Twice.
Today's
Top 10 Tuesday from The Broke and The Bookish asks me to select my top 10 "writers I'd DIE to meet", but that forces me to narrow down my field of wanna-meets to too few for my expansive mood.
So I'm going with a "truly dead" list and a "still in the corporeal sphere" one. Indulge me, and then tell me whom I've missed and your absolute must-meet in each category!
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| Hurston. |
The Truly "To Die For" List
- Jane Austen: In hopes that a conversation with her would help me understand what all the fuss is about.
- James Joyce: My first literary love, and perhaps he'd take me on a tour of Dublin.
- Zora Neale Hurston: As both a writer and a social anthropologist/folklorist, she'd have so much to teach me.
- William Shakespeare: Just exactly who are you, anyway, and do you converse as eloquently and entertainingly as you pen?
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| Beckett. |
- Lao Tse: And who are you as well (are you multiple people)? And what did # 27 in the Tao Te Ching mean anyway?
- Rumi: Please show me how you compose those spiritually transcendent play-for-mortal-stakes verses, and please introduce me to Shams as well.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay: Let's just pal around for a few days, wild spirit-sprite of your age!
- Kahlil Gibran: One long stroll as he recites his poetry to me and a gathering gaggle of fans. We all pause in a garden and he makes a drawing to bring back with me...
- Samuel Beckett: Just meandering in circles as he spins out comic profundities punctuated by the occasional piercing glance.
- Emily Dickinson: Kindred spirits, we'd likely just sit in her big back yard, sipping tea and silently, companionably taking in the day. Much madness not to ask her to parse a single poem, but divinest sense as well.
The "With Any Luck, Someday" List
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| Thay. |
- Thich Nhat Hanh - Vietnamese Buddhist monk, author of over 25 books of prose and poetry, all of which bring solace and offer compassionate, practical wisdom (start with Peace Is Every Step)
- Fareed Zakaria - Indian-American journalist and commentator on world events (Newsweek, Time, Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN), whose best-selling The Post American World, Release 2.0 is at the top of my TBR pile
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Nobel-winning novelist and journalist from Colombia, writer of two of my favorite fictions ever: Love In The Time of Cholera and "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" (Yes, he's old and reportedly infirm, but still...)
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| Wiesel. |
- Louise Erdrich - Native American novelist who treads Garcia Marquez's path by setting many of her novels in the same physical area and populating them with some of the same characters or their relatives, weaving a rich world over time and texts. Try Tracks, her first novel, and if you like it, jump over to The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse to see entirely new sides of some of the same characters and note Erdrich's evolution as a writer..
- Elie Wiesel - professor, scholar, novelist, Holocaust survivor. Begin with Night.
- Francine Prose - her Reading Like A Writer is a must for all of us. And her darkly comic novel of ideas, A Changed Man, features a character curiously similar to Elie Wiesel (or Simon Wiesenthal...)
- Salman Rushdie - Indian-born British novelist, essayist, children's book writer. Try Haroun & The Sea of Stories (for kids and adults, my review linked) or Shalimar The Clown (definitely for adults, despite the title).
- Margaret Atwood - Canadian fiction writer, essayist, activist. Her short story collection Bluebeard's Egg got me started, and The Robber Bride and Cat's Eye got me hooked. Many of my students began with Oryx and Crake and are now moving archaeologically through her earlier works...
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| Lee. |
- Maile Meloy - American fiction writer, esp. Both Ways Is The Only Way I Want It (review linked) soon to release her first Y.A. novel, The Apothecary
- Stephen Sondheim (a composer/lyricist for good measure) - West Side Story, On The Town, and Sunday In The Park With George, to name a few...
- Ooh! And Harper Lee. She'll be immediately won over and take me into her confidence, offering me editorship of her second - and only unpublished - novel. Wouldn't that be the ultimate readerly coup?? What if her conversation's as stellar as her writing? And we could all find out what she's been up to all these years since To Kill A Mockingbird!
MFB in a happy fantasy,
L
Now tell me who you'd pick, and go visit everybody's choices through
The Broke and the Bookish's Top 10 Tuesday blog hop!
12 comments:
Hi. Thanks for stopping by my blog.
I love your list! You picked so many amazing authors. How could I forget Edna St. Vincent Millay, Rumi, and Salman Rushdie? I love the idea of splitting it up into two lists, by the way. Very clever.
As for Carl Sagan, I recommend his Cosmos book and TV show combo, mostly because it's a pleasure to hear him talk, though really all of his books are great.
Great lists. So many wonderful authors on there. I would actually love to know what Harper Lee has been up to since she wrote that famous book. Would also love know how she feels that her only novel is loved by so many.
Great list! It's great to see Austen and Atwood on so many lists.
Thanks for stopping by my blog!
That's such a lovely picture of Harper Lee, she'd be amazing to meet.
So many other great authors on the list as well, we share Shakespeare but I think that might be it. That said I would hardly delete an email of invitation from any of these authors!
Gosh, you have some fantastic authors here. I'm realizing that listing only 10 isn't going to do it for me . . .
So very cool the way you did 2 lists!! And Stellar choices!!
E - Love your blog. Cosmos: Going onto my library TBR right away.
K - Yes, I think we've got extensive company in wondering how HP has reacted to all the events in her life, including her enormous fan-base.
M - I agree. And right back atcha.
K - That's a wonderful way to put it, and if we have to share someone, who better than Shakespeare?
T - Loved your list too.
L - Thanks!
All: I visited all your blogs and so enjoyed your choices. If I didn't comment, it's because of the Blogger glitch that sends google account commenters into an endless loop.
FYI: I switched to pop-up comments here to get around the Blogger bug...Allowing URL-based sign ins will get around it too, though more cumbersome for the commenter.
Oh, wow, Harper Lee! I didn't even think about her, but I'd certainly love to meet her. Great list :)
Tara @ Hobbitsies
You're the second person I've seen to have Maile Meloy on your list. I haven't read anything by her, but I saw her interview Ann Patchett at reading and she was such a sweet, quietly articulate lady.
This is a fabulous list, but you had me with this one:
Jane Austen: In hopes that a conversation with her would help me understand what all the fuss is about.
I cracked up. I thought I was the only one who didn't get it....judging by the number of spin offs lately, we are among a very few who don't ;)
Tara - Me too!
Christine - Never met her, but have corresponded a tad: wonderful person.
Birdie - You're back on the interwebs! Hurray! And: What?? I cannot fathom that you (Anglophile that I - perhaps mistakenly - perceived you to be) would share my "meh" about Austen. How is this so?
Love your list! :) Harper Lee -- love your little fantasy. I think it would be great if there actually was something brewing. Like maybe her memoirs of Truman Capote! Aha!
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