The Ten Books That Stayed With You Meme
Dec. 16th, 2013 07:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jon_chaissonI've been seeing this meme in various places, and it's been a while since I posted one, so why not? :)
In no particular order...
--Mark Danielewski, House of Leaves. It's messed up, it parallels my favorite album of 2000 (his sister Poe's Haunted), it challenges what a printed book should look like and how it should be read, you can spend years analyzing it and still come up with different meanings to the plot, and overall, it's a hell of a lot of fun to read. One of my all-time favorites, it's a great example of writing outside the usual boundaries of fiction.
--Dave Sim, the Cerebus comic series. Sure, Sim kind of turned into a nutcake in the last quarter of the series (he's really calmed down since then), but I have to give him credit and mad props for creating fascinating characters with depth (even if they end up being jackasses), fascinating art (especially when Gerhard jumped on board), and writing a finite three-hundred issue story arc during a time when comic books rarely did so. I learned a lot about character interaction in this series, actually.
--Katsuhiro Otomo, AKIRA. Another comic series, yes, but one that was absolutely brilliant in its execution. One of the best SF/supernatural storylines I've ever read. Visually stunning and an excellent example of storytelling from a somewhat different culture. From this series I learned about ensemble casting, unconventional POVs, and how to keep the story going even when the scene is completely internal.
--Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. My favorite of the series is still Book 2, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but the first book is filled with some of the best ridiculous, self-mocking British humor out there.
--Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front. This one always stayed with me since I first read it during the summer of 1989--probably one of the first classics I read in high school that wasn't assigned to me! It's fascinating in its delivery, both sad and lighthearted at the same time as the characters try to make the best out of a really bad situation.
--JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. Believe it or not, I never read this all the way through until just recently, around 2006. [I attempted it in junior high around 1985, but had little patience/attention for it at that time.] I think reading it as an adult made more sense, as I was able to grok what he was trying to do with it. It's by no means a perfect story, but still one of the best examples of detailed worldbuilding out there.
--Ira Robbins, The Trouser Press Record Guide. I no longer own this, but the 1986 edition was the one that blew the doors off for me in regards to music collecting, rock music in general, and informing me on just how many albums I was expected to have in my then-growing collection. My listening habits changed drastically after I read this book--and yes, I did take notes.
--Madeline L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time. My sister handed this to me when I was a kid and thought I'd like it. That I did! It was probably my first introduction into reading SF/Fantasy, and still one of my favorites.
--Simon Reynolds, Rip It Up and Start Again. A relatively recent book by a brilliant music writer, it's about the post-punk scene of the late 70s-early 80s, but in the process it explains how that scene eventually morphed into the early years of alternative rock as we now know it. This was the first book I picked up when I started planning writing about the college rock years with Walk in Silence, and it really helped piece a lot of things together for me.
--Lee J Hindle, Dragon Fall. Yep, I've talked about this one before. The book that got me writing seriously in the first place--the one where I thought "hey--I could do this too."
In no particular order...
--Mark Danielewski, House of Leaves. It's messed up, it parallels my favorite album of 2000 (his sister Poe's Haunted), it challenges what a printed book should look like and how it should be read, you can spend years analyzing it and still come up with different meanings to the plot, and overall, it's a hell of a lot of fun to read. One of my all-time favorites, it's a great example of writing outside the usual boundaries of fiction.
--Dave Sim, the Cerebus comic series. Sure, Sim kind of turned into a nutcake in the last quarter of the series (he's really calmed down since then), but I have to give him credit and mad props for creating fascinating characters with depth (even if they end up being jackasses), fascinating art (especially when Gerhard jumped on board), and writing a finite three-hundred issue story arc during a time when comic books rarely did so. I learned a lot about character interaction in this series, actually.
--Katsuhiro Otomo, AKIRA. Another comic series, yes, but one that was absolutely brilliant in its execution. One of the best SF/supernatural storylines I've ever read. Visually stunning and an excellent example of storytelling from a somewhat different culture. From this series I learned about ensemble casting, unconventional POVs, and how to keep the story going even when the scene is completely internal.
--Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. My favorite of the series is still Book 2, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but the first book is filled with some of the best ridiculous, self-mocking British humor out there.
--Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front. This one always stayed with me since I first read it during the summer of 1989--probably one of the first classics I read in high school that wasn't assigned to me! It's fascinating in its delivery, both sad and lighthearted at the same time as the characters try to make the best out of a really bad situation.
--JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. Believe it or not, I never read this all the way through until just recently, around 2006. [I attempted it in junior high around 1985, but had little patience/attention for it at that time.] I think reading it as an adult made more sense, as I was able to grok what he was trying to do with it. It's by no means a perfect story, but still one of the best examples of detailed worldbuilding out there.
--Ira Robbins, The Trouser Press Record Guide. I no longer own this, but the 1986 edition was the one that blew the doors off for me in regards to music collecting, rock music in general, and informing me on just how many albums I was expected to have in my then-growing collection. My listening habits changed drastically after I read this book--and yes, I did take notes.
--Madeline L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time. My sister handed this to me when I was a kid and thought I'd like it. That I did! It was probably my first introduction into reading SF/Fantasy, and still one of my favorites.
--Simon Reynolds, Rip It Up and Start Again. A relatively recent book by a brilliant music writer, it's about the post-punk scene of the late 70s-early 80s, but in the process it explains how that scene eventually morphed into the early years of alternative rock as we now know it. This was the first book I picked up when I started planning writing about the college rock years with Walk in Silence, and it really helped piece a lot of things together for me.
--Lee J Hindle, Dragon Fall. Yep, I've talked about this one before. The book that got me writing seriously in the first place--the one where I thought "hey--I could do this too."
