What’s on your Five Foot Shelf?

cosmos-carl sagan
the jungle-upton sinclair
100 years of solitude-gabriel garcia marquez
the alchemist-paolo coelho
demian-hermann hesse
inside the third reich-albert speer
people’s history of the united states-howard zinn
thinking architecture-peter zumthor
the little prince- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
silent spring-rachel carson
the selfish gene-richard dawkins
brief history of time-stephen hawking
metamorphosis-franz kafka
essential writings-thich nhat hanh
the fountainhead-ayn rand

Guns, Germs and Steel – Jared Diamond

The Power of Myth – Joseph Campbell

The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison

Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman

The Road – Cormac McCarthy

Art Forms in Nature – Ernst Haeckel

Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut

An American Childhood – Annie Dillard

Animal Farm – George Orwell

A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter Miller, set in the world between the nuclear holocausts; 1950′s sci fi; poetically written; challenge to conventional theology; prescient and relevant to today’s world.

100 Years of Solitude. It’s one of the few books you can actually pull off the shelf – be it five feet or not – open to any page, read a single paragraph, and be completely satisfied. From the opening sentence (arguably the best) to the final punctuation mark, it’s the most wonderful (and yes, magical) journey ever.

I’d also include John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. For most people, it’s either laugh out loud funny or flat out repugnant. If you’re from New Orleans though, it’s basically a sacred text.

1. The Satanic Verses- Salman Rushdie
2. Slaughterhouse 5- Kurt Vonnagut
3. If You are Engulfed in Flames- David Sedaris
4. Heart of Darkness- Joseph Conrad
5. Istanbul- Orhan Pamuk
6. The Stone Diaries- Carol Shields
7. The Invention of Solitude- Paul Auster
8. Dreams of my Father- Barack Obama
9. How to Win Friends and Influence People-
Dale Carnagie
10. Straight Man- Richard Russo

My shelf would include:
The Masks of God, the four volume set by Joseph Campbell.

The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

I’m wondering how “Catcher in the Rye” by Salinger hasn’t been mentioned. I guess there are just that many books that deserve consideration. Many good ones have already been listed, but I’ve got to put that one up there.

Interesting that “Slaughterhouse” is a frequent mention above. A longtime fan of Vonnegut, when I recently reread “Slaughterhouse” I found it prepatory rather than astounding. His later books are as good or better — especially his last major work, “TimeQuake”.

“A Clockwork Orange”, recently read for the first time, is an amazing accomplishment.

“Messiah” by Gore Vidal should be a must-read.

Some poetry: “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg, “Patterson” by William Carlos Williams, “The Changing Light at Sandover” by James Merrill, some Gertrude Stein (“How to Write” is a favorite of mine), “State of Exile” by Cristina Peri Rossi.

Yann Martel’s “The Life of Pi”?

Genet, “Miracle of the Rose”?

Sartre’s “Nausea”?

Tom Robbins’ “Skinny Legs and All” or “Jitterbug Perfume”?

The joys of reading are infinite.

I re-interpreted Dr. Eliot’s question as; If you only had one five foot book shelf you would put the books most important to your life on it, those books which most impacted your life.
1. Cinderella – The copy my mother read to me and I read to my daughter
2. My Grandmother’s Bible which she never read because knew the meaning of love and compassion.
3. Websters New Collegiate Dictionary which I purchase 35 years ago as a college student.
4. The Stranger by Albert Camus which peaked my interest in literature when I read it in high school.
5. Walden Pond by Thoreau – “There are as many ways as there are radii in a circle.”
6. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman which I will never stop reading.
7. The Road Less Traveled by M. Scot Peck – “Life is difficult”. “Love is not a feeling”
8. The Myth of Sisyphus – We must imagine Sisyphus happy.
9. Candide by Voltaire – “We must go work in the garden.”
10. Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons – I will never go hungry.
11. The Encyclopedia of Gardening – I’m a horticulturalist.
12. Love by Leo Buscaglia – I learned the meaning of love too late in life.
13. Dictionary for Dreamers by Tom Chetwynd – The language of dreams should be listened to.
14. The Soul is Here for its Own Joy – A Collection of sacred poems edited by Robert Bly – Robert Bly’s life-long dedication to poetry has helped make me the person I am which as Hafez would say “…is not all that great.”
15. The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell -” All religions are true, they are true as metaphorical of the human and cosmic experience.”
16. The Tao Te Ching by Lao Zsu – “The tao that can be told is not the eternal tao.”
17. The Narrow Road to the Interior by Matsuo Basho – I am a haiku poet. “For every atom that belongs to me as good belongs to you is seventeen syllables.
18. The Dhammapada – The teachings of Buddha – “… hate is conquered by love. This is a law eternal”
19. The Secret Teachings of Jesus – The Gospel of Thomas – ” The kingdom of the father will not come by expectation, behold here and behold there. The kingdom of the father is spread upon the earth and men do not see it.”
20. The Essential Rumi – “…keep walking though there is no place to get to…”.
21. Zen Essence edited by Thomas Cleary – Zen is the “…psychology of liberation.
To personalize Dr. Eliot’s question
may prompt a more meaningful answer.

Although I have not read all of the comments above carefully, I would suggest that, in looking at revolutionary books that build and expand upon the original Harvard Classics, I would add:

James Joyce, Ulysses
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
T. S. Eliot, Collected Poems
Toni Morrison, Beloved
Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

I didn’t see any mention of any of Philip Roth’s books (American Pastoral, etc.) or Don De Lillo’s White Noise.

I have listened to commentary on the radio about this list and now read the comments here, and I can still not understand how the most influential book of all time is not mentioned:
The Bible
It is the most sold, most read, and most influential book no matter what your religious believes might be.

We’re talking about the last 100 years! Tough list to crack, when you’re up against the immortals. Perhaps the shelf should be six feet long, or, as another writer commented, make allowance for CDs. To the ranks of must-reads to be well-educated, I’ll nominate four: Ulysses, by James Joyce (if there is one epoch-changing piece of literature from the early 20th century, this is it); in the same vein, Waiting For Godot, by Samuel Beckett; Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, not because of literary value, but because it was a founding document of environmentalism; and one of the great works of late 20th century literature, Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon. If there is a late 20th century bookend to the early 20th Ulysses, this is it.
OK, one more, sort of toungue in cheek. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance, by Robert Pirsig. Doesn’t really qualify, but I’m damn sure it registers with your readers.

Two lay-scientific books that, each in its own way, blows my mind open each time I pull it down to reread a section:

Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene
Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin