“Reading maketh a full man.” ~ Francis Bacon
I noticed the other day there was yet another book list making the rounds on the intertubes. You know the kind, the top fifty or one-hundred essential books. Always with the tag line “How many have you read?” I’m a sucker for these. Even though I never agree with all the books on the various lists, I like to discover where the curators and I do find accord. But as I was scrolling through this latest and shaking my head or rolling my eyes at the inclusion of this book or that book, it occurred to me I should just make my own damn list! Why not, right? My parents raised an avid reader who’s reached a nice ripe middle age and has lost track of how many books he’s read. You can continue to mock other people’s lists, but what’s the point? Time to come up with your own, Mr Smartie-pants.
OK then, for what it’s worth and in no particular order…
Michael Kircher’s 50 Essential Books™
Sure To Make You A Better Photographer.
(also Spouse, Parent, Friend, Lover … You can thank me later. ) 🙂
- Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
- On The Road – Jack Kerouac
- Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
- Lie Down In Darkness – William Styron
- Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
- To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
- The Shipping News – Annie Proulx
- Empire – Gore Vidal
- Hamlet – William Shakespeare
- Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S Thompson
- The Sea Wolf – Jack London
- Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
- Couples – John Updike
- Candide – Voltaire
- Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry
- A long Way Down – Nick Hornsby
- Priority – Iselin C. Hermann
- For Whom The Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
- Democracy – Henry Adams
- One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
- Europa – Tim Parks
- Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
- The Elegance of The Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery
- The Clothes They Stood Up In – Alan Bennett
- Frenchman’s Creek – Daphne du Maurier
- The Fermata – Nicholson Baker
- The Razors Edge – W. Somerset Maugham
- The Quiet American – Graham Greene
- A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
- Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
- Bunker Hill – Howard Fast
- The Girl Of The Sea Of Cortez – Peter Benchley
- The Cheese Monkeys – Chip Kidd
- West With The Night – Beryl Markham
- Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt
- Guerrillas – V.S. Naipal
- Tropic Of Cancer – Henry Miller
- The Magician’s Assistant -Anne Patchett
- The Farewell Party – Milan Kundera
- Lady Chatterly’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence
- Centennial- James A. Michener
- A Prayer For Owen Meany – John Irving
- The Killer Angels – Michael Shaara
- On Photography – Susan Sontag
- The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
- Angel Of Lucifer – William Kircher
- Beach Combing At Miramar – Richard Bode
- The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
- Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
Please feel free to share the books that most influenced you in the comments. The more the better.
My oh my, our taste in books are so extreme. I have read 3 of your 50 books. How about ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and of course you forgot all of Jimmy Buffett’s novels.
To Kill a Mockingbird (I swear!) is on my nightstand. And JB will have to wait for the next list. 🙂
I’ve only read nine of these. I feel so ashamed…
Mike, I gotta chime in here. Adding a few personal favorites!
The Power of One – Bryce Courtenay
The Rum Diaries – HST
To the Ends of the Earth – Paul Theroux
Mosquito Coast – Paul Theroux
A Fool’s Progress – Ed Abby
At Play in the Fields of the Lord – Peter Matthiessen
Reading The Lost City Of Z right now!
…and my personal favorite Hemingway of all time, The Sun Also Rises.
Thanks, Jer! Loved Rum Diaries and Sun Also Rises. Will look into the others.
Oh, and Matthiessen’s In The Spirit Of Crazy Horse is excellent!
I’ve seen that, never read it. The other I really enjoyed from him is The Snow Leopard. He is a great writer!
I was pleased to see that Lonesome Dove made your list, an American Epic.
If you only read one of the books I mentioned, The Power of One is excellent, I’ve re-read it a number of times during my travels and it always seems to hold its own, no matter where I am in life!