ThrowbackThursday: My Fine Feathered Friends (A Reading List)

One of the programs that I regularly listen to on the radio is The Daily Circuit on Minnesota Public Radio, primarily because that's what's on as I am in my car heading for lunch somewhere. It's a show that talks about books. The show's host Kerri Miller regularly has authors as guests and frequently opens up the phone lines for listeners' suggestions. 

This being Throwback Thursday, I thought it a good day to resurrect a 2008 blog entry in which I shared a book list of my own. It doesn't include more recent readings, but regular followers of this blog will find periodic reviews of current gems.

My Fine Feathered Friends

Woody Allen called his book Without Feathers a comic response to Emily Dickinson's statement, "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches on the soul..." In addition to the implied nakedness, he likewise signals the absence of hope in his heart. One might call him a tragic luminary.

Here's another poem by Emily Dickinson, about books along with short reading list of some personal favorites. May we never quit being a nation of readers.

There is no frigate like a book

To take us lands away,

Nor any coursers like a page

of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of toll;

How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul.

The Short List

Here's a short list of some of my favorite Novellas and Shorter, Book-Length Fictional Works that have great power and are worthy of any reading list...

Death in Venice, Thomas Mann

The Tenth Man, Graham Greene

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

Cakes & Ale, Somerset Maughm

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

The Sybil, Par Lagerkvist

Barabas, Par Lagerkvist

Seize the Day, Saul Bellow

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, A. Solzhenitsyn

The Forged Coupon, Leo Tolstoy

Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

Welcome to Hard Times, E.L.Doctorow

The Great Divorce, C.S.Lewis

Animal Farm, George Orwell

Isabelle, Andre Gide

Theseus, Andre Gide

This is a list of stories and books that made an impact on me at key points in my life...

The Secret Sharer, Joseph Conrad

The Lagoon, Joseph Conrad

Too Late the Phalarope, Alan Paton

Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmund Rostand (play)

The End of the Affair, Graham Greene

A Burnt Out Case, Graham Green

The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene

Man of La Mancha, Dale Wasserman (play)

For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway

In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway (stories)

Demian, Herman Hesse

Beneath the Wheel, Herman Hesse

Martin Eden, Jack London

1984, George Orwell

Brave New World, Aldus Huxley

That Hideous Strength, C.S.Lewis

Crime & Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevski

Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges (stories)

Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges (stories)

The Bet by Anton Checkov