Calling on my literary friends list

[velvetpage]

I have a lot of very literary people on my friends list, so surely we can manage this amongst us.

I want to rewrite that meme I posted this morning.  Not edit it, but completely rewrite it.  I don't want to go with bestsellers, or any other arbitrary appeal to authority when it comes to what books should be on it and what should be left off.  I also don't want to include a certain laundry list of the "best" books by certain authors, while leaving out books by other, equally good authors.  I'd like to, for example, ask people to give themselves one point for each book they've read by Jane Austen or Charles Dickens or Mark Twain.  I'd like to develop a sub-list for young adult literature.  In the interests of brevity, I'm limiting this to novels, which means many well-read people will not see themselves in it.  That's a cultural bias I'll acknowledge and address some other time.

So, if you were to make a list like that, what books or authors would you keep from the old list, and what ones would you add?

I'll start.

Under the authors category, I'd let people give themselves points for any book written by the following authors that were left out of the first list:
Madeleine L'Engle
Arthur C. Clarke
Carl Sagan
Mark Twain
Margaret Lawrence
Michael Ontdaatje
Robertson Davies

Your thoughts?

Comments

[aelf.livejournal.com]

My thing is that there are books that are critical in some areas, and not in others. For instance, in certain groups, if you haven't read anything (and definitely all his science fiction) by Asimov, you're a dolt. In others, it's Asimov Who? What do you mean you haven't read Nabakov?!

I also don't like the "point" system because it's going for quantity. I've read all of Dickens, because I was required to write a report on one of his books, and I couldn't find one I liked. I think I've gained more from the Ursula K. Leguin or Susan Cooper I've read, however. Even if reading all of Dickens could get me "points." Similar with Shakespeare. Now, I happened to read all of Shakespeare because I went through a total Shakespeare fan girl phase. But isn't there a point at which some variety is a good thing and people should max out points on a particular author? :)

In any case, I think reading is good. Period. If my cousin reading the Piers Anthony got her started reading (and it did), the Piers Anthony should probably be on someone's list. If someone's going to hang out with some of my peer groups, they should really be able to quote Douglas Adams. In other groups, if they can't deal with Dostoevsky they're possibly going to get bored of the conversation.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

All good points. I've read vast quantities of Dickens and everything written by L'Engle and L.M. Montgomery. I learned a lot from all of them. But I learned a lot from a lot of authors that wouldn't make anyone's list.

It's amazing how many Dune, Douglas Adams, LOTR, and Shakespeare jokes my friends can squeeze into one gaming session. Amazing and quite fabulous. I think I scan as having read more of these than I've actually read, simply by dint of hearing so many references to them over the sixteen years I've been with Piet.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

My problem with these sorts of lists is I can't think of a single novel that I would recommend as a Must-Read to everyone. I have bunches of recommendations for individuals, and I'll even go so far as to say there are subcultures that really do have (unofficial) required reading/viewing/knowing lists. But nothing universal.