Top Ten Titles on The Point with Mindy Todd
Today we had the pleasure of having Bob Waxler, recently retired English professor from U. Mass, Dartmouth, join Mindy and me for the monthly book show on WCAI’s The Point. The topic was our top ten favorite books, which was indeed a challenge for both Bob and I. Our lists kept shifting until the last moment when we were finally forced into making choices knowing we were going to be live on the air the next morning. As Robert Pinsky says in The Top Ten: we were really talking about the “Ten works of fiction that have been great for me.” Below you will find the list of our top five books, because we ran out of time. However, Bob has agreed to return to Woods Hole for the March show, and do the second half of our lists! Of course, if you listened this morning, you know that our lists are very fluid, and it is possible they will have morphed by March 28th. I’ve also posted all of the listener picks, which will give you enough great reading to take you right through the spring. Miss the show? You can always listen online!
Jill Erickson, Head of Reference & Adult Services
Bob’s Picks
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Jill’s Picks
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Lolly Willowes; or the Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Making of Americans: being a history of a family’s progress by Gertrude Stein (If you’re interested in reading about the link between Gertrude Stein and Goodnight Moon, head over to In the Great Green Room.)
Time Will Darken It by William Maxwell (Not only is this a great novel, it also has a great section on house guests, which everyone who lives on Cape Cod should read before the summer hits.)
High Rising by Angela Thirkell (You can read Verlyn Klinkenborg’s New York Times article about this series here.)
Books About Great Books
The Top Ten: writers pick their favorite books edited by J. Peder Zane
Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books edited by Leah Price
Listener Picks
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Sula by Toni Morrison (and as Bob said, anything written by Toni Morrison)
A Man Called Ove by Frederick Backman
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Herzog by Saul Bellow