September 21, 2009

The Greatest Books of All Time

Filed under: The Writing Life — jenny @ 7:17 am

How’s that for a title?

Loyal blog reader SapphireSavvy asked how I’ve gotten in touch with “famous” authors, by which I think she and I mean authors who dazzle and humble and inspire us. It’s a good question and relevant to perhaps the central theme of this blog: the road one takes to publication. What to do along it.

That’s the question behind my Made It Moments forum, and it’s what the backstory posts all add up to.

So I want to answer Sapphire’s question here in a day or two. But as a segue into that topic, I thought I’d post a link to author Lee Child’s 40 Greatest Books list. You already know that I love Lee Child (one of his Reacher novels would definitely be on my top 40 list) and I found his selections a hodge podge of books I know, books I now want to get, and books I wouldn’t have put on there myself.

What about you? What goes on your top 40?






1 Comment »

  1. Intereting list, and I’ll confess I haven’t read quite a few of them. I’ll confess I haven’t heard of some of them. I’m not sure I’d make my Top 40 list public — which probably ties into your post about commercial vs. literary fiction. I read to escape. I read for pleasure. I want characters I care about for any number of reasons, and often forgive what might be called “bad” writing if I care about them enough. Right now I’m reading a favorite author. His dialogue would never survive any of my editors, crit partners, or former agent, but I don’t care about overuse of tags if I care about the characters first, and what happens next second. I read POV’s I don’t care for (omniscient) if I care about the characters.

    But I’m sure I’d come across as lower-than-lowbrow if I listed my favorite reads here. I write ‘lowbrow’, too, because I write what I want to read.

    Comment by Terry Odell — September 21, 2009 @ 9:37 am

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