Three Sets of Five Things (plus the leftovers)

[moon_custafer]

handful_ofdust was circulating the “five movies to watch if you want to understand me” meme, and we’ve now segued to “five novels to read if you want to understand me.” This one’s trickier – some of the novels that influenced me have sort of become touchstones for subcultures I don’t belong to, so naming them is more likely to make people *misunderstand* me. Posting here because I need more room to manoeuvre.

How about short stories/novellas?

Hello, Moto, Nnedi Okorafor

The Girl Detective, Kelly Link

The Happy Hypocrite, Max Beerbohm

Dead Bodies Possessed by Furious Motion, Gemma Files

The Temple, H.P. Lovecraft

Honorable mentions: The Overcoat, Nikolai Gogol (in translation, obvs); The Hollow Man, Thomas Burke; Of No Woman Born, C. L. Moore (someone needs to adapt this as a vehicle for Janelle Monae, stat); The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn, Usman T. Malik; The Roll-Call of the Reef, Arthur Quiller-Couch; The Sign-Painter and the Crystal Fishes, Marjorie Bowen; All Cats Are Grey, Andre Norton; ETA - Chivalry, Neil Gaiman.

Short story collections:

The Cyberiad, Stanisław Lem (translated by Michael Kandel, who deserves some kind of award for this if he hasn’t got one already)

The Mysterious Mr. Quin, Agatha Christie

Who Fears the Devil, Manly Wade Wellman

Frog and Toad Are Friends, Arnold Lobel

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Angela Carter

 

OK, the novels:

Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirilees

Watership Down, Richard Adams

The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, Daniel Pinkwater

Night of the Jabberwock, Frederic Brown

The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins

Honorable Mentions: The Man Who Was Thursday, G. K. Chesterton; The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov; The Nightmare Fair (novelization of an unproduced Dr. Who story); Many Dimensions, Charles Williams; Black Betty, Walter Moseley; Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake; The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin; Not Wanted On the Voyage, Timothy Findley, Through the Looking Glass, do I even have to say it?

 

 

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Comments

[sovay]

"ok, if these books are my introduction to someone who knows *absolutely* nothing else about me..."

I just don't think either of them would have been misleading: I don't know exactly what you like about either book, but I tend to feel positively toward people who like Bulgakov and The Man Who Was Thursday is a sufficiently weird novel that my first association with it is not "Ah! Republicans!"

ETA -- I don't even know if Chesterton is actually a major Republican darling or if it's just the William F. Buckley types who like him.

We still have William F. Buckley types?

[moon_custafer]

Probably not; if there are any I doubt they still have any influence.