And even MORE great news today. Two things I can’t talk about, and two things I can. Of the latter: I got the mechanicals for the paperback cover of Secret Society Girl, and they’re adorable. I think you guys are going to love it and I can’t wait to get permission to put it online. Very different concept than the hardcover. I’m also mostly finished with the edits for Under the Rose. I just need to do one more read through, and then some final work on some sticky points that still need to get smoothed away. Onto today’s topic:
1. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov: I love this book. I love it so much. It’s gorgeous reading, like the most decadent, many layered dessert you’ve ever tasted. And the story rocks too. And it wouldn’t work in any other point of view. No, Lolita is Lolita not because of the fascinating story, nor the ecstatic writing, but because of the miracle of narration — Nabokov makes you root for a child molester. Because he tells the story himself.
2. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley: Several FPPOV, as a matter of fact. Nested boxes of “true” histories. The moment when the monster gets his own say is such a powerful reversal, and his speech is so moving and eloquent that you can’t help but condemn the society that shuns him.
3. Clarissa, by Samuel Richardson: Too long, and so too little read, but a masterful exploration into every corner of a young woman’s psyche. Clarissa is brilliant, and so indoctrinated into her society, and it’s amazing to watch as her letters turn from correspondance to diary, as her circumstances reveal bit by bit what she’s lying about, and what she truly believes. Her “mad papers!” I remember falling out of my bed when I first read them.
4. Odd Thomas, by Dean Koontz: Odd’s straightforward, just-folks depiction of his bizarre life is the only thing keeping the book from floating into another dimension. No matter how weird things get for Mr. Thomas, his grounded voice makes it sound… almost normal.
5. Bridget Jones’s Diary, by Helen Fielding: Because every one who reads this book falls for Bridget. It’s love. Love, people. She invites you to share every corner of her inner life. She’s so vulnerable, and so honest, and it’s because you the reader, are not necessarily meant to see the things she scribbles in her diary.
6. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keyes: I spoke about this at length on Tuesday, but my heart breaks for Charlie. His voice is so true in this story. You believe it.
7. Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem: If you’ve only seen the George Clooney movie, then (as much fun as I’m sure that was) you don’t know this story. At its heart, it’s about a man incapable of making personal connections trying to communicate with an unknown and unknowable alien entity. And the connections he draws from this irony, as well as the alien’s ultimate manifestation are purest agony through his deceptively cold POV. (I wrote a kick ass paper in college comparing this book to “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbus Tertius,” by Borges.)
8. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous: Scared my ass off drugs, that’s for damn sure. I’ve heard various reports about whether this was actually a memoir, or a novel posing as a memoir. Either way, it was awesome. I still remember how she described her first acid trip.
9. Dear Mr. Henshaw, by Beverly Cleary: What’s my thing for epistolary novels? All I know is that I read this book over and over as a child. I think I was enamoured of the idea of a kid who would actually write to his favorite author like that. I wonder how many pen pals Beverly Cleary got as a result of this book?
10. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain: Huck has you at hello with this book. “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.”
11. Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella: Here’s my confession: When I first read this book, I hated it. I threw it across the room so many times. It turned me off buying Starbucks for a month. I could not identify with Becky at all. But for some reason, I couldn’t look away. It was like watching a train wreck. And the more I allowed myself not to like her, the more I allowed myself to accept that I hated the main character of this book (a rarity for chick lit, which usually expects the reader to identify with the protag), the more I loved it. If I put Becky in the “bad protag” camp (though her crimes are nothing compared to Humbert’s or Dexter’s), then I could go along for a sick, fascinating, hilarious, undeniably enjoyable ride. Now I’ve read the whole series, and I love it. I just had to reset my inner reader.
12. “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” by Jorges Borges: (You saw this one coming, didn’t you?) A short story, but one of my favorites. Fiction and non-fiction are complex constructs in this fascinating piece. The FPPOV character is Borges himself, relating the fictional actions and arguments of his real friends and colleagues, the fictional entries in real books, and ultimately… well, if you haven’t read the story, you need to do so. It’s pretty short, and available online (though not in the standard translation).
13. I’ve been rotating books in and out of this slot all week. It seems that as soon as I decide what titles this list should include, I think of another I’d rather have. What should my criteria be? How recently I’ve read it? How often? How well I’ve remembered the wonders of the POV? And then I realize that this is by no means a definitive list and all other FPPOV novels will be burned, so I’m going to go ahead and say HIT REPLY, by Rocki St. Claire. Another epistolary novel, but one for the 21st century, Hit Reply is told entirely in emails. One of my favorite books, a real comfort, chicken soup kind of read. It makes me laugh and cry.
So, what about you? Catcher in the Rye? Outlander? Moby Dick? What am I forgetting? What have I not yet read?
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
October 18th, 2006 at 11:54 pm
Great books! And a few I’ve never read that I will have to check out. It’s always nice to read a new book!
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October 19th, 2006 at 12:11 am
totally forgot about Beverly Cleary. Oh the memories!
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October 19th, 2006 at 1:31 am
Hit Reply is one of my fav’s too.
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October 19th, 2006 at 6:01 am
Great list.
I loved Beverly Cleary as a child. 
In your wrap-up you mentioned one of my favourite books: Outlander.
Great reading.
Happy T13.
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October 19th, 2006 at 6:57 am
I already mentioned mine the other day: “Rebecca” by Daphne DuMaurier. I read this in high school and could NOT put the book down.
But to remember any others? What is so funny is that I have read many, many books in my life, but I really can’t remember which ones were in TP and which were in FP…but I can never forget the opening line to “Rebecca.” And that is also probably because I’ve seen the movie version many times which has the same line read in the voiceover.
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October 19th, 2006 at 9:01 am
I have to add all of them to my list, except the St. Claire book. I’ve not read a single one of them!
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October 19th, 2006 at 9:03 am
I’ve never read Outlander. Or Catcher in the Rye, for that matter.
Heather, did you hear that Rocki just hit the NYT bestseller list?
I’ve seen the movie Rebecca, but I haven’t read hte book. I hear it’s great…
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October 19th, 2006 at 9:07 am
No Way!!!!
How exciting for Rocki. (I remember this being on her goal list…Not that it isn’t on the rest of ours, but hers was specific to happening before a certain birthday.)
Which book?
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October 19th, 2006 at 9:12 am
Oh, Diana! You *must* read “Rebecca!” The book is better than the movie. It’s hard to successfully translate a FP book into a film b/c you never get all the stuff going on inside the main character’s head. And the movie was brilliant…so that tells you how good the book is.
Put it on the TBR pile ASAP!
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October 19th, 2006 at 9:40 am
I’m just amazed that you can recall so many books that were written FPPOV. And there are some titles there that I think I may have to add to my TBR list.
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October 19th, 2006 at 10:34 am
A few familiar favorites on the list and a few which I will add to my reading list.
By the way, having recently read your book, I insisted that my husband read it. He loved it. In fact, he asked me to send you a message from him: “Send me the second book… right… now!” lol! Those were his exact words.
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October 19th, 2006 at 11:12 am
I’ve been trying to get around to Lolita for ages! Loved Beverly Cleary though!
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October 19th, 2006 at 11:20 am
HIT REPLY is one of my all time favorite books. Ever. People who haven’t read it should. Loved, loved this book.
Rocki hit with I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. It’s an anthology collection with Linda Lael Miller, Catherine Mulvaney and well, me.
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October 19th, 2006 at 11:20 am
I loved Huck Finn too!
And as for Sophie Kinsella…I never read the Shopoholic books, but I did read Can You Keep a Secret? and I really enjoyed it.
Beverly Cleary was another good one.
But I’m sort of surprised you didn’t have a Judy Blume book on your list…
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October 19th, 2006 at 11:38 am
Whoa! I made a Thursday Thirteen list! That totally beats that newspaper thingy.
How sweet of you to put HIT REPLY on that amazing FPPOV list. Especially since it had about, well, 13 first person points of view and I got really schizophrenic writing them all. Seriously, thank you!
I didn’t think I was a fan of FPOOV, but looking at your list, I agree with many. Lolita, in particular, is a writer’s dream. What that man can do with 26 letters is simply incredible. I also remember reading Bridget Jones LONG before it became the rage and I loved every word.
To be on a list with those two books just totally rocks my little world. Thanks, Diana!
xoxo
Rocki
PS. Yes, Heather, I did have a goal to hit a particular list before an unmentionable birthday, and I made it with a year to spare. Now I can turn 30 with pride.
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October 19th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
Well, at least you look it.
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October 19th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
30, that is.
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October 19th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
I loved Beverly Cleary books!
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October 19th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
The only books I’ve read on your list are Huck Finn and Flowers for Algernon.
I was totally absorbed by Rebecca, and would add Twilight by Stephenie Meyer to my own personal list of FPPOV favorites. I also really liked PS, I Love You by Cecelia Ahearn (another epistolary)
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October 19th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
Oh, Colleen, I had such a hard time picking. The truth is, though I loved a lot of JB books, my favorites were NOT in 1st person, like Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself.
Also, I could only pick 13. Like, I didn’t get to put SPEAK in there, either. I LOVED SPEAK. What an amazing book! I could probably do 13 more favorites.
Kristin, I shall have to add Rebecca to my list. So many books, so little time. (Ofc ourse the movie was awesome. It was Hitchcock!)
May, you mean you’ve read the St. Claire or you won’t add it? LOL
racy, you must read Lolita. It’s… astounding. Incredible. Mind blowing. Oh, if I could write like nabokov, I’d die happy. (By the way, I would not descirbe the certain debut author currently being touted as Nabokovian as Nabokovian, but that’s just me).
Annie, the easy part was htinking of favorite books. The tough part was remembering if they were in FPPOV or not. I think that’s why so many on the list were epistolary or diary style. THEN I could be sure…
Teena, thank you so much!!!! And thank your husband, too. The next book will be out at the end of June — and good news! It’s going to be in paperback (read: very affordable).
Ah, Beverly Cleary… She’s part of my — hmm, what’s the four way version of a triumvirate? Quadumvirate? — anyway, THAT of Lois Lowry, Beverly Cleary, Caroline B. Cooney, and Judy Blume — my favorite contemporry YA authors…
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October 19th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
HUGE CONGRATS to Rocki and Julie for the NYT bestseller list!!!!! Couldn’t happen to nicer people!
And I totally agree that OUTLANDER should be on the list and HIT REPLY is simply…a gem. I read it in two sittings.
Marley = )
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October 20th, 2006 at 5:29 am
Congratulations, Julie!
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October 20th, 2006 at 5:37 am
Definitely The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is one of my favorite FFPOV. She’s the sort of character you might think was a whiny mess if you had it in third person, but in first person her angst and insanity is just so real. (It helped, of course, that it was only a loosely fictionalized version of Plath’s real life.)
Flowers for Algernon is definitely another one too. I picked it up the other day in the bookstore and just started flipping through it. I had read it before, a long time ago, but I almost started crying right in Borders!
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October 20th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
I love Go Ask Alice.
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October 24th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Hi Diana! You’ve got to take off your site meter at the bottom left of your blog for your posts to show up at the top. That’s what’s making your posts show up all the way to the bottom. Go to http://www.sitemeter.com and get you a site meter. It’ll automatically download on your blog…you’ll see the directions. Just thought you’d like to know…;o)
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