Sippi Lovin'

Your brother says: Jude, a couple years ago, you asked me to write a list of my top ten favorite books of all time. Actually, I am just now recalling that it might have been my top fifteen or twenty, but that's not the point. The point is: you wanted to have a few of your closest allies and most trusted advisors (among which I presumptuously count myself) write such lists for you, so that they might act as guides for your reading. At least I think that's what you wanted them for; either that, or you were just curious.

Anyway, much time has passed. You have returned to school, and you most likely no longer have time for pleasure reading. Nonetheless, I now present you with the list you asked for two years ago. Now don't get all excited: I haven't been working on it for two years. I just sat down tonight and jotted it off in ten or so minutes, as an earlier phone conversation had stirred up the desire to comtemplate such things. I am posting my list here, both as a fulfillment of your request, and as a sort of formal declaration of my taste in books and literature on the date of November 22, 2004, at 10:31 PM. This list, were I to look over it again tomorrow (or even in a half-hour), would likely change dramatically. But here it is for now, in no particular order:

1. Joseph Heller, Catch-22
2. John Edgar Wideman, Philadephia Fire
3. Tim Winton, Night Riders
4. O.E. Rolvaag, Giants in the Earth
5. Upton Sinclair, The Jungle
6. Henry David Thoreau, Walden
7. Jack Kerouac, On the Road
8. Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life
9. J.F. Powers, The Stories of J.F. Powers
10. Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

What do you think, big brother?

-Per Hansa