I began compiling this list because whenever I teach, I'm always scouting out works I can include on the syllabus and I'm slated to teach a course this Fall. But I decided to complete it after the fanfare that resulted from The New York Times' list. Note, I don't make temporal distinctions. These are the works from all time that move me, which I suppose might be off-topic since the newspaper was specifically aiming to capture the best books of this century. I am not convinced -- or maybe I'm simply unsure -- the best books I've read were published during the current century. I also approach my reading life in a way that's quite separate from the publishing industry's calendar. I have recommendations from friends, I have genres I follow (memoir, literature by Italian women authors), I have gaps to fill (Shakespeare! Toni Morrison!), and none of that necessarily coincides with the particular books that come out each year (the most notable often go on the TBRL file, no?).
To be sure, many of these works I've read and/or re-read this century. But does that matter? Let's put the issue aside and move onto the actual list, which isn't exhaustive, more like 'some ideas' for what to read. A list like this could really go on and on but I'm going to call time right now. And I've probably missed all kinds of books that I loved. Oh well!
Fiction
The Dubliners, James Joyce
Drown, Junot Diaz (which I preferred to 'Oscar Wao,' which made the Times' list)
The Divine Comedy, Dante (definitely not this century, ha ha!)
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Il Giorno della Civetta, Leonardo Sciascia
To Each His Own (A Ciascuno Il Suo), Leonardo Sciascia
Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini)
Lost in the City, Edward P. Jones (His book, "The Known World," is on the NYT list but I haven't read it yet!) (almost this century!)
Country Girls, Edna O'Brien (May she rest in peace!)
A Month in the Country, J.L. Carr
A Meal in Winter, Hubert Mingarelli
Gli Indifferenti, Alberto Moravia
The Bishop's Bedroom, Piero Chiara (in a stellar translation by Jill Foulston)
Long Day's Journey into Night, Eugene O'Neill
So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood, Patrick Modiano (actually this century)
Suspended Sentences (ibid)
A Scrap of Time, Ida Fink (see below)
Charming Billy, Alice McDermott
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver
Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry (this century)
If You Kept A Record of Sins, Andrea Bajani (ditto) (and translated gloriously by Elizabeth Harris)
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (thanks to my friend, Jenny, for reminding me of this incredible book! So this entry is an addition to the original list, judges)
Essays/Memoir
"Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin
"Journey into Night" by David Sedaris
"Black Men and Public Space" Brent Staples
"Going it Alone" by Rahawa Haile
"Winter in Abruzzo" by Natalia Ginzburg
“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan
"The Namesake" by Mason Stokes
"Brownsville Kitchen" by Alfred Kazin
“No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston
"We Should All Be Feminists" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Nonfiction (book-length)
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
If This is a Man, Primo Levi
Dora Bruder, Patrick Modiano
A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid
The Periodic Table, Primo Levi
Wanderlust. Rebecca Solnit (it's about WALKING! Walking!)
Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain
Family Lexicon ("Lessico Famigliare")
"Trial by Fire," by David Grann (in The New Yorker)
The Letters of Nancy Mitford
Aran Islands, Synge (definitely not this century, ha ha!)
Here in Our Auschwitz, Tadeusz Borowski
Individual short stories
"The Haircut" by Ring Lardner
"Making Love" by Antonya Nelson
"Casta Diva" by Francesca Scotti
"Autumn Lessons" by F. Marzia Esposito (read my translation of it here!)
"Cortez Island" by Alice Munro
"Your Husband is Cheating on Us"
"The Dead," Joyce, just in case you can only read one story from Dubliners
"A Hand Reached Down..." David Gates
"The Key Game" by Ida Fink (click on link but it's devastating)
“Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid
“In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried,” by Amy Hempel
Poetry
"Now" by Denis Johnson
"Aubade" by Philip Larkin
"Now" by Denis Johnson
"Aubade" by Philip Larkin
"Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
"The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy (a poem I learned by heart as a girl -- yes I can still recite it. It's short!)
"The House," Warsan Shire
"The Second Coming," by Yeats
"When I think of Tamir Rice While Driving," Reginald Dwayne Betts
"Digging," by Seamus Heaney
"The Symbol," "To Be Born By Chance" and "Maybe," by Edith Bruck
Graphic novel
Maus, Art Spiegelman
Fun Home, Alison Bechdel
In Italian, not available in translation
Viaggi e altri viaggi, Antonio Tabucchi (English translation forthcoming)
Andremo in Città by Edith Bruck, not yet available in translation BUT SOON! SOON!
Due Stanze Vuote, ibid ^^^
Passaggio in ombra (note the English translation could be available! Read an excerpt here)
(Yes, forgive me, I've included links to some of my translations because as a part-time translator, I only translate what moves me)
Tell me the literature you've loved. Don't worry about which century had the luck of seeing it published.
-30-
Love this! I have read most of the Italian titles you list and love them all. I haven't read Il Giorno della Civetta or A Ciascuno il Suo, only Una Storia Semplice which we used to teach advanced Italian when I was in grad school. For Italian lit, I would add La Storia by Elsa Morante, though it's pretty depressing. Also Boccaccio's Decameron, Il Piacere by Gabriele D'Annunzio, some poetry by Giacomo Leopardi, and some poetry by Eugenio Montale, off the cuff. I really like the poem Portami il Girasole by Montale and have a tattoo of a sunflower on my back. There are more I'm sure. Still haven't read many of the other titles you list! Will definitely try some of them. Benji is an avid reader and we've been talking a lot about the reading lists from my era versus his. I love To Kill a Mockingbird, Native Son, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, all of Roald Dahl's adult short stories, and Beverly Cleary's autobiography A Girl From Yamhill... To name a few. Also adore Donna Tartt's A Secret History. One other funny note, two of my clients are good friends with Jamaica Kincaid and I used to see a lot of her when I was working on their gardens. She wrote a piece mentioning my parents' nursery for the New Yorker when she did their gardening column years ago. Miss you carissima, we must catch up!
ReplyDeleteOH MY GOD I forgot "Great Expectations"! I will amend that. La Storia is wonderful, that's true. And I could have added more Natalia Ginzburg titles -- I try to read or re-read something by her every year because it is pure pleasure. If I may, go read the two Sciascia titles right now! I've often re-read them on my birthday as a gift to myself. He was a genius. I recently read the Tartt book, which was intriguing to me for many reasons as a Bennington (grad school) alum! I will note your poetry recommendations -- I have the FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Italian Poetry anthology edited by Geoffrey Brock (which I should add to this list!) so I should be in good shape. So funny what you say about Jamaica Kincaid! The book I recommend is KILLER. So good! We do need to catch up -- CI SENTIAMO!
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