What are your ten "personal 'great books'"? Thanks to normblog for the idea and the criteria for selection ["these are not necessarily what I judge to be the 10 most important of the works that I've read in my life (on whatever criterion, or set of criteria, or scale). But they're all ones which have had a marked and lasting influence on the way I think about the world."]. Here are the books on my list, ordered chronologically by when they came into my reading life:
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X (as told to Alex Haley).
The Diary of A Young Girl, Anne Frank.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig.
Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings, Benjamin Lee Whorf.
Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger.
Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life, C.S. Lewis.
Protagoras, Plato.
The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor, Flannery O'Connor.
Henry Mitchell On Gardening, Henry Mitchell.
Update, August 3, 2004: I've edited the Malcolm X entry to credit Alex Haley, who actually wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X after Malcolm X's death, based on his extensive interviews with Malcolm X. I briefly toyed with the idea of adding explanations to this list, but I didn't get very far before nodding off in utter tedium. Instead, I'll try featuring quotes from these books from time to time on my reading blog.
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