You know the books you have to tell people about or barricade in the washroom while you read excerpts at them through the door, books you wish you could articulate right away because they raise so many thoughts and feelings that you have to talk about them, books that make you cry or completely surprise you, books that take you somewhere you couldn’t possibly have gone on your own. These are books that really stuck with me.

Maybe some of you will find a book on this list equally enjoyable.
These books are in the order in which I read them.

Please Contribute to this list with your own –by posting a comment!

• The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde
• The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad
• Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
• Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
• L’Etranger by Albert Camus.
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• The Picture of Dorian Grey Oscar Wilde
• Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe
• The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
• The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe
• The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe
• Madness and Civilization: a History of Insanity in the Age of Reason by Michel Foucault -Philosophical Anthropology
• We So Seldom Look on Love by Barbara Gowdy –short stories, strange and wonderful
• Maus I: a Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History (graphic novel) by Art Spiegelman
• Maus II: a Survivor’s Tale: and Here My Troubles Began (graphic novel) by Art Spiegelman
• The Plague by Albert Camus.
• The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogal.
• The Nose by Nikolai Gogal.

Notes on Spieglman:

Maus by Spieglman was the first graphic novel I read. Someone recommended them in university –and I was amazed and delighted. Few novels move me to tears –and these did. The writing is superb, the subject matter is heart wrenching and the graphics are uniquely voiced themselves. The story and the graphics are perfectly matched and I couldn’t imagine one without the other. As stories about the Holocaust go –this one will stand the test of time and provide a highly personal almost tactile account.

Spiegelman is an accomplished artist in his own right and his talent as a writer creates a package rarely successful at the level he has achieved. He has written an interesting book on New York’s twin towers and 9/11 called: In the Shadow of No Towers.

Oh –he’s also won a Pulitzer Prize!

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