Despite the slow start (which means I've once again fallen out of the habit of regular writing), I'm still hopeful that it will be a good one. I've got my Nano Nano file of story beginnings to flesh out, two stories currently making the submission rounds and two more stories that are almost there, and I'll be going to both the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference and Grub Street's own The Muse & the Marketplace conference in the first half of this year.
Maybe a summer writer's retreat or conference, too. And a trip to Vegas. And a family trip or two... hmmm. How many days off do I get? (Don't forget to subtract the two sick days that I already took in January.)
Of course, you can't have writing without reading. (Really. You can't. And please, don't even try.) There were a lot of Best Of lists being circulated at the end of the year, but one kind of list that I enjoyed seeing is rather timeless – writers' lists of their 25 or 50 best reads. Not necessarily "great" or "important" works, but books that were a joy to discover, to read, and to reread.
And so, in the list below are 25 of mine (As of today. Subject to change. Your mileage may vary. Book series considered for one listing only. Void where prohibited by law.)
A lot of these books are in the SF/F genre, and over half of them are books I read as a very young man. Some I remember well from where they lived on my mother's bookshelf, home of the first grown-up books I ever read. (Little Women, Tarzan, the Swiss Family Robinson, and Sherlock Holmes were all on that bookcase, under the stairs leading up to my room.) It's not a list that is necessarily reflective of what I'm reading today – but I'll still defend any one of them as a great read.
Enjoy. I did.
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Dresden Files, Jim Butcher
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
The Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris
Pilgrimage, Zenna Henderson
Jesus Son, Denis Johnson
Shadow Over Innsmouth, H.P. Lovecraft
The Complete Works of Saki, H. H. Munro
The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
Straight Man, Richard Russo
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
The Sword in the Stone, T. H. White
Thank You, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse
The Swiss Family Robinson, Johann Wyss
Nine Princes of Amber, Roger Zelanzy
Thanks for reading,
Stephen
