A Life In Books
Newsweek
Feb. 26, 2007 issue - A relentlessly eclectic novelist who's written about topics ranging from WWII espionage to art dealing in the Deep South, William Boyd tops his list of essential books with short stories. His childhood fave? Rudyard Kipling's "enchanting" "Jungle Book."
MY FIVE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS
- "The Collected Stories of Anton Chekhov" Dry, absurd, resolutely secular—the most clear-eyed look at the strange tragic-comedy of our lives; they read as if they were written for 2007.
- "Pale Fire" by Vladimir Nabokov. A unique novel made up of a 2,000-line poem and its hopelessly wide-of-the-mark "scholarly" notes. Phenomenally clever and incredibly funny.
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A Certified Important Book you haven't read: Too many to mention: all Tolstoy, all Dostoevsky. I don't like "magic realism" so that rules out "100 Years of Solitude." The list is very long.