exlibrislarsen

I stumbled across an interesting bit of information this week while trolling on the interwebs. While convalescing in a North Carolina hotel room in 1936, author F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of THE GREAT GATSBY, had his nurse write down a list of 22 “essential” books he thought everyone should read, and here is that list, presented in the nurse’s handwriting:

Here it is in much easier to read typeface (with links to where you can read or buy):

• SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
• THE LIFE OF JESUS by Ernest Renan
• A DOLL’S HOUSE by Henrik Ibsen
• WINESBURG, OHIO, by Sherwood Anderson
• THE OLD WIVES TALE by Arnold Bennett
• THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiel Hammett
• THE RED AND THE BLACK by Stendahl
• THE SHORT STORIES OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT translated by Michael Monahan
• AN OUTLINE OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY edited by Gardner Murphy
• THE STORIES OF ANTON CHEKHOV edited by Robert N. Linscott
• THE BEST AMERICAN HUMOROUS SHORT STORIES edited by Alexander Jessup
• VICTORY by Joseph Conrad
• THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS by Anatole France
• THE PLAYS OF OSCAR WILDE
• SANCTUARY by William Faulkner
• WITHIN A BUDDING GROVE by Marcel Proust
• THE GUERMANTES WAY by Marcel Proust
• SWANN’S WAY by Marcel Proust
• SOUTH WIND by Norman Douglas
• THE GARDEN PARTY by Katherine Mansfield
• WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy
• John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley: Complete Poetical Works

Even for someone as purportedly great an authority as F. Scott Fitzgerald, these lists are more often than not simply a look into the tastes and experiences of their maker. The above is no more a list of books you “simply must” read than my own:

• FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
• THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
• ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST by Ken Kesey
• THE STAND by Stephen King
• THE SEA WOLF by Jack London
• A SPELL FOR CHAMELEON by Piers Anthony
• THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE by Edgar Allan Poe
• SILENCE OF THE LAMBS by Thomas Harris
• BEOWULF by unknown
• TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
• DRACULA by Bram Stoker
• CANNERY ROW by John Steinbeck
• THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• JAWS by Peter Benchley
• THE GODFATHER by Mario Puzo
• THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA by Ernest Hemingway
• I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson
• HAWAII by James Michener
• THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS by C.S. Lewis
• THE COLLECTED WORKS OF AMBROSE BIERCE by Ambrose Bierce
• THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells.
• THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald

And now, looking back on my own list (which would look differently if you asked me again in a month), I realize that I almost exclusively read books by old white men (thank goodness for Harper Lee!). So this exercise wasn’t as fruitless as I thought at first that it might be. I found out that I suck.

This entry was posted on August 2, 2013 at 8:46 am and is filed under Observations & Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.