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Home , Andrea Barrett, Bapsi Sidhwa, Cormac McCarthy, Douglas Glover (writer), George Saunders, John Cheever

At this point in your life, what would you say are some of your all­time favorite books or stories? To The Wedding ­ On a Winter's Night A Traveler ­ I've enjoyed and learned from far too many books and stories to list a limited number of favorites. '' 'The Handmaid's Tale' Ann Beattie's short stories My all­time favorite books right now are children's books, which I'm rediscovering as I read to my two­ year­old. 'Pilgermann' by Russell Hoban 'Riddley Walker' by Russell Hoban 'Gormenghast', 'Titus Groan' and 'Titus Alone' by Mervyn Peake ' Fields' by Martin Amis Can't have 'all­time' favorite. I am a work in progress and enjoy many stories, fiction, non­fiction, short stories, etc. I can relate to, depending on my current consciousness. A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin Still Life by A.S. Byatt Giants in the Earth by O.E. Rolvaag by Anna Karenina, The Red and The Black, Moby Dick, Benito Cereno, Farewell to Arms, Typhoon, Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness The Haunting by Shirley Jackson Dubliners by Ship Fever by '' is my favorite, along with 'A Painted House' and 'The Lost Boys' Howard’s End, to India (Forster), The Keep (Egan), ANything by Ian McEwan, by , Stories by Carver, Stories by , Stories by Hard­Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Galapagos by Hocus­ Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut Karate is a Thing of the Spirit by A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews Provinces of Night by William Gay Smonk by Tom Franklin Calvino, IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT Jose Saramago, BLINDNESS Fielding, TOM JONES Dante, Divine Comedy Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway The African Queen To Kill a Mockingbird any Hornblower any Jack Aubrey 'She's Come Undone' by Wally Lamb 'Second Glance' and 'My Sister's Keeper' by Jodi Picoult 'The Summer of Ordinary Ways' by Nicole Lea Helget Anything by Faulkner, Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Charles Baxter, Amy Hempel, Marjorie Sandor. A huge number of Hemingway and Fitzgerald stories are essentials. You read all that when you're just a 21 year old kid, as I am, and you learn plenty. About people, about writing, and ambitions of being a writer. They've become old friends. Anna Karenina Mrs. Dalloway Somerset Maugham Short Stories all Alice Munro Time Will Darken It, The Chateau, by Wm. Maxwell Nine Gates, Jane Hirschfield The Niagara River, Kay Ryan Virginia Woolf's Writer's Diaries A River Runs Through It etc. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo The Once and Future King by T.H. White The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Contempt of Court by Mark Curriden and Leroy Phillips Confederacy of Dunces, O'Toole A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee Cowboys Are My Weakness (short stories by Pam ) Just about anything by Sujata Massey though the copy editing is atrocious! Other Voices, Other Rooms, Truman Capote In Cold Blood, Capote san mcdonald, [email protected], nashville brave new world, blameless in abaddon, lincoln reconsidered, in the penal colony I re­read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Dreams every year or two, and now Janet Fitch's Paint It Black is on the shelf next to it to be re­read. 's early short stories are also on my list of all­time favorites. Caren Cote, Portland, OR 'Memories of Old Jack,' 'The Great Gatsby,' 'Of Time and the River,' ',' 'All the Pretty Horses,' 'Freaky Deaky,' 'Bartleby the Scrivener,' and 'The Cask of Amontillado.' A Prayer for Owen Meanie Pride and Prejudice Charlotte's Web A Wrinkle in Time Anna Karenina Chekov's The Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters 'Love in the Ruins' ­ 'Living to Tell the Tale' ­ Gabriel Garcia Marquez 'Maurice' ­ E.M. Forster 'A Pale View of Hills' ­ 'Moral Disorder: and Other Stories' ­ 'The 1 Accidental' ­ Ali Smith 'All the King's Men' ­ 'The Snare' ­ Elizabeth Spencer Teresa Tumminello Brader Elmer Gantry Kate Vaiden Straight Man by The Risk Pool by Richard Russo Money by Martin Amis Wonder Boys by Catcher in the Rye A Separate Peace The Great Gatsby Of Mice and Men Hamlet 'The Raft' by Peter Orner 'The Hand' by Benjamin Percy 'Cathedral' by Raymond Carver A Prayer For Owen Meany Stories: Anything by Alice Munro but especially 'Carried Away.' Novels: The late books by . The Demons, Heimito von Doderer The Holy Land, Par Lagerkvist The Awakening Land (trilogy), I read some 75 books a year, not including periodicals. It's hard to say. So many are favorites. Catcher in the Rye Pirandello's Short stories The Great Gatsby, The Old Man and , Back Roads I loved 's Confederacy of Dunces. Maybe because it the first book I read that I felt was so different from everything else. Maybe the tragedy of his death played a part; I don't think so, but maybe. I also love Flannery O'Connor, and especially A Good Man is Hard to Find... Short stories * The Doctor's Son by John O'Hara * Indian Camp by Novels * Death Comes for the Archbishop by * The Great Gatsby by D. Scott Fitzgerald (It really is as good as it's reputed to be) I would say that, at this juncture, I've found and non­fiction to be my favorites. Barbara Taubman wrote an excellent book about life in the Middle Ages; Robert Rutherford wrote excellent historical fiction, covering two different parts of England and Russia; Larry McMurtry and some of his stuff. Time Life books came out with an excellent 30+volume set on the The Civil War. George B. Miller, Jr. Newington, CT The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Jackson Gap Creek by Morgan One Foot in Eden by Rash Before Women Had Wings by Fowler The Shining by King The Road by McCarthy Becoming Madame Mao by Min The Joy Luck Club by Tan these are just some of them : ) Tolkien's Middle Earth stories, nearly all of Terry Pratchett's Disc World stories, Jan Karon's Mitford series. The Wonderful Country, by Tom Lea; The Dancers Dancing, Eilis ni Dhuibne; Star of the Sea, Joe O'Connor; Gentian Hill, Elizaeth Goudge; Libra, Don de Lillo; The Jane Austen Book Club... The Lord of the Rings Harry Potter Jane Austen ­ all of it Anything about King Arthur To Kill a Mockingbird, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Jane Eyre, all the Spenser books of Robert Parker, all the Donna Leon mysteries in Venice, The Bible, David Copperfield, Bird by Bird, On Writing, Liar's Club, Angela's Ashes, Tis, Teacher Man...... the unbearable lightness of being, lolita, written on the body (jeanette winterson), the bone people (keri hulme), any of t.c. boyle's short stories. just to name a few. Moby Dick Desert Solitaire () All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy) Mama Day (Gloria Naylor) by Pearl S. Buck A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran 'The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County' by Samuel Clemens; Ethan Fromme by ; Gone With the Wind by ; A in August by ;The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago; and many more too numerous to mention! 'Gone with the Wind,' Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner, Anything by Larry Brown or Bill Cobb or Cassandra King. Ninety Two in the Shade ­ Thomas McGuane Panama ­ Thomas McGuane The Sun Also Rises ­ Ernest Hemingway The Great Gatsby ­ F. Scott Fitzgerald Great Jones Street ­ Don DeLillo Farmer ­ Jim Harrison One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ­ Ken Kesey Sometimes a Great Notion ­ Kesey ­ Play It As It Lays ­ Joan Didion October in the Railroad Earth ­ Jack Kerouac Absalom Absalom ­ William Faulkner ­ Walker Percy V. The Catcher in the Rye ­ J.D. Salinger The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth The Meadow ­ James Galvin A bunch of others 2 I think different books coincide with different phases of life. The books listed above go with my current phase. In high school and college, I especially liked Vonnegut, Heller, and . When I was a kid I liked Tolkein, Madelaine L' Engle, and C.S. Lewis. I won't name all the books, but you could probably guess. complete works of Flannery O'Connor, everything (almost) Faulkner, Capote (pre­Cold Blood), 'Brideshead Revisited', 'Why I Live at the PO', Salinger (gosh, this is so twentieth century) I am sure I will think of other things after I click done. . . 'Blood Meridien' Portrait of a Lady poetry by Wislawa Szymborka, Adam Zagajewski, Emily Dickenson, John Donne Works of Albert Camus. Also Pasternak, Sartre, Bapsi Sidhwa's Water, Inheritance of Loss by , and Man Unknown by Alexis Carrel and of course, Vedanta literature Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Howard Norman, 'The Bird Artist' Virginia Woolf, 'To the Lighthouse' Denis Johnson, 'Jesus's Son' Italo Calvino, 'Invisible Cities' Craig Nova, 'The Good Son' Aimee Bender, 'Girl in the Flammable Skirt' REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier PAPILLION by Henri Charriere THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY by Henry james GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell MY COUSIN RACHEL by Daphne du Maurier JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte THE ONION FIELD by Joseph Wambaugh GLIMMER TRAIN OF MICE AND MEN by THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain HOLOCAUST by Gerald Green THE WINDS OF WAR, WAR AND REMEMBRANCE by THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK SCHINDLER'S LIST by by OUT OF AFRICA by Isak Dinesen by THE TWO by Irving Wallace and Amy Wallace SEABISCUIT by Laura Hillenbrand THE ELEPHANT MAN by Ashley Montagu THE STRANGER BESIDE ME by Ann Rule THE PHANTOM PRINCE by Elizabeth Kendall THEY WILL KISS by Eduardo Santiago by Cormac McCarthy The entire Trixie Belden series (from my '50s childhood) Lucifer's Hammer (Niven/Pournelle) The Harry Potter series The Moonspinners (Mary Stewart) The One by Richard Bach Christ Re­Crucified by Nikos Kazantzakis My name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk The Colossos of Maroussi by Paris 1010 by Margaret MacMillan The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell Edith Wharton, Summer, House of Mirth, Souls Belated Jane Austen, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice Ian McEwan, Atonement Alice Munro, 'Boys and Girls,' 'Tricks' Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried For Whom the Bell Tolls ­ Hemingway All Quiet on the Western Front ­ Erich­Marie Remarque All the Pretty Horses ­ Cormac McCarthy The Silver Chalice ­ Thomas Costain White Lotus ­ Angela's Ashes ­ Frank McCourt Our Man in Havana ­ Graham Greene The Maltese Falcon ­ Dashell Hammett The Big Sleep ­ Raymond Chandler Time Out of Mind ­ John R. Maxim The Sea Wolf ­ London Riders of the Purple Sage ­ Zane Grey The Shadow Riders ­ Louis L'Amour ­ Larry McMurtry East of Eden ­ Steinbeck Something of Value ­ Robert Ruark Atlas Shrugged ­ Ayn Rand Captain Horatio Hornblower ­ C.S. Forester Ember from the Sun ­ Mark Canter The Drowning Pool ­ Ross McDonald All the Bond Books ­ Ian Fleming The Good Earth ­ Pearl S. Buck The Red Badge of Courage ­ Stephen Crane The ­ The Shipping News ­ E. Stranger in a Strange Land ­ Robert Heinlein The Boys From Brazil ­ Ira Levin The Heart is a Lonely Hunter ­ Carson McCullers Dr. Zhivago ­ Boris Pasternak Catcher in the Rye ­ Salinger Death Comes to the Archbishop ­ Willa Cather Burr ­ Gore Vidal Captains Courageous ­ Kipling Assignment in Britanny ­ Helen MacInnes Many, many More... Laurie Colwin The English Patient, Mystic River, Mrs. Dalloway, Evening, The Things They Carried, The End of the Affair, Sweet Dream Baby, Collected Poems of Robert Frost, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, The Diaries of Virginia Woolf, Moon Palace, The Narrows, Hills Like White Elephants, , A Perfect Day for Banana Fish, Light Years, The Liars Club, A Dog's Ransom by Patricia Highsmith The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst 3 Brighton Rock by Graham Greene I'm really into intuitive and deep stories and books about people who turn their lives around and overcome their demons and things life throws their way. I also enjoy stories and books about the underdog becoming the hero and triumphing. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov Selected Stories by Alice Munro Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Mr. Dalloway by Robin Lippincott Silent Retreats by Philip F. Deaver A Long and Happy Life by Reynolds Price Kafka on the Shore, Murakami Metamorphosis, Kafka Being Dead, Crace Anna Karenina, Tolstoy Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein Lord of the Flies by On Writing: A memoir of the craft by Morvern Callar, by Alan Warner The Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison Choke, by Chuck Palahunick play it as it lays, by joan didion the bell jar Martin Amis ­ London Fields Timothy Findlay ­ Not Wanted on the Voyage Margaret Atwood ­ Alias Grace Man, there are so many. So many books I picked up and couldn't put down. The first of these, I remember from high school. Orwell, 1984, I remember that book making me shout outloud and gasp, swear and cry when I read it. the coldest winter, by sista souljah their eyes were watching god, by zora neale hurston oh that's a difficult one. My tastes change each 6 months. 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' by Stephen King is probably one of the most undervalued pieces of literature in existence. Stephen Crane and are always good for a good sure to make you chuckle and think at the same time. Nothing has ever made me laugh harder than Anderson's 'The Egg.' These are all­time favorites because I would and have read them again. Jane Austen's Emma Vladimir Nabakov's Pale Fire Carlos Fuentes' Death of Artemio Cruz Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude Anthony Burgess's Napoleon Symphony John Fowles' Ebony Tower Ursula LeGuin's short stories, any of them Tolkien's Lord of the Rings 's 'Moby Dick' is the best book I've ever read. Not far behind is Boris Pasternak's 'Dr Zhivago' and 's 'War and Peace', followed by Charles Dickens' 'Great Expectations', JD Salinger's 'The Catcher in the Rye', Charles Frasier's '', and lots more. I've particularly enjoyed the wisdom and fun in Ray Bradbury's short stories. The same goes for those by Franz Kafka. No one doubts his wisdom, but it's some sense of humour he has. Oh, and Dosteovsky's 'Crime and Punishement' is a fantastic story. Don DeLillo Katherine Ann Porter­ The Jilting of Granny Weatherall ­ Why I live at the PO Knut Hamsun's Growth of the Soil, Grass's The Tin Drum, Catcher, Erskine Caldwell's God' Little Acre, Hesse's Steppenwolf and Demian, much of John O'Hara's short and long fiction; Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider; , and likely a hundred others including Dostoyevsky and Richard Russo and Ann Tyler. The Velveteen Rabbit; short stories & books by Jack London, Jonathan Kellerman, Nicholas Evans, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, many more; early 20th century classics It is always the Lord of the Rings trilogy ­ he brings even the most inanimate to life. How can I not love it and learn at the same time!? (LOL So glad somebody finally asked!) My favorite short story of all time is ',' by Romulus Linney. It KILLED me. Complete works of Emily Dickinson All of Billy Collins books Huck Finn On the Beach Harry Potter, the Adrian Mole books, Stephen King's books, Dean Koontz, the Bloody Ratbags books Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte The Borrowed House by Hilda van Stockum Dune by Frank Herbert The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester Adventure by Borden Deal The Descent by Jeff Long Waking the Moon by The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult Stone Angel by Carol O'Connell Victoria Lowery, Fountain Inn [email protected] The Prince of Tides and Snow Falling on Cedars are two of my favorite books right now. I like to reread my favorite books, they are like watching a favorite movie. Out of Africa is another long time favorite. And I hate to admit it, but I love the detective series like Spencer (Robert Parker), Janet Evanovich (makes me laugh out 4 loud!), and the old Travis McGee series (John D. MacDonald). Certainly not literary greats, but good reads on a different level. Ouf. So many. And it keeps changing. 'Sexing the Cherry', Jeanette Winterson. Until I read this, I hadn’t realised poeple COULD write like that. 'His Dark Materials' trilogy, (YA novels) Philip Pullman. 'Parables and Faxes', poetry, Gwyneth Lewis. 'Pequenos Hombres Blancos', novel, Patricia Ratto. A very quiet book, and very well written. About 75% of it is just dialogue. Quite extraordinary. An EARLY favorite being revisited now with the GRANDDAUGHTERS is Little Women. Never loses its charm or appeal! 's 'Puddin' Head Wilson', 'Portrait of Jenny' by Robert Nathan, O'Henry stories, John Saul's 'Nathaniel' 'The Third and Final Continent' by 'Wild Horses' by Rick Bass Hard to say. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Anne McCaffrey's Novels DJ MacHale's Pendragon books The early novels of John Irving, especially 'The Water­Method Man'; JM Coetzee's work, esp. 'Foe' and 'Waiting for the Barbarians'; 'Jane Eyre'; 'The Awakening'; Capote's 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' and 'A Christmas Memory' (makes me weepy every damn time­­and I'm not a weepy kinda guy); 'Walden'; and 'Moby­Dick.' The list goes on and on. The Good Earth To Kill a Mockingbird I, Judas Captains and the Kings Anything of Pride and Prejudice (Austen) Poisonwood Bible (Kingsolver) Lords of Discipline (Conroy) Tough to say. I think I still have an attachment to favorite childhood/youth reads: A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'engle) Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters (JD Salinger) Slaughter­House Five and then maybe: Headhunter () Several John Irving novels () (A.S. Byatt) Jane Eyre The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay (M. Chabon) Wuthering Heights ­ E. Bronte The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge ­ T. Hardy The Brothers Karamazov ­ F. Dostoyevsky Against this Rock ­ L. Zara Sense and Sensibility ­ J. Austin Mansfield park, Northanger Abbey ­ J. Austen Life on the Mississippi, Innocents Abroad ­ M. Twain As I lay Dying ­ W. Faulkner To the Lighthouse ­ V. Woolf I started writing, and then erased the list. Tens of books (not hundreds. I am not a fast reader). Currently, fantasy is the genre I am exploring, but am a great fan of writers like Steinbeck. Harry Kemelman is another new addition to my favourites. Do Asterixes count? I also love Jane Austen, though your criterion of 'at this point in your life' is making it hard to admit. Catch­22, The Dubliners, A Wizard of Earthsea. My favorite books and stories include Chekhov's short stories (Lady and the Dog); , Dancing After Hours, which is probably my favorite short­story collection; Jhumpa Lahiri, including, Mrs. Sen's and A Temporary Matter; Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find; Catcher in the Rye, Salinger; Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf; 100 Years of Solitude, a literary study of sorts. I'm a better writer for having read it; I forced myself thinking at first I may not finish, but did, and wound up transcribing passages along the way, being blown away and in awe of its genius. I love the explicit drama and emotional punch of Hemmingway's short stories including, The Happy Life of Francis Macomber. I love all the stories in my tattered and yellowed, The Stories of ; I love everything I've read of ; T.C.Boyle; Raymond Carver. I loved The Liar's Club, a memoir. Laura Dusinberre Van Landuyt All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy Katherine by Anya Seton Fahrenheit 451 1984 The Windup Bird Chronicles, Liars Club, The Kite Runner, Ender's Game series, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Stories by Julio Cortazar, The Stand by Stephen King Lucifer's Hammer by and Jerry Pournelle Drop City by T.C. Boyle Jean Auel's Earth's Children series Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite My all time favorites are those with a voice that engages me on an intellectual and an emotional level, and if there is a dog or dogs involved, all the better. I find that as I age, I return more and more to the small child's plaint, asking only of each book that I pick up: tell me a story, tell me your story. To Kill a Mocking Bird, by Enchanted Night, by Stories by Lori Moore Stories 5 by Stuart Dybeck Stories by Stories by Dan Chaon Poems by Ted Kooser Poems by Mary Oliver Alice Munro ­­ everything she's written All time favourites are 1912, Morgan Llewellyn, Tara Road, Maeve Binchy, The Collective Works of W.B.Yeats and The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood. I find that I still enjoy an awful lot of varied authors, but always come back to the Irish storytellers as my favourites. I also really enjoyed Memoirs of a Geisha far more than the movie. Jane Austin novels autobiographies Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Rushdie; Smoke and Mirrors and Anansi Boys, Gainman; The Circus Animals' Desertion, Yeats; The Wasteland, Eliot; Watership Down, Adams; and Through the Looking Glass, Carol; Anna Karenina, Tolstoy; Theirs was the Kingdom,grrr.. can't remember who wrote it, but it was lovely. Ulysses In Search of Lost Time Hamlet In This House of Brede Catch­22 Atonement Enduring Love ham on rye, catch­22, a clockwork orange Way too many to list King James or Geneva Bible, esp. Revelation, Psalm 107 Complete Works of Shakespeare Darwin ­ Voyage of the Beagle Hemingway ­ For Whom the Bell Tolls John Hersey ­ White Lotus John Irving ­ A Prayer For Owen Meany 'Pride and Prejudice,' Jane Austen, 'Heart of Darkness,' Joseph Conrad, 'A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Conner, anything by Shakespeare, 'Grendel,' John Gardner, and so many more­ you're really making me flex my memory cells. by Hemingway James Bond novels by Ian Fleming The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde was remarkably original and surprising; At this point in my life, I want to be amused. I'm not all that interested in complicated relationship dissections. I've been married twice ­ been there, done that! I just recently discovered Christopher Moore when I read Dirty Job, and now I'm hooked. I've bought all his books. I also like very carefully crafted, quiet stories. All Time Favorites (Novels): ­ The Eyre Affair ­ Lapham Rising ­ The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ­ The Stand ­ ­ The House of Mirth ­ Lolita ­ The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas ­ Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse ­ Dirty Job ­ The Accidental Tourist ­ Middle Age: A Romance (JC Oates) ­ Sam the Cat and other Stories (Matt Klam) A Walk between Heaven and Earth (can't remember the author) Any Small thing Can Save You (a collection of short stories) MOBY DICK, by Herman Melville ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez THE INQUISITOR'S MANUAL, by Antonio Lobo Antunes William Trevor, the master Walden anything by Murakami anything by Kingsolver anything by Eduardo Galeano I'm an erratic reader. I used to be able to consume novels like candy and cannot anymore. It takes me a long time to read longer fiction. I think my favorite novel of the past 20 years or so is still A.S. Byatt's Possession. I've read it more than once and could still reread it. It's just a hugely satisfying read, two love stories, both about the love of literature, joined together thematically and by plot device. She handles it amazingly well, the details are rich, the characters fully realized. To Kill a Mockingbird, all of Jane Austen, Dickens Joan Legant (what a terrific short story writer) are all things that I could reread, as good a criteria as I've got for judging. Marla Cohen Way too many, in too many genres, to even begin that list. That's way too hard to pick, without a lot of time considering and then I'd have too many. I love each book when I'm reading it, there's a relationship there. But I will say one book I recently loved was Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, that's just at this moment. It always changed, based on the next wonderful book. Narcisuss and Goldman East of Eden Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy The Never Ending Story Jane Austen (all), (Love Medicine and others), John Irving (A Prayer for Owen Meany, Cider House Rules), John Steinbeck (East of Eden, Sweet Thursday), JRR Tolkein (Lord of the Rings Trilogy) 6 Some Girls by Kristin McCloy Bird by Bird by Ann Lamott The Ice Chorus by Sarah Stonich Beautiful Inez by Bart Schneider Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder Forever Ours by Janis Amatuzio, MD Annie Dillard's essays Henry Miller's stuff James Tiptree Jr.'s short stories Philip Yancey's Christian writings Anything John Irving has written, and all of Sheri S. Tepper books. Her flights of fantasy make me weak in my writer's heart. She spent many years working with battered women, and you can see that in her worlds, but her men are just as poignant and complicated as her women. Barbara Kingsolver, fabulous! O'Sullivan's Stew Mists of Avalon The Westing Game NightJohn Books: Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky; Cat's Cradle and Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut; anything by J.D. Salinger; Infinite Jest by ; For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway. Stories: The Dead by James Joyce; The Short Happy Life of Francis McComber by Hemingway. My favorite short stories are 'Mr. Marmaduke and the Minister' by Wilkie Collins, 'Beatrice Bobs Her Hair' by F. Scott Fitzgerald and 'Initiation' by Sylvia Plath. All­time favorite books would have to include 'Gaudy Night' by D.L. Sayers, 'Divine Comedy' by Dante, and practically anything by P.G. Wodehouse. Read him on a rainy day and the rain will disappear. Any Michener Harriett Doerr (Stones for Ibarra series) Lonesome Dove books Jodi Piccoult ­ Jack Kerouac The Sun Also Rises ­ Ernest Hemingway Love Medicine ­ Louise Erdrich The Aubrey­Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian The Far Country by Nevil Shute Anything and Everything by: Garrison Keillor Joyce Carol Oates Ursula Guin Tom Robbins Kurt Vonnegut Evelyn Waugh The Snow Leopard ­ Peter Matthiessen A Prayer for Owen Meany ­ John Irving Sometimes a Great Notion ­ Ken Kesey All the Pretty Horses ­ Cormac McCarthy The Things They Carried ­ Tim O'Brien Jitterbug Perfume ­ Tom Robbins The Magus ­ John Fowles Little Women The Four Agreements Anything by Cormac McCarthy, Being There, Catch­22, Hemingway's short stories, and Death of a Salesman. Amy Hempel's stories­­in particular 'In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried,' stories and books by Alice Munro, Barbara Kingsolver (essays too), Andrea Barrett, J.D. Salinger, David Sedaris. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. by . Poets too: Sharon Olds, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Jane Kenyon, Adrienne Rich, Shakespeare. Children's books: Bark George by Jules Feifer, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Catch­22 Alice Munro's 'Royal Beatings' Andrea Barrett's 'Servants of the Map' Kavalier and Clay too many to say! Perhaps The Orchard by Drusilla MOdjeska is an all time favourite To Kill a Mockingbird Night, By Elie Wiesel , Mary Doria Russell Stranger in a Strange Land, R. Heinlein The Red Pony, Pearl S. Buck The English Patient, Michael Ondjaate The Illustrated Man (stories), Ray Bradbury Cold Mountain The Bloody Chamber (stories), Angela Carter Into the Wild, John Krakauer Angels and Insects, A.S. Byatt Beloved, Tony Morrison The Hobbit, J.R. Tolkien Everything by John Irving Everything by Cormac McCarthy Fried Green Tomatoes, Fanny Flagg ...And so on, etc. Short Stories by Stephen King To the Wedding, John Berger Last Report on the Miracles at Little No­Horse, by Louise Erdrich One Hundred Years of Solitude, by G. G. Marquez 9 Stories, by JD Salinger Possession by AS Byatt Ice Palace by , White Oleander by Janet Fitch, Fannie Flagg's Welcome to the world Baby Girl and others of hers I can't recall names of right now, the books mentioned above and many by Joyce Carol Oates, Desiree, don't know author. lolita; grapes of wrath; the shining; frankenstein; jernigan. The Revolution of Little Girls The Bell Jar The Catcher in the Rye Pride and Prejudice Rebecca The Shadow of the Wind I Know This Much is True The Secret History The Book Thief Faulkner ­ The Snopes Trilogy and Absalom, Absalom!; Stephen King ­ Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption and The Stand; Ian McEwan ­ Atonement; David Sedaris ­ various. 'Independence Day' by 'Old Man and the Sea' Hemingway 'Sound and the Fury' Faulkner 7 'Sabbath's Theater' and just about anything by Philip Roth 'Underworld' by Don DeLillo 'Honeymooners' by Chuck Kinder '' or 'The Risk Pool' by Richard Russo Joyce Cary­­The Horse's Mouth William Faulkner­­Spotted Horses Hemingway­­Nick Adams stories ­­Revolutionary Road Tolstoy­­The Death of Ivan Ilych Chekhov­­everything Flannery O'Connor­­everything James Joyce­­The Dead J.P. Donleavey­­The Ginger Man, A Singular Man Flannery O'Connor's short fiction and published letters Kathleen Norris's The Cloister Walk Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Anything by Corelli's Mandolin A Star Called Henry A Personal Matter Bob Dylan's Chronicles The Kite Runner The Kitchen God's Wife Midnight's Children Rings of Saturn Palace Walk Stones from the River A Natural History of the Senses Nine Stories by Salinger, Confederacy of Dunces by JKT, The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers, A Farewell to Arms, Over to You by Roald Dahl, Heart of Darkness by Conrad, A Memory of Running. 92 Days by Larry Brown, Washman by Pinckney Benedict. I am Legend by Matheson. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (all time favorite book) Also love: All the Austen novels (particularly Emma) Jane Eyre , Anything by Grace Paley That's all that comes to mind at the moment... 'Crictor the Boa Constrictor' 'The Bromeliad' 'Rapid Relief of Emotional Distress' 'Bodylove' The Third Policeman, Flann O'Brien The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav Midnight's Children, The Curios Incident of the Dog in the Night­Time, Mark Haddon Island of the Day Before, Umberto Eco The Evening Star, Larry McMurtry Being Digital, Nicholas Negroponte too many to pick from, and too tough to choose Nicholas Sparks­THE NOTEBOOK Jean Auel­CLAN OF THE CAVEBEARS/VALLEY OF THE HORSES James Patterson­THE LION Stephen King­KUDJO John Jakes­THE BASTARD Jeffrey Archer­SON'S OF FORTUNE Lots of different genres and I tend to read 'author'. Night Flight by Antoine Ste Exupery, Death in the Family by , Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Ulysses by James Joyce, the Odyssey by Homer Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five E.B. White's Charlotte's Web and of course, George Orwell's 1984 Lolita (Nabakov)! The Little Prince (in the original French, St. Exupery), A Handmaid's Tale (Atwood), Divine Comedy (Dante), Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Marquez). Poisonwood Bible Where I'm Calling From My all time favorite book is 'The Catcher in the Rye,' which is a little cliche, but it's still my favorite. Also recently enjoyed 'Life of Pi.' Some of my favorite short stories have appeared in Glimmer Train. One of my favorites was 'Descent' by Danit Brown (Winter 2003). Message in a bottle and The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks Look Homeward, Angel; Zorba the Greek; Cold Mountain; Tom Jones; The Hitchhiker's Guide series William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying and Absalom, Absalom Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye , , Housekeeping Gryphon, Baxter East of Eden, Steinbeck Love in the Time of Cholera, Marques The Age of Grief, Smiley 100 Years of Solitude, Marques A Moveable Feast, Hemingway The Crack Up, Fitzgerald Me Talk Pretty Some Day, Sedaris George Orwell: Coming Up For : Our House In the Last World Richard Yates: The Easter Parade Evan S. Connell: Collected Stories Paul Bowles: Midnight Mass Ira Levin: Rosemary's Baby Walker Percy: The Moviegoer Giovanni Verga: Life In The Country : Collected Stories Breakfast at Tiffany's The Rear Window Matilda Ellen Foster Stephen King's Dark Tower series, 's Stardust and . Beloved, Toni Morrison Sarah Canary, The Unconquered Country, Krazy Kat, Jay Cantor 'Charlie in the House of Rue', Robert Coover 'Why I Decide to Kill Myself and Other Jokes', Douglas Glover Truman Capote's, Miriam The Bell Jar To Kill a Mockingbird Pride and Prejudice Middlemarch A River 8 Runs Through It The Duchess and the Smugs Diary of Anne Frank 100 Years of Solitude The Liars Club by Mary Karr The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway) Eva Luna (Isabel Allende) The Child Garden (Geoff Ryman) Firefly (tv series created by Joss Whedon) Song of Ice & Fire (George RR Martin) The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars (Stephen Brust) All­time favorite books and stories is a tough category, since certain topics and styles hit the spot at different times in your life. Eva Luna and Sun, Moon, Stars are about the creative process, and speak to me when I ask myself why I want to write. Old Man Sea and Ice & Fire are simply examples of superb storytelling, for exactly opposite reasons. The first is spare and direct, uncluttered and full of white space. The latter is... not. And for good old fashioned entertainment, nothing beats the universe created by Joss Whedon for his series Firefly. Any Tan's Joy Luck Club Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi Jonathan Lethem's Gun with Occasional Music McInernary's Bright Lights, Big City 'Naked' (short story collection) A Fine and Pleasant Misery, by Patrick F McManus Cane Mutiny, Spell of the Yukon, Robert W Service The Tolkien Trilogy, The Belgarion Series. books by Donald Miller, Anne Lamott, Elizabeth Berg and Jodi Picoult Books: The Sirens of , Catch­22, A Great and Terrible Beauty, Lord of the Rings, the Botany of Desire Stories: Revenge of the Lawn To Kill a Mockingbird Surfacing Pale Horse, Pale Rider The Rapture of Canaan (Sheri McReynolds), Life of PI, My Losing Season (Pat Conroy), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Lovely Bones (I could go forever). Don Quixote Captains Courageous Shipping News Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man­James Joyce, Jude the Obscure­Thomas Hardy, Iliad & Odyssey­Homer, House on Mango Street­Sandra Cisneros, Bastard Out of Carolina­Dorothy Allison Amalia Melis, Athens Greece­­[email protected] The Dead­­James Joyce, A Good Man is Hard to Find­­Flannery O'Connor, The Ginger Man­­JP Donleavy, Great Gatsby­­Fitzgerald, A Moveable Feast­­Hemingway, The Pugilist at Rest­­Thom Jones, Music for Chameleons­­Truman Capote, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been­­Joyce Carol Oates Shakespeare: Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis Anything by Flannery O'Connor Euroda Welty ­ stories too many to list, really! Carol Del Col ­ Philippi, WV ­ [email protected] His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, Dune by Frank Herbert Almost everything by Robert Heinlein, Steven King's Dark Tower series, the Conan stories, some of Piers Anthony's Xanth books, The Lord of the Rings, Catch 22, Dan Jenkins' Semi­Tough...and Rudyard Kipling's poetry. Under the Tuscan Sun The Black Stallion Books My favorite books are: FICTION: 1. Cosmopolis ­ by Don DeLillo. 2. Glamorama ­ by Bret Easton Ellis. 3. Fight Club ­ by Chuck Palahniuk 4. Jesus' Son (stories) ­ by Denis Johnson. 5. The Body Artist ­ by Don DeLillo. 6. The Informers (stories) ­ by Bret Easton Ellis. 7. American Psycho ­ by Bret Easton Ellis. 8. Mao II ­ by Don DeLillo. 9. The Tesseract ­ by Alex Garland. 10. Survivor ­ by Chuck Palahniuk. 11. Nineteen­eighty­four ­ by George Orwell. 12. ­ by Don DeLillo. 13. You Shall Know Our Velocity! ­ by Dave Eggers. 14. Adrift In The Oceans Of Mercy ­ by Martin Booth. 15. The Stranger ­ by Albert Camus. NONFICTION: 1. The Denial of Death ­ by Ernest Becker. 2. The God Delusion ­ by Richard Dawkins. 3. The End Of Faith: Religion, Terror, And The Future Of Reason ­ by Sam Harris. 4. On Becoming a ­ by John Gardner. Lee Bob Black. NYC. , Cormac McCarthy Howard's End, E.M. Forster Temple of my Famliar, Alice Walker Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill Jesus' Son, Denis Johnson Big Bad Love, Larry Brown Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and Jack Kerouac's On the Road Conrad's Heart of Darkness Carver's Cathedral Faulkner's Sound and the Fury Munro's The Beggar Maid Moby Dick The Bible just about anything by Chekhov literary fiction nature­themed poetry short stories 9 The Things They Carried Half in Love: Stories Cold Mountain Anything by Marjorie Kemper; 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' by Stowe; and . Kurt Vonnegut Jr's 'Cat's Cradle', Ken Kesey's 'Sometimes a Great Notion', 's 'Big Rock Candy MOuntain', Gabriel Garcia Marquez' 'One Hundred Years of Solitude', 's 'Little, Big', Primo Levi's 'The Periodic Table', Dostoyevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov' (along with all the rest of his work), Kerouac's 'On the Road', Ed Sanders' 'Love & Fame in ', AA Milne's 'The House at Pooh Corner', Philip Pullman's 'Dark Materials' trilogy, JRR Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' & 'The Hobbit', Ward Just's 'Echo House', John Le Carre, PG WOdehouse, James THurber's 'The Night the Bed Fell' & 'The Dog that Bit People', William Sebald's 'Austerlitz', Murray Bail's 'Eucalyptus', Thomas Pynchon's 'Mason & Dixon', Graham Greene's 'Monsignor Quixote', WP Kinsella's 'The Iowa Baseball Confederacy', Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, Peter S. Beagle's 'Giant Bones', Douglas Adams' 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', Henry Fielding's 'Tom Jones', Gunter Grass' 'The Tin Drum', TC Boyle's 'Budding Prospects'. Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger Beloved by Toni Morrison middlemarch death of ivan ilyich anything by checkov,carver,o'connor I always go back to the classics ­ collections of short stories by the likes of Flannery O'Connor, . I discover that my criteria for a 'classic read' is changing to encompass the idea that a work has been unsettling, or even disturbing in a palpable way, not just featured beautiful writing or clever repartee. Contemporary writers who appeal to me are Denis Johnson, Padgett Powell. A Wrinkle in Time ­ Madeleine L'Engle Bel Canto ­ Ann Patchett Chekhov, Cather, Wolfe, Dickins, Twain, too many!!! Melville ­ Moby Dick Carver ­ Where I'm Calling From O'Brien ­ The Things They Carried Hemmingway ­ Big Two­Hearted River Aw geez.... USA DOs Passos Anna Karenina Tolstoi Magic Mountain Mann Call of the Wild London Sheltering Sky Short stories by: Chekhov, Colette, Stuart bybek and Dan Chaon One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn; The Princess Bride by William Goldman; Dawn by Octavia Butler; Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers; Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams Dr. Marilyn Hope Lake, Hutchinson KS I'm a believer in the androgynous heroine and therefore love Hardy, especially FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. I also love Hawthorne, THE SCARLET LETTER, THE HOUSE OF SEVEN GABLES, some of the lesser known short stories about women. Hawthorne was quoted to want to get rid of the horde 'of scribbling women' of his time,[they were his competition] which makes him appear mysogynist, but when you read about Hester Prynne, you recognize a true appreciation of a strong and resilient woman. For contemporary novels, I like Anne Tyler. Also, into mysteries now and like Margaret Maron. Short stories, anything by Alice Munro. Have read her collection through and through.'How I Met My Husband' is a really great story. The way Munro uses narrative time was the most helpful to me as a writer. The same for Virginia Woolf who I mention later. Anything by Kate Chopin, THE AWAKENING and 'The Hour' are the works that introduced me to her. 'Desiree's Baby' and 'The Storm' are favorites. Gilman ­ 'The Yellow Wallpaper', Sarah Jewett Orne. 'The Heron' but lesser known stories too. 'The Country of the Tall Firs' series of stories by (help me here). Books again, Virginia Woolf, TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, an all time favorite. The way she plays with narrative time and description ­­ the poetry in her prose, the description of Lily's painting process is a description of writing. BETWEEN THE ACTS, MRS. DALLOWAY. Back to short stories. Another all time favorite by an author whose name is not on everyone's tongue, Mary Hood. 'How Far She Went' tremendous insight into Grandmother/Mother/daughter interaction. Any close female family interaction. A GREAT story. And as for authors other favorites Jane Austen and the Brontes. But as a short fiction writer, I suppose I've learned the most from Munro and Woolf. A great anthology for short stories writers is FICTIONS by Trimmer and Wade. It is organized alphabetically. and I read the 1985 edition from beginning to end, then went back and read many stories over and over, finally taught from it. P.S. A couple of my short stories are favorites, too. 'Solitaire,' 'Leaving,' 'The Black Sheep,' and several more. Everything written by: Norah Lofts 'Miss Read' (Dora Jessie Saint) Dick Francis Jonathan Kellerman Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Atonement by 10 Ian McEwan The Stone Raft by Jose Saramago The Violent it Away by Flannery O'Connor The Fat Man in History by Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo Joan of Arc by Mark Twain White Oleander by Janet Fitch The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen A Wagner Matinee by Willa Cather The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benet Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons P.G. Wodehouse the short story, 'The Shawl' by Louise Erdrich the short story, 'The Aleph' by Borges '' by Cormac McCarthy '' by 'In Country' by Bobbie Ann Mason 'Tolstoy' by Henri Troyat 'Enemies: A Love Story' by 'The Invisible Man' by Ralph Ellison 'The Last of the Just' by Andre Schwarz­Bart I love the Dear America series, 'Anne of Green Gables', 'Inkheart', and so many others! I love the classics, too, such as Jane Austen's works. Mitch Albom ­­ THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN Max Lucado ­­ COSMIC CHRISTMAS Jodi Picoult ­­ SECOND GLANCE David Baldacci ­­ THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN Anita Shreve ­­ THE PILOT'S WIFE White Teeth (Zadie Smith) White Noise (Don DeLillo) Slapstick (Vonnegut) Treasure Island Slaughter­House Five The Screwtape Letters Farenheit 451 Rebecca It varies depending upon whom I'm reading, but in general, John Updike, , John Cheever, John Dufresne, Margaret Atwood. . . . Anything by Charles Baxter, William Trevor, Amy Hempel Stories: 'Terrific Mother' (and almost everything else) by Lorrie Moore; 'Civilwarland in Bad Decline' by ; 'My Mother's Dream' (and almost everything else) by Alice Munro; 'The Cemetery where Al Jolsen is Buried' by Amy Hempel; 'In the Ravine' by ; 'Bliss' by Katherine Mansfield, etc., etc. Books: by Edward P. Jones; Pnin (and almost everything else) by Vladimir Nabokov; Emma by Jane Austen; The Secret History by ; Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham; East of Eden by John Steinbeck; etc., etc. Authors: , Dan Chaon, Zadie Smith, Maile Meloy, , Kathryn Davis, and on and on and on. My all time favourite has always been 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee. I read it first when I was a teenager and has influenced my thinking every since. My sense of right and wrong were defined by this book in a way that no other book has. David Sedaris is always a favorite to read and teach, as is Aimee Bender, and Brent Staples. Life of Pi and True History of the Kelly Gang are probably two of the best 'stories' I've read, but when asked for favorites The Bone People, The God of Small Things, and Beloved always come to my mind. Having said this, I can't forget to mention...Do you see where this is going?

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