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My Ideal Bookshelf
If you’re looking for a last-minute gift idea for a friend (or for yourself), you could do a lot worse than My Ideal Bookshelf. The authors asked more than 100 creative luminaries to list a handful of books that defined them, and then they placed the interview commentary alongside illustrations of the books chosen by each contributor.
Bibliophiles be warned: This book is highly addictive. And it gets you thinking – What were the books that were most formative for me?
Here’s mine:
Fu Manchu – My first series. My grandfather used to pick these up at a used bookstore in Lowell, Massachusetts and send them to me. When I’d visit, we’d walk there. It was a place I could spend hours browsing in and the root of my current addiction to such establishments.
H2G2 – I know I’ve written somewhere in this blog about Nelson, with whom I spent many hours mowing lawns and trimming hedges. His battered copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was filled with notes and arrows and diagrams and all sorts of indecipheable marginalia. I later fell in love with Douglas Adams’ five book trilogy, but Nelson’s copy came earlier and imprinted upon me the idea that one could interact with a work of literature this way.
Shogun – This all started with the television series starring Richard Chamberlain as the English pilot stranded in feudal Japan. It was so eye-opening, and both my sister and I followed up by reading James Clavell’s 1200 page novel (It was the biggest thing I’ve ever read.). The effect was life-changing. She later taught English in Japan, and I ended up falling in love with the language.
Idoru – This may or may not be my favorite William Gibson novel, but it is the first book of my favorite Gibson triptych (The Bridge Trilogy, along with Virtual Light and All Tomorrow’s Parties). This is also the one sitting atop one of the stacks of books in the hall outside our bedroom, calling to me.
Winter’s Tale – Mark Helprin is highly underappreciated. Read this book or read A Soldier of the Great War. Go. Do this.
On the Road – Read and reread when I moved to Denver because I wanted to identify Dean Moriarty’s haunts. Now that I think more of it, I liked The Dharma Bums better.
Watership Down – I recall reading this in the back of my parents’ station wagon and being utterly transfixed. Just picked up a copy for my daughter.
Infinite Jest – I had to include this because it showed me what was possible, not just with writing but also with reading since I read it along with a few thousand others as part of 2009′s Infinite Summer. And I would do it again in a heartbeat.
156 days ago ·
so, i slightly feel dumb as i look at your list…damn, you developed quick.
my books:
Ed Emberly, Make A World: This book introduced me to the fact that we are all Pablo Picasso, but we just need an easy way to start our journey to get there. My twin brother and I sucked these books up like old skool Foster’s Freeze (before the extra crappy ingredients) chocolate shakes at age 8,9,10,11…. This was the Swiss Army knife book–you could draw anything–and Dad brought home reams of computer paper and we drew everything. I just bought a reprint of it for my son…not surprisingly, he started drawing when he got home for days…and TURNED THE SCREEN OFF on his own.
I look at it, and I want to sit down and start drawing with him…
Here’s a picture of the hardbound edition from the 70′s that I ordered in grade school:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3180/3024268766_8719ba52b3.jpg
Scott Corbett, Diamonds are Trouble: For my son of 11, he started ripping through the Harry Potter books at age 8 or 9, and never stopped. For me, the book that convinced me books were worth reading was this one–I just recall that it was funny, and unexpected.
Night Shift, Stephen King, the first collection of short stories by him. This taught me the power of books. Positive or negative. Uplifting, surprising, bone-chilling. The story about the hand with the (no spoiler) and the ‘laundry machine’. Yes! After reading, I didn’t hesitate to go see the Shining in theaters…but there was NO WAY I was going to read the book (too scary…).
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (commonly GEB), a 1979 book by Douglas Hofstadter : what James Joyce did for everything BUT computers/logic/math, Doug did for those. Exposed to it as a sophomore in High School, re-read it in the 90′s as computers were everywhere…thank you Ms. Chovik! Get lost, push down, push down, pop up pop up, and up…
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (first published in 1949): a non-fiction book, and seminal work of comparative mythology. And the best way to take a young, religion questioning boy, and turn him into a hair-on-fire, rocking & enriched, agonistic-ish zen-”jew-bu” surfer-DJ–jazz player-new ager who chose India for a year instead of saving a $5 grand gift…or something like that. I read this just going into college or just before. It was the anvil that broke the Catholic’s back. Thank you Joe!
SPECIAL NOTE: a homage to all the books I read (fiction and non- ) in college–the bum thing about college is, the good books come at you like a firehose, then you sell them cheaply (sadly) to make enough money to pay for food/drink beer/graduate/travel…then you kick yourself for not having them still so you could read them again. Alas…
Here’s one I swore I would read and finish later (in India) and did…
James Joyce, Ulysses — I mean, c’mon. I started it in undergraduate and finished it after a trip to India 5 yrs after my masters was complete. So, so, many references in that book…Molly Bloom!!!!
Ken Wiber, Grace and Grit. Timed serendipitously with finding out (3 hours ago), that my mother-in-law’s cancer is operable/treatable/slowmoving (and thus relieved!), this book is heroic. And mellow. And about cancer and the cosmos. And makes you curious about reading the rest of Ken’s ‘spiral dynamics’ related books (and even his “Boomeritis”).
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable is a literary/philosophical book by the epistemologist Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Great book, read a few years ago. Helped me grok the fact that we can’t really grok anything. Just try to be robustly prepared for it. Good luck, right?
Mark, do I need to draw these out on a postcard and send them to you?
156 days ago ·
Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever seen that Ed Emberly book. Now I have to get it. Never read Godel Escher Bach; never read Ulysses, though I’ve aspired to read both. You are the heady one, Vince
Did you get my postcard?
155 days ago ·
yep,planning a reply as we speak…
155 days ago ·
And of course I hesitate to bring the subject of postcards into the digital (I didn’t, you did.) because part of the whole analog, u.s. postal service aspect of the adventure is not actually being able to text/email/blog comment you about whether or not you are currently drafting the aforementioned postcard. Part of the whole appeal is the going to the mailbox to check each day – the expectation and disappointment, the sturm, the drang.
153 days ago ·
doh!