Literary evangelism

Which books are you most evangelical about? And why?

As in, which books (or plays, poems whatever…) do you spend the most time banging on about to other people, perhaps as their eyes glaze over?

Mine are (probably):

Le Grand Meaulnes – Alain Fournier
The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
The Tin Drum – Gunter Grass

These aren’t my favourite books – nor do I think they’re the greatest books ever written (even within their genre), but I’ve clearly found them encapsulating enough to recommend them to everyone I meet. I reckon it might have something to do with them being largely underrated – so I want other people to read them just to spread the good word.

So what others?

April 22nd, 2014
April 22nd, 2014

Book I evangelize and recommend for literary friends (as I’d never show these to normal people) are:

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Darconville’s Cat by Alexander Theroux

aaaaaaand that’s about it. The first merely because it’s my favorite tome written by my favorite writer. Much has been said about it (this reader-review ranks among the best I’ve seen), so what I say to galvanize interest whirls ‘round a few points: a) David’s writing is perpetually excellent and the prose will surely leave you breathless (and if not from adulation, hilarity); b) IJ is both emotionally and intellectually fulfilling on levels that few rival; c) IJ is great fun. True, there are boring bits, but DFW isn’t Pynchon – he does not mercilessly crucify his readers’ intelligence, harping on obfuscation and modernistic black humor; therein lies something more human, more optimistic in David’s works you won’t see from people he’s compared to or his purported navel-gazing Mcsweeney offshoots.

Darconville takes second place (in practice I may mention it more because of its obscurity), and although it resembles IJ in Theroux’s encyclopedic writing, DC is pure Joycean: I will forever argue there has not been a novel yet written more beautiful, eloquent, and musical – DC was everything Burgess aspired to create but couldn’t nail. Theroux is a linguistic master, whose genius is so unparalleled it makes you wonder if he did a Faustian bargain for it. Highly recommended.

April 22nd, 2014

Grace Paley’s stories, Conrad Aiken’s poems, Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Nabokov’s Pnin, Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Salter’s A Sport and a Pastime, Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey

April 23rd, 2014

the bible. luv that buk!

April 23rd, 2014

I just evangelized about Their Eyes Were Watching God today. I described its exquisite writing as like the literary equivalent of one of those Chihuly sculptures.

April 23rd, 2014

Lord Dunsany for one – he basically fathered Lovecraft’s style, except without the rather banal verbiage. Also, he had more of a sense of humour.

Also Brideshead Revisited, although less for the usual reasons (desiring champagne, Charvet ties, æstheticism, men) than because of its theology. Really, Waugh in general – his more satirical works crack me up, and the “Sword of Honour” trilogy expressed my own views perfectly.

April 24th, 2014

Yo @XerXes, you’ve got some contemporary novelistic skills! You should stick around PG.

I definitely rave a lot about Beckett (e.g. screening Catastrophe to some mates in our chalet at a music festival) to the point of evangelism. But he’s pretty well known and widely respected, so I’m not sure it counts.

If I can widen it slightly to essayists, I evangelize about Colin Burrow, John Kerrigan and Stefan Collini a fair bit.

April 24th, 2014

I am a huge evangelist for Penelope Lively. Very few people read her and more should. She is also fascinating because her protagonists have aged with her and so her early and later work is very different and yet also consistent.

A few of my favorites:
Moon Tiger, her Booker winner
Consequences
Making It Up, a sort of alternative memoir

Then, of course, I’ve got my girl Kate Atkinson. Life After Life is insanely good, my second favorite book of last year after The Goldfinch, but her Jackson Brodie novels, which start with Case Histories are also all amazing, as is her first book, Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

Also, more people should read David Lodge, especially Small World and Nice Work, both contained in The Campus Trilogy.

Swear I read American writers too, but I do mostly evangelize for the Brits.

April 24th, 2014

@TheScrivener Penelope Lively gets a bit more love in the UK, you’ll be pleased to know.

Love this thread, great to have people get on their literary hobby horses.

April 24th, 2014

Yes! Great thread! Perhaps not all that “literary,” but the 2 books I have given away the most (and hence keep having to buy new copies of) are Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Worth the price of admission for the first chapter alone (http://poetry.rapgenius.com/Neal-stephenson-snow-crash-chapter-one-annotated), and Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian, the first book of the 20.5 book Aubrey-Maturin series. I have told a lot of people to read this or that, but somehow these two come up most often with people that I like and want to make a present of a book to.

Stephenson kind of speaks for himself, but please don’t be put off of the O'Brian based on the film or the assumption that a very long series will lack quality. Most critics view it as a serial novel, although each volume is also complete in itself.

I am a great fan of seriality, from Dickens to Game of Thrones, I think primarily because of the opportunities for character development. It contains wonderful and meticulously researched cultural history about the time of the Napoleonic wars, but most of all it continuously unveils the inner lives of two larger than life yet very real men and their lifelong friendship.

I tried to make it last as long as I could by dolling it out to myself slowly, like a drug, only taking a dose when I really needed it. And it was a very sad day for me when I came to the point where I knew I would never read it again for the first time.

So yeah, I got the spirit. Here’s me, proselytizing :)

April 25th, 2014

@perfectrhyme Been wanting to read Left Hand of Darkness again for some time. Does it still hold up? Tried to read The Disposessed a while ago and just couldn’t get through it, perhaps it was my mood, but it’s interesting how our tastes change with the years. Sometimes it really is a matter of time and place, and sometimes it’s just timeless and placeless.

April 25th, 2014

The Prince and Other Writings by Niccolo Machiavelli. Let’s just say it’s given me some insight as to how I can outwit my adversaries—even if they’re bigger than I am. I still haven’t finished it, lol.

April 25th, 2014

I’m a proselytizing Stan for Infinite Jest and The Pale King.

“It’s a 1200-page book about addiction, with 100 pages of absolutely necessary endnotes, some with their own footnotes, also necessary.”

And then my pitch devolves into “I just can’t even…”-type extolling.

April 25th, 2014

@stupidpoet – It definitely holds up. Because it’s so much about gender, one or two passages seem a little dated, but it’s still a sharp commentary and a wonderfully told story.

April 25th, 2014

Some books I proselytize hardcore:

April 25th, 2014