Yesterday a friend on Twitter asked this question “If you had to limit yourself to just 6 books, which ones would they be?” Here are some answers: http://ow.ly/lyBW
What’s interesting is the number of respondents (myself included) who simply couldn’t resist a challenge like this: thinking about limiting yourself to a small number of ‘must-reads’ on a trip. (As one person said, thank goodness for her Sony Reader so she could take 200 books with her.)
In the elaboration, the questioner did explain that she was going to visit England for four months, which made my list easier to put together. If I were going to Greece I’d choose writers like Kazantzakis and the poet C.P. Cavafy. (His poem ‘Ithaka’ is a must-read even for those not going on a journey.) If I were traveling to the South Seas I’d choose Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson. There’s nothing like novels and poetry to inspire deep pleasure in visiting foreign lands…
So, if I were heading off to England and I could only take six books with me, these are the ones I would choose:
1. Jane Austen (can never be re-read enough). Persuasion is my favorite.
2. Anthony Trollope: Phineas Finn or Can You Forgive Her? I discovered Trollope in a library many years ago when I pulled Can You Forgive Her? off the shelf because I was so intrigued by the title. Recently his novel The Way We Live Now was selected by Newsweek editors as an essential read. I know why (shades of Bernie Madoff), but the glory of the Palliser series (Can You Forgive Her? is the first) can’t be matched, in my opinion. Trollope is one of the world’s great story-tellers; you can’t stop reading. He takes you by the hand into a friendly Victorian world, with humor, pathos, lots of good, old-fashioned love, arguments, and just plain old human nature. Another favorite: He Knew He Was Right. What a great title.
3. George Gissing: It was the title that first enticed me with this author as well: The Odd Women. Gissing tells the stories of five women in late Victorian England, when unmarried, semi-educated women were forced to live as misfits in British society. I had a huge crush on George Gissing for many years, and read everything he ever wrote. Some of his socialist novels are pretty grim, but The Odd Women takes you into the hearts and mind of these intriguing women. Another novel, New Grub Street, is about book publishing in Victorian England, and describes the hilarious rivalry between the writer who’s a genius-but-utter-failure and the writer who’s successful-popular-commercial-rubbishy. Reminds me of that movie I loved: ‘Rich and Famous.’ Hint: not much has changed in traditional publishing. (I should warn you that some people don’t find Gissing funny in the least.)
4. Graham Greene: As a story teller, few can match him. I’ve loved all his novels, which span from humorous (Travels with my Aunt), to darkly ironic (Our Man in Havana), to passionately spiritually-seeking (The Power and the Glory), to romantic (The End of the Affair), to simply great story-telling (The Third Man). Here’s a favorite line: “He slipped in the cliché like a thermometer.”
5. Dorothy Sayers: I’m ready to read Gaudy Night and Busman’s Honeymoon again. For some reason, Lord Peter Wimsey is one of my favorite romantic heroes, in spite of himself. I love Sayers’ descriptions of England in the thirties and forties, love her mystery-writing, and, mostly, the understated romance between Harriet and Peter.
6. Instead of mentioning Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, or any of Georgette Heyer’s novels – all of which I love – I’ll add two other authors who I adore as much, and are much less known: Anne Douglas Sedgwick (The Little French Girl) and Elizabeth (The Enchanted April).
Oh there are so many I have loved so much and would read and re-read in a heartbeat were I going to London.
Here’s your writing practice: think of six books you’d like to take with y0u on a journey to a specific country and write about why.