Favourites

Before I start reviewing/suggesting/whatever I decide to do on here-ing poems and novels and other works of lit, I wanted to get a list up of my top ones.

Ode To A Nightingale - John Keats


It wouldn't take much to deduce that this is my favourite poem.  I scribble lines of it all over my school notes, I write it on walls and floors that my family are renovating, I've toyed with getting the end of the first stanza tattooed on my body somewhere, and I've saved my original marked up and highlighted photo copy of it for nearly 5 years.  Keats is my homeboy, and this poem is just one of my favourites of his. Others include: To Sleep, In Drear Nighted December, I Stood Tiptoe Upon a Little Hill and The Eve of St. Agnes.

Salem Falls - Jodi Picoult


Jodi is a tough subject with me.  We all love My Sister's Keeper, and I'm thankful that I read that one first, and that I read Salem Falls third.  I say this because I find that after 3 Picoult reads, most of them are ruined.  Its a good formula, so I don't fault her for re-using it, but her

"Law Enforcement Agent of some sort (ie, a cop), Officer of the Law, (a judge or a lawyer) Romance"

shtick can get a little predictable.  That said, she's been getting better at changing it up in recent novels, and I hear Picture Perfect steps outside of the mold (thanks for the tip Kenj). But to get back on track- Salem Falls is just great.  If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.  If you have the patience, I recommend even higher that you first read Arthur Miller's The Crucible, as Picoult's novel is a brilliant modern day rewrite of it.  If you have Miller's play fresh in your mind the comparisons are incredible.  They blew my mind anyways, but maybe thats because I'm a huge nerd.

Bleak House - Charles Dickens

This novel, I assure you, is not a favourite-favourite, but it is my favourite Victorian novel.  Even that statement may make some people cringe though, because this is a honker of a book.  It was the first one I read in my "Heavyweights" class, and the course title did not lie.  That said, once you get past its sheer volume, its a really sweet read.  My favourite part of it hands down is the Dicken's standard of silly characters.  Think, The Aged Parent if you've read Great Expectations.  He has so many goofy individuals that just make you laugh out loud, which is impressive, seeing as the book was written in the 1850s.

Lennox Avenue - Midnight - Langston Hughes


Since this is a bit less known poem - you can find it here.  In 3rd year I wrote a final term paper about the interaction between Harlem Renaissance poetry and the emergence of BeBop in the jazz scene.  It was probably the most fun I ever had writing a paper.  I didn't use this specific poem, but I wrote on a lot of Hughes' other poetry, and came across this one and fell in love.

The Penelopiad - Margaret Atwood


If I had to nail down one specific novel as my fave, this would probably be it.  I'm also a fan of its inspiration, Homer's The Odyssey.  In her novel (or maybe novella? Its pretty short), Atwood takes Homer's story and rewrites it from Odysseus' wife Penelope's point of view.  Its clever, sharp and smart.  I also love that before I had read her novel, Atwood and I had similar ideas: check out my song Penelope.

Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie


This was one of the novels I read for my Major's Seminar this year.  To be technically precise, its a historiographic metafiction (oooo fancy Lit words!), which basically means its a work of fiction that incorporates historical, non-fiction elements. Adichie's novel is about a small group of family/friends and their experience during the Nigerian-Biafra, or Nigerian Civil War.  The main characters are 2 sisters, their respective partners, and a young house boy.  It had multiple narrators, and Adichie really challenges her reader's expectation in pretty exciting ways. Also, it just brings to light a fairly horrific war that nobody really knows about, or cared about at the time.

Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie


It didn't win the Booker of Booker's for nothing.  This novel is seriously incredible.  Thinking about the brain power it took to write the thing makes MY brain hurt.  It's a multi-generational tale that takes place in India and has some wicked Magic Realist elements.  It also has some fabulous imagery, which I am always a sucker for.  Saffron and Green my friends, saffron and green.

At the risk of this list reaching unreadable lengths, I'll leave it at that for now.