A viewer writes that she has begun re-reading "Wuthering Heights," and we applaud this. There are some who are puzzled by the pleasures to be found in re-reading, but it is the same as hearing again a piece of music, and also one often discovers nuances missed on the first reading.
One of the old questions is what would you take to read if lost on a desert island? Some people approach this as a study course and say, for example, they would take the complete works of Shakespeare. But what one really would want on that lonely island is pleasure and escape (mental escape) not study. And so while one might take one or two of Shakespeare's plays--say "Macbeth" and "The Tempest"--one would better carry books that are sure to give pleasure. Here is our list:
The Complete Stories of Ernest Hemingway
The Complete Stories of John Cheever
The Complete Stories of John O'Hara
"Remembrance of Things Past," Marcel Proust
"Moby Dick," Herman Melville
"Pudd'nhead Wilson," Mark Twain
"The Scarlet Letter," Nathanael Hawthorne
The Book of Common Prayer, particularly the Cranmer collects
Selected books of The Bible, especially "Job" and "Jonah," appropriate for a castaway
Collected Essays, Graham Greene
"Billion Dollar Brain," Len Deighton
"The Man Who Knew Kennedy," Vance Bourjaily
"Lady in the Lake,"Raymond Chandler
"Bachelors Anonymous," P.G. Wodehouse
"Aunts Aren't Gentlemen," P.G. Wodehouse
"Vengeance Valley," Luke Short
That should keep us reading until the rescue ship arrives. Other viewers' desert island lists welcomed.
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It's not easy to find some pretty great humour writing. I'd really like to have complete works of H. Allen Smith, S.J. Perelman, Richard Bissell, Tom Robbins, Peter DeVries and Art Buchwald on my Island.
ReplyDeleteMainline work of John Irving, Martin Cruz Smith, Nelson Algren, Len Deighton, Frederick Forsythe, John LeCarre, and, let's see - Ah, yes, Trevanian! Kurt Vonnegut and Stewart McLean, would make up a portable carton that comes immediately to mind.
Nice that someone remembers H. Allen Smith and these other witty wordsmiths. You might want to add Dorothy Parker, Thomas Meehan, and Christopher Buckley ("Thank You for Smoking").
ReplyDeleteI'd certainly like to add Thurber's "The Years With Ross", and Brinkley's "The Fun House", as fabulous books about publishing.
ReplyDelete- Lantzvillain