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Below is playwrightTerrence McNallys list.
KingLearis the greatest achievement of the human imagination.
It encompasses every experience of our time on this planet with unsentimental compassion.
I reread this book every couple of years.
Im still trying to understand why it has me so completely in its thrall.
Its a mystery, wrapped in a dream.
No wonder all attempts to film, dramatize or musicalize it have missed.
These are not real people.
They are ghosts of the American dream who continue to haunt us.
Their laughter seems long ago but their sadness is contemporary.
Wilde was the original victim of Dont ask, Dont tell.
He was Londons pet Bad Boy until it turned out he was a man with a dick as well.
Paul Monettes memoir is a devastating account of his encounter with a disease that would kill him.
Paul Monette was not a careless man.
He wanted us to know and remember what AIDS did to him.
He succeeded more than he could ever have realized.
Books about what it means to be human have no expiration date.
This is the only book on the list you dont actually have to read.
PBS and Masterpiece Theatre are already filming the umpteenth version of it.
Youll fall in love with Mr. Darcy, too.
And then you might dream cast him in the next remake.
I read this book in high school when it was first published.
It had the reputation of being dirty.
It did not disappoint: I was all of 14.
It was also deliciously funny.
Its status is secure and I doubt theres a Best list its not on.
Humbert Humberts despair is anyones who has loved and lost in vain.
Nabokov gets America and Americans.
He is one of the great writers in English and it wasnt even his first language.
Chekhov is one of my gods and this, his first play, is my favorite.
But even there they are very good at playing games with one another.
To me, he is the first modern writer.
This is another book I read in high school when I could not have possibly understood it.
I read the whole thing, too, all seven volumes of it.
I dont know who I was trying to impress.
The newest translation sits on my desk but I think Ill stick with my old Moncrieff.
Ive had a date with it since high school.
Ive read, reread and loved this book most of my life.
Twain writes with an easygoing virtuosity that makes American English the equal of any Kings.
This is the book that codified American English, notMoby DickorThe Scarlet Letter.Those two great books are American Literature.
Huck and Jim are America.
The seeds of the tragedy of racism are planted on nearly every page of Twains masterpiece.
Those birds are still coming home to roost.
