Your Five Favourite Books - And Why?

[PeterRS]

I know this "five favourite" theme could get boring. Before it does, can I suggest a five favourite books along with a one sentence (please just one) as to exactly why you like it. Not as easy as movies, I think, if only because whilst we tend to watch favourite movies more than once or twice, reading books more than twice is relatively rare. Not necessarily gay subject matter - any is acceptable. In no particular order. Anyway, here is my selection.

Paul Scott: The Raj Quartet

I know this is a bit of a cheat because this is a four-book novel, but as a gigantic scenario seen from British and Indian eyes as the British Empire is dying it is utterly riveting.

Caroline Alexander: The Endurance - Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition

Surely this tale of a ship in 1914 taking almost a year to sink after getting stuck in the Antarctic ice and the two ensuing incredibly long voyages made in open boats in the world's stormiest seas has to be the 20th century's greatest example of leadership and courage, the World Wars included, the more so when every man who set out on that voyage returned alive - and the book has incredible photographs of the actual journey.

Vikram Seth: A Suitable Boy

I like getting into long books and at nearly 1,500 pages this one is long, but as a portrait of a more modern India with stunning characterisations and a wholly intriguing subject, I loved it.

John Conrnwell: A Thief In The Night - Life And Death In The Vatican

Following the sudden death of the 'smiling' John Paul 1 after only 33 days as Pope and the Vatican eventually opening its archives to Catholic scholar John Cornwell to try and dispel all the rumours of skullduggery at the Vatican including murder, his conclusion is far less surprising than the blame he heaps on a multitude of Vatican officials who may well have wanted the Pope dead.

Sebastian Faulks: Birdsong - A Novel of Love and War

Again far better than the film, very few books have made me weep but this one about an intense love affair, lust and the effect on it of World War 1 for generations had the tears flowing.

[TMax]

I'm very much into military history so although I have read many books over the years I have concentrated on military history for the last 20 odd years, in part as I was army and on both my parents sides there is military going way back to the Peninsula Wars (way back in the early 1800's).

Stealth Raiders by Lucas Jordan: The sheer courage of the Aussie Diggers in 1918, raiding the enemy lines at night in small numbers and creating a sense of terror amongst the enemy troops.

Batavia by Peter Fitzsimons: Set way back in 1629 when the ship Batavia, the pride of the Dutch East India company ran aground off the coast of Western Australia, about mutiny, survival, heroism and retribution, although I had been taught about this in school I didn't realise just how hard and brutal it was for the survivors.

One Crowded Hour by Tim Bowden: Covers the story of Australian combat cameraman Neil Davis and his work throughout the Vietnam war and alas his coverage of the 1985 coup attempt in Bangkok where he and Bill Latch (his American soundman) were killed.

On Desperate Ground by Hampton Sides: Covers the US Marines on their battles from Incheon harbour through to the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, was a very interesting read as to how the operation was set up and carried out and the many acts of bravery by the marines.

Gallipoli by Peter Fitzsimons: As an Aussie this WW1 campaign has always been of interest and more so that my mothers father was there from the start to the finish and luckily survived, even of more luck he was repatriated to Australia after evacuation from Gallipoli as he contracted pneumonia and was later deemed unfit for service. After Gallipoli his unit was split up and they were sent to the western front, the division that his unit was assigned to was involved in some of the biggest battles fought by our troops. Sorry more than one sentence on that one. 

[forrestreid]

An interesting assignment.

I find the idea of "favourite" books hard to compute when one is thinking of both fiction and non-fiction books. There are so different it is hard to quantify them together. I decided in the end that I would have two fiction and three non-fiction books, and make my choices then.

It was hard to narrow it down to 5, and hard to say just a sentence about each and be meaningful. (I cheated a bit and added a bit more in brackets after each sentence, just like this!)

TMax made a quite sensible choice to restrict his picks to just one theme.

Fictional Choices

Dubliners by James Joyce.
In common with many others, I find the idea of reading one of his longer books is a bit too much, but I genuinely enjoyed this book of short stories by James Joyce -he was a master of the short story form, and his use of the idea of an epiphany as a theme is really well done (however, you would probably need to have an interest in the thoughts and life-ideas of somebody in an Edwardian European society to be really able to enjoy them. Joyce's world is very historically and culturally situated)

The Quincunx by Charles Palliser.
This is a big rambling intricate historical novel, in a sort of pastiche of a Dickensian style (even though it was written in the late 1980s) that succeeds in creating this sort of world that a classic 19^th century novel created, albeit more R-rated in style. (If you are a fan of Dickensian novels such as Great Expectations. you would likely enjoy it, although it is about 700 pages it is quite the page turner)

 

Some non-fiction choices:

Roumeli   By Patrick Leigh Fermor. My big fascination, apart from Southeast Asia, is Greece, and this book is an interesting meditation on northern Greece, blending historical insight and descriptions of 1950s travel (especially worth reading if you are thinking of heading to Meteora for the first time).

Mad about the Mekong by John Keay is a page-turning historical account that retraces the 19th-century French expedition up the Mekong River, blending adventure, colonial intrigue, and modern reflections on the region. (A particularly good primer for anybody heading to Laos for the first time)

Very Thai, by Philip Cornwall Smith. A good book for somebody who was fascinated by the physical reality of Thailand, like amulets, blue pipes and concrete seats, and wanted to read a bit about what they meant culturally.

(I think I recommended this before, but worth recommending again, and unlike the above two books, I might recommend getting this after your first journey to the LOS rather than before)

[PeterRS]

5 hours ago, forrestreid said:

I find the idea of "favourite" books hard to compute when one is thinking of both fiction and non-fiction books. There are so different it is hard to quantify them together.

A very good point and I am sorry I did not think of this when starting the thread. My list has 3 fiction and 2 non-fiction.

[Pete1111]

I love Edmund White and Alan Hollinghurst, yet I went other directions with my 5 books.

At Swim, Two Boys

A great Irish novel, and an unforgettable story.

 

Call Me by Your Name 

I enjoy all of Aciman's books, especially this one, which is quite different from the movie and one I've read multiple times.

 

Frederick Douglass Prophet of Freedom

Every American should read this Pulitzer Prize winning dramatic biography. 

 

 

The Last of the Wine

Mary Renault's first novel set in antiquity, one I've re-read and will again.

 

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Also a Pulitzer winner, and an epic story, with so much food for thought, I loved how Clay crossed that line with Bacon on top of Democracity.

 

 

[PeterRS]

@Pete1111 - many thanks for your list. Can you perhaps elaborate a little on how at least some of the movie of Call Me By Your Name differs from the book?

I was thrilled that James ivory won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for the movie, if only because I admired his Merchant/Ivory movie collaborations so much, especially The Remains of the Day, Howards End and Room With A View. 

I have only read one Mary Renault book: The Persian Boy, part 2 of her Alexander Trilogy. Her superb writing brings her subjects completely alive and must have been something of a revolution for a female writer in her day.

[kokopelli3]

When a youth I often read a book a day, although not "great" literature but with age and and TV, my reading has dwindled to nothing. However here are a five that I recall. Why I read them, just for the sake of it.

War and Peace - Tolstoy

Les Miserable - Victor Hugo

The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 

The Caine Mutiny - Herman Wouk

[Pete1111]

4 hours ago, PeterRS said:

@Pete1111 - many thanks for your list. Can you perhaps elaborate a little on how at least some of the movie of Call Me By Your Name differs from the book?

I was thrilled that James ivory won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for the movie, if only because I admired his Merchant/Ivory movie collaborations so much, especially The Remains of the Day, Howards End and Room With A View. 

I have only read one Mary Renault book: The Persian Boy, part 2 of her Alexander Trilogy. Her superb writing brings her subjects completely alive and must have been something of a revolution for a female writer in her day.

 

The setting is totally different.  Italian Riviera, Rome, New England, Thailand.  

My favorite part of the book takes place in Rome.  Several interesting characters and encounters there.

Also there were many more interesting characters around the family villa.

The book dives a lot deeper into Elio's head, what he is going through about Oliver.  I like the way Oliver is portrayed, how Elio couldn't help falling for such an impressive young man.   I remember being 17 or 18 and pining for a handsome new teacher, early 20s.  People criticize Aciman for the age thing but I can imagine being a horny kid at an Italian villa, and then Oliver arrives.   

Chalamet and Hammer were much older than the characters in the book.  They didn't work for me.  Also, there were pieces of the film that didn't make sense, such as the professor pulling ancient relics out of a lake. 

Aciman has a style that the film totally misses.  e.g. there is a scene where Oliver's foot gently caresses Elio's under the table while the family is having lunch.  How Aciman describes these encounters is special.

-----

I understand that Mary Renault was President Kennedy's favorite author.

I read her biography.  She accomplished a lot considering those times.  Was difficult to write what she wanted to write without push back.

She lived with her partner in South Africa, to be away from the risk gay couples faced in England.

While living there she developed a pen pal relationship with her "American Boy" that wrote to her from Long Island.  That boy was Daniel Mendelsohn who grew up to be the famous author and critic.  I met him during one of his book tours.

 

[PeterRS]

You have excited my curiosity. I just ordered the kindle edition of Call Me By Your Name.

4 hours ago, kokopelli3 said:

War and Peace - Tolstoy

For a while in my late teens I thought it would be fashionable to read some Russian literature. I loved Anna Karenina, got through War and Peace but can recall little about it, and failed to finish The Brothers Karamazov. My reading habits then took a major turn downwards!

[TotallyOz]

By the time I was 22, I’d already read most of the books that would stay with me for life. I didn’t read for escape. I read to make sense of things, to find beauty, structure, complexity. The stories that stuck weren’t simple, and they didn’t offer easy answers. They asked the right questions, and they never talked down to me.

Ulysses, by James Joyce, hit me like no other. It was strange, dense, full of detours but also funny, earthy, and oddly intimate. Joyce turned a single day into something vast. I didn’t understand everything, and I wasn’t supposed to. That was part of the point. Life isn’t meant to be neatly packaged, and this book made peace with that.

The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, I read late at night in bed (on a waterbed if you remember those). It was a quieter kind of adventure; one that didn’t shout. Bilbo wasn’t brave or strong, just curious and quietly stubborn. He was the reluctant traveler and I was the excited traveler and through him, I yearned for adventure.  There’s a quiet comfort in that kind of hero — someone who doesn’t look for adventure but rises to it when called.

Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, was extra credit. I read it and wrote a report. But it didn’t feel like schoolwork; it felt like discovery. Hamlet’s voice was unlike anything I’d read. He thinks too much, speaks in riddles, wrestles with grief, with guilt, with meaning. I didn’t have his burdens, but I knew the feeling of turning things over in your mind until they burned. I wrestled with the guilt of being gay and this story helped. 

Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, was required reading in Grade 11. I expected melodrama. What I got was something raw and absorbing. Scarlett O’Hara is willful, maddening, unforgettable. The book showed how survival can be its own kind of courage, even when it’s messy. She was the ultimate drama queen and having watched the movie 20 times, reading it was truly wonderful, and I understood why my mom loved the movie so much. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, pulled me in with elegance. Wilde’s writing is so smooth. The story stayed with me because of what it didn’t say out loud; the rot beneath the surface, the cost of charm, the masks people wear. It was a short book, but it left a long impact.

Much later, I read Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, by Louis de Bernières. I was older. It was a gift from my best friend. What struck me most was its tenderness. It sees people clearly, flaws and all, and forgives them anyway. I needed that forgiveness myself as my religious guilt created issues for me for 20 years. 

These books helped shape how I see things, how I think, how I listen, how I notice what matters. They stayed with me because they respected the reader.  Even the version of me that was still figuring things out. And, 40 years after reading most, I know I have not figured things out completely but the journey has been an adventure. Like Bilbo, I was a reluctant traveler, not in real travels but in reading. Tolkien removed that reluctance from me and Wilde swung the doors wide open for me to see the possibilities.

[Pete1111]

@TotallyOz @PeterRS

An interesting note about Tolkien and Mary Renault, she was a student of Tolkien's at Oxford.

I found a reference to Tolkien from 1967 that he had been "recently deeply engaged in the books" of Renault, and mentions in particular her works The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea (both about Theseus).

I loved both.  Those two could serve as a good place to begin reading Renault if not the two mentioned above, The Persian Boy and The Last of the Wine.

[PeterRS]

5 hours ago, TotallyOz said:

Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, was extra credit. I read it and wrote a report. But it didn’t feel like schoolwork; it felt like discovery. Hamlet’s voice was unlike anything I’d read. He thinks too much, speaks in riddles, wrestles with grief, with guilt, with meaning. I didn’t have his burdens, but I knew the feeling of turning things over in your mind until they burned. I wrestled with the guilt of being gay and this story helped. 

I have adored that play since I first read it - even before I saw it on stage. I suspect there is a part of Hamlet in every gay of the older generation and perhaps even of the younger. I find myself at times wanting to scream at the page "Don't do this!" "Can't you see where this is leading?" Yet we can change nothing in the play and we know it is not going to end at all well for almost any character.

If you love Hamlet, you absolutely have to read/see what I call it's companion play by the superb writer Tom Stoppard, Rosenkranz and Guildenstern Are Dead. They are perhaps only bit players in Shakespeare's play, but Stoppard effectively imagines a play next to a play. In other words, as you read or watch it, you have to imagine that much of Shakespeare's Hamlet is being performed just offstage to your left or right. Rosenkranz and Guildenstern are of course the two pals of Hamlet but in Shakespeare as in Stppard's play they have little idea what is really going on. They are almost permanently confused. Stoppard brilliantly starts the play with just the two characters on stage flipping coins. They are trying to work out the probability of how often they will come up 'heads' and how often 'tails'. As the curtain goes up, the coin has landed 'heads' 85 times in a row. They speculate on chance and the meaning of chance. Then they realise they have no idea why they have been summoned to Elsinore, their lives are chance and the first clue that they are as in little control of their own destinies as the coin landing 'heads' so many times. And as the title implies, they eventually have an inkling that death will be the end of their journey to England, just as most of the characters in Hamlet are dead before the curtain falls. A fabulous play!