Top Five Novelists

[unforth]

Comment with the words "Top Ten" or "Top Five", and I will reply with a subject for which you will generate a top ten (or top five) list. Post the list and instructions in your own journal.


From arcana_mundi; I've put it off because this one is actually kinda hard for me, cause I don't read many novels. So these are my favorites. Which means I have to have read at least one of their books. :)

(In no particular order)

1. Arthur Conan Doyle. How can you wrong with Sherlock Holmes? You can't, that's how.

2. Oscar Wilde. Dorian Gray = one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read.

3. Junichiro Tanizaki. In Praise of Shadows = one of the other most beautifully written books I've ever read. :)

4. Patrick O'Brian. Anyone who can make me read through chapter after chapter about the detailed changing of tack and make it interesting deserves major credit.

5. Patricia C. Wrede. She's not a great novelist. But her books changed my life, so there it is. :)

If this seems like an incredibly strange list...it is. This is because I am actually surprisingly poorly read. I've hardly read any classics at all, and many of the books that are my favorites are in no way what I'd consider the work of excellent novelists. :) So oh well, it is what it is. I'd think of a better 5th, but I really don't have any more time to spend on this.

Comments

[unforth.livejournal.com]

Oh noes! I don't think we covered that part. But we might have. See, attendance wasn't mandatory for that class and I was freshman. I basically never went to that class. ;)

[nekomata.livejournal.com]

Basically he didn't want to practice what he preached. ^,^

[unforth.livejournal.com]

Hm...well, I don't know if I fully agree with that. In Praise of Shadows is an interesting book in that regard - I found it self-mocking in a lot of ways. Like, I didn't read it to mean that he really thought Japan aughta be that way; in some ways, I almost read it to mean the opposite. It makes a beautiful lament...but that's just what it is, a lament, not a request for things to go back to how they were, just regret for what is lost...maybe that's just me though.