To Start Over
OK, I've received a complaint or two about the rules for this booklist thing. Or rather, lack thereof.So I'm humbly asking for your permission to start over. I have here the rules I suggest we use, though of course, we don't have to. That being said; shall we have a go?
Proposed Rule #1. The books would have to directly engage spiritual themes.
What's a spiritual theme? Frankly, I'm not 100% sure, however if you think of these books as kinds of "psalms, hymns and spiritual songs" that you read, then I think you'll kind of get what I'm trying to do here.
Proposed Rule #2. No author would appear twice on the list.
This rule is for variety's sake; I'm sure we could very easily come up with ten books by C. S. Lewis that each justify a place on the list described above. But I'm trying to make room for some other people here too. So I suggest that though we could, for discussion sake, bring up many different books by Lewis, only one of his books would ultimately end up on the list.
Proposed Rule #3. Only books that are fiction or creative non-fiction will be accepted as considerations for the list.
Maybe later we can have a list for such beloved works as Blue Like Jazz, Mere Christianity and The Knowledge of the Holy, but for now I'd like to see a list devoted to celebrating the particular poetry and beauty of the more strictly creative form. So (sticking to our C. S. Lewis theme), this rule would allow anything ranging from Lewis' The Cycle Of Bondage (a book of poetry), to The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (a children's story), to The Great Divorce (a kind of character driven, theological discourse), but would stop something like, say, The Four Loves (a series of essays) at the door. This sounds unfair even as I write it though I don't mean it to; as I've said, I'd love sometime to put together a little somethin' our friends who labor strictly in the field of non-fiction prose.
But maybe for now we could get started on this list?
Proposed Rule #4. Anyone that wants to contribute to this list may do so.
Not that they'll be that many who actually do want to join, but just in case...
posted by Andrew Price @ 12:39 p.m.
8 comments
8 Comments:
Sophie's World would count.
It works... O.k that's all I wanted ,thanks!
Ok here's my list:
Devotions by John Donne
Hamlet, Shakespeare
Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser
The Waste Land, TS Eliot
Pensees, Pascal
Purity of the Heart is to Will One Thing, Kierkegaard
Symposium, Plato
Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkein
Till We Have Faces, CS Lewis
My Name Is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
The Idiot, Dostoyevsky
Kim, Rudyard Kipling
Cancer Ward, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
Anna Karenina, Lev Tolstoy
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Cry, The Beloved Country, Alan Paton
Selected Poems of Boris Pasternak
Phantastes, George MacDonald
The Once and Future King, TH White
The Man Who Was Thursday, GK Chestorton
Here's a few I like. I'm going to need more time to edit this list later, but here's a few that haven't already been listed (along with a few that have, but are so good, they deserve being listed twice!). As a note, it seems that this book list is quickly losing it's '20th century' trademark, and becoming an 'of all time' booklist. So I threw in a few that were more than a century old. If you all don't want them, we can throw them out. Oh, and another note, I've listed a few books by adult fiction authors that are children's books, not only for discussion, but also for their profundity within any literary circle. Oh yeah! Note number 3: I'm including the same author a few times in this list, as I'm so conflicted, I don't know which book to choose. You guys can help with that later.
1. Peace Like a River, By Leif Enger
2. A Wrinkle In Time, By Madeline L'Engle
3. Something Wicked This Way Comes, By Ray Bradberry (OK, so not spiritually enriching, but definitely spiritually thought-provoking!)
4. The Back Of The North Wind, By George MacDonald
5. Dreams Of A Rediculous Man, By Fydor Dostoyevski
6. Pilgrim's Progress, By John Bunyan
7. Lord Of The Rings, By J.R.R. Tolkien
8. Dark Night of The Soul, By St. John Of The Cross
9. The Chosen, By Chaim Potok
10. (tie) Perelandra; That Hideous Strength; The Great Divorce, By C.S. Lewis
Ok, there's the first 10. I'll try to get 10 more later, though that might be the best I can do for now (not a lot of time to compile my favorite booklist of all time, that would take time, something that has become a rarety for me!).
This is so difficult because even though I have read lots of books I couldn't think of twenty Spirtualy Themed books to put on the list.
This saddens me. I would love to be able to take part in this, but I am unable to do so. I just started reading for fun in the last year, and I am loving what I have been missing.
Hey Eriol, did you know that Rudyard Kipling and George MacDonald are relatives of Pre- Raphaelites?!
I'll have to think on this book list thing. All that time I thought I had has now been consumed, thus the easy posts (pictures) on my blog. Sorry!
I can't evern recall 30 or whatever ammount of books to mind right off. But "Hello" to you and yours and your family all the same. (even if you do yread to much...) But that is all well and good. You will go far. Just have some fun doing it, and let me join you, PLEASE? In the fun, not the blog, necesarilly.
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