Ryan Coffin has posted on his site a list of his ten favorite novels, and, being that lately the time to write and the subject matter have been out-of-sync with each other, this seems like a conveniently short post, while still telling enough to include. My list won't be as impressive and literary as his, though.

In no particular order:

1. The Lost World, Michael Crichton
2. To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
3. Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
4. Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk
5. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
6. Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
7. The Princess Bride, William Goldman
8. Big Trouble, Dave Barry
9. Rats Saw God, Rob Thomas
10. The Stranger, Albert Camus



I don't feel good about that list. I didn't want to use the same author twice, so I picked "The Lost World" and left off "Jurassic Park" (an easy choice, but JP should have probably been on the top ten) and "About a Boy" above "High Fidelity" (ditto, though they're both a great deal better than "How to Be Good", a book I stopped reading with two pages to go.) The last three listed their were a bit of a stretch-- I remember very little about any of them, and I'm not sure if I'd "The Stranger" deserves a place at all, as I was a relatively illiterate freshmen when I read it. Had it not appeared on Ryan's list, I probably wouldn't have remembered reading it at all.

With the exception of "The Stranger" and maybe "Where the Red Fern Grows", both of which it's been some time since I last read through (though, to be fair, Zack and I got about halfway through the latter a year and a half ago or so), these aforementioned books may be the only novels I've read in the last five years. Oh! Oh! The Hottest Place, by Ethan Hawk! I read that....oh, god, I think between sophomore year and junior year, it was in Florida when I met Elorza. I don't know if it deserves a place or not, but it deserves mention as further prove that I am not unliterary. I should give lip service to my favorite writer of all time, David Sedaris, whom would easily have made the list if it weren't for the fact that he does not , in fact, write novels. I've read all of his stuff except "Naked", which I haven't gone out and purchased yet for fear that I will have nothing else to read if I do. (Currently I'm on my second attempt at Crichton's "Prey", having gotten through the first half a number of years ago and given up, and I've sporatically reading, or trying to read, bits and pieces of "Samuel Beckett: The Complete Short Prose", having seen an episode of Judging Amy that made it look good. This man, it should be said, is impossible to read, though probably brilliant, if you can manage.) I've also kept myself in poetry and blogs and bland newspapers sitting around the various McDonald's that I eat at over the years. So who are you to judge me?

This was supposed to be such a short, simple post.

The Fish Guy, whom I very rarely talk to these days (and should drop in on, soon) hasn't read a book since he graduated high school. And he's got, like, twenty thousand in the bank. So. There's that.


On with it.



P.S.
Ryan, if you read this, I totally caught the Camus Reference on the top-info-section thingy of your site, from the very last page of the novel. That quote was my scrolling marquis screen saver for years. Solidarity, dude.