1. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
3. BELOVED by Toni Morrison
4. THE GOLDEN ASS by Apuleius
5. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen
6. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Fyodor Dostoevsky
7. THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin
8. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
9. THE DIVINE COMEDY by Dante Alighieri
10. DON QUIXOTE by Miguel de Cervantes
11. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
12. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
13. ULYSSES by James Joyce
14. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
15. 1984 by George Orwell
16. SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
17. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
18. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
19. THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neale Hurston
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
21. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
22. THE JUNGLE by Upton Sinclair
23. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
24. ETHAN FROME by Edith Wharton
25. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
26. THINGS FALL APART by Chinua Achebe
27. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
28. WIDE SARAGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
29. RABBIT, RUN by John Updike
30. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
31. WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy
32. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
33. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
34. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
35. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
36. THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood
37. ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE by Robert Pirsig
38. FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
39. MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather
40. THE CANTERBURY TALES by Geoffrey Chaucer
41. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS by Jonathan Swift
42. MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot
43. GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
44. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
45. CONFESSIONS by St. Augustine
46. PARADISE LOST by John Milton
47. LEAVES OF GRASS by Walt Whitman
48. KIM by Rudyard Kipling
49. FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley
50. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey
51. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
52. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
53. NIGHT by Elie Wiesel
54. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame
55. THE COLOR PURPLE by Alice Walker
56. THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO by Karl Marx
57. A TALE OF TWO CITIES by Charles Dickens
58. BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S by Truman Capote
59. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde
60. THE TURN OF THE SCREW by Henry James
61. THE OUTSIDER by Albert Camus
62. LES MISERABLES by Victor Hugo
63. THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE by Philip K. Dick
64. THE SCARLET LETTER by Nathaniel Hawthorne
65. THE NAME OF THE ROSE by Umberto Eco
66. THE COURAGE TO BE by Paul Tillich
67. MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING by Viktor Frankl
68. THE SOCIAL CONTRACT by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
69. THE PRINCE by Niccolo Machiavelli
70. THE LEVIATHAN by Thomas Hobbes
71. THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK by W.E.B. DuBois
72. A DEATH IN THE FAMILY by James Agee
73. JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte
74. WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte
75. BABBITT by Sinclair Lewis
76. THE CRUCIBLE by Arthur Miller
77. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN by Harriet Beecher Stowe
78. ALICE IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll
79. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE by Tennessee Williams
80. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
81. THE DARK TOWER series by Stephen King
82. HIS DARK MATERIALS by Philip Pulman
83. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkein
84. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
85. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
86. STATE OF FEAR by Michael Crichton
87. HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams
88. SELECTED POETRY OF ADRIENNE RICH
89. FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS by Ernest Hemingway
90. ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy
91. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
92. SONG OF SOLOMON by Toni Morrison
93. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Fyodor Dostoevsky
94. OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck
95. THIS SIDE OF PARADISE by F. Scott Fitzgerald
96. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
97. ORLANDO by Virginia Woolf
98. LILA by Robert Pirsig
99. THE STAND by Stephen King
100. CAT'S CRADLE by Kurt Vonnegut
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
European trip makes editor confront fears
This staff column was originally published in the Tuesday, April 13 issue of The Daily Beacon.
This May I’m venturing across the pond. I’ve planned a whirlwind trip through England, Germany, France and Italy. The purpose of my trip is to do research for my senior thesis, which examines textual and iconographic representations of St. Margaret of Antioch. (Yes, medieval art and literature are fantastic fields of study which warrant trips to amazing, long-dreamed-of locations. Be jealous.)
Certainly this will be an exciting trip, and I am exhilarated at the thought of doing my own primary research and traveling alone through Europe. But I’m also afraid.
In her introduction to the 25th anniversary edition of “The House on Mango Street,” Sandra Cisneros writes about her own young adulthood adventures and her determination to confront her fears. One of Cisneros’ old friends asked her how she dealt with living alone in a Chicago apartment. Her reply came years later in this introduction to the book: “I did it by doing the things I was afraid of doing so that I would no longer be afraid. Moving away to go to graduate school. Traveling abroad alone. Earning my own money and living by myself. Posing as an author when I was afraid.”
Posing, here, seems to be a key word. In order to inhabit the life and the identity that we desire, we must imagine ourselves in that ideal role. Dreaming is more than just envisioning wisps of possibility in your morning coffee, as Carly Simon once sang. Attaining dreams requires not only that one work to overcome external obstacles, but also that one work through the pain and difficulty of vanquishing one’s fears.
I think this erasure of fears also requires an inquiry into the reasons why one is fearful.
So why am I afraid of traveling abroad alone?
Well, there’s the obvious concern about safety — the one emphasized in particular by family members. But this is not really my primary worry. The same precautions apply for staying safe in Paris as do in Knoxville.
Another fairly obvious concern is the language barrier. In most of the places I’m visiting, nearly everyone will likely speak English. And if not, I have my handy-dandy French, Italian and German phrase book to aid me in basic communication. Though I’m sure I’ll butcher the pronunciation for the most part. Even if limited in communication, I’ll be fine in this respect. I’m a fairly independent person and won’t feel the need to talk to others too much.
I think the heart of my fear is the fear of what I might miss while away. Of course, there won’t be too much going on in Knoxville in May — except for three hours-a-day mini-term classes that I won’t be too upset to avoid. I’ll be leaving behind my kitty and my friends, but really it’s only for 20 days. Maybe I’m actually afraid that my world will go on just fine without me. And what does that mean for my significance as an individual?
I’m not sure this exploration has resolved any of my fears. In fact, I feel unsettled thinking that the majority of people’s lives would proceed relatively unchanged without my presence. We all desire to make an impact on the world in some way, even if that impact is only realized by one other being. Confronting fears can lead to a greater awareness of one’s psychology and also to potential areas in which one might find their calling, so to speak.
For Sandra Cisneros, her calling was to write, to express her emotions, emotions to which many readers have since related. By imagining herself to be a writer, Cisneros became one. By facing her fears, she inspired others — me — to do the same.
This May I’m venturing across the pond. I’ve planned a whirlwind trip through England, Germany, France and Italy. The purpose of my trip is to do research for my senior thesis, which examines textual and iconographic representations of St. Margaret of Antioch. (Yes, medieval art and literature are fantastic fields of study which warrant trips to amazing, long-dreamed-of locations. Be jealous.)
Certainly this will be an exciting trip, and I am exhilarated at the thought of doing my own primary research and traveling alone through Europe. But I’m also afraid.
In her introduction to the 25th anniversary edition of “The House on Mango Street,” Sandra Cisneros writes about her own young adulthood adventures and her determination to confront her fears. One of Cisneros’ old friends asked her how she dealt with living alone in a Chicago apartment. Her reply came years later in this introduction to the book: “I did it by doing the things I was afraid of doing so that I would no longer be afraid. Moving away to go to graduate school. Traveling abroad alone. Earning my own money and living by myself. Posing as an author when I was afraid.”
Posing, here, seems to be a key word. In order to inhabit the life and the identity that we desire, we must imagine ourselves in that ideal role. Dreaming is more than just envisioning wisps of possibility in your morning coffee, as Carly Simon once sang. Attaining dreams requires not only that one work to overcome external obstacles, but also that one work through the pain and difficulty of vanquishing one’s fears.
I think this erasure of fears also requires an inquiry into the reasons why one is fearful.
So why am I afraid of traveling abroad alone?
Well, there’s the obvious concern about safety — the one emphasized in particular by family members. But this is not really my primary worry. The same precautions apply for staying safe in Paris as do in Knoxville.
Another fairly obvious concern is the language barrier. In most of the places I’m visiting, nearly everyone will likely speak English. And if not, I have my handy-dandy French, Italian and German phrase book to aid me in basic communication. Though I’m sure I’ll butcher the pronunciation for the most part. Even if limited in communication, I’ll be fine in this respect. I’m a fairly independent person and won’t feel the need to talk to others too much.
I think the heart of my fear is the fear of what I might miss while away. Of course, there won’t be too much going on in Knoxville in May — except for three hours-a-day mini-term classes that I won’t be too upset to avoid. I’ll be leaving behind my kitty and my friends, but really it’s only for 20 days. Maybe I’m actually afraid that my world will go on just fine without me. And what does that mean for my significance as an individual?
I’m not sure this exploration has resolved any of my fears. In fact, I feel unsettled thinking that the majority of people’s lives would proceed relatively unchanged without my presence. We all desire to make an impact on the world in some way, even if that impact is only realized by one other being. Confronting fears can lead to a greater awareness of one’s psychology and also to potential areas in which one might find their calling, so to speak.
For Sandra Cisneros, her calling was to write, to express her emotions, emotions to which many readers have since related. By imagining herself to be a writer, Cisneros became one. By facing her fears, she inspired others — me — to do the same.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Early Morning Clarity
There's something to be said for waking up several hours before the sun rises. The early morning darkness lends clarity to the events of our hectic daily lives. In fact, it's a very hopeful time to be awake: driving through a city blanketed in an almost complete silence gives me hope to imagine this world as a peaceful one.
Apparently there's nothing like exhaustion and early morning travel to spark my desire to write. And actually, I think it may the act of driving that drives me to write. On my way back from Nashville two weeks ago, I got this insatiable need to write. And so I furiously jotted illegible notes on a scrap piece of paper as I headed down Interstate 40. It's as if the creative yen only arises when it's most inconvenient to fulfill that desire.
I've had so much going on this semester that at the beginning of March I was wondering what happened to February. I feel that this same thing is going to happen for me with March.
My most exciting and recent focus has been on my first three academic presentations - all three of which are taking place within the next five days. My first one is tomorrow around noon at the University of St. Francis. This is the first and biggest one, and it makes me nervous, though everyone has been sufficiently reassuring. One professor continually reminded me that "what is important is the argument you present and not your presentation. ... Concentrate on the substance and you will be fine."
Well my flight is about to begin boarding. I'll be in Chicago in a few hours!
While I'm always a bit sad to leave Knoxville, it's good to have a change every so often. By distancing myself from the norm, I will be able to perceive my everyday life - through defamiliarization, as the Russian Formalists would say - in new and insightful ways.
Apparently there's nothing like exhaustion and early morning travel to spark my desire to write. And actually, I think it may the act of driving that drives me to write. On my way back from Nashville two weeks ago, I got this insatiable need to write. And so I furiously jotted illegible notes on a scrap piece of paper as I headed down Interstate 40. It's as if the creative yen only arises when it's most inconvenient to fulfill that desire.
I've had so much going on this semester that at the beginning of March I was wondering what happened to February. I feel that this same thing is going to happen for me with March.
My most exciting and recent focus has been on my first three academic presentations - all three of which are taking place within the next five days. My first one is tomorrow around noon at the University of St. Francis. This is the first and biggest one, and it makes me nervous, though everyone has been sufficiently reassuring. One professor continually reminded me that "what is important is the argument you present and not your presentation. ... Concentrate on the substance and you will be fine."
Well my flight is about to begin boarding. I'll be in Chicago in a few hours!
While I'm always a bit sad to leave Knoxville, it's good to have a change every so often. By distancing myself from the norm, I will be able to perceive my everyday life - through defamiliarization, as the Russian Formalists would say - in new and insightful ways.
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