Nobel Prize winner, J.M. Coetzee, gave the National Book Critics Circle a list of five books he believes reviewers should have in their libraries.
The Iliad. - the standard for the narrative of action.
Aristotle, Poetics. - the terms for all later debate on the truth claims of history versus the truth claims of poetry.
Cervantes, Don Quixote. - source-book for all writers of fiction.
Rousseau, Confessions. - reminds us how hard it is to tell the truth.
Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov. - shows us what the novel of ideas can achieve.
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Nov 13th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Doris Lessing’s five books were quite different:
The Leopard, by Giuseppe di Lampedusa
Anna Karenin, by Leo Tolstoy
Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding
Remembrance of Things Past, by Marcel Proust
Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll