National Books

[papayahed]

The Book Club got me thinking that we're really just scratching the surface for country of the month so I'm thinking ....

List a book or at most 5 that you think best represents your country, people, or even just something you think is a good read by an author form your country. It doesn't have to be the most popular or the most well known, in fact i rather it not be. (ie Niamh - please don't list Joyce!:lol: )

The rule is that you must live in that country or have at least lived there for a good portion of time AND since this is subjective and not "The Best of.." no arguing over other's lists.

[johann cruyff]

The book that probably represents Bosnia & Herzegovina the best is The Death and the Dervish by Mesa Selimovic.Most definitely one of the finest books written in the twentieth century,too bad very few people have read it.

Anyway,that,or anything by Ivo Andric.The Damned Yard is simply brilliant(then again,all of his books are).

[Nossa]

Good idea!
Well, for me, I'd got with these books:

The Cheapest Nights by Yusuf Idris
The Sin by Yusuf Idris
Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz
The Return of the Spirit by Tawfiq Al Hakim
Granada by Radwa Ashour

[Whifflingpin]

Plucking the first handful out of the heap -


For England:
Tristram Shandy - Laurence Sterne
Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
The Intrusions of Peggy - Anthony Hope
The Gale of the World - Henry Williamson

For Britain:
The Light's on at Signpost - George Macdonald Fraser

[Niamh]

(ie Niamh - please don't list Joyce!:lol: )


Yeah watch me!:lol: Not a hope!:p

Okay now let me see, five books from my country... humm...

Deirdre of The Sorrows By J.M.Synge
The Tain- any translation, although i do find the Thomas Kinsella version very heavy.:(
Hellfire by Mia Gallagher (excellent)
Translations- Brian Friel
Observe the Sons Of Ulster Marching Towards The Somme

Three of them are actually plays but...they are wonderful to read.

[Dori]

Most of my favorites are very short (Americans excel in short forms ;) ). I'll try to supply a link to the online text of each story.Here's a list of lesser-known ones:

"Sporting Life in America: Dozing" by Robert Benchley
"Four 'Simple' Tales" by Langston Hughes
"Pigs is Pigs" by Ellis Parker Butler (http://www.ellisparkerbutler.info/epb/pigsispigs_html.asp)

And a list of the more popular:

"Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne (http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/158/)
"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe (http://www.literature.org/authors/poe-edgar-allan/amontillado.html)
"EPICAC" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (http://astro.ocis.temple.edu/~tarantul/epicac.html) (Is this popular? I'm not sure.)

I couldn't list just five. Unfortunately, I'm only half as well read in American literature as I would like to be.

[papayahed]

I couldn't list just five. Unfortunately, I'm only half as well read in American literature as I would like to be.


Five is just a guidline.

[Niamh]

Five is just a guidline.

Really?
Bet you will regret writing that papaya!:lol:

At swim two birds- Flan O'Brien
A long long way- Sebastian Barry
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas-John Boyne
Artemis Fowl- Eoin Colfer
A School for Scandel -R.B.Sheridan
The Sea- John Banville
Tarry Flynn- Patrick Kavanagh
Star of the Sea- Joseph O' Conner