Great Plays

Tastes lean towards the modern and postmodern, so be aware.

Great Plays

• The Good Person of Szechwan: My favorite Brecht. The whole thing's superb, but it's the end that gets me. The irony cuts deep.

• Gross Indecency: A great inquisition of history. Don't we all love Oscar Wilde? Yes. Yes, we do.
  

• Hedda Gabler: For all of Ibsen's attacks on the quote-unquote "well-made play," Hedda's one of the well-est made ones. What a character.

• Krapp's Last Tape: A shorty but a goodie. Very haunting. I especially like it because it capitalizes on the fact (well, fact in my book), that hearing someone's voice on tape is much more uncanny than watching someone on film.

• Major Barbara: My favorite Shaw. Funny and political. (Now I'm suddenly thinking of the Wilde/Shaw sketch from Monty Python... YouTube it if you're curious.)
  

• Waiting for Godot: Deadly funny and tragic, which is exactly what he was going for.
  

• The Zoo Story: The first Albee, and I think my favorite. Maybe cause it's not as mean-spirited as his later stuff, and also less self-conscious. And funny, too!
  

Good Plays

• Arcadia: Beautiful and complex. My only issue with it was that it was maybe too tight and well-crafted, if you know what I mean. Stoppard sometimes can seem a little too clever. I know, I know. I say that like it's a bad thing.
  

• A Doll House: Gets better every time.

• A Dream Play: Possibly the weirdest thing I've ever read.
  

• American Buffalo or Glengarry Glen Ross: Oh, I can't pick. They both do the fast talk/cursing/explosive violence/social criticism Mamet thing to a T.

• Antigone: Read it again if you haven't in awhile. The parallels to today are absurd. In on translation, Kreon almost comes out and says he's the Decider. Spooky.
  

• The Cherry Orchard: Well, you gotta get Chekhov in somewhere, and it might as well be this one. The best part of Chekhov is that his love of people really comes through, I think.

• Chushingura: Hooray, samurai! Being all loyal and shit...

• Eurydice: Hey, a new one. So pretty and sad...
  

• Homebody/Kabul: Layered, violent, primal. I feel bad that Afghanistan keeps getting used as a metaphor, though. Isn't that kind of, I don't know, unfair?

• Fefu and Her Friends: Yay, a feminist play actually written by a female! Aren't we happy? And by feminist, I don't mean in the obvious ways you'd think. Also the staging, which could have come off as trying too hard, I find pretty cool and affecting.

• Joe Turners Come and Gone: My favorite Wilson. Yeah, yeah. I know it's supposed to be Fences or The Piano Lesson or Ma Rainey. No. It's Joe Turners Come and Gone. So there.
  

• Lysistrata: Hilarious. Think Family Guy does anti-war in Greece.

• Oedipus Rex: All the folks from antiquity said it was the perfect play. Does that mean they're going to haunt me for only labeling it "good"?

• The Oresteia: Blood and gore and Greeks and gods. Classic.
  

• Pygmalion: You My Fair Lady fans don't know what you're missing.
  

• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: How Stoppard didn't get sued for copyright infringement by Shakespeare or Beckett is beyond me. But still hilarious and tragic, just like Beckett.
  

• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: I only put this under "good" and not "great" because it's so damn exhausting. Which is, I guess, part of the point.
  

Great Children's Chapter Books

Remember when we used to called books "Chapter Books," because there used to be another kind? Aw.

Obviously, these lean towards the fantasy end of the spectrum.

Great Children's Books

• A Wizard of Earthsea (et al.): Taoism and fantasy and characters of various races? OMG. Mostly, though, I love the way LeGuin writes. Simple and elegant.
  

• A Wrinkle in Time (et al.): Ridonkulously creative, and finally a book for smart, awkward kids where the moral isn't "If you're different and smart, that gives you the right to be an asshole because you are so great" (ahem, Rand fans). To be fair, though, Meg Murray was super-annoying and teenage-y when I reread the book as an adult. Interestingly, the same thing happened when I rewatched The Little Mermaid.

• The Giver: Hooray for dystopian lit for kids!
  

• Lemony Snicket: An Unauthorized Biography: Hilarious and meta. Two of my favorite adjectives! The endnotes are a hoot.
  

• The Phantom Tollbooth: Thus began the love of puns. Well, being raised on Marx Brothers movies didn't help.
  

• The Prydain Chronicles: The Book of Three is clearly a children's book, and it's fun and all, but not terribly deep. Then we get started. The Black Cauldron, as I've said before, is light years beyond stuff like Harry Potter in terms of moral depth. The High King is fantasy of the best sort. And, interestingly enough, my least favorite as a child is now my most favorite: Taran, Wanderer, where our hero learns to become a real hero by learning--gasp!--diplomacy, empathy, and self-control. Also, all the characters in the chronicles are awesome, though I still hold a special place in my heart for Eilowny, who is a great female character, so yay.
  

Good Children's Books

• A Series of Unfortunate Events: Very funny, dark, and clever. Doesn't quite reach the same genius as Lemony Snicket's biography, and sometimes a bit too repetitive for its own good, but fun as hell.

• Harry Potter: We all love Harry Potter. They are fun. I particularly like the multifaceted nature of the adults--something surprising for children's books. They aren't all capital-E evil in the All Adults Suck and Are Stupid children's book vein, nor are they unabashedly Noble and Good in a C.S. Lewis (retch) sort of way. Good for HP. Sadly, though, I wish the universe wasn't so morally awful. In my ideal version, the ending of the 7th book would have the wizards and the muggles working together in a Coalition of the Good. They'd free all the house elves, grant equal rights to werewolves and trolls, enact anti-corruption legislation in their government (and make it more democratic!), and make the school more progressive and public. The end.

• The Hobbit: I count The Hobbit as a kid's book and LOTR as not. Anyway, it's loads of fun, though I was always upset that Smaug was downed by some random deus ex machina. But what are you gonna do?
  

• Number the Stars: I loved this book as a kid. Does that say something weird about me? (Also: Of course we read this in elementary school. So many Jews, so little time...)

I'm sure I'm forgetting lots... I also have to read some of the new stuff like and I Am the Messenger and The Book Thief. Sigh.

Great Shakespeare!

Yeah, yeah. All Shakespeare is great. Yadda yadda.

But here's the real good stuff.

Great Shakespeare

• Hamlet: Well, obviously. It's not the best, though, I think. My favorite lingers below. It's interesting, though. I think Hamlet might be the most awful (in terms of personality) Shakespeare hero. I mean, Macbeth seems good at heart and usually isn't particularly cruel, just efficient. Iago is just crazy (and possibly lust-driven?), so I don't think he counts. Edmund (from Lear) makes some really good arguments for his cause. Brutus is a softy. Titus A. is initially a crazy mo-fo, but he gets his comeuppance in the classic Greek-style. Hamlet's just a bitch. But we still love him, which I guess is the genius of the thing.
  

• King Lear: My personal favorite. Probably his most depressing play, instead of doing the normal "character rises in fortune until Act 3, then gets knocked down" thing, Lear goes straight down all the way. It's like a long death sigh--or maybe a scream.

• Macbeth: I've read the good ol' Scottish play about a million times before, but the most recent reading reminded me of the best part of it. Not the stuff about fate vs. free will. Not the long, beautiful speeches about blood and actors fretting about the stage and all that. No, it's the pure tightness of the plot. This is good entertainment, friends! It's very...HBO.

Good Shakespeare

• A Midsummer Night's Dream: Easily my favorite of the comedies. Well, I don't love the comedies, actually. But AMND is a load of fun. I'm just sad there seem to be zero good movie versions out there.

• Antony and Cleopatra: This is a fun one. Very prettily written, too, and kind of po-mo, 'cause it's all about prettiness and appearances--and especially theatre. And how can you have a play with Cleopatra and have it not be loads of fun? As usual, Marc Antony is a douchebag. Poor guy. Of all the Romans I think he has one of the worst reputations. Wonder why...

• Henry IV: Wait, scratch that. Hal might be as bitchy as Hamlet. Well, sometimes. I know he's supposed to come off well, but I find him kind of toolish towards the end. But it's a fun one.
  

• Othello: A respectable play. But it's a one-man show, basically. I'm pretty sure Iago has more lines than any Shakespeare character ever (except maybe Hamlet, but I forget). I find Iago fairly flat, too, so it's not as great as it could be.

• Richard III: All right, Richard III is unabashedly evil, too, but how can you not like him? That's sort of the whole point of the play.
  

• Titus Andronicus: Yes, I do like Titus A. I know it's not in fashion, but (whether intentionally or not) the play's hilarious. Not too fond of the gross movie version, however.

Just so we're clear that Willy wasn't perfect:

Shakespeare that's just ok: Julius C, Henry V, Richard II, The Tempest

Shakespeare that is overrated like whoa: Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare that makes me feel icky inside: Taming of the Shrew

Great Poets Who Wrote Regular-Sized Poems

As usual, very subjective...

Great Poets

• Auden

• Collins
  

• Eliot

• Larkin

• Shakespeare
  

• Wordsworth
  

Good Poets

• Dickinson
  

• Donne

• Frost (sometimes)
  

• Hughes

• Neruda

• Olds (sometimes)
  

• Shelley

and that Middle Eastern guy who I like whose name I don't remember... I AM THE WORST

• Swift (for fun only)
  

• Yeats
  

Great Long-Ass Poems

I'm a nerd. Sue me.

Great Long-Ass (aka Epic or long enough to be Epic) Poems

• The Canterbury Tales: Definition of genius. Very funny, very clever. I've read it, like, six times now (nerd), and it gets better every time. And it's fun to freak people out by chanting the Middle English!

• Paradise Lost: What's more to say? Satan's a hottie.

Good Long-Ass Poems

• Beowulf: I don't really see the point of Beowulf, but since when did entertainment need to have a purpose?

• The Divine Comedy: Well, it's kind of overrated, I think. Yeah, take that, Dante! Who's putting themselves on a pedastal with the other great epic writers now?
  

• The Odyssey: Yeah, Odysseus is a dick. But ain't it a fun romp?

Epic Poems I've Only Read Pieces of, But They Seem Pretty Decent

• The Epic of Gilgamesh: One day I'll read the whole damn thing in order. Well, actually, I think that's impossible since some pieces are all missing and crap. Oh well. I like Enkidu.
  

• The Iliad: Yay, more dickish Greek men killing one another!

(and those I totally haven't read but should have and let's not mention it lest i seem like a bad former english major:
The Aeneid, The Ring Cycle, The Ramayana. Yeah, oops...)


Epic Poems That Are Teh Suck

• The Faerie Queene: Come on. Who's with me? Friggin Spenser...
  

Great Comics

Let's start easy.

You owe it to yourself to read these immediately.

Great Comics

• From Hell: Not for the faint of heart. It's about Jack the Ripper, and it shows. At the same time, it is about patterns--of history, of the psyche, of literature. IMPORTANT NOTE: Read the endnotes! They bring the book to a whole other level!

• Jimmy Corrigan: Not for the first-time comics reader. It is difficult. Another Ulysses, here. It's a punch in the gut.
  

• Maus: Best Holocaust book ever. Maybe the best comic ever. Pulitzer Prize winner for a reason.

• Quimby the Mouse: Kind of like what would happen if Chris Ware (read: cynical and depressing as hell) got his hands on Krazy Kat. Dark and affecting.
  

Good Comics

• American Born Chinese: Very, very funny, and more complicated than it looks. And it also looks very pretty!
  

• American Elf/The Sketchbook Diaries: Taken one at a time: eh. Taken all together: wonderful. Carlos doesn't get what all the fuss is about, so beware if you're not one for sweetness.
  

• Blankets: A good intro to literary comics. Very accessible, very beautiful, and with enough depth to keep the literary snobs occupied, at least for a little while. Plot: Teenaged Evangelical learns about sex, basically.

• Dinosaur Comics: I didn't get them at first, because taken one at a time they are just okay. Read all together, in order, it is genius.

• Fun Home: At last, a complex comic memoir! Sadly, it took me awhile to find this book, because I was looking in the comics section and the literature section, only to find it hidden away in the back gay and lesbian section--which, incidentally, was between the drama and erotica sections of the Borders. Take from that what you will.
  

• xkcd: Well, you all know this one. It's lovely. What more can I say?
  

• Mister O: Hilarious. Like the best and darkest Wile E. Coyote cartoons.
  

• Watchmen: Best superhero comic of all time. Not that I'm that well read in the genre...
  

What I'm Doing This Weekend for Some Reason

Other than watching Season 1 of Rome, of course...

I'm going to start my Great Lists of Books.

*deep breath*

It's a major reason for the existence of this blog. Many people say, "Oh ho! Former English major! Wannabe writer! Current English teacher! SHE will be able to tell me what to read next!"

Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no. As I update you'll notice that I have huge gaps in my reading history. Most blatant are my bias against bestsellers--though, recently, I've been trying!--and my highly embarrassing unfamiliarity with books written outside of the Americas or Europe. Meaning that while I could, conceivably, write a List of Great Latin American Books, I could hardly do the same for Africa, the Middle East, or Asia/Oceania. I'm embarrassed.

Then again, I guess I just won't separate my lists by continent. Ha HA. That'll show 'em. They'll never suspect a thing...

In Honor of Ratatouille Coming Out on DVD

Great Animated Features, updated

See September 06 for the original list.

Great

Ratatouille: I LOVE Ratatouille! Which is incredible, because I HATED The Incredibles, which is also by Brad Bird and is about the same theme (talent). How did they manage to have basically the opposite morals? I don't know? How did one manage to be all flash and no heart, and one manage to be all heart as well as beautiful animation and a beautiful score and wonderful characters? AND it's about food. Might as well kill me.

Toy Story: How in the world did I forget Toy Story the first time? It's, deservedly, a classic.

Other good ones, though they have weaknesses:

Anything with Wallace and Gromit in. Penguin!

Grave of the Fireflies: I have to put this down to get street cred on the animation scene, but my dad and I agree it is overrated. And you aren't allowed to say that cause it's, like, about kids dying in war and shit. Well, it has its moments.

The Jungle Book: My vote for best songs in any Disney movie. The animation is in the 1970's Disney crap stage, sadly.

Millennium Actress: Well, it was a little (a lot) convoluted, but it got the job done and gets points for being high concept.

Triplets of Belleville: Beautiful as animation, and great soundtrack, but the story left me kind of cold.


More later.

You Knew It Was Coming.

Great Anime, of course!

• Cowboy Bebop: All style, not so much substance, and we do not care. Most episodes in this cowboy/bounty hunter in space thingamajigger are stand alone, but they build, too. They do humor and angst with equal confidence. Deep characterizations, an awesome jazz score, parodies of Alien, Batman, blaxploitation movies, etc... It's kind of Tarantino-ish, now that I think about it. Plot: motley group of space bounty hunters in the future look for bounty, and generally fail.
  

• Kodomo no Omocha: Hilarious show for the young-adult set. Very very funny and sweet, but super quick dialogue and puns flying fast means it's not for the first-time anime viewer. Plot: Kid star of after school special-type show learns to grow up as a pre-teen.
  

• Neon Genesis Evangelion: I didn't get it so much the first time. Not for the fainthearted. Let's say, it's the Ulysses of anime. Robots, Freud, pseudo-religious claptrap. Sadly, Shana identifies with Shinji. But loves Misato! Best female anime character evar! Plot: "Angels," these big alien things, drop onto Earth (particularly Japan) to lay waste. Only robots piloted by weird-ass 14-year olds can stop them for some reason.
  

• Rurouni Kenshin OAVs: Trust & Betrayal: Beautiful, chock full of enough symbolism and leitmotifs to make an English major's heart warm. But it certainly helps to be okay with violence and to have some background in the Meiji Restoration. You don't need to see the series to see the OAVs, though it makes things more fun, of course. Plot: Backstory about our favorite pacifist samurai, Himura Kenshin, as he grows up from widdle boy to cold-blooded assassin to the soft-spoken hero we know and love today.
  

• *Spirited Away: My favorite; see below. Plot: Girl ends up in alternate wonderland-esque world, works in a bathhouse, tries to save her parents who have been turned into pigs.
  

• Vision of Escaflowne: Possibly the most fun anime series of all time. It's got something for everyone: robots, a magical girl, a catgirl, philosophy, a steampunk/clockpunkish setting, EXCELLENT music, dragons, tarot cards, bad guys who scream "Burn! Burn!!" I love ALL OF THESE THINGS. Plot: Girl track star and tarot aficionado from Japan ends up in an alternate universe and must use her crazy mystic powers to save the kingdom from evil Nazi empire (with robots).
  

• Whisper of the Heart: Miyazaki, but not fantasy. See below for details.
  

Good Anime

• Castle of Cagliostro: As I said below, get past it's 70s-ness and you will see the gem inside. Don't take it from me; it's also a Roger Ebert favorite.

• Fushigi Yuugi: Okay: is it good? Depends. Is it, like, deep? Uh, not so much. Is it sometimes annoying and/or over the top, in classic 90s anime style? Uh, sometimes. But is it the most addictive show in existence? Oh lord yes. The plot is fun, the characters are fabulous, and the humor actually humorous. Go in expecting little, and you will be very pleasantly surprised. Plot: Girl from Japan drawn, Neverending Story-style, into a book about a fantasy world based on Ancient China; must become a magic priestess to save the world.
  

• Great Teacher Onizuka: Okay, kind of cheating, because I didn't actually watch the anime; I watched the live action drama. But it is fun! Plot: a former bike gang member decides to become the Greatest Teacher in Japan. Amazingly, something about teachers that I DO like! Maybe because it's so ridiculously unrealistic that I can get past the genre for once.
  

• Last Exile: Hard to understand because I got a bad fansub, but it's beautiful steampunk about AIRPLANES! with cool characterization and a fun, if slightly convoluted plot (though, again, it might have been the subtitling).
  

• His and Her Circumstances: My vote for best shoujo/romantic anime. Well, the first half. Then it gets dumb. Made by the same guys who brought you Evangelion.

• My Neighbor Totoro: See below for "WAI WAI ^_^"-style gushiness. It's cute. Deal.
  

• Princess Mononoke: Violent, sometimes hits you over the head with MESSAGE!!!, but we still love it. It's more complicated then you may think at first.
  

Fun and Possibly Worth Watching, If You're Into That Sort of Thing

• Ranma 1/2 TV: Unadulterated silliness. Funny, though. Plot: Um, ninja family turns into various creatures when doused with water? Yeah, that's it.
  

• Rurouni Kenshin TV series (up to and including the 2nd [Kyoto] arc): If you like your Meiji-era samurai with a dash of X-Men-type powers... Plot: Pacifist samurai faces his non-pacifist past in 1870s-ish Japan.
  

• Trigun: More futuristic cowboys in space? What is WITH this genre?

Seems Good, But I Haven't Seen Enough to Judge

• Crest of the Stars: Very, very good so far. I just keep forgetting to finish it. It's cold, hard sci-fi, of the old kind. And it's based on--shock! awe!--a novel. Amazing.
  

• Full Metal Alchemist: The episodes I saw (maybe five of them, not in order), had a LOAD of potential. I need to see them all in order before I can judge.