What are some must-haves?

[Ea]

Great idea. As for myself;

Shakespeare is obvious. Not because I've read any plays - I prefer to see them - but it's nice to be able to look up quotations.
The bible - ditto.
At least one novel by E. M. Forster.
Lord of the Rings. I only own three different paper editions myself
Grimms' Fairytales
Arabian Nights
The odessey
Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum and the Icelandic sagas and perhaps stories from the eddas. These ones probably make most sense in a Scandinavian bookcase

[GA Russell]

Thinking of more recent than the ancient classics, I think that one of the most influential novelists of the twentieth century was Dashiell Hammett, who perfected the hard boiled detective genre. I suppose his influence was primarily in regard to dialogue.

From his works, I would recommend Red Harvest rather than the others which are perhaps more famous because Hollywood chose to make movies out of them. (It can be argued that Red Harvest was the basis of A Fistful of Dollars, which itself was based upon a Japanese samurai movie (Yojimbo?).)

[Ea]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

Thinking of more recent than the ancient classics, I think that one of the most influential novelists of the twentieth century was Dashiell Hammett, who perfected the hard boiled detective genre. I suppose his influence was primarily in regard to dialogue.

With regards to dialogue, I would have thought first of Raymond Chandler, but both would be a good idea. It can't all be ancient or just really old texts

[ziegl027]

I was just at my son's school and was in the library for a few moments. One that I certainly recognize the title of immediately but have never read is Bullfinch's Mythology. Anybody have any commentary on that tome as being good, bad, or indifferent?

[beppe]

It is of great value and it encompasses practically all western mythology from the Greeks Heroes to the chanson de geste.

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by Ea

With regards to dialogue, I would have thought first of Raymond Chandler, but both would be a good idea.

Ea, Hammett was fifteen years before Chandler. But Chandler is a favorite of mine too.

[beppe]

For what concern my list of must-haves:

Odysseus for the ancient times, in Italian as I am not agile with Ancient Greek as with Latin, with whatever translation and commentary there is, as I know it very well inside out. It might be the best story ever written in Western culture. Man struggles against opposing forces, both
natural and supernatural, escapes from the traps set by his enemies and by
his own mind, to return to his beloved. Final show down. Happy ending. Big lessons to learn and meditate. Models to imitate. All passions and all virtues are chanted. Everything. Very realistic.

La divina Commedia by Dante (in Italian, with the commentary of De Santis).

5 works of Shakespeare at choice, why not all, if on e-book same thing for
Moliere. In original.

I jump directly to
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, in Italian as I do not even recognize all the letters in Russian. War and Peace? why not. It's such a masterpiece.

And what happened with Swift, Goethe and Weltliteratur? Everybody has those. Francisco de Quevedo, Lope de Vega, Pedro Calderón de la Barca,Miguel de Cervantes. At home.

And that's it for the 19th century. Tolstoy died in the 20th but wrote those books in the previous one.

Then things become less easy. Me and my friends have read almost everything of the serious Western Literature, up to the 50's. What to keep? I know

The Master and Margarita of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov in Italian. Why should I have read it in an other language. OK, if I would have been stranded in a French mountain hut (or in some wild place in Quebec) for few days and the only book was Le Maître et Marguerite, I would have read it in French. If I put in the list that, I have also to put one of the strongest book I have ever read, that is Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel. In Italian l'Armata a Cavallo. A must. When I looked up wikipedia for the title in English I stumbled on this:
"Argentine author and essayist Jorge Luis Borges once wrote of Red Cavaly,
The music of its style contrasts with the almost ineffable brutality of
certain scenes. One of the stories, -- Salt -- enjoys a glory seemingly
reserved for poems and rarely attained by prose: many people know it by
heart."

I keep Hemingway, and only one if I must travel lightly and that will be the 49 stories.

Then, the fun starts with these that were in fashion when I started to read
good stuff and not only the old stuff that I found at home. These books I had to buy or borrow and then to buy, and loose them and then to buy them again.
La Peste de Albert Camus !
La Cognizione del dolore of Carlo Emilio Gadda. Not only because we studied in the same school (of course I am many decades his junior)!
Italo Calvino. I take him all except the last two of the ancestors trilogy that I find stuffy. But the first one! What a marvel. He was only few decades my senior.

No Moravia (no soul), for the same reason no Eco.

But many English/American writers.

First of all the one I loved first: Rohald Dahl (the adult stuff, all).
Then Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
The French Lieutenant's Woman by J. Fowles

All those wonderful jewish american books distilled in the one and only
Good Bye Columbus by Philip Roth. It is my theory that the only thing that P.Roth knows well is his youth.

Nobody should complain: I chopped Mann, Bohl, Max Frisch, the other Roth,
Joyce, Faulkner, and many others.even my beloved Mordekai Richler. No, this one I keep.

Mordecai Richler St. Urbain's Horseman
Cormac McCarthy. I take the Border trilogy. The road I have not read it yet, just few pages, and I was transfixed. I have a young child and I want to keep my mind on the sunny side.

I want to add, although it is a fake,
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosiński. Comme les Habitant de "La belle province" , je me suviens.

And the last but not least, the great, the unsurpassed, the unique
D. F. Wallace that I am carefully drinking sip by sip as slowly as I can.

Because what he wrote is what we got.

[Kevin2960]

Well I love the old classics, I'm reading through lots of them on my new Reader,

But I also rate childrens litreture,

Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series

CS Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia

Certainly the Narnia books seem cliched now a days with the films and other versions, but still the books are so fantastic, EVERY collection should include them !

Now anyone want to give me first editions of these books ????

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by beppe

It is of great value and it encompasses practically all western mythology from the Greeks Heroes to the chanson de geste.

For Greek mythology in particular, though, I think that Robert Graves' "The Greek Myths" is THE definitive work.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by beppe

And the last but not least, the great, the unsurpassed, the unique
D. F. Wallace that I am carefully drinking sip by sip as slowly as I can.

I have to admit that I've never heard of this author!

[beppe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I have to admit that I've never heard of this author!

Try this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace

And if you want something of value for free, read this beautiful essay, that, being a man of letters, you will appreciate like I did.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

For Greek mythology in particular, though, I think that Robert Graves' "The Greek Myths" is THE definitive work.

Of course, and for the Hebrew Myths:

Hebrew Myths. The book of Genesis by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, 1963.


Harry, if you care to exchange infos and pleasantries about Robert Graves and his contributions, I am all for it.

Beppe

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Ea

Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum and the Icelandic sagas and perhaps stories from the eddas. These ones probably make most sense in a Scandinavian bookcase

Yuppee! That is the book that an Icelander, friend of mine told me years ago!

Please advice. I do not read Dane!

[Elvira]

Marquez.. and Neruda poetry...

one day I'll get to the bottom of my fixation with Latin American Literature

[Ea]

Originally Posted by beppe

Yuppee! That is the book that an Icelander, friend of mine told me years ago!

Please advice. I do not read Dane!

Are you sure it was an Icelander? I'm kidding a little bit, but I would assume an Icelander would talk about their own ancient literature rather than Danish - their feelings toward Denmark are less warm than toward the other Scandinavian countries.

You shouldn't worry about Danish language as Gesta Danorum is written in medieval latin I'm afraid I only know Danish translations - and I don't read Latin. One of the stories is the first known source for the story of Shakespeare's Hamlet; Amled. I don't know any English translations - and given what I've seen of public-domain, English translations of other old Scandinavian texts, such as the Icelandic sagas, I'm not even sure I'd recommend looking for it. The style of those late 19th century texts are a bit over the top, it sounds silly IMO.

Equivalent Icelandic works are Snorre Sturlason's Poetic edda and Prose edda. Some of the same stories are recounted in both - but Saxo's history focus more on Denmark and it's more thoroughly Christianised. There's a curious bit of etymology; Saxo had to explain the old gods in some other way than gods, and since they were called the "Aesir" or "Asa" gods, well, they must obviously have been a powerful family immigrating from Asia