My Top 10 Favorite Books

Unrelatably enough, I have a Bachelor's Degree in French so I didn't have time to read a lot of English books in college. Later, as a professional, I ended up going hard into extra courses on education and therefore read a lot of educational research. As a person who has always preferred journalism, nonfiction, essays, and poetry, I felt I should properly challenge myself to produce a list of novels / books I enjoy in the fiction and nonfiction realms. So, I am pleased to present you, dear reader, with a list of books I simply enjoy deeply.

My Top 10 Favorite Books

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (English version)

This books holds its place as the best, most artful piece of narrative/non-narrative poetic prose. This story holds semi-narrative elements juxtaposing the gorgeous and fantastical travels of our narrator in first person, while also depicting the narrator's experience in it's own, third person narrative. Aside from all this bounty of story and sensory arousal, we also dine on the incredible, delectable diction of Calvino.

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

Oh, my heart, I miss Anthony Bourdain. I was a professional cook for nearly a decade, and upon my first serious years of cooking, my sous chef in Savannah, Georgia gifted me this book. (Thanks, Steve.) Though there was some toxicity to the early Tony, you can feel the remorse and the power of his downfall and rise, and one can't replicate the rawness of his words. He had the same slicing sting to his writing as the cut of a sharp knife.

Shopgirl by Steve Martin

I have to say, this book doesn't pass the Bechdel Test and is absolutely heterosexual, but it doesn't make me love it less. I think Steve Martin perfectly captures the vulnerability of a mentally ill woman, and the sincerity with which she loves, and her incessant struggle of never feeling loved enough. Steve Martin has a simplicity to his tone, and a softness, which matches the humming background noise of his antagonist's life. Conversely, Martin also shows the growth of a mentally ill man who strives when inspired to impress his lady love, and learns to love himself. In the end, everyone is happy.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?

I read this book for the first time when I was new to college, in my Comp II class. I ended up writing several essays about this book at the sophmoric age of 21. I reached out to this instructor a few years ago to thank her because her curriculum was absolutely incredible. As a lifelong antiracist growing up in Savannah, Georgia, I absolutely got behind the message, rhythm, and jazz of Invisible Man. In tandem, we also watched Spike Lee's Bamboozled, which blew my mind. 

Often, the first chapter of Invisible Man is offered to introductory English literature courses as an essay or short story. Battle Royale, the original, packs a nasty, electric punch. Ellison does not mince words and paints a picture of black struggle, strength, and white hegemony in a boxing ring. This first chapter made me, as a reader, really question fictional structure and intention.

The concept of this book is brilliant, and the idea that the main charcter remains nameless and works like a shapeshifter in the black community as an "invisible" entity to the white man, unknown amongst his black peers, and yet he remains a master of all trades. (There's an excellent French book called La Goutte D'Or that parallels this motif.) The quiet subtext in humble reverence to black music, beat, and heritage is by far the most intoxicating part of this as a piece of text. Ellison has both a directness in his satire but a subtlety in his diction. 13/10 would recommend, read it please. 

How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher

This book bridges genres of non-fiction / essay with a cookbook and history of WWII cooking. Fisher is brilliant, and is oh so clever with words. My personal favorite dish is Eggs in Hell (Uova al purgatorio), which has multiple versions across cultures, easily recognized in a plate like Shakshuka. Her concept of an eternal soup demonstrates Fisher's intelligence. She has the skills of an economist with the palette of a chef, as seen through her means of preserving and extending the life of food stuffs in a time of scarcity.

Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (both in English and French)

This book introduces the concepts of abstract thinking to children, and shows children that sometimes we have ambiguous situations where we must make choices. I absolutely love the dialogue of the Prince between all of the inhabitants of the planets that he visits, each of which is a microcosm of some negative aspect of adulthood or humanity. I think that as an adult, you might not understand the book as well as a child might, or that the constraints of adult thinking prevents enjoyment of the book, and I feel that is deliberate. 

Pélagie-La-Charette by Antonine Maillet (both in English and French)

I have never read a novel like this before. Antonine Maillet is as much a linguistic historian as she is a writer. She has single-handedly captured the soul of Acadie, a culturally distinct francophone region in eastern Canada. This novel illustrates a fictional family during the expulsion of the Acadiens and their journey by foot along the Mississippi to New Orleans through all weather, pulling everything that they own along in little or large wooden "charettes" or carts. This story has a unique rhythm, and it possesses a unique mythology and cast of characters, all coated in the spirited of adventured and sprinkled over with magic.

Histoire de Ma Vie by Fadhma Aith Mansour Amrouche (English version)

This is the unique account of a woman born to an unwed mother in the Kabyle region of Algeria in the 1800's, and how her life progressed. Uniquely, her origins are indigenous Algerian and muslim. As a child without a formal father present, her mother chooses to give her up to the Christian missionaries in a nearby orphanage. She participates in French culture and Catholicism until she is old enough to marry. When she marries, she is properly  introduced to Algerian culture for the first time. Her life has unique twists and turns across three countries and comes from the unique perspective of someone living a layered identity.

The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys by Chris Fuhrman

This book is based on experiences on Fuhrman's life growing up at a Catholic school and in Catholic culture in Savannah, Georgia. The narrator also parallels his world with his comic book world, and he draws his best friends as comic book antiheros. The boys become preoccupied with harassing a nun from their school. Their youth gets the best of them, and an unfortunate tragedy follows. TW: This story also depicts young love, and features a side narrative about ghosts, assault, and intimacy. It also depicts two underage people in a sexual experience, and I was never comfortable with that. 

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

To me, this is the story a boy with PTSD. You don't know what's going on at first, and he's a sort of loose young man, not completely stable in his current state, and seemingly going through a rough transition. We can't tell he's hurting or why he's hurting until the near end of the book. What I find most interesting in this novel is its denoument, and that I empathize with Holden's struggle and the awkwardness of his situation. I gave this book to someone who was a highly advanced speaker of English as a second language because I felt like it was a sort of coming of age novel in some ways.