Corey Mesler's Homepage: A Tribal-Love-Rock Website

These are a few of my favorite things.

In 1998, in honor of my 25th year of reading (I started late, at 18) I decided to make a list of the 100 books most dear to me, and even, boldly, foolishly, to rank them. Once committed to paper I wanted to change it a couple dozen more times, but, brave compilers must at some point call it accompli, and, voila, my top 100. You have to take my word for it that I did this BEFORE Modern Library put out their controversial list; I did it for a lark. Honest. It's an idiosyncratic list, admittedly, more passion, more personal preference than an attempt to cover books of historical significance. It's one man's favorite books, and, it goes without saying, a good place to start an argument. For instance, do I really think that William Steig's Dominic is a better book than, say, Catcher in the Rye? Yes, I do. Since I concocted this list I would make many amends; most notably I would add David Markson's singular novels. Perhaps, soon, I will bring out a revised list. Perhaps, I will not. Perhaps my work here is done.

1.ULYSSES James Joyce
2.LITTLE, BIG John Crowley
3.LOLITA Vladimir Nabokov
4.THE TRIAL Franz Kafka
5.EDWIN MULLHOUSE Steven Millhauser
6.DARCONVILLE'S CATAlexander Theroux
7.HOUSEKEEPING Marilynne Robinson
8.THE GORMENGHAST TRILOGY Mervyn Peake
9.THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUPIL Iris Murdoch
10.SONG OF SOLOMON Toni Morrison
11.THE MOVIEGOER Walker Percy
12.CHILD OF GOD Cormac McCarthy
13.SOMETHING HAPPENED Joseph Heller
14.SEVENTH HEAVEN Alice Hoffman
15.THE SOTWEED FACTOR John Barth
16.MY LIFE AS A MAN Philip Roth
17.WHITE NOISE Don DeLillo
18.PICTURES FROM AN INSTITUTION Randall Jarrell
19.DANIEL MARTIN John Fowles
20.BEEN DOWN SO LONG IT LOOKS LIKE UP TO ME Richard Farina
21.INVISIBLE MAN Ralph Ellison
22.THE BOOK OF DANIEL E.L. Doctorow
23.TRISTRAM SHANDY Lawrence Sterne
24.WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? Edward Albee
25.JAMES JOYCE Richard Ellmann
26.THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV Fyodor Dostoyevsky
27.THE DAY OF THE LOCUST Nathanael West
28.OBLOMOV Ivan Goncharov
29THE DEPTFORD TRILOGY Robertson Davies
30.THE FAVORITE GAME Leonard Cohen
31.BECH: A BOOK John Updike
32.THE HORSE'S MOUTH Joyce Cary
33.THE KILLER INSIDE ME Jim Thompson
34.THE OUTER DARK Cormac McCarthy
35.MASON AND DIXON Thomas Pynchon
36.CALL IT SLEEP Henry Roth
37.THE HONORARY CONSUL Graham Greene
38.IN OUR TIME Ernest Hemingway
39.SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE Kurt Vonnegut
40.THE MAN WHO LOVED CHILDREN Christina Stead
41.THE STRANGER Albert Camus
42.LAZAR MALKIN ENTERS HEAVEN Steve Stern
43.CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER Ann Beattie
44.THE QUIET AMERICAN Graham Greene
45.PALE FIRE Vladimir Nabokov
46.THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE James Cain
47.HUMBOLDT'S GIFT Saul Bellow
48.ON THE BLACK HILL Bruce Chatwin
49.GREAT DAYS Donald Barthelme
50.THE CRYING OF LOT 49 Thomas Pynchon
51.DUBLINERS James Joyce
52.SABBATH'S THEATER Philip Roth
53.TO THE LIGHTHOUSE Virginia Woolf
54.NUNS AND SOLDIERS Iris Murdoch
55.THE TIN DRUM Gunter Grass
56.UNDERWORLD Don DeLillo
57.THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER Davis Grubb
58.A CLOCKWORK ORANGE Anthony Burgess
59.THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH Leo Tolstoy
60.AEGYPT John Crowley
61.COMPLETE PLAYS William Shakespeare
62.THE ECSTASY OF OWEN MUIR Ring Lardner, Jr.
63.THE MAGUS John Fowles
64.WISE BLOOD Flannery O'Connor
65.WIND IN THE WILLOWS Kenneth Grahame
66.CRIME AND PUNISHMENT Fyodor Dostoyevsky
67.ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE Gabriel Garcia Marquez
68.THE FATE OF THE EARTH Jonathon Schell
69.WIDE SARGASSO SEA Jean Rhys
70.WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS J.M. Coetzee
71.THE ILLUSTRATED WOODY ALLEN READERWoody Allen
72.TALES Edgar Allan Poe
73.DYLAN Anthony Scaduto
74.AMERIKA Franz Kafka
75.THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER Joan Didion
76.GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL Rabelais
77.DANCING WITH MERMAIDS Miles Gibson
78.ALICE IN WONDERLAND Lewis Carroll
79.WAITING FOR GODOT Samuel Beckett
80.MINOTAUR Benjamin Tammuz
81.THE GOLDBUG VARIATIONS Richard Powers
82.1984 George Orwell
83.IN HIS OWN WRITE AND A SPANIARD IN HIS WORKS John Lennon
84.TENDER IS THE NIGHT F. Scott Fitzgerald
85.THE PLAGUE Albert Camus
86.THE END OF THE ROAD John Barth
87.PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT Philip Roth
88.THE HEART OF THE MATTER Graham Greene
89.CAT'S CRADLE Kurt Vonnegut
90.THE SOUND AND THE FURY William Faulkner
91.THE BLACK PRINCE Iris Murdoch
92.THE SECOND COMING Walker Percy
93.THE SUN ALSO RISES Ernest Hemingway
94.THE DAY Douglas Hobbie
95.DOMINIC William Steig
96.LIVES OF THE POETS E. L. Doctorow
97.ON THE ROAD Jack Kerouac
98.THE BOOK OF EBENEZER LE PAGE G.B. Edwards
99.A FINE MADNESS Eliot Baker
100.VERY GOOD, JEEVES P.G.Wodehouse

The Top Twenty Novels I’ve Read Since my Infamous Top 100 Novels List

(Egged on by my friend, Grace’s love of lists, I have compiled this addendum, and even ranked them in order of preference, because I love the folly of it. Please note, scoffers, that I do have a nonfiction book here. You figure out how to integrate this with the previous list, a process involving high math, of which I am rightfully frightened.)

1. The Bone People Keri Hulme

2. Wittgenstein’s Mistress David Markson

3. The Hours Michael Cunningham

4. Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann

5. Auto da Fe Elias Canetti

6. Eugene Onegin Alexander Pushkin

7. Villette Charlotte Bronte

8. Atonement Ian McEwan

9. The Angel of Forgetfulness Steve Stern

10. The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy

11. The Nice and the Good Iris Murdoch

12. Malone Dies Samuel Beckett

13. The Feast of Love Charles Baxter

14. The Saskiad Brian Hall

15. House of Leaves Mark Z. Danielewski

16. The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow

17. The Virgin Suicides Jeffrey Eugenides

18. Observatory Mansions Edward Carey

19. Springer’s Progress David Markson

20. Damned to Fame: A life of Samuel Beckett James Knowlson

TOP 100 MOVIE LIST

1. Annie Hall

2. Amarcord

3. Cries and Whispers

4. Manhattan

5. Modern Times

6. McCabe and Mrs. Miller

7. It’s a Wonderful Life

8. Dr. Strangelove

9. 1900

10. Children of Paradise

11. Citizen Kane

12. Fanny and Alexander

13. Abel Gance’s Napoleon

14. O Lucky Man!

15. Nashville

16. City Lights

17. Strangers on a Train

18. The Hours

19. The Third Man

20. Indian Runner

21. Hannah and her Sisters

22. Woodstock

23. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

24. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)

25. Raising Arizona

26. Rules of the Game

27. Seven Beauties

28. Shoah

29. 8 ½

30. Carnal Knowledge

31. Aguirre Wrath of God

32. Sleeper

33. The Seventh Seal

34. Days of Heaven

35. Clockwork Orange

36. Weekend

37. Young Frankenstein

38. The Gold Rush

39. Red River

40. Nosferatu (1922)

41. The Wizard of Oz

42. This is Spinal Tap

43. The Holly and the Ivy

44. Hiroshima Mon Amour

45. The Apartment

46. Blow Up

47. The City of Lost Children

48. Gormenghast

49. Miracle on 34^th Street

50. Day of Wrath

51. Wings of Desire

52. Crimes and Misdemeanors

53. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

54. A Hard Day’s Night

55. Cabaret

56. Taxi Driver

57. Rear Window

58. The Man Who Would be King

59. Anatomy of a Murder

60. Breaker Morant

61. The Big Sleep

62. Blade Runner

63. The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek

64. Blood Simple

65. Dersu Uzala

66. Shallow Grave

67. Naked

68. Paths of Glory

69. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover

70. Life is Sweet

71. My Man Godfrey

72. Last Tango in Paris

73. Duck Soup

74. Don’t Look Now

75. The 39 Steps (1935)

76. Local Hero

77. Slave of Love

78. Open City

79. The Sweet Smell of Success

80. Brazil

81. Spirits of the Dead

82. Five Easy Pieces

83. The Grey Fox

84. Henry V (Olivier)

85. Simple Men

86. Defending Your Life

86. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

87. M

88. The Story of Adele H.

89. Shoot the Moon

90. Pyscho

91. The Passion of Joan of Arc

92. Amelie

93. Chilly Scenes of Winter

94. Bread and Chocolate

95. The Front

96. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

97. The Last Waltz

98. Terminator

100. Toy Story

AND SOME QUICK TOP TEN FAVORITES:

(in no particular order)

ALBUMS

Revolver The Beatles

Blond on Blond Bob Dylan

Blood on the Tracks Bob Dylan

Abbey Road The Beatles

Songs of Leonard Cohen

Blue Joni Mitchell

Zuma Neil Young

Imperial Bedroom Elvis Costello

Darkness on the Edge of Town Bruce Springsteen

Veedon Fleece Van Morrison

SONGS

"Paperback Writer" The Beatles

"Tangled Up in Blue" Bob Dylan

"Storms" Nancy Griffith

"Joan of Arc" Leonard Cohen

"Happiness is a Warm Gun" The Beatles

"Desolation Row" Bob Dylan

"Coyote" Joni Mitchell

"Secret Agent Man" Johnny Rivers

"Seems so Long Ago Nancy" Leonard Cohen

"Man Out of Time" Elvis Costello

TV SHOWS

The Dick Van Dyke Show

The Twilight Zone

Sports Night

Seinfeld

The Avengers

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

The Andy Griffith Show

Monty Python's Flying Circus

Looney Tunes

The Rockford Files

POEMS

"The Second Coming" W. B. Yeats

"For Jessica, my Daughter" Mark Strand

"Dreamsong #14" John Berryman

"Why I Am Not a Painter" Frank O'Hara

"Musee des Beaux Arts" W. H. Auden

"I Knew a Woman" Theodore Roethke

"I Wonder how Many People in this City" Leonard Cohen

"The Descent" William Carlos Williams

"Teaching the Ape to Write Poems" James Tate

"Daddy" Sylvia Plath

SHORT STORIES

"The Dead" James Joyce

"At the Indian Camp" Ernest Hemingway

"The Hunger Artist" Franz Kafka

"Lightning" Donald Barthelme

"Eisenheim the Illusionist" Steven Millhauser

"The Life you Save may be Your Own" Flannery O'Connor

"A Justice" William Faulkner

"The Library of Babel" Jorge Luis Borges

"The Enormous Radio" John Cheever

"The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Aaron Makes a Match" Steve Stern

FAVORTE SYNONYMS FOR "TALK"

chin-chin

palaver

prattle

expatiate

descant

maunder

chin-wag

colloquy

phonate

confab

Ten Novels you Might Not Read Unless Someone Suggested Them (and I’m Suggesting Them)

Season of the Witch James Leo Herlihy

Tunnel of Love Peter DeVries

The Catherine Wheel Jean Stafford

Beast in View Margaret Millar

The Crock of Gold James Stephens

Wyvern A. A. Attanasio

Fisher’s Hornpipe Todd McEwen

A Father’s Words Richard Stern

Book Robert Grudin

Julian’s House Judith Hawkes



Ten Movies you Might not See….etc.

Work is a Four-Letter Word (David Warner)

Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession (Art Garfunkle, Theresa Russell)

The President’s Analyst (James Coburn)

Runaway Train (Jon Voigt)

Near Dark (Jenny Wright)

Talk Radio (Eric Bogosian)

Fantastic Planet (animated)

Surviving Desire (Martin Donovan)

Life is Sweet (Jane Horrocks, Jim Broadbent)

12:01 (Jonathan Silverman, Helen Slater)

Ten of my favorite poetry books:

The Dream Songs by John Berryman

Viper Jazz by James Tate

Selected Poems by Frank O'Hara

Selected Poems of W. B. Yeats

With Ignorance by C. K. Williams

The Dead and the Living by Sharon Olds

The Late Hour by Mark Strand

Carrier of Ladders by W. S. Merwin

Selected Poems by T. S. Eliot

Selected Poems by William Carlos Williams

Top Ten Songwriters in Rock/Folk:

1.      Bob Dylan

2.      Leonard Cohen

3.      John Lennon

4.      Joni Mitchell

5.      Van Morrison

6.      Paul McCartney

7.      Elvis Costello

8.      Captain Beefheart

9.      Richard Farina

10. Neil Young

11. (And one to grow on) Amy Rigby

CONCERTS I’VE SEEN

Al Stewart

Alice Cooper

Billy Joel

Black Flag

Bob Dylan

Bonnie Raitt

Bruce Springsteen

Cat Stevens

Chicago

Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke

Chuck Berry

CSNY

Curved Air

David Bowie

Donovan

Edgar Winter

Elvis Costello

Emerson Lake and Palmer

Eric Clapton

Firehose

Flo & Eddie

Gentle Giant

George Harrison

Hoyt Axton

Jackson Browne

James Brown

James Taylor

Jethro Tull

Joan Armatrading

Joan Baez

Joan Jett

Joni Mitchell

Linda Rondstadt

Liza Minelli

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Marc Almond

Minnie Riperton

Mojo Nixon

Mose Allison

Neil Young

Nick Lowe

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Peter Paul and Mary

Pretenders

Randy Newman

Rare Earth

REM

Roger Mcguinn

Santana

Sha Na Na

Shadowfax

Steely Dan

Steppenwolf

Styx

The Band

The Byrds

The Dick Nixons

The Eagles

The Handsome Family

The James Gang

The Moody Blues

The Police

The Rascals

The Who

Tom Waits

Toots and they Maytalls

Van Morrison

Warren Zevon

Willie Nelson

Yes

All books and publications by Corey Mesler can be ordered signed or inscribed from www.burkesbooks.com