1.11.2007

Books of Love.

I love books. The books I love most themselves contain love--they're either about love, or they celebrate the love of something in particular. I threw in a lot of series, so I didn't bother counting them exactly, but I think I'm around fifty entries. I tried to keep away from the things everyone listed, but it was hard and, in some cases, not worth it. There are other books I love, but these are the ones I ran into or thought about today. Beware: Love is sometimes cheesy :)

The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, Barry Hughart
Princess Bride, William Goldman
The Phoenix Guards, Stephen Brust
Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen ("For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?")
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
Fruits Basket, Natsuki Takaya
The Discworld Series, Terry Pratchett
Geek Love, Katherine Dunn
Grijipstra & De Grier Books, Janwillem van der Wetering
Lord Peter Whimsey Books, Dorothy L. Sayers
The Art of Eating, MFK Fisher
Little, Big, John Crowley
Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynn Jones
The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Robert Anton Wilson (RIP)
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Tad Williams
The Dark Tower Series, Stephen King
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille, Steven Brust
Mordant's Need, Stephen R Donaldson
Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esqueviel
Orlando, A Biography, Virginia Woolfe
Tom Jones, Henry Fielding
Travis McGee Books, John D. MacDonald
Neverending Story, Michael Ende
The Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon
Ghormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The Chronicles of Amber, Roger Zelazny
One Piece, Eiichiro Oda
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkein
Oz, L Frank Baum
Scaramouche, Rafael Sabatini
Sandman, Neil Gaiman
Strangers in Paradise, Terry Moore
Calvin & Hobbes, Bill Watterson
Smilla's Sense of Snow, Peter Hoeg
Calahan's Chronicals, Spider Robinson
Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll
Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
Tuesday, David Weisner
The Olivia Books, Ian Falconer (Where's my TOOOOOOOOOOOY?????)
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith
A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snickett
The Essays of Dave Barry
Sin City, Frank Miller
Accidental Tourist, Anne Tyler
The Persistence of Vision, John Varley
The Works of Douglas Adams
The Ficciones of Jorge Borges
Sir Richard Francis Burton's Translation of 1001 Arabian Nights (and no other)
A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare

Despite my opinion that book recommendations should be very specific to both person and mood, I do want to say that the Barry Hughart books are a treasure.