[Note: Every Friday on First Thoughts we host a discussion about some aspect of pop culture. Today’s theme is imaginative literature worth reading in the summer. Have a suggestion for a topic? Send them to me at jcarter@firstthings.com.]
The following is a list of favorite works of imaginative literature compiled by a literary snob. Unlike similar lists you won’t find anything as daunting as Finnegan’s Wake or as faddish as whatever Oprah is shilling to her book club. In fact, on first glance the inclusion of children’s books and graphic novels might give the impression that it is rather lowbrow, if not philistine. But each of the entries was carefully selected because they have what much modern fiction lacks and what you need during the summer: a compelling story that compels you to keep reading.
Until recently I’ve tended to prefer non-fiction to fiction, so there isn’t much depth to my selections. Fiction lovers—particularly those steeped in particular genres—will rightly take issue with my narrow choices. This list is meant to spark other suggestion rather than being the last word on what is truly worth reading during the summer (for that we’ll have to turn to my boss).
A note about my prejudices: I prefer older to newer, short stories to long novels, magical realism to realistic narrative, and the fantastical to the mundane. Such taste make for an admittedly odd mix.
Here then are my favorite works to read during the lazy days of summer:
1. Red Harvest – Dashiel Hammett (When I read David Goldman’s claim that Red Harvest was one of the “two best American novels of the 20th century” I knew I had to read it. But I admit I was skeptical. David’s description made it sounds a bit like Matewan, but the book actually inspired Akira Kurosawa’s samurai masterpiece Yojimbo, which in turn inspired the great spaghetti western A Fistful Of Dollars.)
2. The Preservationist – David Maine (A novel about Noah, his ark, his animals, and his family. Almost as compelling as the source material.)
3. The Mad Scientists Club – Bertrand R. Brinley (The ubertext for pre-Atari Gen-X nerds.)
4. On The Road With Archangel – Frederick Buechner
5. Astro City: Life in the Big City – Kurt Busiek (After Alan Moore’s highly overrated graphic novel Watchmen deconstructed the superhero genre, Busiek’s Astro City series restored it to its glory.)
6. Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card (A brilliant book on young geniuses, military tactics, and much more.)
7. Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
8. World War Z - Max Brooks (If I told you this book was about zombies you wouldn’t want to read it. So I won’t tell you. Instead, I’ll just say is without a doubt the best and most detailed alternative histories that I’ve ever read. Highly recommended.)
9. Fables - Bill Willingham (Matthew Lickona mentioned Fables in an OTS article a couple of weeks ago. What he forgot to mention is that this is one of the greatest graphic novel series (13 volumes and counting) ever produced. Start with Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, which provides a backstory that will help you determine whether this series is for you.)
11. Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
12. World Made By Hand - James Howard Kunstler (A post-apocalyptic novel for the Front Porchers)
13. The Princess Bride: S Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure – William Goldman (Suprisingly, Goldman wrote this novelization after writing the screenplay. The highest praise I can give it is to say that the book is as charming as the movie.)
14. Mariette in Ecstasy – Ron Hansen
15. Starship Troopers – Robert Heinlein (Not being a fan of sci-fi, I was reluctant to read this novel when I found it on the Marine Corps’ professional reading list. But Heinlein presents some intriguing ideas in this short work. Not to be confused with the horrible film adaptation by Paul Verhoeven.)
16. Out Of The Dust - Karen Hesse (Written in stanza form, this Newberry Award Winner tells the story of a young girl in the Depression-era Oklahoma dust bowl. A beautiful story for teens that deserves to find an adult readership.)
17. Expecting Someone Taller – Tom Holt (A lighthearted gem that mixes comedy and fantasy.)
18. The Pugilist at Rest – Thom Jones (If Raymond Chandler had joined the Marines and read too much Schopenhauer, he would have written short stories like Jone’s tales of hardboiled existential angst.)
19. Cold Snap – Thom Jones
20. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation – M. T. Anderson
21. The Bear Went Over the Mountain - William Kotzwinkle
22. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L’Engle
23. The Wall of the Sky, The Wall of the Eye – Jonathan Lethem
24. Appaloosa - Robert B. Parker
25. Right Ho, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
26. Tooth Imprints On a Corn Dog - Mark Leyner (Sublimely weird, hysterically funny tales.)
27. Einstein’s Dreams – Alan Lightman (Lightman, a physics professor and gifted writer, presents a fascinating exploration into places where time behaves quite differently.)
28. The Giver – Lois Lowry
29. All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
30. A River Runs Through It – Norman MacLean
31. Leaving Cheyenne – Larry McMurtry (McMurtry’s first novel isn’t his best work. But the unusual love triangle at the heart of the book shows why he is one of the best—though most erratic—of American novelists.)
32. Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry (McMurtry’s masterpiece gives us, among other treasures, Augustus McRae—one of the century’s best fictional characters in American literature.)
33. The Borderlands anthologies Thomas F. Monteleone (Editor) (These hard-to-find anthologies reinvented the horror genre and made it accessible to people who would normally flee at from anything associated with the words “horror genre.”)
34. The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
35. Ironweed - William Kennedy
36. Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk (I stumbled across this odd book long before the Brad Pitt movie made if famous. Nihilistic, but compelling.)
37. The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand (The only thing Rand ever wrote that is worth reading. Just don’t take it seriously.)
38. Where the Red Fern Grows – Wilson Rawls (The only book that ever made me cry.)
39. The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales – Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith
40. The Sparrow – Mary Doria Russell (These two books by Russell make one of the finest stories about a Catholic priest/linguist traveling to another planet that you’ll ever find. Science fiction that transcends the genre.)
41. Children of God – Mary Doria Russell
42. Holes – Louis Sachar (Magical realism for tweens. A magnificient book.)
43. Civilwarland in Bad Decline – George Saunders (Saunders is simply the best short story writer alive today.)
44. Pastoralia – George Saunders
45. Flatland - Edwin Abbot
46. The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde (In this charming alternate history, England in the 1980s is a place where hardcore literature fans change their name to John Milton, roving gangs of surrealists rumble with French impressionists, and “Baconians” go door-to-door like Jehovah Witnesses’ to convince people that Francis Bacon was the true author of Shakespeare’s plays. For the English in Fforde’s world, art and literature attain the type of popularity comparable to American’s fascination with sports and celebrity.)
47. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: a new verse translation – By Simon Armitage (Don’t let the classic status throw you off. A quick, fun chivalric romance.)
48. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
49. A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh
50. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes – Bill Watterson (Unarguably the greatest comic strip of all time. Calvin is the premier philosopher of the 20th century. Good for dipping into a little at a time.)
What imaginative literature would your recommend for this summer?
May 28th, 2010 | 10:21 am
Absolutely anything by Gene Wolfe.
Especially Latro in the Mist or The Best of Gene Wolfe (The Book of the New Sun series for the more ambitious).
May 28th, 2010 | 10:45 am
I highly recommend “I Am One of You Forever” and “Brighten the Corner Where You Are” by Fred Chappell. The story of a young man and his eccentric father, plus any number of colorful (if not bizzare) relatives. Humorous, poignant, magical.
May 28th, 2010 | 10:50 am
All of Astro City is good.
I can’t, however, say that the book is as good as the movie Princess Bride. I will definitely warn that the book and the movie don’t really appeal to the same tastes.
May 28th, 2010 | 11:07 am
Oh, come on. Atlas Shrugged may not be great, but it’s definitely better than the Fountainhead. What a waste of 8 hours.
May 28th, 2010 | 11:09 am
Ten more: A Fan’s Notes – Exley
The Sand Pebbles – McKenna
The Friends of Eddie Coyle – Higgins
Fire From Heaven – Renault
A Place of Greater Safety – Mantel
Birdsong – Faulk
A Canticle for Liebowitz – Miller
Firedrake – Holland
Blackrobe – Moore
Bring Larks and Heroes – Kennealy
Extra Credit I Claudius and Claudius the God
May 28th, 2010 | 11:23 am
Peter De Vries , anyone? May I suggest Slouching Towards Kalamazoo or Consenting Adults; or, The Duchess Will Be Furious. The Blood of the Lamb is exquisite. (And, despite the fact that it is heart wrenching, it didn’t leave me under a gloomy cloud the way Where the Red Fern Grows did. The only thing that compelled me to finish that book was the fact that I was ‘working through it’ with a child who was having trouble reading it for a school assignment. We both found it to be burdensome. Maybe it’s a guys book. Oh well, chacun a son gout.)
May 28th, 2010 | 11:24 am
Joe,
When are you going to post about must-read science and philosophy books?
Not that I have a vested interest, or anything…
May 28th, 2010 | 11:25 am
I’d add a second book by Umberto Eco: Baudolino.
May 28th, 2010 | 11:45 am
Oh…and…
Doctorow’s Ragtime is a book I try to reread every summer. And Shirley Jackson…especially The Haunting of Hill House.
And Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions.
May 28th, 2010 | 11:52 am
For US History buffs, I would strongly recommend the new biography of Henry Clay by David and Jeanne Heidler.
May 28th, 2010 | 12:14 pm
I’m working on Faulkner’s Snopes Trilogy. The Snopes’ first names alone are worth the price of admission (Ab, Flem, Eck). And depressing as Faulkner can be, he can be just as funny.
May 28th, 2010 | 12:56 pm
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May 28th, 2010 | 1:09 pm
[...] With that in mind, here’s his list. [...]
May 28th, 2010 | 1:15 pm
I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy last summer. I’d add that to this list for sure.
May 28th, 2010 | 1:19 pm
The Princess Bride was published in 1973, so it is definitely not a novelization of the 1987 movie, which Goldman wrote the screenplay for. Still, the book is great.
May 28th, 2010 | 1:55 pm
One of the best works of imaginative fiction I’ve recently read is Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True. Wocka, wocka, wocka! :-)
On a more serious note, I’m fond of The Little Prince.
Also, they’re not literature but I think Jeremy Begbie’s books are stimulating, especially for musicians and the musically inclined.
May 28th, 2010 | 1:59 pm
Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead is definitely better than Atlas Shrugged – at least in the plot/style department- but her semi-autobiographical We the Living should be added to the list alongside or in place of The Fountainhead. It is a much more passionate and less didactic novel.
May 28th, 2010 | 3:05 pm
I’ve been looking for some good alternate history novels. I just finished The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and it whetted my appetite. Joe, maybe you could recommend your favorites in the genre?
Right Ho, Jeeves! has one of the best lines in English literature: “Old Testament, ass. Belshazzar’s feast.”
May 28th, 2010 | 3:40 pm
To Joe Carter,
I recommend the novels of Leo Perutz – they’re brief, compelling, and open onto marvels. Perutz has more then once made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Begin, as I did, with “The Swedish Cavalier,” and if you like it let your curiosity lead you to the rest.
May 28th, 2010 | 4:03 pm
Oops forgot non fiction, try:
The Galleys at Lepanto – Beeching
Cortes and Montezuma – Collis
The Glory of their Times – Ritter
This Hallowed Ground (or anything by) – Catton
Citizens – Schama
The Jollity Building – Liebling
Faith and Treason – Fraser
Who Struck John – Cannon
Modern Times – Johnson
Goodbye to All That – Graves
May 28th, 2010 | 4:27 pm
How about “Weapons of Choice, ” by John Birmingham? A naval armada from 2021 suddenly find itself in the midst of the Battle of Midway in 1942. A very cleverly written book.
May 28th, 2010 | 5:59 pm
“Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.” It’s a fantasy, an alternate history, and a comedy of manners. Also, one of the best-reviewed books of the last decade. Orson Scott Card called it the finest book written so far in the 2000s.
May 28th, 2010 | 6:25 pm
Here’s the real summer reading fun: When I’m on summer vacation in New Hampshire, I look for old paperback novels in used bookshops or library sales. Last few years I’ve read “Journey Into Fear” by Eric Ambler (1940s), “Ming Yellow” by John P. Marquand (1930s), “The House Without a Key” and “The Chinese Parrot” by Earl Derr Biggers (1920s), novels by Booth Tarkington, Louis de Wohl and others. Not great literature, but fun to read! Also fun not to plan your reading beforehand, but just pick up something interesting on the fly, so to speak.
May 28th, 2010 | 6:35 pm
if you’re going to read a graphic novel, read Neal Gaiman’s Sandman.
if you’re desperate for a superhero story, read Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar
for novels, go with Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, and/or Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones
for biography, go with either the 2-volume Dallimore biography of George Whitefield or the magisterial Jonathan Edwards bio by George Marsden
for history, Paul Johnson’s Modern Times
for fun, Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
May 28th, 2010 | 6:45 pm
also, a novel I once read thanks to the Commandant’s Reading List: Rifleman Dodd by CS Forester
May 28th, 2010 | 7:44 pm
High Five for World War Z. I would put only Turtledove as a better writer of alternative history/war, but then again he’s the only writer I’ve read so…
Anyway, cool looking list, I’ll take a look through them in between my theological reading.
May 28th, 2010 | 7:50 pm
I absolutely loved Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s Shadow of the Wind. I would also suggest An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears.
May 28th, 2010 | 9:36 pm
J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country. It’s a novella (or at least a very short novel, whatever exactly the difference is), and while it’s not magic realism, it is magical. And the introduction by Michael Holroyd is by itself worth the price of the book.
May 28th, 2010 | 9:41 pm
Loving the praise for Ender’s Game. For fun, read Ender’s Shadow- it covers all of Game (plus a little extra) from a different character’s point of view. I found reading the two back to back interesting.
Any Wodehouse is wonderful.
I can’t generally stand Hemingway, but I loved his debut- The Son Also Rises.
Still a sucker for Gilead.
I’m a fan of children’s lit, and Nathan Wilson’s 100 Cupboard Series easily beats any other new kids fiction I’ve read.
The Book of the Dun Cow is worth a look- Wangerin has a way with words.
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende was fun. Fluff, but fun.
You might have already read Till We Have – Faces, but it’s always worth a repeat. My second favorite from Lewis.
I started to list Dune, but you don’t like sci-fi…:)
And this won’t be a popular choice, but I did find the His Dark Materials series intriguing (by Phillip Pullman).
Above all, don’t read Proust. It kills the soul.
May 29th, 2010 | 12:26 am
I’m not sure I can trust the suggestions of a man who likes Lonesome Dove (I hated it), but then again lots of men do.
My reading suggestions for the summer are here:
http://www.semicolonblog.com/?p=10226
May 29th, 2010 | 1:35 am
Loved some of the suggestions, but have to chime in that I found The Princess Bride (novel) to be insufferable. Maybe I missed the performances of the actors, but the novel just irritated me. Great movie, but one of my least favorite novels.
May 29th, 2010 | 5:41 am
If you like Jasper Fforde then you should also read his Nursery Crime books. They’re a lot of fun too. Big Over Easy and The Fourth Bear.
May 29th, 2010 | 12:27 pm
Syrup by Maxx Barry is pretty funny.
May 29th, 2010 | 3:13 pm
I see that someone already mentioned CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ. Also CHILDHOOD’S END (apparently a C.S. Lewis favorite and a book that arouses uncomfortable feelings and questions). The late Louis Auchincloss’s best, THE RECTOR OF JUSTIN. J.F. Powers’ WHEAT THAT SPRINGETH GREEN. Randall Garret’s LORD D’ARCY series (espionage, murder, and forensic magic set in a Catholic Christendom). Heinlein’s WALDO and MAGIC, INC. For the graphic novel audience, I suggest future nostalgia with a sociological edge in MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER, 4000AD (available in collected editions from Dark Horse and drawn by comic book classicist Russ Manning of Tarzan and later Star Wars fame — George Lucas stole from the best). Ray Bradbury’s MARTIAN CHRONICLES (see his interview in the latest Paris Review). Harry Turtledove’s GUNS OF THE SOUTH. Graham Greene in a good mood — TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT. And in this age of squalid and literal-minded autobiographies, Mr. Greene’s anti-memoir, A SORT OF LIFE. Isaac Singer’s IN THE COURT OF MY FATHER — highly recommend to Pat Buchanan, Richard Dawkins, and Foggy Bottom residents. And at least one poet — anything from the tough, unsentimental but accessible English librarian Philip Larkin; including his book of essays on Jazz.
May 29th, 2010 | 8:28 pm
Graham Combs: Love your recommended authors. Nice to see Auchincloss, Powers, Singer on your list. Can I put in a good word for Somerset Maugham? Try “The Magician”, a novel about Alastair Crowley, or “Catalina”, a Christian fable.
May 29th, 2010 | 9:14 pm
I recommend the rest of the Thursday Next (Eyre Affair) books: Something Rotten, Well of Lost Plots, Lost In a Good Book and Tuesday Next: First Among Sequels. Another is to be coming “next” year: One of Our Thursdays Is Missing.
May 29th, 2010 | 11:56 pm
A very enthusiastic seconding (thirding, fourthing…) of the recommendation of Jasper Fforde’s books (Lost in a Good Book, etc.). He’s extremely funny — and at the same time you can tell that he absolutely loves the books he’s having fun messing about with.
Another recommendation: C.S. Lewis’s The Space Trilogy. A lot of people just notice Narnia, but his trilogy of science fiction novels is excellent as well. Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.
May 30th, 2010 | 11:42 am
Three suggestions come to mind:
End of the Affair by Graham Greene [who knows how to write a thoughtful short novel that keeps the reader reading]
The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis–a girl in a small Vermont town who discovers she can bring the dead back to life
Too Late the Phalarope by Alan Paton–a heart-breaking story of the tangled webs we weave
And another vote for The Princess Bride
May 30th, 2010 | 12:23 pm
Might I add the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries to that list? I enjoyed my most recent Dorothy Sayers reading kick.
May 30th, 2010 | 5:17 pm
Jorge Luis Borges is mostly known for his “Collected Fiction” but I would recommend his “Selected Non-Fiction” for summer reading. It contains all sorts of essays, book reviews and fragments rich with detail and in smooth, flawless prose. Furthermore, it conforms very well to the leisurely pace required by summer’s vacationing months. One can read a Borges essay in only a few minutes typically, but it would not be an uncommon experience to have one’s perspective entirely changed within those few minutes.
June 1st, 2010 | 6:39 pm
To Say Nothing Of The Dog, by Connie Willis. I save this book for leisurely re-reads when I’m sick.
Jasper Fforde and Orson Scott Card: yes! Among his many good books, I also rec. two stand-alones: Enchantment and Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. I think Pastwatch may be OSC’s finest, thought not his most famous.
ANYTHING by Dianna Wynne Jones is lovely and accessible to all ages. I heartily recommend The Dalemark Quartet and Fire and Hemlock.
Shannon Hale’s Princess Academy is well worth it, esp. for the tween crowd.
My tastes tend to run to kid lit, mostly because children aren’t so tolerant of B.S. writing as adults are.
June 1st, 2010 | 8:52 pm
I don’t want to oversell Fforde, but he is both the most literate (I am sure I didn’t catch more than half the literary allusions in the series) and the most twistedly imaginative writer I’ve ever read.
I give a hearty second also to Italo Calvino. He never disappoints, thoug he does sometimes frustrate!
Kamilla
June 1st, 2010 | 8:55 pm
By the way, the three novels I have drawn the most stares for laughing out loud in public while reading are:
The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Florence of Arabia, Christopher Buckley
While reading the last of those in the Portland, OR airport — a woman walked across from another gate and said, “I have to ask what you are reading!”
Kamilla
June 2nd, 2010 | 12:20 pm
Anything from Wodehouse. And anything from Chesterton.
If instead of anything you take everything of each of them, you have enough for all the summers of a lifetime.
June 2nd, 2010 | 12:53 pm
“Ender’s Game” is a great read. Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” is another classic in the genre. I love most things by Ray Bradbury, as well. And “Starship Troopers” is okay, but I think Heinlein’s best work is “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.”
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