Proud Knight, Fair Lady: The Twelve Lais of Marie de France

Written by: Naomi Lewis and Angela Barrett

First line: You know that in bygone times the Bretons made lays of the happenings in their land.

Why you should read this book: Over 800 years ago, French and British nobility went crazy for these fantastic stories of brave knights and fair maidens and bold romance and strange magic. Written in the twelfth century, but ostensibly based on older oral musical tradition, these "lays" offer a fairy tale picture of a nearly forgotten aesthetic of courtly love, which faithful knights should offer to beautiful ladies, without expectation of reciprocation (but with interesting results when it was returned). Including ancient examples of tropes known to modern readers (an adventure set in King Arthur's court, a werewolf hell bent on vengeance, twins separated at birth) and offering salacious details of forbidden intimacy, tragic deaths, and joyful reunions, these twelve historical tales still resonate with readers ready to step outside standard fare. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You are a jealous old man who married a beautiful young woman and then locked her away from the world but are still convinced she's betraying you. 

The Neverending Story

Written by: Michael Ende

First line: This inscription could be seen on the glass door of a small shop, but naturally this was only the way it looked if you were inside the dimly lit shop, looking out at the street through the plateglass door.

Why you should read this book: If you think you know The Neverending Story because you saw the movie eleventy billion times in the eighties, you do NOT know The Neverending Story, because that movie ends less than halfway through this novel and the author hated it so much that he sued to have his name removed from the film. In the original version, Bastian does more than hide in an attic and scream the Empress's new name; naming the Empress is his passage into a magical land (here called Fantastica) where his use of AURYN helps him overcome every one of his numerous personality flaws, transforming him into a kid who wouldn't steal an antique book from an old man or hide from his bullies all day. It's a much more expansive and intelligent story than the movie shows, and Bastian is a much more flawed hero who requires much more from Atreyu, Falkor, the Childlike Empress, and the land of Fantastica than they ever needed from him.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The narration reminds us, over and over and over, that chief among Bastian's flaws (and he's a pretty flawed person: canonically, his only redeeming characteristic is his imagination) is that he is fat and bow-legged. 

The Two Towers

Written by: JRR Tolkein

First line: Aragorn sped up the hill. 

Why you should read this book: The fellowship shattered, the remaining members go their own way: Pippin and Merry, kidnapped by the Uruk-Hai, managed to escape and make friends with an ancient, sentient, ambulatory tree, who is very interested in their story about what's happening outside the forest; Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas enjoy a few days of ultra-marathoning in pursuit of them; and Sam and Frodo head south to complete their absolutely impossible mission. With the destruction of Isengard by the Ents, the emasculation of Saruman by the very much not dead Gandalf, the rallying of various noble men to the cause, and the return of Gollum, it almost feels like the party is making progress. Then everyone goes off again on further impossible suicide missions. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Well, you have to read the first one first. 

The Fellowship of the Ring

Written by: JRR Tolkien

First line: When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday, with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

Why you should read this book: The story of an unassuming little halfling who leaves behind a life of comfort and ease when he inherits a weapon of mass destruction that is too powerful to even be handled by any creature with more gumption and ambition than a hobbit hits different when you are actually living in a world where a dark shadow is indeed crossing the land. Accompanied by his faithful gardener and two adventurous cousins, Frodo Baggins sets off on a very long ramble, to figure out what to do with this insidious artifact, is pursued by unspeakable terror, is aided by the forces of good, and eventually finds direction and companionship. Determined to undertake an impossible and suicidal quest for the benefit of his entire world, Frodo is the hero to inspire the least among us to strive to do great things in the face of great evil. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't want to read one of the greatest stories ever told. 

The Door in the Wall

Written by: Marguerite de Angeli

First line: Robin drew the coverlet about his head and turned his face to the wall.

Why you should read this book: With his father off to war and his mother waiting on the Queen, Robin is supposed to begin his training to become a knight, but his parents didn't make plans for Robin to become so sick he lost the use of his legs, and for every servant left to care for him to die of the plague. Brother Luke, a monk who is aware of Robin's situation (and that his father has generously donated to the monk's church) comes to rescue him, not just from starving to death in his own bed, but from his sense that disability means he can do nothing and has nothing to look forward to. With the help of the Brothers, Robin soon learns to swim, read, whittle, and eventually, to walk with crutches, so that eventually he has the confidence and ability to outwit an invading army and save England.

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's a bit of a quiet book, although there is a bit of action here and there. I seem to recall my mother trying to force me to read this book 40-odd years ago and me being so bored I didn't get through the first chapter. 

Jabberwocky: a Pop-up Rhyme from Through the Looking Glass

Written by: Nick Bantock and Lewis Carroll 

First line: 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/ Did gyre and gimble in the wabe/All mimsy were the borogroves,/And the mome raths outgrabe.

Why you should read this book: It's a tiny volume comprising the famous nonsense poem, illustrated in a delightfully nonsensical and 3-dimensional style by the inimitable Nick Bantok. The poem's narrator is kind of drawn like Santa Claus and the young hero takes with him on his quest a tiny green monster for no discernible reason, and the vorpal blade goes snicker snack. It's just how you remember, although possibly not how you imagined.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Pop-up books are notoriously fragile and this one was published 35 years ago.

Pride and Prejudice

Written by: Jane Austen 

First line: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Why you should read this book: I can't believe I've never blogged this one before; it's the literary equivalent of a warm blanket and a cup of cocoa with marshmallows for many readers, and the story of the Bennet sisters, who must marry well before their father's estate is entailed to their unctuous cousin, is one I've consumed many times. Elizabeth Bennet, the second oldest sibling, has a lively mind and wit, and on first acquaintance is deeply unimpressed with the wealthy, condescending Mr. Darcy, but as the story unfolds, she realizes that there is more to Mr. Darcy than snobbery and smug disapproval. There are lies and betrayals and romance and all kinds of snide remarks and cutting observations and true danger and, as in every Jane Austen novel, everyone gets the husband she deserves. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You have to actually be a reader; if you don't like reading you will find Austen's prose difficult to detangle. 

The Thin Man

Written by: Dashiell Hammett

First line: I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. 

Why you should read this book: This is the classic hard-boiled detective story, featuring tough and clever alcoholic (and retired detective) Nick Charles, and his clever and beautiful wife, Nora, who are just trying to have a relaxing vacation. Nick is dragged, very much against his will, into the case of a dead woman who has some connection to people Nick used to know, and to a lot of people that Nick doesn't care to know at all. Even though he swears he's retired, now he's consulting with the cops, interviewing suspects, getting shot at, and gathering evidence while avoiding sobriety at every turn. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: I thought it was pretty unfair to the reader that the story withholds some of the evidence until after Nick solved the crime.

The Complete Fairy Tales of George MacDonald

Written by: George MacDonanld 

First line: Once upon a time, so long ago that I have quite forgotten the date, there lived a king and queen who had no children. 

Why you should read this book: There is something deeply appealing about these tales, whose foundations are rooted deeply in the ancient, mythopoeic tradition, but whose leaves and branches are nourished with the most modern ideas any Victorian gentleman could possibly lay his hands on. From a princess who is cursed to lose her gravity to shadow spirits lamenting the rise of gaslights and the decline of the real fires that allow them to dance among the humans, the fairy creatures of these stories are well aware that their world is in flux and the balance is tipping away from the past. Delightful and imaginative, but still adhering to the laws of the genre, this is a timeless work on par with the best fairy stories of any era. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You would never go anywhere with or for a magical creature and have zero sympathy for teenagers in love.

V for Vendetta

Written by: Alan Moore and David Lloyd

First line: Good evening, London. It's 9 o'clock and this is the voice of Fate broadcasting on 275 and 285 in the medium wave. 

Why you should read this book, in a dismal post-World War III future, England has fallen under the sway of brutal fascism, with an Orwellian cameras in every crevice and party propaganda broadcast from every corner. A shadowy anarchist known only as V wages a rather effective one-man war against the symbols of the government and the men and women who run it, while teaching a young woman named Evey his philosophy of self-rule and death to tyrants. With every resource of the country devoted to his death, V carries out an elaborate plan to hand power back to the people before his enemies catch up with him.

Why you shouldn't read this book: While I'm obviously very opposed to fascism and in support of anything that opposes fascism, reading this book 35 years after its original publication and maybe 25 years after the first time I read it, it feels kind of overblown, like an child's fantasy about Batman saving the world.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Written by: Lewis Carroll

First line: Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

Why you should read this book: Obviously, I have read Alice in Wonderland dozens, perhaps even hundreds of times in my life, but not, apparently, once in the last fifteen years since I've been keeping this blog; Alice was such a formative part of my childhood, so deeply embedding in my psyche that I suppose I didn't need to reread it because it existed inside me (although it's perhaps a little weird that I never read it to my stepdaughter, but she had her own ideas about books and gravitated toward more modern stuff). This is the tale of an inquisitive little girl who falls down a rabbit hole and come out in an altered fantasy world to be ordered around and abused by birds, rabbits, playing cards, and various other unlikely creatures while changing size on a regular basis and never quite understanding the rules of this brave new world. Alice is the basis of much children's fantasy literature and a fair amount of adult content generated in the one hundred fifty years since its original publication, and while some of the references that might have made sense to its original readership have faded into nonsense for today's children, the overall balance of sense to nonsense has remained about the same, as some of Alice's stranger experiences have morphed into common tropes in kids' entertainment. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You enjoy remaining completely unconnected to a shared sense of culture.

I, Claudius

Written by: Robert Graves

First line: I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as "Claudius the Idiot", or "That Claudius", or "Claudius the Stammerer", or "Clau-Clau-Claudius" or at best as "Poor Uncle Claudius", am now about to write this strange history of my life, starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the "golden predicament" from which I have never since become disentangled. 

Why you should read this book: Covering the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula, this classic book novelizes fifty-plus years of Roman history as seen though the eyes of a man who was simultaneously entrenched in the political machinations playing out all around him while remaining an outsider, able to research, record, and comment wryly on the most troubling aspects of human nature, while offering the reader all manner of scandalous personal observations. His legs lame and his stutter making it difficult for him to express himself, Claudius is largely unaffected by the murderous instincts of those jockeying for power and wealth in Rome, most particularly his devious and ambitious grandmother Livia. Devoting himself to the study of history, Claudius survives, occasionally thrives, and eventually outlives his oppressors to win a dubious award he didn't want in the first place. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You still retain any trace of faith in humanity. 

The Artist's Way

Written by: Julia Cameron

First line: When people ask me what I do, I usually answer, "I'm a writer-director and I teach these creativity workshops."

Why you should read this book: You should read this book if you are a "blocked artist," i.e. a person who wants to find fulfillment in creative endeavors, but for whatever reason, can't seem to create the things you want to create. This twelve-week course in creativity has been around for decades and helped guide countless artists through various obstacles to their eventual success, in many cases, to very great success. With numerous activities, writing exercises, words of encouragement, and tough love deconstructions of the psychological barriers that hold us back, it offers an almost hundred percent guarantee of meaningful change of one sort or another for those who follow its specific but simple guidelines; I was certainly skeptical to start, but about halfway through the program I did start to experience some of the promised "magic" of the program. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: I personally had some difficulty with its dependence on a "manifesting abundance" doctrine that I'm afraid feels inherently classist, and I didn't really find a way to completely embrace the discussion of a "God" that rewards artists. Also, some of the writing exercises are psychologically extremely difficult.

The Princess Bride

Written by: William Goldman

First line: This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

Why you should read this book: When I was a kid, shortly after the popular film version of this book was released, I wanted to read the original book, but every copy I could find claimed to be an abridged version, and being the intellectual kid I thought myself to be, I wanted to read the full version; only many years later did I understand the concept of the frame story, and the literary devices that Goldman was using terms of pretending to be abridging a more famous and less interesting work when, in fact, he was just very cleverly writing a novel. At any rate, this is still the book you imagine it is, more or less, and while there are things that were changed, added, or left out of the movie, it's basically the same story of a beautiful girl named Buttercup, a poor farm boy called Westley, and the series of event that contrive to keep the true lovers apart until they are reunited at last at the very end. The writing is charming, funny, engaging, and just really smart, and while young readers likely will not enjoy or understand the narrative asides, you can certainly just read the "good parts" if you'd rather. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's a good book, really, but some of it feels kind of misogynistic.

Julie of the Wolves

Written by: Jean Craighead George 

 First line: Miyax pushed back the hood of her sealskin parka and looked at the Arctic sun. 

Why you should read this book: This intense classic survival story about a girl who lives alone in the artic tundra with only a family of wolves for companionship and protection is the latest of my COVID reads: books that I probably should have read in the '80s or '90s but, for whatever reason, never got to. Julie is a determined heroine, mourning what she's lost but intent on hanging on to her life, so she uses the knowledge passed down to her by her father to observe and befriend a pack of wolves who eventually accept her and help her to live another day. Beautifully written and full of accurate descriptions of the natural world. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's a classic and you should read it, although George seems to favor the word "Eskimo," and uses it interchangably with Inuit, which may be insensitive to Inuits, and some people (the librarian who I discussed it with when I decided to read it) may take offense at the implication of rape in a children's novel (to which I say—kids are aware of horrible crimes, and those who have been the victims of them or are at risk of becoming victims probably need to see their lives reflected in literature, while other kids needs to know that these crimes exist and hurt people.) 

The Cay

Written by: Theodore Taylor 

First line: Like silent, hungry sharks that swim in the darkness of the sea, the German submarines arrived in the middle of the night. 

Why you should read this book: When war comes to the island of Curaçao, Phillip's mother insists on returning to America for safety, but it turns out that Philip's father, who thought it would be safer to stay put, was right, and Phillip finds himself drifting through the ocean in a lifeboat with a concussion, a cat, and a very old sailor called Timothy. Phillip's head injury resolves itself into blindness and although the ship washes up on a tiny and uninhabited cay, he must confront the reality of the prejudices his mother instilled in him regarding Black people, and the reality of being shipwrecked, and blind, and needing to learn from Timothy all the skills necessary to survive on a desert island. Both a cracking good adventure story and a classic resource for unlearning racism. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: This is one of those books that everyone should read, and it's probably weird that I just read it for the first time this week.

Native Son

Written by: Richard Wright

First line: BRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNG!

Why you should read this book: In Chicago, in 1940, a young Black man, Bigger Thomas, is forced to take a job as a chauffeur for a wealthy white family in order to keep his mother and siblings fed and housed, but the Daltons are like no people he's ever encountered, and a lifetime of being forcibly othered by white people makes it difficult for Bigger to comprehend them, let along navigate their universe. Forced by their rebellious daughter Mary to associate with Communists and confront inequality, Bigger's fate seems sealed his first fateful day on the job, but suddenly, in the midst of chaos and despair, Bigger begins to come alive and starts thinking critically about the world and his place in it. There may be no justice for a Black man in Bigger's shoes, but with the help of a Jewish Communist layer, Mr. Max, he begins to see himself, his situation, and his country in a different light.

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you're a Black person who is currently feeling traumatized by systemic racism and inequality, this might not be a happy journey for you.

Henry Huggins

Written by: Beverly Cleary

First line: Henry Huggins was in the third grade.

Why you should read this book. Although it is over seventy years old, there is still much delight to be found in this quiet novel about a small boy who feels as if nothing interesting ever happened to him until the day he shared his ice cream cone with a skinny, medium-sized, mixed-breed dog. Of course, the ordinary world of any child who plays outside his house, takes the bus into town, and has a life that doesn't involve being tied to a screen tends to offer plenty of interesting moments, such as when Henry accidentally breeds hundreds of guppies in his bedroom or when he digs up twelve hundred worms to pay off a debt incurred when he accidentally throws a neighbor boy's football into a passing car. While some of the references, especially the monetary ones, are dated (Henry's allowance is a quarter a week and his ice cream costs a nickel), I love the idea of modern children reading about a time when kids inhabited their own, largely unsupervised world and moved through it with a sense of agency, and, as a bonus, Cleary's more popular and enduring characters, Beezus and Ramona, have some cameos.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't like dogs, fish, or worms.

It

Written by: Stephen King

First line: The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years—if it ever did end—began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

Why you should read this book: I first read it when I was twelve years old, which I mention by way of defense as I go on to explain that I just finished reading this enduring novel to my fourteen-year-old stepdaughter (by her request) (and also add that, prior to becoming fascinated with King's work at that age of twelve, I was afraid of everything, and this book and other novels of his I read that year, taught me to overcome, at least for the next twelve years, the free-floating terror of my existence). My stepdaughter said, "This is the longest novel we've ever read," to which I replied, "It's the longest novel most people have ever read," but the story of seven kids defeating an ancient evil that lives under their city, enjoys dressing like a clown, makes everyone a little crazy, and eats kids' fear (and other parts) continues to hold a prominent place in the collective conscious by virtue of its unrelenting examination of terror—virtually every trope of terror known to humans in the '80s manages to hit the page. There's something to scare everyone, whether or not you suffer from coulrophobia, including the truly terrifying concepts of racism, sexism and homophobia, in a gripping tale told from multiple points of view.

Why you shouldn't read this book: First, the racism, sexism, and homophobia is pretty extreme, and while King is clearly using it to denote bad characters with bad morality and bad motivations, if you don't personally remember the '80s, you will likely find yourself astonished at the casual use of now-taboo language. Second, like virtually all of King's work, it's ridiculously overwritten and would probably be a better novel with a couple hundred pages edited out.

Anne of Green Gables

Written by: LM Montgomery

First line: Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard to decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.

Why you should read this book: More than a hundred years after its original publication, this classic work about a precocious, imaginative, spirited orphan girl who comes to live on a farm where she is not originally wanted continues to hold great meaning for readers of all ages (a 3-season re-imagining of this novel can be viewed on Netflix under the title Anne with an E, and it surely does provide an excellent scaffolding for more modern ideas about childhood despite remaining set in the very early 1900s). Anne Shirley, an unwanted red haired child, whose head is full of books and poetry and romance, seems an unlikely addition to the Cuthbert family, which has, for decades, consisted only of laconic, tongue-tied farmer Matthew and his sharp, cold housekeeping sister, Marilla, but as it turns out, Anne's mischief is exactly what these siblings need in their old age. Whether she's unintentionally getting her best friend drunk, accidentally substituting liniment for vanilla in a cake for the minister's wife, or deliberately appearing in church wearing a heathenish quantity of wildflowers on her hat, Anne's antics continue to delight and draw in her new family and her many generations of dedicated readers. 

Why you should not read this book: You don't believe in the magic of childhood.