David Bowie (RIP) 100 favourite books are making the round of the internet and when I read it my first thought (after admiration for a fellow voracious reader with excellent taste) was that I wasn’t sure I could name 100 of my favourites, at least not without help. I adore books and reading and completely agree with Bowie when he says that his library “is his one treasured possession he would take to a deserted island” but ‘favourite’ is tricky. Favourite right now? Or favourite when I read it? Does it include excellent, important books that I’m glad exist and that I enjoyed reading for their quality of prose and thinking or just books I love? Does it include my favourite reference books? My most loved cookbooks?
Anyways, this is what I came up with:
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
- The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julien Jaynes
- The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell
- The White Bone, Barbara Gowdy
- A Story as Sharp as a Knife, Robert Bringhurst
- Johnathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach
- Interview with a Vampire, Anne Rice
- Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean Auel
- A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
- Tales of Ordinary Madness, Charles Bukowski
- Caprice, George Bowering
- A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine l’Engle
- The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
- Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Tom Robbins
- The Alchemist, Paulo Coehlo
- Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky
- Moby Dick
- Heart of Darkness
- DaVinci Code
- Blindness
- Infinite Jest
- A Confederacy of Dunces
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius