i've got your back, john irving

time magazine recently published a list of the greatest 100 novels of all time ( see list here), and disturbingly, i have read only 17. and i'm including "lord of the flies," which i didn't read so much as i read the cliffnotes the day before the essay was due and still got an A-. take that, high school!
anyway, i agree with some of the choices: lolita, catcher in the rye, to kill a mockingbird. and i'm psyched to see that david foster wallace made the list with "infinite jest." two of the titles "play it as it lays" and "day of the locust," i read in litvak's class (thanks, joe, for this and also for being so sexy). but where the fuck was garp?? i'm pissed, and i know eel is, too, because she's also a john irving fan. anyway, i thought i'd give you a sampling of what you'd find on danger's list of books that are important. and i'll leave the meaning of "important" open to interpretation, because i don't want to have to fight with any righteous english majors (i only minored in english, thankyouverymuch) over this shit.
-the world according to garp, john irving
-the little prince, antoine de saint exupery
-the philharmonic gets dressed, carla kukin (marc simont's illustrations make this book)
-pastoralia, george saunders (short stories)
-the mysteries of pittsburgh, michael chabon
-the bell jar, sylvia plath
-the vagabond, colette
-dogwalker, arthur bradford (short stories)
-frankenstein, mary shelley
-the collected works of frank o'hara (poetry)
i think with these titles on your shelf, you can never go wrong. there's fiction, non-fiction, a children's book, a poet, and half of the authors are dead. to my knowledge, none of these titles have been in oprah's book club, though "the philharmonic gets dressed" was featured on reading rainbow back in the day ("but you don't have to take my word for it..."). you'll laugh, you'll cry, etc. etc. to this day, the only book that's ever made me cry is "the little prince." when i was in paris, i took a picture of saint exupery's memorial at the pantheon. it doesn't look like much, but it was a special moment for me.

in protest, i'm cancelling my subscription to time magazine (metaphorically speaking, of course).
xoxo
danger.
p.s. can we have a serious discussion about "to kill a mockingbird?" was boo radley an albino?
p.p.s. soon we will tackle time's list of the 100 greatest films. finding nemo, my ass.