15 Books

My good friend Tina tagged me on a note from her Facebook page listing 15 books that stuck with her over the years. The message said to think of 15 books pretty quickly, in about 15 minutes. After closing the message and thinking it over a little, I finally added my note today (2 days later or 2,880 minutes). Here were the books I picked:

1. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon: I was sucked in before I could even pronounce "golem."

2. The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck: O-Lan is bad ass. When she just handed over the jewels to her idiotic husband, knowing he was giving them to his mistress...that kills me so much more than imagining her squatting in the field, delivering a baby, then strapping it to her body to go back out in the field. So relieved the husband realized he was an idiot in the end.

3. Come to Me (short stories), Amy Bloom: Complicated. Well-written. Not sure I believe her when she says she doesn't use her own patients or case studies for her characters. Its raw detail makes me wonder at the lives she's seen--and the life she lives.

4. East of Eden, John Steinbeck: Dark and light, Biblical, tenuous family relationships. The guy I was dating when I read this got furious at me when I spent our weekend away reading it instead of paying attention to him.

5. To A God Unknown, John Steinbeck: One of the more obscure, shorter novels by Steinbeck (though I'll read anything by him). Love the spiritual ties between Man, Nature and God.

6. A Ring of Endless Light, Madeleine L'Engle: Not the obvious choice by L'Engle, but the Austin family became just as important to me as the Murrys and the tween love drama fed my 13-year-old self. Non-verbal communication bridging science, spirit and a boy and a girl.

7. The Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson: A poetic retelling of Geryon and Herakles. Cannot believe that kind of narrative and language came from Carson seeing a tube of red paint in the drawer.

8. The Cider House Rules, John Irving: The detail, the characters, a sense of place. I was pulled into this world and reluctant to let it go when it was over. The Rep production was one of the first shows I saw here in Seattle, enabling me to fall deeper in love with this city.

9. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje: Hardly put it down once I started it. The Sapper is never far from my mind.

10. Saturday Night at Pahala Theatre (poetry), Lois-Ann Yamanaka: A series of poems that spoke to me in pidgin, helping me remember where I came from-and dynamic enough to help me see where I wanted to go.

11. When A Woman Loves A Man (poetry) David Lehman: As a prompt, I would like to take a poem a day from this volume and attempt to create something as interesting and meaningful.

12. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini: Amazing. Interesting to read about another immigrant community's perspective in a place that felt to me like a foreign country. Heard him speak at Stanford and he was so down to earth and likeable--and a doctor--that life seemed just freakin' unfair.

13. The Red Tent, Anita Diamant: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Tent. Loved every blood soaked page

14. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen: The Rom-Com that started them all. When I read it I yearn to be smart and sassy and British.

15. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros: Too lovely to forget. Little Esperanza, oh, how I cried for you.