My Favorite Novels

A list of favorite novels invites discussion, certainly. Someone will say, “Oh, that’s a good one,” or “I liked that one, too,” or “Oh, no, not that one,” or “What? Are you crazy?” or worse: “Oh, you shouldn’t like that one…”

This is a list of novels I have enjoyed reading for some reason or another. My list. You may judge me by it, if you wish. It is, by no means, the list of all books I have read. That would be silly. (My brother can make a list like that very easily: one book. Going After Cacciato. Done.)

Devil in the White City. Loved the half of the book that dealt with creation of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago - the Columbian Exposition; made it through the half about H.H. Holmes, the nation’s first serial killer. If they ever make a movie of this, it will probably be about the killer, unfortunately, and then everyone will say, “That was lousy. Why does everyone like this book?” For the Chicago World’s Fair stuff, that’s why.

The Great Gatsby. One of the only books I’ve read voluntarily over and over again. And every time I’ve read it, I’ve understood it differently. From age seventeen on up, the more life experience I had, the more I understood the tragedy. Absolutely love the Baz Luhrmann film.

All the Pretty Horses. It will take you a chapter or two to allow yourself to get into the cadence of Cormac McCarthy’s writing style - the tone, the punctuation (or lack of it) - but I loved the ease and emotion. Times of action, times of riding across the land.

Doctor No. Not that Ian Fleming is a brilliant author. He is not. This was the first James Bond novel I ever read, and I did so because it was the first James Bond film. Reading this, I learned about adaptation. I didn’t just go, “Hey! It’s different! I liked the (film/book) better!” I actually put it through my brain why the filmmakers would cut things, add things, change things, and that all made sense. Not necessarily for the better, but why changes would be necessary when changing the medium of the story. I was twelve. I also learned how sex was conservatively written for the men’s-magazine-audience.

*Note on the James Bond novels. I’ve read them all, some are better than others. Of the continuation (post-Fleming) novels: John Gardner was boring - everyone was a double or triple agent and Bond was just brought along for the ride - an observer, not a spy; Raymond Benson got the idea - his books were eminently more readable; the one-off authors… why did they bother? Anthony Horowitz was a good choice for his trilogy. The absolute best post-Fleming Bond novels were actually the Young Bond series by Charlie Higson, continued by Steve Cole.

The Outsiders. I didn’t “get” to read this as a 7th Grader like everyone else did; I was in a different reading group. When I did read it, finally, as an adult, I wasn’t as affected by it as my son was, but I understood how young adult fiction used the writing process, especially when written by a young adult - instead of just being affected by the emotion of a young adult novel.

Tarzan the Ape Man. Seriously. It’s turn-of-the-old-century genre stuff, but it works. It was a heck of a lot of fun! No Tarzan film has ever been faithful to the novel, and probably for good reasons. Some take unused elements, now and then, and that’s cool, but no one has yet shown Tarzan teach himself to drive a car in Baltimore so he can speed to Jane’s home in Wisconsin to save her from a forest fire.

Dracula. Read this the summer after I’d turned thirteen, and it was scary. I knew Dracula would die in the end, but how the story unfolded was all truly new to me. So different than anything from the Universal or Hammer films. This became another novel where I’d get mad at adaptation attempts. I knew nothing could be truly faithful to the text, but I wanted to see more of the original in there, and I wanted them to stop exchanging the names of the Mina and Lucy characters. Also first (that I can recall) use of multiple narrators: Jonathan Harker’s journal; Mina’s diary; Dr. Seward’s phonograph cylinders; newspaper clippings, etc.

Treasure. I like a few of the Dirk Pitt novels. This one and Night Probe are probably my favorite. There comes a time when a series author hits his stride with the characters and the flow of the plot - there’s the way he will always tell it, and the ways he changes things to keep things fresh.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Another voluntary re-read, often. If I’m writing what is supposed to be a comic piece, there is no better way to get into the groove than to read a funny author. Douglas Adams’ prose flows as swiftly as his scripts. I mean, in writing the novels, he adapted his own radio scripts, but his prose is equally funny. “The first billion years? They were the worst. The second billion years? They were the worst, too.” — Marvin the robot, who didn’t make it into the time machine and had to wait for everyone else.

The DaVinci Code. Again, Dan Brown may not be a master, but he wrote a story about things that I just had to see! Hurry - dial up the internet and download a picture of this painting! Now I need to figure out the clues! Didn’t care about the bad guys - just wanted to learn about symbology and stuff and talk to all my friends about Mary Magdalene. And it made me, and everyone else, want to read Angels and Demons - which is arguably better.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The collected short stories (first bunch, anyway) of the world’s greatest detective by Arthur Conan Doyle. I really got into the deductive reasoning, and started trying to “notice” things as evidence. It does work in real life, and also in analyzing fiction.

The Alhambra. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s take on the Muslim story cannon, centering on King Boabdil in Spain, prior to and including getting kicked out by the Christian Ferdinand and Isabella. Started my love of travel and meeting people not from other countries, but in other countries. Still haven’t made it to the real Alhambra, yet, but I will.

Romance books:

I read adult romance to research story methods when I was writing Canada Day. I read teen romance novels (among other genres) when I was teaching to see what the students were enjoying or to be able to make recommendations. I wish I still had my history on the Sora app. I know that I liked some more than others, some were quite enjoyable, some were sexy, some were insipid, but not a lot of titles stand out. The ones I remember are:

One Day/ One Year / One Night by Stephanie Perkins

Forever My Girl and Finding My Way by Heidi McLaughlin

Coming Up for Air by Miranda Keneally

Looking for Alaska by John Greene

Young Adult books I enjoyed and/or recommended to my students:

The entire Alex Rider series (really got reluctant boy readers charged) by Anthony Horowitz

Almost anything by Gary D. Schmidt, especially The Wednesday Wars; Okay for Now; Just Like That; Orbiting Jupiter

Almost anything by Andrew Smith (Anselmo), especially 100 Sideways Miles; Winger and Stand Off; Grasshopper Jungle

I remember liking the books of AM Jenkins, especially Damage; Out of Order; Repossessed; and a couple others.

I liked John Green before The Fault in Our Stars came out, so Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns.

As a younger reader:

Dolphin Island by Arthur C. Clarke

Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke

Landslide by Veronique Day

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe

In school:

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Canterbury Tales by Chaucer

Great Novels I have read but are really just ‘meh:

Doctor Zhivago

Emma

Huckleberry Finn

Native Son

Madame Bovary

Brave New World

Farewell to Arms

Catcher in the Rye*

* Note on Catcher in the Rye. This was another book I did not get to read in high school, and still didn’t until eight years after I graduated. Someone at work said I reminded him of Holden Caulfield, and I had no idea. So I read it. Maybe if I’d have read it in the 1950s or 60s, or even the 70s. But reading in the 90s… m’eh. “Oh, my, how daring!” Same thing for Brave New World.

Great Novels I hated:

1984

Animal Farm

Candide

Books, for some reason, I couldn’t wait to read:

Island by Peter Benchley (disappointed afterwards)

Less than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

Han Solo at Stars End by Brian Daley

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