Top 10 Books First Read During 2010

[Dead & Messed Up]

How does one request a sticky?

Anyway, I like the top 10 films threads, since they can be a good motivator to watch films. So I figure this could be a good motivator as well.

As of now:

01. The Dhammapada (Tr. Gil Fronsdal, 2005)
02.
03.
04.
05.
06.
07.
08.
09.
10.

[Milky Joe]

Alright.

1. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
2. Confessions by Jacob Boehme
3. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
4. The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

[Winston*]

01. Catch 22 (Heller)
02. More than Human (Sturgeon)
03. Occupied City (Peace)
04. My Dead Body (Huston)
05. Ender's Game (Scott Card)
06. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Larrson)
07.
08.
09.
10.

Liked the first 4.

[Our Aurora]

1. Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
2. Uncle Tom's Children (Richard Wright)
3. Blues People (Leroi Jones a.k.a. Amiri Baraka)
4. The Road (Cormac McCarthy)
5. Lucy (Jamaica Kincaid)
6. Arrival of the Snake Woman (Olive Senior)
7. Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour (Peniel E. Joseph)
8. Buxton Spice (Oonya Kempadoo)
9.
10.

[Ezee E]

1. The Old Man and the Sea (E. Hemingway)
2. Dali (?)
3. White Jazz (J. Ellroy)

[Llopin]

1. The End of the Road by J. Barth
2. The Living End by S. Elkin
3. Michael Kohlhass by H. von Kleist
4. Personal Mythology by A. Embrikos
5. A pale-blue woman's handwriting by F. Werfel
6. Theater and its Double by Artaud
7. Lenz by G. Buchner
8. L'agrume by V. Mréjen

[Milky Joe]

Alright.

1. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
2. Time Out of Joint by Philip K. Dick
3. Confessions by Jacob Boehme
4. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
5. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
6. The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick
7.
8.
9.
10.

[Milky Joe]

1. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
2. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
3. Cane by Jean Toomer
4. Time Out of Joint by Philip K. Dick
5. Confessions by Jacob Boehme
6. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
7. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
8. The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick
9.
10.

[Milky Joe]

Yeah, We is awesome.

Updating to promulgate the greatness of Either/Or.

1. Either/Or by Søren Kierkegaard
2. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
3. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
4. Cane by Jean Toomer
5. Time Out of Joint by Philip K. Dick
6. Confessions by Jacob Boehme
7. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
8. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
9. The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick
10.

[Melville]

Yeah, We is awesome.

Updating to promulgate the greatness of Either/Or.

Absolutely god damn right to both. Oh, and you should convince me to read Infinite Jest.

[Dead & Messed Up]

01. The Dhammapada (Tr. Gil Fronsdal, 2005)
02. Teatro Grottesco (Thomas Ligotti, 2006)
03. The Walking Dead Volumes 1-3 (Robert Kirkman, 2003)
04.
05.
06.
07.
08.
09.
10.

[Dead & Messed Up]

01. The Dhammapada (Tr. Gil Fronsdal, 2005)
02. Teatro Grottesco (Thomas Ligotti, 2006)
03. The Walking Dead, Volumes 1 - 11 (Robert Kirkman, 2003)
04. Jaws (Peter Benchley, 1974)
05.
06.
07.
08.
09.
10.

[dreamdead]

1. The Day of the Locust, by Nathanael West
2. A Lost Lady, by Willa Cather
3. Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
4. Their Eyes were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
5. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
6. Daisy Miller by Henry James

[Kurosawa Fan]

1. The Financial Lives of the Poets - Walter
2. Escape from the Deep - Kershaw
3. The Poisonwood Bible - Kingsolver
4. The Book of Basketball - Simmons

[EvilShoe]

Not counting comics/counting re-reads.

1. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
2. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy
4. Cities of the Plain - Cormac McCarthy
5. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
6. Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
7. All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
8. The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester
9. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
10. The Neon Bible - John Kennedy Toole

[Kurosawa Fan]

1. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
2. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
3. The Financial Lives of the Poets - Walter
4. Escape from the Deep - Kershaw
5. The Poisonwood Bible - Kingsolver
6. Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt - Nina Burleigh
7. The Book of Basketball - Simmons

I can't bring myself to list The Kite Runner. It was far too abysmal to receive mention in a 'Best of' list. I'd rather the list remain shorter than give anyone the impression that it's worth reading.

[dreamdead]

Updated:

1. The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West
2. A Lost Lady, Willa Cather
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison
4. The Marrow of Tradition, Charles Chesnutt
5. Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
6. Pembroke, Mary Wilkins Freeman
7. Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
8. The Awakening, Kate Chopin
9. Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko
10. Cane, Jean Toomer

[

Show Spoiler

11. Falling Man, Don DeLillo
12. Daisy Miller, Henry James
13. McTeague, Frank Norris

]

[Dead & Messed Up]

01. The Dhammapada (Tr. Gil Fronsdal, 2005)
02. Teatro Grottesco (Thomas Ligotti, 2006)
03. The Walking Dead, Volumes 1 - 11 (Robert Kirkman, 2003)
04. Fragile Things (Neil Gaiman, 2006)
05. Jaws (Peter Benchley, 1974)
06.
07.
08.
09.
10.

[Dead & Messed Up]

01. The Dhammapada (Tr. Gil Fronsdal, 2005)
02. Welcome to the Monkey House (Kurt Vonnegut, 1968)
03. Teatro Grottesco (Thomas Ligotti, 2006)
04. The Walking Dead, Volumes 1 - 11 (Robert Kirkman, 2003)
05. Fragile Things (Neil Gaiman, 2006)
06. Jaws (Peter Benchley, 1974)
07.
08.
09.
10.

[Dead & Messed Up]

01. The Dhammapada (Tr. Gil Fronsdal, 2005)
02. Welcome to the Monkey House (Kurt Vonnegut, 1968)
03. Teatro Grottesco (Thomas Ligotti, 2006)
04. The Walking Dead, Volumes 1 - 11 (Robert Kirkman, 2003)
05. The History of the Devil (Clive Barker, 1980)
06. Fragile Things (Neil Gaiman, 2006)
07. Jaws (Peter Benchley, 1974)
08.
09.
10.

[Raiders]

I basically read good-to-great books this year. Only the last few in the spoiler tags were disappointing.

1. 2666 (Bolano)
2. GRAVITY'S RAINBOW (Pynchon)
3. REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE (McCullers)
4. ROUSE UP O YOUNG MEN OF THE NEW AGE! (Oe)
5. THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY (Chabon)
6. OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS (Capote)
7. A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES (Toole)
8. THE CORRECTIONS (Franzen)
9. AUTUMN OF THE PATRIARCH (Marquez)
10. THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES [Play] (Guare)

[

Show Spoiler

11. THE DROWNED WORLD (Ballard)
12. THE NIGHT OF THE GUN (Carr)
13. THE WINTER'S TALE [Play] (Shakespeare)
14. LANDSCAPE OF THE BODY [Play] (Guare)
15. A MERCY (Morrison)
16. SOLAR (McEwan)
17. MYRA BRECKINRIDGE (Vidal)

]

[lovejuice]

Top ten books. (Fiction and Non-fiction)

1. Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit"
2. Greene's "Doctor Fischer of Geneva"
3. Davies's "What's Bred in the Bone"
4. Hemingway's "The Sun also Rises"
5. Greene's "Monsignor Quixote"
6. Zizek's "The Obscure Object of Ideology"
7. Martinez's "The Oxford Murders"
8. Greene's "The Quiet American"
9. Dinesens' "Seven Gothic Tales"
10. Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man"

Other titles read are in the spoiler tag. * means second reading.

[

Show Spoiler

Fiction

Tolkien's "Roverandom"
Musil's "The Man without Qualities"
Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia"
Carter's "The Bloody Chamber"
Mann's "Royal Highness"
Moravia's "The Conformist"
Du Maurier's "Don't Look Now"
Russel's "The Sparrow"
Gadda's "That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana"
Proust's "Swann's Way"
James's "The Haunted Dolls' House and other Stories"
Sartre's "Intimacy"
Greene's "The Comedians"
Murakami's "The Second Bakery Attack"
Haldeman's "Old Twentieth"
Shea and R. A. Wilson's "The Eye in the Pyramid"
Collin's "Sailing Alone Around the Room"
Haggard's "She"
Albee's "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Non-fiction

Merleau-Ponty's "The World of Perception"
Nitschze's "The Birth of Tragedy"
Heidegger's "Poetry, Language, and Thought"*
Marchiavelli's "The Prince"
Taylor's "Hegel and Modern Society"
Frye's "The Educated Imagination"
Lukacs's "History and Class Consciousness"
Bergson's "Laughter"
Weil's "Gravity and Grace"
Booth's "The Rhetoric of Fiction"
Rosenfield's "The Strange, Familiar and Forgotten"
Dennett's "Freedom Evolves"
Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle" *
Morgenroth's "Speaking of Dance"
Graham's "Philosophy of the Arts"
Meredith's "An Essay on Comedy"
Althusser's "For Marx" *
Peleggi's "The Politics of Ruins and the Business of Nostalgia"
Plato's "Symposium"
Zimbardo's "The Lucifer Effect"
Saltzman's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet"
Virilio's "Art and Fear"
Foucault's "The Archaeology of Knowledge"
Cohen's "Jokes"
Greene's "The Fabric of the Cosmos"
Montaigne's "Essays"
Williams's "Marxism and Literature" *
Eco's "The Search for the Perfect Language"
Krutch's "Modernism in Modern Drama"
Empson's "7 Types of Ambiguity"
Jameson's "The Political Unconscious"
Brisson's "How Philosophers Saved Myths"
Jameson's "The Hegel Variations"
Lukacs's "The Historical Novel"*
Lakoff's "Metaphors We Live by"
Sartre's "What is Literature?"*

Art Book

Erben's "Miro"
Elger's "Dadaism"
Holzhey's "De Chirico"
Humphreys's "Futurism"
Gablik's "Magritte"
Klingsohr-leroy's "Dadaism"'
Descharnes's "Dali"
Wolf's "Salvador Dali"

]