20 Most Read Books

Since I've been doing the brain-fog shuffle lately (really, the number of unfinished posts hanging around in draft is embarrassing) I decided to take the easy way out and post a list of the books I've read most often.

These aren't necessarily the books I'd consider the best - if I could even decide upon such a thing - but the ones I've picked up again and again over the years, whether because they are simply enjoyable or are interesting on some other level. A few are geared toward younger readers, but I continue to enjoy them as much (or more) as an adult.

Also, in keeping with the "not hard" spirit of this post, the books in that photo are truly random. I  picked  up a couple of armloads of books without looking and plunked them down. They aren't even arranged, because if I'd started doing that, I would have had to coordinate them by color or size or alphabetize them or whatever, and I ain't got the stamina for that. If there's anything embarrassing in that stack, it will just have to stay. :p

The list (in no particular order)

1. Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
2. The Boyfriend School - Sarah Bird
3.A Dark-Adapted Eye - Ruth Rendell as Barbara Vine
4.Lolita -Vladimir Nabokov
5.Jazz - Toni Morrison
6.Journey To Ixtlan - Carlos Castaneda
7.The Willowdale Handcar - Edward Gorey (this is a picture book, but it counts as far as this list goes.)
8. The Romance Reader - Pearl Abraham
9.Paradise - Elena Castedo
10. Wild At Heart - Barry Gifford
11.Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones
12.The October Country- Ray Bradbury
13.Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges
14. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
15.The House With A Clock In Its Walls - John Bellairs
16. Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury
17. The Mothman Prophecies- John Keel
18. Tales From Gavagan's Bar - Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp
19. Archer's Goon - Diana Wynne Jones (a close contest with A Sudden Wild Magic, by the same author)
20. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

 There are a few short stories that are favorites, as well. (Actually there are a lot, but I want to keep this list short)

1.That Evening Sun - William Faulkner
2.Elvenbrood - Tanith Lee
3.The Vampire Lover - Tanith Lee
4.Simon's Wife - Tanith Lee (probably should have just made a Tanith Lee section, eh?)
5.High Mysterious Union - Ruth Rendell

Rest assured, this is not my only reading material (I've read more than half of The Telegraph's "100 novels everyone should read" list, and plenty more that's not) I read history, philosophy and scholarly works. I'm not scared of books, even big fat ones with double columns. I'll even cheerfully (after a fashion) take on post-modernism. But I suppose, for good or ill, this list signifies my literary comfort zone. 

...even when it's uncomfortable ;)

The Bell in the Fog

I was excited to find the full text of The Bell in the Fog by Gertrude Atherton here:

http://www.litgothic.com/Texts/bellfog.html

This story has haunted me for many years, with its not-quite-hidden subtext of idealization (and romanticization) of the girl and devaluation of the woman she will become. So much so the male protagonis hints that it would have been better for the girlchildren of his obsession not to have grown up.

Which led me to wonder, all those years ago - being on the edge of womanhood myself at the time - is it that girls grow up or does our childhood die instead? Does a certain value we seem to possess in the eyes of others die as well, or are they simply replaced by other things? What about the private knowledge at times that we are both? It's not surprising to me that more and more young women cling to their childhood, not yet wanting to become - or maybe it's to be seen as - that other. It's something nebulous that's difficult to speak of outright, but many female artists and writers have covered the territory. The Bell in the Fog captures that nebulous quality very well.