My Ten Most Influential Books

I saw in the New York Times that some bloggers have presented lists of the "Ten Books That Most Influenced Me" or something like that. I now join the group presenting such lists. I'd love to know your thoughts on this list, and I'd really love to know what books would make your list.

A short time ago a dear friend answered a Facebook question about me. I think in some past life Susan and I must have been brother and sister. (OK, I don't believe in that past life stuff, but you know what I mean.) The question: Do you think Rick Crowell likes to read?" Her answer: "Wait - let me think". This was before she seriously started rolling on the floor. We do have our disagreements about things - but never, in my recollection, about literature.

Side note: I'm concerned about what the internet has done to reading habits. Neither Dostoyevsky, Joyce, nor Faulkner (to name only a few) come off very well in the written-sound-bite approach that seems to be the coming wave. All reward concentration and thought about what's written, and they only reward that.

Stipulation: I've made it very obvious in other blog posts how much my faith means to me. It's obvious that the Bible is #1. But, it would feel like cheating to say, "Well, first, there's the Gospel of Luke, then there's Galatians, and the Psalms and Ecclesiastes. . ." Books of the Bible do not appear on this list.

So, my list, in no particular order (and it took some thought to narrow this to ten):

Hemingway, The  Sun Also Rises. This was written before AA existed. The disease concept of alcoholism was not articulated until Dr. Jellinek did so in 1960. But this novel remains one of the best about the topic. It never mentions the word alcoholic. It just shows the behavior, with almost clinical accuracy. Hemingway's distinctive, very lean style, while it falls flat in other works of his, is pitch-perfect here.

Solzhenitsyn, A Day In the Life Of Ivan Denisovitch. I've read and appreciated much of Solzhenitsyn's work - August 1914, The First Circle, Cancer Ward, The Gulag Archipelago. I think A Day In the Life the best. It's also the shortest. If I were to recommend a work as a Solzhenitsyn starter this would be it. Solzhenitsyn survived Stalin's camps. When he was a soldier in the Red Army he'd committed the obviously grievous offense of referring to Stalin as "the mustached one."

Hopkins, Poems and Prose. Gerard Manley Hopkins was a Jesuit priest in the 19th century. I carry some of his words in memory: "Not, I'll not, carrion comfort despair, not feast on thee - not untwist, slack they may be, these last strands of man in me. . ." Hopkins can be difficult. He often uses archaic words, and he frequently restructures words and phrasing. But I have found him interesting. He's my favorite poet, with the possible exception of:

Shakespeare, King Lear. It's been said that comedy is the lower classes' vengeance on life, and tragedy is the upper classes' vengeance. What do you have if you have someone who is the best-ever tragedian, and whose comedy is every bit as well-done as his tragedy? You have a once-in-a-civilization genius: Shakespeare. Lear is by far the darkest of his tragedies. Acting the role of Lear  most definitely separates the actors from the hacks.

Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship. Karl Barth was a Swiss theologian who taught in a German university in the 1930s. He left that university to go to Switzerland. Switzerland was home, but he had another reason. He could not work where he had to start lectures about the Prince of Peace by saying, "Heil Hitler!" Bonhoeffer also was no fan of Hitler's, but he decided to stay in Germany. His earthly reward? Death by hanging, just weeks before the war ended. If you never read anything else about faith, you must read Chapter 1, "Costly Grace".

Thomas Merton, A Thomas Merton Reader. Merton is one of my heroes in the faith, and my thinking about war and peace almost exactly echoes his. (Yes, the influence was direct.) I'm cheating by using a reader. Most would start on Merton with The Seven Storey Mountain. But, his attitudes and thoughts changed with time - some of the positions he took in The Seven Storey Mountain would not reflect his later opinions - and you can see that with a number of his works together.

Nuland, How We Die. Now, isn't THAT morbid of me? Not really. Nuland, a long-time physician, describes in some detail some death scenes. But his underlying message, articulated at the end, strongly resonated. Your body insists on fighting against death until it can't fight it any more, so death is not pretty, and a "dignified" death is rare. The dignity comes, not from the death you die, but from the life you live.


Dostoevsky, The Possessed. If I put this list together on a different day, The Brothers Karamazov might be in this spot. Or Crime and Punishment. Or The Idiot. If you like Solzhenitsyn, you'll love Dostoevsky. But if you're one of those short-form-only readers who doesn't want to think about what you're reading, please skip this author. You'll never get him. The Possessed - usually called The Devils - paints an unflattering portrait of political radicals in 19th-century Russia. You'll understand this work better if you read up on the radical Russian movements of that time.

Joyce, Ulysses. On my bucket list: before I die I want to spend one Bloomsday in Dublin.  (That's a hint, family! Bloomsday is June 16.) (I also want to see Rowan Oak, Faulkner's place in Oxford MS). A difficult read, but a rewarding and at times hilarious one. The entire novel is set on June 16, 1904. Also won't reward Twitter readers, and they'd be cheating themselves by not making an effort.

Wiesel, Night. Elie Wiesel survived the Nazi concentration camps, and he is living refutation to Holocaust deniers. Not a work for weak stomachs. Some scenes that are almost unbearable: the hanging of a 10-year-old. Wiesel being in the same bunk house as his father and finding out that his father had passed during the night by looking into his father's bunk and finding someone else there. The message I took: Never Again. This is a great portrayal of what happens when a group of human beings has absolute, unfettered control over any other group of human beings. The pre-Civil-War South offers another example. Sadly, examples abound everywhere.

Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451. Written in the '40s or '50s. Bradbury describes a society where people can put cards into little machines to get their money. Gee. . .I think we've seen this. It also describes a society in which people are expected to not read, to not think. Fahrenheit 451 is the flash point of paper. There are book burnings, but as is explained, these are just for show. The prevention of reading actually takes place by those TV screens in every house. If you entertain people into an intellectually comatose state, you need not fear the result of thinking. (Gee - I think we've seen this. . .)

Wait - was that 11? Sorry!

Thanks for hanging out with me for a few!