Today is the “ides” of January, 2012.
A good a day as any to start my new job as “Blog Editor” at the BWW.
Elizabeth asked me recently, during our BWW workshop class, to go back to my favorite books, as a way of solving a problem that I’m having with plot in my novel-in-progress. A novel that I hope to finish in 2012.
This got me to thinking about the books that I consider as “classics” in my world – books I find to be without flaw, the books I don’t hesitate to re-read and learn from.
My list is very long but in the style of David Letterman’s Top 10, I’ve compiled what I consider to be my favorites today (in no particular rank order):
1. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
2. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
3. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
4. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
5. Wintering by Kates Moses
6. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
7. I, The Divine by Rabih Alameddine
8. Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz
9. The God of Small Things by Arundhuti Roy
10. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
What these books have in common is suspense! Beautiful language! Turns and twists! Inevitability and surprise! What are your favorites, the ones you reach for when you need a “good read” or to solve a problem in your own writing?