What I’m thinking
About that title. Could you? How would you define ‘list’? I tried and I came to a gathering of…thoughts? An itemized sequence? A compilation…of things? Yes, because compilation is so much simpler a word than ‘list.’
Anyway.
The Guardian put together a list of what they called the 100 best novels ever written (you can check it out here), by asking over 170 critics, authors, academics. It’s an interesting list. I’ve read some of the books on it. I like a few of them. (I love Pride and Prejudice! I’ve read it more than once, and even read modern retellings.) I read some of them and at the end I went, ‘Um, okay.’ I’m surprised some of the ones I thought would be there aren’t there. (Oddly, I started reading the one that hit number one around the same time the list appeared. Oh, I’m not cool or much of an intellectual. I just wanted to read without actually reading, and I had that audiobook, so.)
Looots of things have been said about the list. It’s lit-fic heavy. It’s not truly representative. It’s got a focus on books from certain parts of the world. Still, it’s got to be remembered: the thing with lists like this is they’re incredibly subjective. They’re someone’s opinion, or in this case, some 170+ people’s opinions. These books clearly spoke to them. Some of these books spoke to me, too, except what they said to me was, ‘Close me, because you won’t like me.’ (It could be because I’m not the biggest fan of literary fiction, which by nature is a celebration of the storytelling language, and rarely bothers about pace. I like books where things happen and things are clearly moving along.) So, yeah. The list is valid.
But what would’ve gone into mine?
Ooh, I don’t know. Eh, I do. Just, I don’t know if I could narrow it down to 100 books, and then order them from most most-moving to least most-moving. So, in no particular order…
Kensuke’s Kingdom, by Michael Morpurgo, in which a boy gets marooned on an island and discovers a strange man who lives there and communicates with orangutans,
Time Windows, by Kathryn Reiss, in which a girl discovers a dollhouse in the attic of her family’s new house, and in the dollhouse there are real, little people, and after watching their interactions for a bit she realizes that her own mom is starting to act a lot like the mom in the dollhouse…
Needful Things, by Stephen King, in which the devil moves into town and sets up a shop where you don’t pay with money but with a little prank on your neighbour. Okay, pause. The ending of Needful Things was a little disappointing, but it was so much fun to get through! It’s over 700 pages long, but I kept reading feverishly because I wanted to see who’d do what next and it was horror and it was comedic and it had romance and all the feels ugh!
The Two Towers, by JRR Tolkien, because I read the first one in the series and thought, ‘My, that was really good,’ and when I read this one I went, ‘How on earth did this manage to be even better than the first one?’
Every Buchi Emecheta book I’ve read (The Joys of Motherhood, The Slave Girl, The Bride Price, Head Above Water (nonfiction)) because the woman just knows how to write!
Spears Down, by Christine Botchway, because I’ve reread that book many times and loved it every time,
Spears Down. Photo Credit: Pacesetters Novels.
Calico Joe, by John Grisham, because I didn’t even know the man wrote things that weren’t law and it was such a sweet, touching book about forgiveness,
A Time to Kill, by John Grisham, in which…[redacted]. You know what just read it.
The Three Toymakers, whose author I don’t even remember right now (Imma check on the interweb and add it here – hey! It’s by Ursula Moray Williams!), which could’ve been a tame book about three toymakers but had to go and drag in wolves and suspense and near-death experiences and a disrespectful doll,
A Voice in the Wind and An Echo in the Darkness (Books 1 and 2 in the Mark of the Lion Trilogy), by Francine Rivers, in which a Jewish Christian slave comes into the service of a Roman household, catches the eye of the playboy son (who soon hates her because he likes her even though she is nothing like the kind of girl he likes!), and changes all their lives forever,
Shoot the Messenger, by Pippa DaCosta, in which a delivery girl gets framed for murder and she sets out to clear her name and the whole world falls apart and everything you thought you knew is turned on its head and you discover you’re an idiot because you believed the wrong people! Honestly. This book!
Nobody’s Baby but Mine, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, in which a physicist who was bullied throughout her childhood by her schoolmates and her insecure father because she was so intelligent, desires to have a child but with a dumb man so he doesn’t go through what she went through, chooses a man she considers dumb and gets pregnant by him, only to discover that he has similar academic honours as her but in Biology!
And like, others. So many others. (I just remembered Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl but if I add them I’ll add more and have to complete this post in another four days and I don’t think I have it in me 😩😭 )
But that’s my list. Some of it. Some of these won’t make your list (although all of them are fire so they probably should but let’s not fight on this rainy afternoon). What would be on yours?
What I’m watching
Lee Pace is a good-looking man.
I’m not the one thinking it. You are.
In honour of him reprising his role as Thranduil for The Hunt for Gollum (again, I’m completely neutral to this, not looking forward to it or him or anything), this is a thing you can watch that he just happened to be in. It’s called The Fall.
An injured stuntman befriends a little girl in hopes that she can help him…do something bad.
This one requires you to pay a little attention. The story unfolds through the story he tells the little girl bit by bit to win her trust, and the reality of what’s going on in the hospital where they both live. It’s really sweet, as he cooks up this imaginative tale and the little girl eats it up, and their friendship blooms. Then it gets a little dark.
It’s a visually stunning movie. Oh, sad things happen. But it’s very nice. Like, it’s sad oh, but the images are breathtaking. Heartbreaking events occur. But the cinematography and the art? Top-notch. Mm.
But it has a happy ending oh. Yeaahh. Mm-hm. Yup yup. *Nods believably*
Noteworthy: Includes violence and themes of suicide.
What I’m thankful for
The Knicks won’t do a finals sweep! Yaaay!
GIF Source: GIPHY
What I’m hoping for
For the price of Cerelac to drop to one cedi so I feel less irresponsible about buying it.
May the Lord’s purpose for your life be fulfilled, and may you find books that make you stay up deep into the night reading them because you love them so much. Arrivederci!
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