I first encountered the “My Personal Canon” idea via this post from Melissa of The Bookbinder’s Daughter. Then Jillian tagged me on Twitter saying she would like to see my list. Well, how could I resist such an invitation? Here is my very personal take on the topic.
As I understand it, these are lists of books that have had a significant impact on us, and that we also consider “great” or of lasting value for others, whether they’re part of the traditional canon or not. That helped to narrow down my list, because as I looked back I found that I was wanting to include books that I’d read more than once, until they made a sort of imprint on my soul. (Every book on this list has been read so many times I’ve lost count.) The result may not be very highbrow, but these are books that have truly shaped me and my reading life.
After some deliberation, I have not included any non-fiction, including biographies and memoirs, on the list. That would involve a somewhat different set of parameters, and might be a project for another time.
So, here you go … and please, tell me, what would be in your personal canon?
- The Oz books by L. Frank Baum
- Greek Myths and Norse Gods and Giants by Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
- The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie by George MacDonald
- Complete set of “rainbow” Fairy Books edited by Andrew Lang
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. LeGuin
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
- Right Ho, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
- Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- What’s Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies
- Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
The Emerald City Book Review Archive 
I’ve thought about a post like this but never knew how to describe it. Personal Canon is the perfect phrase.
LikeLike
Thanks Melissa! (or whoever came up with it first)
LikeLike
What a great list! I’m so glad Jillian asked you to do one, too!
LikeLike
Always happy to make a list. 🙂
LikeLike
Oh – I love this idea! And I think I’d have a super hard time coming up with my list…especially fiction! I know something by Pat Conroy would be on it, though.
LikeLike
There are some books one knows have to be included, but beyond that it’s difficult to know what to leave out.
LikeLike
What a splendid list! And such a lot of fantasy, topped by books on, naturally, the Emerald City! I think my canon would overlap significantly with yours, Lory, particularly the Le Guin, and anything by DWJ and Austen.
My main criterion for inclusion would be to consider anything I’ve read, or would read, multiple times. And I’d include stuff I’ve enjoyed relatively recently and not just in my youth.
Anyway the upshot is that I’m tempted to post my own canon sometime soon along these lines or using the meme Books that Built the Blogger that I’ve seen elsewhere.
LikeLike
Do it, do it!!
LikeLike
Ooohh I like the idea of this, but I would be so worried about missing books off it. My list would also include Jane Eyre, Little Women and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as Bow Down Shadrach by Joy Cowley and Every Secret Thing by Marie Munkara.
I’m going to stop now, before I spiral out of control and start over-analysing the list lol
LikeLike
I already am thinking of all the books I should have included. Maybe I will do an edit at some point…
LikeLike
I’m planning to keep adding to mine as the years go by. 🙂
LikeLike
What a great list, and idea! I love your books and many would appear on my list as well, but it would take me forever to put one together — I’d be afraid of missing half of them. Perhaps it will be a project…
LikeLike
This was an off-the-top-of-my-head sort of list (and I actually posted it five days early by mistake, so lost the opportunity to ponder and edit during that time). So consider that you could take a whack at it without too much forethought…but if you want more time to create a definitive list, we’ll still be interested whenever you’re ready.
LikeLike
Oh my! What a lovely list! LITTLE WOMEN and JANE EYRE. Those two are in my canon as well. I so want to read Watership Down! I have a feeling I will LOVE it. And I adore that Baum leads tour list. I’ve only read one by him, and I can’t get it out of me. Also, I love that you’ve included a Norton Anthology of poetry. 🙂
Thank you so much for doing this. It’s so enriching to see a collection of the books that has dented the soul of another.
(How much fun was THIS to compile? I think writing such a list is like looking through old boxes of letters.)
LikeLike
I love making lists. I like the comparison to looking through old boxes of letters — so many wonderful memories.
LikeLike
I did a shorter version of something similar recently for 746books blogsite – https://bookertalk.com/2017/05/08/my-reading-life-in-5-books/
we were asked to identify a few (like 5 or 6) books that have had a significant impact on our lives. it was incredibly hard to get to that small number so I completely understand the challenge you had with your own canon
LikeLike
Your list is so interesting! I love that you included some of your inspirations as a journalist. I do think I may come up with a second list of nonfiction works, as they influenced me in quite a different way.
LikeLike
hope you give the non fiction list a go Lory
LikeLike
I’ve actually thought about this a lot–for the most part, my canon are books I discovered early and kept on rereading. I think it has to do with encountering something that affects you while your brain is still forming…we share some of the same, though I Watership Down never really got me the way it did so many others.
LikeLike
It’s an utter mystery to me why some books become touchstones for me (or another person) and others leave us unmoved — but I love seeing what each individual person would choose. As Jillian said above, “It’s so enriching to see a collection of the books that has dented the soul of another.”
LikeLike
This is an awesome list!!! I may be stealing this idea in the future 😉😁
But I do remember The Wizard of Oz, The Princess and the Goblin, and Alice in Wonderland ❤
LikeLike
The more lists the better!
LikeLike
I’m with you on the Oz books and Pride & Prejudice! I’d also have to add the Laura Ingalls Wilder series to my personal canon, because I still read those. 🙂 Great post!
LikeLike
I loved those too, but they are not quite as near to my heart…maybe I should make a Top 100 list at some point.
LikeLike
I’m curious about why you chose A Midsummer Night’s Dream, if you are willing to share!
LikeLike
Well, one prosaic reason is it’s simply one of the two Shakespeare plays I’ve read, seen, and been involved in productions of most often (#1 being Twelfth Night), so it’s gotten most under my skin. Beyond that, I find that the mixing and merging of the three worlds of the fairies, mortal lovers and mechanicals has a lot of deeper meaning to ponder.
LikeLike
I love your choices! I was tagged for this too but haven’t had time to put my list together yet. Little Women and Watership Down will definitely be on it. 🙂
LikeLike
I will look forward to seeing your list.
LikeLike
I REALLY need to read Watership Down. I’ve heard good things.
LikeLike
I always loved how it combined an adventure story with precise observation of the natural world and an invented mythology that felt true.
LikeLike
What a great list! It’s possible that I would also have Jane Eyre and Little Women on mine, but I do know for sure that I’d have many of L.M. Montgomery’s books. I am not much of a re-reader, but hers I could re-read forever.
LikeLike
If I added another ten books or so, hers would definitely be included.
LikeLike
Great list, it’s so interesting to think what books would make up my own personal cannon. Little Women for sure would be a cornerstone of mine.
LikeLike
Little Women is a favorite of mine too.
LikeLike
That’s a foundational book for so many of us, I find.
LikeLike
This is a neat idea. I will have to borrow it for a future post. I’ve thought about my favourite books before, but describing a ‘personal canon’ invokes a different way of thinking, about how a book personally impacted me. The first ones that come to my mind are The Hobbit and White is for Witching. Looking at your list makes me think I would probably also include The Haunting of Hill House. I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle first, and certainly enjoyed it, but something stuck with me more in Haunting.
LikeLike
It was interesting to think in these terms — there are books that definitely impacted me but that I”m not sure I would consider of lasting value. And then there are those that are indisputable classics but that left me relatively unmoved. I hope to see your list soon!
LikeLike
A Midsummer Night’s Dream would be on my list as well, but if I had to include only one Austen, I would choose Persuasion over Pride and Prejudice. Another book I would include is Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World. That was the first book that really got me thinking about philosophy and different ways to look at the world. Though I am no longer in the targeted age group, I still refer back to it and reread parts of it on a fairly regular basis.
LikeLike
It’s hard to pick a favorite Austen!
LikeLike
This is really interesting! And I wonder if, should you do this again in say ten years, it would have changed at all? Perhaps not much, or at least not the core.
It’s always nice to read someone’s list of important or beloved books and find so many that I love too. 🙂
LikeLike
It surely would change in ten years! I think I should make an effort to take more time for rereading, so more books have a chance to “sink in.”
LikeLike
This is such an amazing idea! Far from being a list of all the books you’ve ever read (which would surely be enormous), it’s just the ones that have had an impact on who you are as a person. I will definitely be putting some thought into this, thanks for sharing!
LikeLike
Great, Michelle, I hope you will share with us soon.
LikeLike
I completely agree with your criteria for choosing. Several of these would be in my personal canon: Little Women, Gaudy Night (or possibly all four Harriet Vane novels), maybe the Oz books, possibly the MacDonald books, both Shakespeare titles plus Romeo and Juliet. I’ll have to think about which other books I would add; I think my list would be pretty long! Is it all right if I post my own list?
LikeLike
I am so pleased there are so many kindred spirits who love the same books I do! I decided to somewhat arbitrarily stop at 20, and tried not to think about all the books I left off…
Please do post your own list — as I mentioned, this is just an idea I picked up from other bloggers and I’m sure everybody is happy if it spreads further.
LikeLike
Ooh yes, Alice in Wonderland is wonderful 😀 And I love so many of the books on this list- I love Austen, Bronte, Shakespeare and Dickens!!
LikeLike
Those are some of my absolute favorites too.
LikeLike
I love this idea! From your list, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Great Expectations,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night would probably all make my own (Twelfth Night is my favorite of the Bard’s). I’d need to give some thought to what else would make it. Hmmm….
LikeLike
I’d love to see your list, Nicole.
LikeLike
I love this idea, and I love your list. I’d have Little Women, Earthsea, and probably Watership Down as well…off to plan!
LikeLike
Can’t wait to see yours too!
LikeLike
I love this idea. It seems like a great way to really think about the books that have affected you and in turn, why. I love quite a few of the ones you do. “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” and “Pride and Prejudice” would probably be two of mine, too.
Have you seen that they’re making a movie of “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”? I hope it’s good! It’s being released in August, I think.
LikeLike
I did not know that – fingers crossed it will be a worthy adaptation!
LikeLike