because it's impossible to be completely honest
under the pressure of peers' sneers
in rejecting consensus classics
and admitting guilty pleasures
but i invented a countertechnique
for sorting favorites
where you imagine that any pair of authors
have each released a new work
touted as comparable to your favorite
among their earlier works
which would you try first?
by this test
escapist pleasures bubble up
while remorse-lit plummets
but i wouldn't call this a canon
just a reading list
for a ranked canon
you need to believe your omissions are justified
and you need to ask which of the two
candidate authors
you'd recommend others read first
assuming they're eager to
know
confront
have their eyelids pried open
weighing payoff vs effort
(the remarkable range of overlaps with bloom
are marked "(bloom)"
while effective escapism
ie payoff much greater than effort
is graded "(escape+++)"
the year i discovered each work
is also now noted "(2006)"
and known etexts are linked)
- israel shahak (1999) [fan]
"jewish history, jewish religion" [etext]
and "jewish fundamentalism in israel" [etext]
if these accurately reflect the hebrew press
the gentile world is
perishing of gullibility - william blake (bloom, 1974)
start here
[full etext] - wallace stevens (bloom, 1970)
just 23 short poems [links] - "zen flesh, zen bones" (1970)
- barbara o'brien's "operators & things" (escape, 1981)
- pynchon's "crying of lot 49" (bloom, escape, 1974) [etext]
- robert stone's "dog soldiers" (bloom, escape+, 1974) [fan]
- krishnamurti (1972) [fan]
the "commentaries on living" especially - "laws of form" by g. spencer brown (1974) [fan]
- ulysses, finnegans wake, ellmann, annotations (bloom, 1968)
browse first, then lean on my pages - roget's thesaurus (1965)
- gravity's rainbow (bloom, 1974)
- iris murdoch "a word child" (escape+, 1977) [fan]
- nabokov's "strong opinions" (1974) [fan] [etexts]
- robert stone's "a flag for sunrise" (bloom, escape, 1993) [fan]
- nabokov's "lolita" (bloom, 1974) [etext]
- iris murdoch "the black prince" (escape+, 1977) [fan]
- early 'peanuts' by charles schulz (escape++, 1959)
- walker percy's "love in the ruins" (escape, 1974)
- mortimer adler's syntopicon (1986)
- mcelroy's "ancient history" (1976) [fan]
- le carre's karla trilogy (escape++, 1979) [fan]
- ralph pape "say goodnight, gracie" (play) (1982)
- renata adler 'speedboat' (1976)
- nabokov's "pale fire" (bloom, 1974)
- dawkins' "selfish gene" (1976)
- polti's "36 dramatic situations" (1986) [outline]
- harold brodkey's "stories in an almost classical mode" (bloom, 1988) [fan]
- blanche mccrary boyd's collected fiction (escape, 1977) [fan]
- patrick o'brian's aubrey-maturin series (escape++, 2000)
- kingsley amis "lucky jim" (escape+, 1977)
- christopher cerf's "world's largest cheese" (1969)
- feynman's QED (1985)
- le carre's "looking glass war" (escape, 1976)
- pynchon's "against the day" (2006)
- graham greene's "the comedians" (escape, 2005)
- joseph heller "catch-22" (escape++, 1967) [page images]
- bill james's harpur and iles series (escape+, 2004)
- cf hockett "man's place in nature" (1976)
- gribbin's "schrodinger's kittens" (2004)
- jl austin (1975)
- robert anton wilson's historical illuminatus trilogy (escape+, 1991)
- pirsig's "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" (1975)
- jim harrison's "sundog" (escape+, 2004)
- lynda j barry's comics (1983) [recent]
- "the ape within us" by frans de waal (2007)
- joyce's "stephen hero" (2001) [annotated etext]
- peter bowen's gabriel du pre series (2004)
- dickey's "deliverance" (escape+, 1971)
- stone's "children of light" (1986)
- martin amis "other people" (1990)
- murdoch's "the sea, the sea" (escape+, 1978)
- tom wolfe's "bonfire of the vanities" and "a man in full" (escape+, 1987/1998) [fan]
- castaneda's "teachings of don juan" and "separate reality" (1971)
- robertson davies's "deptford trilogy" (bloom, escape+, 1977)
- jeff dorchen "ugly's first world" (play) (1991)
- peter dickinson "tulku" (&ccccc) (escape++, 1979) [fan]
- stone's "outerbridge reach" (escape, 1992)
- melville's "moby dick" (bloom, 1982) [etexts]
- tolstoy's "anna karenin" (bloom, 1975) [etexts]
- colin wilson's early fiction (escape+, 1988)
- william wharton "dad" (&c) (escape, 1982) [fan]
- philip pullman's "his dark materials" trilogy (escape+, 2002) [fan]
- tolstoy's war and peace (bloom, 1975)
- robert bly "little book of the human shadow" (1990)
- finkelstein's "bible unearthed" (2001)
- doctorow's "ragtime" (escape++, 1975)
- graham greene "a burnt-out case" (1985)
- martin amis "london fields" (&c) (escape, 1989)
- jd salinger's works (bloom, 1968) [etexts]
- walker percy "the moviegoer" (bloom, escape+, 1974)
- kingsley amis "stanley and the women" (escape, 2007)
- "the 100th boyfriend" by daly and skeels [Az] (1992)
- peter redgrove's "black goddess and the unseen real" (1989)
- fink "social philosophy" (2006)
- gospel of thomas (2001) [etexts]
- le carre "a perfect spy" (&c) (escape+, 1999)
- grass's "tin drum" (bloom, escape, 1967)
- michael gruber/ robert k tanenbaum's karp-ciampi series (&c) (escape++, 2004) [fan]
- thomas harris "red dragon" (escape++, 2007)
- colin harrison "afterburn" (escape+, 2007)
- carl hiaasen's "stormy weather" (escape+++, 2006)
- ruth rendell's "a judgment in stone" (&c) (escape+, 2007)
- murdoch's "nuns and soldiers" (&ccc) (escape, 1980)
- flaubert's mrs bovary (bloom, 1988)
- grif stockley's fiction (escape, 2006)
- jeffery deaver's fiction (escape+++, 1998)
- stone's "damascus gate" (1998)
- mcelroy's "lookout cartridge" (1975)
- ward just's fiction [fan]
- pinter's "homecoming" (bloom, 1973)
- conrad's "nostromo" (bloom, 2004) [etext]
- gibson's "pattern recognition" (escape+, 2003)
- thomas mcguane's fiction (escape+)
- graves' "white goddess" (1981)
- minette walters' "acid row" (escape+, 2004)
- joseph wambaugh "golden orange" and "black marble" (escape, 2007)
- michael connelly "the closers" (&ccc) (escape++, 2006)
- scott turow's fiction (escape)
- julian jaynes "origin of consciousness" (1977)
- nicholson baker "the mezzanine" (escape, 2004)
- dan brown "da vinci code", "angels and demons" (escape+++, 2004)
- elmore leonard "stick" (&ccc) (escape+++)
- thomas perry's jane whitehead series (escape++)
- george v higgins's fiction
- vance bourjaily's "now playing at canterbury" (&c) (1977)
- patricia highsmith's "a suspension of mercy" (&c) (2006)
- brodkey "first love and other stories" (1988)
- greg iles's fiction (escape+, 2007)
- berger's "little big man" (&c) (escape+)
- franzen's "the corrections" (2002)
- eric ambler's "the levanter" (&c) (escape+, 2006)
- james purdy's fiction
- maupin's "tales of the city" series (escape+, 1994)
- joyce maynard's fiction (escape+)
- mary mccarthy's fiction
- madison smartt bell's fiction
- wright morris's fiction (bloom)
- barbara pym's fiction
- graves "i, claudius"
- vonnegut (bloom, escape+, 1968)
- Skinner's "Walden Two"
- Tufte's "Envisioning Information"
- Alexander's "A Pattern Language"
- EO Wilson's "Sociobiology"
- Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"
- Stephen Gaskin's talks and sermons
- Joni Mitchell's lyrics
- Wade's "Before the Dawn"
- Dawkins' "Ancestors' Tale"
- Penrose's "Emperor's New Mind"
- Sinuhe
- Amarna letters
- Kleist essay
- lynn kostoff "a choice of nightmares"
