literary predilections

this week: make a new "top ten" list every day.

all of these lists have been floating around facebook - formative literary experiences, favorite movies, etc. figured that i'd try to hit the popular ones and then branch off into ~survey~ territory.  man, the thousands were a trip! since i started reading books, i thought i'd start with recognizing those that changed me.

1. The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan

changed the way i thought about food, even as a vegetarian. an eye-opener that truly cannot be ignored if you care about what you eat.

2. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz

fantastic style, intense characters, and moving story.

3. Cane - Jean Toomer

read this for my lit capstone with professor robertson. nothing else that i read in his class, or any class really, came close to leaving the lasting impression that cane did.

4. Echo - Lia Francesca Block

probably why i love magical realism.

5. The Silmarillion - J. R. R. Tolkien

my preferred tolkien work. love the mythology and the names and the obvious work that was put into creating another universe - allegorical or not.

6. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

brought me a favorite word and inflamed my inner sense of social justic and 'you'll get what's coming to you'.

7. The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien

harrowing and great. one of those books you're probably not supposed to read in school but did.

8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J. K. Rowling

i picked up the series just as this book came out so i had some serious catching up to do. the previous three books weren't exactly 'light', but book four really took the first turn towards where the series would end.  i remember reading the opening lines in the car in the driveway of nonna's old house and thinking that this world has started to bleed out into my real life.

9.  Lord of the Flies - William Golding

dark, vivid imagery. loved it.

10.  The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

again, with the tragedy. i went on to research more of life in the 1920s and write an ap us history paper on the highlights and lowlights of the decade.