Earth by John Berger

So Long, See You Tomorrow  by William Maxwell

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Selected Stories by Mavis Gallant

To 100 Books of All Time

<A HREF="http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,711520,00.html">Click Here For Guardian Book List</A>

The list was compiled in 2002 as determined from a vote by 100 noted writers from 54 countries.  Don Quixote was named as the top book in history, but otherwise no ranking was provided.  This is the most international of the lists provided here.

Literary Prizes

  <A HREF="http://www.powells.com/prizes/prizes.html">Click Here For Powell’s Literary Prizes List</A>

This is a terrific source for lists of 36 book awards in the categories of:

Children’s Books (5)

General Non-Fiction (5)

Literary Fiction (15)

Mystery (2)

Poetry (3)

Sc-Fi and Fantasy (2)

Cooking and Gardening (3)

Alternative Press (1)

Each category has a list going back to the year the award was started.  From Canada, the Literary Fiction category includes the Giller Prize but not the Governor GeneralS Literary Awards.

Governor General’s Literary Awards

<A HREF="http://www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggla/  ">Click Here For The Governor General’s Literary Awards List</A>

This site includes the list of Literary Award winners going back to the beginning of the awards in 1936.

Modern Library Readers’ Poll for Non-Fiction

<A HREF="http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnonfiction.html">Click Here For The Modern Library Readers’ Poll for Non-Fiction List</A>

Modern Library Readers’ Poll for Novels

<A HREF="http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html">Click Here For The Modern Library Readers’ Poll for Novels List</A>

Radcliff Publishing Course: 100 Best Novels

<A HREF="http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100rivallist.html   ">Click Here For The Radcliff List of 100 Best Novels</A>

New York Times: Notable Books for 2006

  <A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/review/20061203notable-books.html">Click Here For The NYT’s List of Notable Books for 2006</A>

Time Magazine: 100 All-Time Novels from 1923 to the Present

<A HREF="http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html  ">Click Here For Time Magazines’ List of Novels</A>