Make me a reading list...

[katelyle]

....Your favourite book. The one you'd save from the tidal wave when you're stranded on a desert island. But just one. I promise to read them all. Unless anyone's favourite book is anything by Jeffery Archer or Edwina Curry.

The tidal wave would drown me as I would be standing baffled in front of the bookcase trying to work out what to save.

It would be a choice between:-

Anna Karenina. Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys - read it NOW if you haven't already)
Madame Bovary. The Woman in White. Pride and Prejudice. Wuthering Heights. Atonement.
The Kite Runner. The Crow Road. L'Etranger.

Erm, after all that, I think I am going to go for Middlemarch

this kind of thing never works as taste is so varied - e.g. I think those inspector rebus ones are shit but others love them. Ditto Teryy Prachett

Best to identify someone with same taste as you first and then ask them.

Forever Amber-Kathleen Winsor

Water Music - TC Boyle

Closely followed by The Impressionist, Hari Kunzru

An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears

(Or Gone With The Wind....)

vladimir nabakov "lolita"
(from pre-ds days though)

just one, ooh feel unfaithful to anything by italo calvino, peter voss, chekhov,
oh and 'confederacy of dunces' and 'master and margarita'

sorry! that was against the rules i used to LOVE reading

now its more likely to be a copy of 'heat'
might take something off this list and give it a go

The Go-Between, by LP Hartley.

I have forced this one on many a friend come Christmas and birthdays.

"the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." sigh.....

Nighty night - 'Love' is the last novel she wrote - not one of my favourites, although I did still enjoy read it (and saw her giving a reading/ talk around the time of its launch. A wonderful speaker). 'Paradise' is a phenomenal book in my opinion - 'Song of Solomon' and 'Sula' both great, too.
I would suggest anyone reading Toni Morrison reads her novels in chronological order (ish) as although they aren't related at all, they do give a definite sense of political time and place and Morrison's own political and creative journey.

How about some William Faulkner? Morrison is much informed by his work, actually.

Oops, shouldn't have read the other posts because now I'm dithering as the wave rolls in.....erm.... Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

I'm going to start with An Instance of the Fingerpost because it's the only one I've never even heard of. Off to Amazon I go!

I'd grab Atonement by Iain McEwan if I'm only allowed one book .

If I can go back for one more I'd take any of Philipa Gregory's Tudor-period based books - I love her recreations of the political shehannigans of that time. They're pretty accurate as well which is more than you can say for a lot of 'hit-lit'.

i'm re-reading that as we speak for the fourth time. Wonder if it will make me sob again.

....Although Iain Pear's books are fabby....

LOVE Atonement!

mine would be either Jude the Obscure (thos hardy)

or Precious Bane (Mary Webb)

I don't know how she does it? Allison Pearson - might ring a few bells on here.

Learning how to Swim by Clare Chambers.

The Shadow of the Wind.

I'm sorry, the author is Spanish and I can't remember his name.

It's fairly recently published and been in the best-sellers lists for very good reason.

Oh no - I hated Shadow of the Wind! Boring and predictable. Way too much description for my taste

Your opinion.

The finest book I've read in years.

I'll read that one next then and I can have the casting vote!

Good luck!

Oh, my favourite BTW? Rebecca - Daphne DuMaurier.

Loveangel - I tried Sula just yesterday, and put it down in disgust when I got to the bit where the two girls kill a toddler. I was enjoying it up to that point, but the dead toddler really wasnt crucial to the rest of the story at all.
Toni Morrisson is a great writer, but can't she come up with a plot that doesnt rely on the shock value of child murder or rape? These things are rare, and are not the part of everyday life that she makes them out to be in her books.

I don't feel like trying any more of her books, tbh. I just feel really strongly atm, that I wouldnt like her if I met her in real life.

Nightynight - I strongly disgaree with your interpretation of Toni Morrison's work. She deosn't 'do' gratuitous violence AT ALL. Her novels are unflinching, yes, but not pointlessly violent. Hoqwever, if you are offended by horrific and disturbing things ahppening to characters in a novel, I would agree - don't read Morrison. Her work explores the many facets of the African American experience - including the many deeply distrubing ones. Jane Austen she ain't.

you dont find it gratuitous violence for 2 girls to kill a toddler as part of their growing up?
I dont believe this is, or ever was, a normal part of life for African Americans or anyone else.
If she wanted to make the point about black children being regarded as not important, as a writer she could have made it far better in a more subtle way.

TC Boyle is also unflinching, and the baby dies in an accident at the end of Tortilla Curtain (which deals with similar issues to Toni Morrison), but the event is closely woven into the story, and happens in a believable way.