[Publib] Best Books Request

[Corner, Dean]

Germinal by Emile Zola; Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani; Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo (pseud.); Bass Saxophone by Josef Skvorecky; Fateless by Imre Kertesz.
 
 
 
Dean Corner
 
Director of Reader and Information Services
Maine State Library
64 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0064
207-287-5604
207-287-5615 fax
 

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From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Tom Cooper
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 2:06 PM
To: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Publib] Best Books Request



Hi All - I'm wondering if you'd be interested in helping me assemble a bibliography I've been wanting to do. Once it's done, I'll share it. You may recall that recently the permanent secretary of the Nobel Prize Committee stated that American authors were not likely to win the Nobel Prize for Literature because American readers were too insular and isolated. It was an insensitive thing to say on many levels, but it does bother me that many Americans spend their entire reading lives without learning much about the literature of other countries and cultures. 

 

What I want to do is a bibliography of the best novels not written in English. There are the ones that anyone could pick, like Don Quixote, The Red and the Black, Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, Pere Goriot, et cetera. But then there are others like Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo or Yukio Mishima's Decay of the Angel that are less well known. So I am soliciting suggestions. What books have you read that were not written in English that made a big impression? 

 

Thanks, and have a good weekend!

 

Tom Cooper, Director 
Webster Groves Public Library 
301 E. Lockwood 
Webster Groves, MO 63119 

(314) 961-3784 
tcooper at wgpl.org 

Do not judge beliefs by their plausibility, but by the harm they may do. 
                                             Nassim Nicholas Taleb 

 

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