Books Blog: English Literature & Linguistics

OCLC has posted a list of what they claim are the top 1000 books held by their network of libraries. The top ten:

1. Census
2. Bible
3. Mother Goose
4. Divine Comedy
5. Odyssey
6. Iliad
7. Huckleberry Finn
8. Hamlet
9. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
10. Lord of the Rings

I have to say that they’re all excellent resources–and that I’ve read all of them. The first modern work is “Garfield” at #18, followed by “Carmen” at #66, “Peanuts” at #70, and “Doonesbury” at #80. “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” sadly lies at #256.

They also have a list of top banned books, of which I will reproduce the top ten modern literary scandals:

1. Bible
2. Huckleberry Finn
3. Don Quixote
4. Koran
5. Arabian Nights
6. Tom Sawyer
7. Gulliver’s Travels
8. Canterbury Tales
9. Scarlet Letter
10. Leaves of Grass

Of course, these are now classics–and Mark Twain gets his name in twice.

Preserved for posterity, we see Target selling an item described as “Marijuana.” Of course, a closer inspection reveals that the mysterious “Marijuana” is actually this book with ISBN 0823916839:

I was browsing in Barnes & Noble and came across that e. e. cummings book. It’s 100 great poems for only $10–well worth it. Here’s one of my favorite, a definite modern classic:

since feeling is first

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
–the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis