Books Blog: books.elliottback.com

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

The new Books Blog is kicking off with a few thoughts about Shakespeare, courtesy of the incredible Michelle Kang, our new editor. Michelle is a Junior at Barnard College, a prestiguous woman’s affiliate of Columbia University. She is studying Urban Studies, and has a true love of literature and writing. Except to see more from her in the future!

so i went into highschool thinking english was a used for clarity and to express ideas from point A to point B
then i came out of highschool realizing that language was a texture and had as many bumps and holes as anythign else out there– just another thing to be manipulated .
shakespereare was just the master manipulator in some ways - and i dindt like it because i didnt realize
so much of plot and device and shape of english comes from him

and then i went into college not enjoying the picking apart and the.. general… obvious-ness? of shakespeare (Tho i did like that his plays were very fast. none of this tension building and on and on climax climbing.
foreshadowing in 2 lines yes, 500 page monologues? no)
then i am in shakespeare classand… yknow? things like… “virtue is a fig!” and “who cannot be crushed by a plot” and “simply the thing i am shall make me live” (othello/alls well that ends well, respectively) make me that shakespeare felt highs and lows in acute manner… in 1600.

so reading hamlet again was good; though in all of shakespeare, it seems as if there is a theme of doubleness/straightforwardness. what DOESN’T have to do with appearance and dissembling the interior??
or maybe its my prof who loves to dwell on such things