Book List from GQ

The editors of GQ made a splash by telling people the Bible is not worth reading.  Of course this gave them free publicity.  Hearing atheists say the Bible is not worth reading is trite, but I looked to see what else they had to say.  The article is 21 Books You Don’t Have to Read by the Editors of GQ, April 19, 2018.  https://www.gq.com/story/21-books-you-dont-have-to-read/amp

I've listed them below, and I offer a few comments now.  I think few people would say number 17, Life by Keith Richards is on their "must read" list.

Here is my story about number 19, Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.  I spent  some time reading it in college.  When I put it aside as a waste of time, one of my class mates asked my how the book ended.  He told me he loved the book, but got lost in it, and would start reading at the beginning  again.  I think you must love confusion to love  Gravity's Rainbow.  What the GQ list did for me was prod me to look over the list of Pynchon's books, investigate them, and decide not one of them looked like a promising read.

Thinking about number 11, The Ambassadors by Henry James had me review his works as well.  I think Portrait of a Lady is a fine book as an example of how a lady can lead herself astray, marry the wrong man, and live a miserable life.  That is also my recollection of Middlemarch by George Eliot.  This is a lesson everyone should read rather than experience.  But the rest of Henry James' work is unappealing, so I am finished with him

Finally, I will mention that I have ordered a copy of number 21, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift and a copy of number 15, Dracula by Bram Stoker.  I do not think they are passé.  I did try one of the editors suggestions:  A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.  I found her writing uninspiring in the past, but I will give her another try.  Here is an example of well written science fiction:  Manifold: Space by Stephen Baxter.  Fantasy fiction is a step down from SciFi, in my opinion.  Manifold Space has Sheena 5, an intelligent squid, as a character.  I think Sheena 5 is a hoot. I also liked Manifold: Time by Stephen Baxter.  Skip, however, the 3rd book in the sequence: Manifold: Origin.  It is a loser.

I am keeping my comments minimal, so I am stopping now.

Here is the QG list, with their alternative suggestions

1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Instead: The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford

2. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Instead: Olivia: A Novel by Dorothy Strachey

3. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
Instead: Dispatches by Michael Herr

4. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Instead: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

5. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Instead: Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector

6. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Instead: The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard

7. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Instead: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

8. John Adams by David McCullough
Instead: Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard

9 & 10. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Instead: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Fredrick Douglass
Instead: The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Alvaro Mutis

11. The Ambassadors by Henry James
Instead: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer

12. The Bible
Instead: The Notebook by Agota Kristof

13. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
Instead: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

14. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
Instead: Earthsea Series by Ursula K. Le Guin

15. Dracula by Bram Stoker
Instead: Angels by Denis Johnson

16. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Instead: The American Granddaughter by Inaam Kachachi

17. Life by Keith Richards
Instead: The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard

18. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Instead: Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal

19. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Instead: Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

20. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Instead: Veronica by Mary Gaitskill

21. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Instead: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne