Matt Bowyer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mattbowyer) wrote2017-07-19 10:05 am
mattbowyer) wrote2017-07-19 10:05 am
As the Best Suikodener, everything I say here is legally binding
And now, THE BEST BOOKS. These are the best books that have ever existed. You can put them in a museum! These are the five best books (that I have read [and liked {at the time of this post (based on my wholly personal and oft-unreasonable standards)}]).
With no further ado, THE BEST
The fifth best book of all time is The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! I didn't read any Sherlock Holmes until I was like 27 years old. My wife has long adored them, and we have two huge paperback volumes from Barnes & Noble. I took them to work with me when I had to spend an extra hour a day in the office since we had one car. I read Baskervilles in the winter, stretched out on the floor of my office with just a weak lamp for light, well before the sun rose. I finished it at Wendy's, empty chicken nugget containers and a Frosty on the tray in front of me, headphones in to blur the sound of the world around me. I don't know why that memory is so strong, but it is!
Baskervilles is the fifth best book of all time, and the best Sherlock Holmes story, in that it excels in playing with the formula. It's got everything you could want! Watson on his own! Sherlock explaining his thoughts and reasoning! Tension and terror! Reveling in the building atmosphere! Misdirection! Watson being competent! It hits every high point you expect in a Sherlock Holmes story, and then the ones you wish would happen but you'd never hope would happen. It's THE (fifth) BEST
The fourth best book of all time is The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn oh god Matt what are you doing are you saying that a science fiction story about a mysterious spaceship and the people who want it and the people who are flying it is better than a guy with Sir in front of his name well maybe I am don't @ me I don't think @ even works on Dreamwidth anyway. I first read Icarus on an airplane sitting on a Chicago runway, weather trapping me on the ground instead of speeding me back to Washington DC, and instead of listening to a radio station playing nothing but Sheryl Crow or watching Monsters, Inc for the second time (that day [on that plane]), I instead read a rollicking ride about a mysterious ship, a crew brought together from so many walks of life you'd think they were hired at a tavern by a man looking for fearless adventurers (AND THEY WERE), impossible odds, space ferrets, and a slow-burn reveal that had me grinning ear to ear when it happened. I've enjoyed a lot of Timothy Zahn in my day, both his militaristic science fiction like The Conquerors and his detective Quadrail series (which had five books, not four, it's called the QUADrail series man what are you doing), but The Icarus Hunt is my favorite and I would love to write something like it one day. It's THE (fourth) BEST
The third best book of all time is Jingo by Sir Terry Pratchett, which is part of his long-running Discworld series, of which I have read all but his last book, because something about reading Sir Terry Pratchett's last book makes me impossibly sad. But Jingo is SO GOOD. Jingo tells the story of an island that rises up from the waves unexpectedly, and the countries that decide that they most desperately need to own this, the dangers of unchecked patriotism for literally no common-personal gain, and why you shouldn't reduce the foreign down to only the exotic. As all of the Discworld books, the writing is witty, the pace is perfect, and the characters are extraordinary. I have always marveled at how Pratchett excels at writing instantly memorable characters who are not stereotypes but are just as easily-understood as if they were. Like -- you don't have to spend more than two pages with Cheery Littlebottom to 'get' Cheery Littlebottom, and it's not because she's what you expect, you know? And since Jingo is a Watch novel, it has THE BEST (read: my personal favorite) characters in it. Vimes! The Patrician! Nobby! Detritus! Angua! Vimes again! It's THE (third) BEST
The second best book of all time is A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle, and yes, I am incredibly excited about Ava DuVernay's coming adaptation. And here's the thing about that -- I remember basically the intro to A Wrinkle In Time clearly, and everything else is back in this dreamlike haze. If you were to ask me what happens to Meg and Charles Wallace, I couldn't. If you were to ask me to say ANYTHING that happens in the back of that book, I couldn't. I have not read it since at least high school, maybe longer. But this book has such a powerful hold over me. It has carved out a place for itself inside of my soul, right next to the part of me that falls into a trance when I hear the Cure's "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea," next to the part of my memory that twinges when I hear Arturo Sandoval's "I Remember Clifford" and I'm sitting on the back seat of a school bus after a marching band performance, my friend Derrick quietly playing his trumpet next to me, my eyes fixed on the stars through a half-open window, and part of me still lives inside that perfect moment. A Wrinkle In Time is there. I can still see the library in my elementary school, when I was in fourth grade and I wanted something to read, with my terrible hair and my too-thick glasses and my complete lack of bravery due to each friend I had moving away year after year and my own cowardly nature. I took this book off the shelf and decided to read it. I sat down at a table, unfolded the little paperback, and started reading, and it is there that my terrestrial memory ends because after hearing the word tesseract, I left Earth and resided entirely within the book, drinking it in, absorbing it, and living it. I may not remember it, but I don't have to remember the details to feel where it is inside me. It might actually be THE BEST. I don't know. Maybe there are two ones.
The best book of all time is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. My wife dropped this book on my lap the day she finished reading it and said "You have to read this. I'm not telling you anything about it. Just read it." And I did. It's a book about magic, about love, and about people. It's about the lift in your heart when the strings start to play. It's about the first rays of light breaking over the hilly fields on a brisk autumn morning. It's about the smell of paper in a used bookstore. It's about a stolen kiss in the middle of a crowded hall. It's about the pounding of your blood when the forest of bows sways in the orchestra. It's about magic, and that goes beyond wizards and warlocks, that goes beyond a circus of the imagination. It's that spark of life that makes it life. I sat at my desk in my office reading it after work one day, my heart in my throat and my lip between my teeth, and when I finished it, when I read that final line that wrapped everything up so perfectly, when I wiped the tears out of the corner of my eye, I stared off into the middle distance with a smile on my face and I half-expected credits to roll on my LIFE. It is a book about magic. I love it so, so much. It is the best.
Books that are also the best but not THE BEST:
With no further ado, THE BEST
The fifth best book of all time is The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! I didn't read any Sherlock Holmes until I was like 27 years old. My wife has long adored them, and we have two huge paperback volumes from Barnes & Noble. I took them to work with me when I had to spend an extra hour a day in the office since we had one car. I read Baskervilles in the winter, stretched out on the floor of my office with just a weak lamp for light, well before the sun rose. I finished it at Wendy's, empty chicken nugget containers and a Frosty on the tray in front of me, headphones in to blur the sound of the world around me. I don't know why that memory is so strong, but it is!
Baskervilles is the fifth best book of all time, and the best Sherlock Holmes story, in that it excels in playing with the formula. It's got everything you could want! Watson on his own! Sherlock explaining his thoughts and reasoning! Tension and terror! Reveling in the building atmosphere! Misdirection! Watson being competent! It hits every high point you expect in a Sherlock Holmes story, and then the ones you wish would happen but you'd never hope would happen. It's THE (fifth) BEST
The fourth best book of all time is The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn oh god Matt what are you doing are you saying that a science fiction story about a mysterious spaceship and the people who want it and the people who are flying it is better than a guy with Sir in front of his name well maybe I am don't @ me I don't think @ even works on Dreamwidth anyway. I first read Icarus on an airplane sitting on a Chicago runway, weather trapping me on the ground instead of speeding me back to Washington DC, and instead of listening to a radio station playing nothing but Sheryl Crow or watching Monsters, Inc for the second time (that day [on that plane]), I instead read a rollicking ride about a mysterious ship, a crew brought together from so many walks of life you'd think they were hired at a tavern by a man looking for fearless adventurers (AND THEY WERE), impossible odds, space ferrets, and a slow-burn reveal that had me grinning ear to ear when it happened. I've enjoyed a lot of Timothy Zahn in my day, both his militaristic science fiction like The Conquerors and his detective Quadrail series (which had five books, not four, it's called the QUADrail series man what are you doing), but The Icarus Hunt is my favorite and I would love to write something like it one day. It's THE (fourth) BEST
The third best book of all time is Jingo by Sir Terry Pratchett, which is part of his long-running Discworld series, of which I have read all but his last book, because something about reading Sir Terry Pratchett's last book makes me impossibly sad. But Jingo is SO GOOD. Jingo tells the story of an island that rises up from the waves unexpectedly, and the countries that decide that they most desperately need to own this, the dangers of unchecked patriotism for literally no common-personal gain, and why you shouldn't reduce the foreign down to only the exotic. As all of the Discworld books, the writing is witty, the pace is perfect, and the characters are extraordinary. I have always marveled at how Pratchett excels at writing instantly memorable characters who are not stereotypes but are just as easily-understood as if they were. Like -- you don't have to spend more than two pages with Cheery Littlebottom to 'get' Cheery Littlebottom, and it's not because she's what you expect, you know? And since Jingo is a Watch novel, it has THE BEST (read: my personal favorite) characters in it. Vimes! The Patrician! Nobby! Detritus! Angua! Vimes again! It's THE (third) BEST
The second best book of all time is A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle, and yes, I am incredibly excited about Ava DuVernay's coming adaptation. And here's the thing about that -- I remember basically the intro to A Wrinkle In Time clearly, and everything else is back in this dreamlike haze. If you were to ask me what happens to Meg and Charles Wallace, I couldn't. If you were to ask me to say ANYTHING that happens in the back of that book, I couldn't. I have not read it since at least high school, maybe longer. But this book has such a powerful hold over me. It has carved out a place for itself inside of my soul, right next to the part of me that falls into a trance when I hear the Cure's "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea," next to the part of my memory that twinges when I hear Arturo Sandoval's "I Remember Clifford" and I'm sitting on the back seat of a school bus after a marching band performance, my friend Derrick quietly playing his trumpet next to me, my eyes fixed on the stars through a half-open window, and part of me still lives inside that perfect moment. A Wrinkle In Time is there. I can still see the library in my elementary school, when I was in fourth grade and I wanted something to read, with my terrible hair and my too-thick glasses and my complete lack of bravery due to each friend I had moving away year after year and my own cowardly nature. I took this book off the shelf and decided to read it. I sat down at a table, unfolded the little paperback, and started reading, and it is there that my terrestrial memory ends because after hearing the word tesseract, I left Earth and resided entirely within the book, drinking it in, absorbing it, and living it. I may not remember it, but I don't have to remember the details to feel where it is inside me. It might actually be THE BEST. I don't know. Maybe there are two ones.
The best book of all time is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. My wife dropped this book on my lap the day she finished reading it and said "You have to read this. I'm not telling you anything about it. Just read it." And I did. It's a book about magic, about love, and about people. It's about the lift in your heart when the strings start to play. It's about the first rays of light breaking over the hilly fields on a brisk autumn morning. It's about the smell of paper in a used bookstore. It's about a stolen kiss in the middle of a crowded hall. It's about the pounding of your blood when the forest of bows sways in the orchestra. It's about magic, and that goes beyond wizards and warlocks, that goes beyond a circus of the imagination. It's that spark of life that makes it life. I sat at my desk in my office reading it after work one day, my heart in my throat and my lip between my teeth, and when I finished it, when I read that final line that wrapped everything up so perfectly, when I wiped the tears out of the corner of my eye, I stared off into the middle distance with a smile on my face and I half-expected credits to roll on my LIFE. It is a book about magic. I love it so, so much. It is the best.
Books that are also the best but not THE BEST:
- If you have ever wondered why you could not cry for two days in the summer of 2016, that is because I had to cry all of the tears while reading Magonia. I had all of them, there wasn't room for any more. Sorry!
- I did not read The Lord of the Rings at a time when I would have been massively changed by it, but I would be doing it a great disservice if I did not mention how I got to Rivendell in Lord of the Rings Online and honestly wanted to cry it was so beautiful.
- The entire Memoirs of Lady Trent, by Marie Brennan, are just lovely, lovely books, but my absolutely favorite is #4, In the Labyrinth of Drakes, which paid off a multi-book slow build and made me grin until my face hurt.
- The Goblin Emperor is like Undertale but for the hope of decency in powerful people.
- Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette did the best stuff I have seen yet with telling stories with different mediums, mixing together emails, memos, transcripts, and other nontraditional documents to tell a strong story about family.
no subject
Ancillary Justice, in which a starship who is forced to be a single human goes on a twenty-years-in-the-planning revenge quest because she only discovered what actual choices and free will were too late.
The Goblin Emperor, in which a young man acquires great power, and discovers it comes with a lack of privacy and lots of bureaucracy, but that sometimes a person who is relentlessly dedicated to being kind can make real changes in the world.
Karen Memory, in which a cheery prostitute of steampunk Seattle falls in love with a polyglot girl from India trying to save her sister from sex slavery, and fights destructive venture capitalists with a converted sewing machine.
Foreigner, in which a young translator/diplomat on an alien world has a long, fraught vacation of poisonous tea and uncomfortable dinosaur rides while trying to figure out who wants to kill him and if he can trust anyone at all.
Ninefox Gambit, in which a loyal infantry captain of the Evil Space Empire gets a mad general's ghost in her head so that she can take down a rebellion of calendrical heresy and figure out a lot of uncomfortable things about where her own ethical boundaries and long-term goals lie.
Three Parts Dead, in which a recently graduated necromancer/lawyer gets her first job in defending a city against people trying to take advantage of its murdered god and their resulting financial crisis.
Mm, yes. I think that's a good list to start with.
no subject
I've read Three Parts Dead and really like it! I jumped on that digital Amazon Kindle deal. I've read the first and second book while on the treadmill!
Foreigner sounds rad!
no subject
You should totally read more in the Craft Sequence, incidentally, if the first one worked for you; I have my favorites among the series, but they're all fantastic.