Lists

I have a thing for lists, and always have had - I'm sure psychoanalysts will make something of that! Here are some lists of all time greats (they change pretty frequently!!)

Email me yours - if I have a large enough sample of such lists I may be able to place myself along the ordinate of the normal curve and conclude that my existence is a statistically significant improbability! I have even taken the liberty of annotating some of the entries in these lists, purely for my own delectation (and your annoyance, natch!).

Literature

• James Joyce - Ulysses: This HAS to take the biscuit for sheer linguistic inventiveness!
• Mervyn Peake - the Ghormenghast trilogy: Also worth a read is Mr Pye - a funny little tale of a man who is so angelic he starts growing wings!
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 100 Years of Solitude: Magical realism at its most magical (and least real).
• Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita: the language in this book sparkles, shimmers, bubbles and squeaks!
• Geoffrey Chaucer - the Canterbury Tales:
• Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow:
• Philip Roth - The Great American Novel
• Jorge Luis Borges - The Complete Works: nothing short of his entire life output will do Borges' baroque genius justice!

Fiction

• Kurt Vonnegut - Hocus Pocus
• Will Self - The Quantum Theory of Insanity: insanely witty, apocalyptically dark humour. Not for the squeamish or impressionable. For a gentler introduction to Self try his collection of short stories Grey Area.
• Saki - Complete Works: Saki (Hector Munro) has to be the ultimate master of the light short story.
• Walter Miller - A Canticle for Leibowitz.
• Ken Kesey - Sometimes a Great Notion. Must be the least remembered of 20th century American masterpieces, vastly superior to 'One flew...' The characters in this one live, as does the rugged landscape.

Computing

• Don Knuth - The Art of Computer Programming: Knuth never does anything by half! He has to dig all the way back to first principles, via many fascinating and unsuspected sidealleys and backstreets. After finishing this three course meal, try Selected Papers on Computer Science for dessert!
• Don Knuth - Digital Typography: a highly stimulating collection of essays about TeX, typography, the delectable art of programming, the joy of a beautifully constructed letter A, the world, the universe and everything. Knuth's style is, as always, eminently readable.
• Aho et al. - The Dragon Book: I am now into my second copy, and that is coming apart at the spine! Now largely dated.
• Douglas Hofstadter - Gödel, Escher, Bach: Metamagical Themas is the better read, but this one created the Hofstadter myth and is a classic.
• Jon Bentley - Programming Pearls: its sequel, More Programming Pearls, and the 2nd edition of Programming Pearls.
• Edsger Dijkstra - A Discipline of Programming
• Andrew Glassner - his Notebook and his Other Notebook - entertainments in what he calls recreational computer graphics: excellent bedtime reading both. And almost as entertaining, Jim Blinn's Dirty Pixels, a selection of the articles which appeared in (the infamous!) 'Jim Blinn's Corner' in the IEEE CG&A now (very!) conveniently collected in one place.
• Roger Penrose - The Emperor's New Mind:

Rock Music

• Family - Music in a Doll's House:
• Pentangle - Basket of Light: wasn't it Neil Young (THE Neil Young!) who once said that Bert Jansch did for the acoustic guitar what Jimi Hendrix (THE Jimi Hendrix!) did for the electric?!!
• Iron Butterfly - In-a-Gadda-da-Vida.
• Colosseum - Valentyne Suite:
• King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King:
• Lou Reed - Berlin: Reed at his minimalist best.
• Doll by Doll - Remember:
• Nico - Desertshore.
• Jethro Tull - Aqualung:
• Blind Faith - Blind Faith:
• The Enid - In the Region of the Summer Stars: the quintessential symphonic rock album.
• Peter Hammill - Over: far more introspective and minimalist than his work with VDGG, this one is among Hammill's more accessible albums.
• Pink Floyd - Meddle: forget The Wall, forget The Dark Side ... forget even Wish You Were Here, THIS is the pinacle (well, half of it anyway)!
• The Congos - Heart of the Congos: Reggae as it is played ONLY in Jamaica!