100 Books to Read in a Lifetime: A List by Amazon

Here’s hot news for the booklovers. Amazon has recently announced its pick of 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime. It’s a pretty intriguing list because it differs substantially from similar existing lists.

Sara Nelson, the editorial director of Amazon said that the list is not based on sales figures or any other typical benchmarks. The list was compiled by the editors based on how much the books appealed to the readers over the years. They whacked off homework books like Joyce’s Ulysses and focused on the ones that readers of all ages enjoyed.

The list includes books from Victorian era to the post-modern and contemporary period. The books are not ranked in any particular order to emphasize that all are equally important. While Harry Potter made it to the list, classics like Moby Dick and Les Misérables were left out.

Amazon has also compiled another list based on user votes on Goodreads. Click here to check it out.

What’s your reaction to this list? Happy, angry, excited, surprised?

Amazon’s choice:

• Meet Big Brother: 1984 by George Orwell
• Explore the Universe: A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
• Memoir as metafiction: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
• A child-soldier’s story: A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
• Wicked good fun: A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
• The 60s kids classic: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• A short-form master: Alice Munro: Selected Stories by Alice Munro
• Go down the rabbit hole: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• Unseated a president: All the President’s Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
• An Irish-American Memoir: Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
• The angst of adolescence: Are You There, God? It’s me, Margaret by Judy Blume
• A literary page turner: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
• The ghosts of slavery: Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Why and how we run: Born To Run – A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
• A journey from Haiti: Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
• Launched its own catchphrase: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• Vintage Roald Dahl: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
• The timeless classic: Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
• Ambitious and humane: Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese
• Vulnerability breeds courage: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown
• For reluctant readers: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 1 by Jeff Kinney
• A science fiction classic: Dune by Frank Herbert
• “It was a pleasure to burn.”: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Gonzo journalism takes flight: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson
• Marriage can be a real killer: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
• First published in 1947: Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
• Dickens’ best novel: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• Understanding societies: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond
• Meet the boy wizard: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
• True crime at its best: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
• Award-winning short story debut: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• A literary milestone: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• A brilliant graphic novel: Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
• Don’t eat while you read this: Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
• One of the best of 2013: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
• Childhood on the frontier: Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Nabokov’s triumph: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• A Latin American masterpiece: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• A saga set on the reservation: Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
• A life-changing book: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• Funny and poignant: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
• A beautifully-written novel: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Rushdie’s breakthrough: Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
• Lewis hits it out of the park: Moneyball by Michael Lewis
• A writer’s writer: Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
• The essence of the Beats: On the Road by Jack Kerouac
• A remarkable woman’s story: Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
• A groundbreaking graphic novel: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
• Roth at his finest: Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
• The perennial favorite: Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
• The birth of ecology: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
• The absurdist WW2 novel: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• How Lincoln led: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• 19th Century high society: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• Chabon’s magnum opus: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
• A classic modern autobiography: The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
• The international sensation: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• The trials of a “ghetto nerd”: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
• Meet Holden Caulfield: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Exploring a mother’s past: The Color of Water by James McBride
• Great, but divisive: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
• A triumph of narrative nonfiction: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
• Moving and eloquent: The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
• A soulful young adult novel: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• Classic dystopia: The Giver by Lois Lowry
• Pullman’s fantasy classic: The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
• The rich are different: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Feminist speculative fiction: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• A boy, a bear, a honeypot: The House At Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne
• Reality tv writ large: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Race, ethics, and medicine: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• A darkly funny memoir: The Liars’ Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr
• Monsters, Mythology, and a boy: The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) by Rick Riordan
• Unique and universal: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• First-rate Chandler Noir: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
• The history of terrorism: The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
• One ring to rule them all: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• A deeply human account: The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks
• The origins of food: The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
• An odd and original journey: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• Missionaries in Africa: The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Enforcer: The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
• The inner life of astronauts: The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
• This way to the apocalypse: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• A modern classic: The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• Chilling and thrilling: The Shining by Stephen King
• Existentialist fiction: The Stranger by Albert Camus
• Meet the Lost Generation: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• The best book on Vietnam: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
• Baby’s first book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
• Mole, Toad, Rat, and Badger: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
• From the modern Japanese master: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel by Haruki Murakami
• Beware the “Undertoad”: The World According to Garp by John Irving
• Life, Love, Death: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
• Tradition vs. change: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
• A beloved family story: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• An American inspiration: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
• Addictively entertaining: Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
• The joys of imagination: Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
• Let the wild rumpus start! : Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

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Five Famous Witches in Literature

Witches have been a most intriguing and often depicted subject in art and literature. With their roots in ancient paganism, witches were looked upon as fascinating materials for literary endeavours. They have been shown as diabolical instruments, repulsive creatures, benevolent beings and have even been romanticized in some cases. From Shakespeare to J.K. Rowling, witches have had a long and evolutionary literary history. Here are some of the memorable ones:

The Three Witches of Macbeth

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air”

The “Weird Sisters” of Shakespeare’s play, with their beards, bizarre potions and rhymed dialogues, would easily make it to The Hall of Fame for witches. They are grotesque, symbols of temptation to evil and are indicative of the wicked influence of dark powers over mortal creatures. Macbeth possibly wouldn’t have killed King Duncan without the push given by the witches. And the usurper became King only to witness the irony of the prophecy made by the witches as Birnam Wood came to him and caused his ruin.

The White Witch (Narnia)

“I was the Queen. They were all my people. What else were they there for but to do my will?”

In The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, we come across Jadis — the infamous white witch. Jadis was the one who forced Narnia into snow and ice for a century. While the witch is a fearsome creature in her own realm, her magic is of little use in other worlds. Like Medusa, Jadis can turn people to stone, though not by looking at them but by waving her wand. She is a breathtakingly beautiful woman, a powerful sorceress, highly arrogant, possesses superhuman strength and is a shrewd strategist. Though the white witch usurped power from the legitimate rulers of Narnia, her reign ended with The Winter Revolution. Tilda Swinton played the role of the White Witch in the Narnia films and won acclaim among fans and critics.

Baba Yaga

A deformed and fearsome looking witch from the Russian folktales. She is known to be a hungry cannibal who flies around in a mortar. Baba Yaga is thin as a skeleton and has iron teeth. She lives in a forest in a hut that seems to be alive. It stands on its own legs, can spin/move around, and has a fence made of bones and skulls with blazing eyes. Baba Yaga’s servants include some mysterious and reticent horsemen and a pair of scary hands appearing out of nowhere. Though mostly portrayed as a terrifying and vengeful old witch, Baba Yaga can be helpful to some, especially to people with a pure heart. However, she is a wild force and can’t be tamed.

The Bell Witch

The legend of the Bell Witch is a much disputed case. Brent Monahan, in his novel The Bell Witch: An American Haunting, claims that the book is based on true facts. It’s true that this is the only documented case in American history that deals with a spirit causing a man’s death. Old Kate or the Bell Witch was a terrifying and noisy spirit that tormented the Bell family in Tennessee. The witch gnawed as an invisible spirit at night and stood next to the sleeping people. She threw stones, slapped residents of the house and pulled a children across the floor by their hair.  The strange events were witnessed by a local school teacher who recorded them. Mr. Monahan used the evidence to write this book. A truly spooky story of a spooky witch.

Circe (The Odyssey)

Circe was a witch and a goddess of magic in Greek mythology. She could transform people into animals using potions and her wand. Circe appears in Homer’s The Odyssey, where she is described as a perilous witch who transformed Odysseus’ crew into swine using her enchanted wine and magical potions. Odysseus used the holy herb moly to protect himself against the tricks of Circe and set out to free his men. Circe tried to seduce him but Odysseus, warned by Hermes, didn’t fall for the scheming witch, who would rob him of his manhood. Eventually, Odysseus could free his men and Circe suggested him roads to Ithaca.

If you were destined to encounter a witch (a literary one), who would you want it to be?

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Vintage Magazine Cover Art

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Cover of the Week: The Master of Blue Mire by Virginia Coffman

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Book Review: The Sabbatical by Frederick Pinto

Usually, I skip debut novels because most of them are not as mature as the later works of the author. Even Turgenev’s On the Eve was not at par with Father and Sons or Virgin Soil. However, Frederick Pinto’s The Sabbatical seems a rare exception.

If you are just out of Jean Paul Satre’s Nausea and looking for a smart, entertaining read with a substantial story, pick up Frederick Pinto’s debut novel — The Sabbatical. It will cure you of any hangover from a sombre philosophy, yet won’t let you down as a light hearted effort that fails to leave an impression.

The Story

“Well, not fired, Charles,” Colin says. “Consider it more a forced buy-out.”

Charles Barca, the founder of an ambitious and visionary music startup— PlayLouder – finds himself in a tight spot after some conspiring people play smart to force him out of his own nest. Things become worse as he loses his girlfriend and rock star status. Even in the face of a crisis, Charles rejects opportunities to come back to the music business and tries to re-invent himself. Frederick Pinto’s The Sabbatical is an insightful story of “a bought-out, spit-over, disgraced and depressed” prince, seeking “a Copernican revolution of the self.”

Meet the Sharks

Pinto introduces you to real-life, morally ambiguous characters. You meet schemers, frauds and manipulative people. If you know the music industry, you easily identify them. If you don’t, you start feeling really close to it. Barca stands out as a confused, but honourable man among shady characters. He might not be a typical hero (for many readers), but he is certainly someone who makes you think. Barca is someone you can’t ignore.

Pinto’s Style

If you are a sucker for snappy dialogue and descriptions, you can’t afford to miss The Sabbatical. Barca speaks and thinks in the equivalent of Clint Eastwood’s .44 Magnum:

“I know them by heart, those nightlife vamps, hunting for a pint of fame here, a pound of status there; those tweet chique groupie types whose gibberish runs in fast forward, junkies of tweener pop stars and the Disney channel by age seven, suburban beauty pageants between nine and twelve, then drugs and uniforms and public toilet blow jobs, then college and amateur porn cams, followed by entry level jobs and hard partying on the back of a vulgar hotness and loud makeup and sophomoric life theories, culminating into some version or other of the American way of life and a high earning beta male they can blood suck into a castrating relationship of mortified sex and consumerism and debt and death.”

Pinto can be deeply sarcastic and highly intense, but he always stays believable. Here’s a debut author who can write dialogues like a seasoned pro. Also, Pinto shows great narrative skills. Barca’s intercontinental journey is filled with amazing descriptions that give a tactile quality to the places Barca visits.

In the hands of a daring director, The Sabbatical could turn into a very thought-provoking and intelligent film. A noteworthy first literary effort!

Check out The Sabbatical at Amazon
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