B is for Betsy
by Pasadena Adjacent
Anselm Kiefer Winter Landscape, 1970
An internet meme has been making the rounds lately. Your asked to create a list of ten books that have had the most influence on you. After selecting ten titles you ask ‘X’ number of others to participate. No one asked me.
Gretchen Erhlick The Silence of Open Spaces
John Steinbeck Grapes of Wrath
Jerzy Kosinski The Painted Bird
Charlotte Solomen Uber Theater Oder Leban
Flannery O Conner Short Stories
James Welsh The Death of Jim Loney
James Michner Centennial
Nobakov Nobakovs Dozen
Catherin Dunn Geek Love
Jean Baudrillard Simulcra and Simulation
Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking
Feeling like the odd-girl out? no one asked you either? Boo hoo you! Your welcome to participate on my comment thread. I’m listening.
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Pasadena Adjacent 
B is for Bullseye too
https://www.goodreads.com/series/82139-betsy
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I’m impressed by your list because I haven’t read a single one. I love Nabokov so I’ll look that one up. I’m not sharing my list with anyone else they’ll realize I like romantic fiction, something no-one seems to write well any more – except Petrea Burchard. I wish there was a continuation of the Arthurian storyline of Camelot and Vine.
Our Editor Responds: Nabokov’s Dozen is a collection of 13 short stories. I’m a lover of that format. Flannery O Conner is another one – and being raised around (formally) poor southern women, she’s great at picking up on their misery and jealousies. Not many who can do the short story format justice. The Hiker (at her best) can.
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Betsy, the painting is fab, the painter fabu, your list fabulous and this “post-Duchampian art insists on its own built-in contradictions” flips my turrets. What does it mean?
Our Editor Responds: It is, isn’t it? To answer your question may I suggest one of my top ten; Jean Baudrillard ‘Simulcra and Simulation’ Afterwards don’t be surprised if you find yourself putting a bullet through your turrets.
Do you remember the ‘B is for Betsy’ series?
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B is for Best Books and Boo-hoo. I don’t think I was asked to participate, I just jumped in on a facebook post by someone. I’ll have to dig up my dearest 20 (couldn’t stop at 10). Like your selection — “The Silence of Open Spaces” — what an enticing title. Only read 2 of those, and have heard of only 5. New exploration territory!
Our Editor Responds: The meme had at it’s core the idea of books that had influenced you – held sway… They kind of tell you who you are. I find that most of my selection (the exception being Joan Didion) occurred between the ages of 17 and 30.
Yes, go find the Solace of Open Spaces. It’s a spare little book that rings true. She does a description of a cattle dog that will bring you to tears
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I know my sister, they’re all depressing.
Our Editor Responds: That they are!! not a one made into a musical
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I didn’t ask anybody. I didn’t mind posting mine, but they’ve probably already changed. Plus sometimes it feels like an obligation and I didn’t want to make anybody feel that.
Thank you, Bellis. Do you want a sequel? I’ve been thinking.
Our Editor Responds: But at least you were asked ; )
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Yes, Petrea, I’d like a sequel, but it has to have Arthur in it, because I like the kind of man you made him be. But it could be any fiction, historical or otherwise. Your skill lies in interpreting the period realistically and your excellent descriptions of scenery, atmosphere, mood.
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Thanks, Bellis. I would stay in the Dark Ages. Casey has moved on. What happens to those who stay?
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No one hit me up either. Here are a few of mine that had an influence on me.
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
Julian by Gore Vidal
Fools Crow by James Welch
Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner
The Crack-Up by F Scott Fitzgerald
Our Editor Responds: I remember you reading Absalom, Absalom! to me by flashlight. On my 40th birthday during our stay at Buckhorn.
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Okay. Here’s mine. Since you asked.
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegutt
Franny & Zooey by JD Salinger
Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Friend of the Earth by TC Boyle
The Inn at the Edge of the World by Alice Thomas Ellis
A Ghost in the Music by John Nichols
Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar
Our Editor Responds: You bet! I looked up Desert Solitaire and Still Life with Woodpecker….those two especially appeal to me. You might like my choice “Geek Love”
another Hopscotch fan!
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Thanks for not asking me, either! The whole reductionist listicle thingy causes me anxiety. Which highbrow person posted Hopscotch? SO beautiful that I stopped reading it halfway through to prolong the pleasure. That was 20 odd years ago
Our Editor Responds: Whaaa – Hopscotch is about the high-browiest thing on here (except for Jean Baudrillard’s Simulcra and Simulation) and that comes with a warning label. ; )
And I don’t care what they say about Michner…I took a road trip at the age of 17 (in a 73 Chevy Vega) all the way to where the North and South Platte rivers intersect. Because I believed that’s where the mythical town of “Centennial” might have been.
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Whew! It would be tough for me to keep my list at 10, or even 20. I’m going to give it some thought.
Our Editor Responds: You say that but I bet you won’t be back with the list. Forget 10, how about a couple of titles?
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Ha. Love QV’s response. Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying wowed me but one you really really need to read is The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester (with words I had to look up!) Blindingly light and dark at the same time revealing bit by bit the narrater’s disturbing character. Another great one is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. His only novel published 10 yrs after his suicide though the efforts of his mother. Outstanding Pulitzer Prize winner.
Our Editor Responds: Yeah, that Queen V, all sunshine, unicorns and criticism (she’s a Virgo).
Now I’m up to four potential reads. I do ‘wiki’ the titles to see if I can handle the subject (or have an interest in it). The theme of a coming ‘apocalypse’ is very popular at the moment
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