A bit late on the top ten

[The Great Quail]

As with us all, these lists are subject to time, place, and mood...! But for
now....

Top Ten Books:

1. Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
2. Ulysses, by James Joyce
3. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon
4. Ficciones, by Borges
5. Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon
6. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
7. Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco
8. The Trilogy, by Samuel Beckett
9. Something Wicked This way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
10. The Recognitions, by William Gaddis

Top Five Series:

1. Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Cthulhu Mythos, by H.P. Lovecraft (Esp. "At the Mountains of Madness.")
3. Aubrey/Maturin novels, by Patrick O'Brien (Esp. "Desolation Island")
4. The Eternal Champion, by Michael Moorcock (Esp. Cornelius Chronicles and
Elric books)
5. Dune, by Frank Herbert
6. VALIS books, by Philip K. Dick
7. The Sprawl stories, By William Gibson
8. Horatio Hornblower, by C.S. Forester
9. Urth of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
10. Flashman, by George MacDonald Fraser


Top Ten Rock/Pop Albums (made possible only by omitting the Beatles and Bob
Dylan):

1. Scary Monsters, by David Bowie
2. Achtung Baby, by U2
3. Vespertine, by Bjork
4. Moving Pictures, by Rush
5. Discipline, by King Crimson
6. I Often Dream of Trains, by Robyn Hitchcock
7. In the Aeroplane over the Sea, by Neutral Milk Hotel
8. Remain in Light, by the Talking Heads
9. Close to the Edge, by Yes
10. OK Computer, Radiohead

Hmmm.... Zappa should be on here some place, but it's so hard to pick a
single album.... And of course Tom Waits.... And Elvis Costello.... Jeez,
this is hard. A few of these choices will no doubt be different in a week or
two....

Opera? No opera lists yet...?

Top Ten Operas:

1. The Ring Cycle, by Wagner
2. Akhnaten, by Philip Glass
3. Nixon in China, by John Adams
4. The Marriage of Figaro, by Mozart
5. Wozzeck, by Alban Berg
6. Parsifal, by Wagner
7. Tosca, by Puccini
8. Lady Macbeth of Mtensk, by Shostakovich
9. Elektra, by Strauss
10. Billy Budd, by Britten

--Quail