Yann Martel, vielen hier auch fuer sein preisgekroentes Buch Schiffbruch mit Tiger bekannt, hatte nach einem Besuch des kanadischen Parlaments begonnen, unserem Premier Minister Stephen Harper alle 2 Wochen ein Buch zu schicken. Jedes Buch wurde mit einem besonderen Brief eingeleitet. Nach nun insgesamt 100 Buechern hat er das Unternehmen aufgegeben. Die Resonanz vom Buero des Staatsoberhauptes war doch sehr enttaeuschend.
Die Resonanz auf Yann Martels Webseite war dafuer aber umso groesser. Man kann dort die komplette Liste der 100 Buecher sehen. Und alle Begleitbriefe. Es ist eine sehr interessante und sehr internationale Mischung, einschliesslich einiger deutscher Autoren. Sehr empfehlenswert, insbesondere wegen der Erlaeuterungen, nicht nur wegen der Titel auf der Liste.
Die Liste hier:
100: Scorched, by Wajdi Mouawad, translated from the French by Linda Gaboriau
99: A History of Reading, by Alberto Manguel
98: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
97: Paul à Québec, by Michel Rabagliati, Le géant de la gaffe, by André Franquin, and Le lotus bleu, by Hergé
96: Six Characters in Search of an Author, by Luigi Pirandello
95: Cakes and Ale, by W. Somerset Maugham
94: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
93: Selected Poems, by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, translated by Robin Milner-Gulland and Peter Levi
92: Chess, by Stefan Zweig, translated by Anthea Bell
91: The Nibelungenlied, translated from the medieval German by Cyril Edwards
90: Selected Poems, by Al Purdy
89: Mr. Palomar, by Italo Calvino (and Three Lives, by Gertrude Stein)
88: Autobiography of Red, by Anne Carson
87: Sweet Home Chicago, by Ashton Grey
86: Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments, by Sappho, in a new translation by Aaron Poochigian
85: How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff, sent to you by Alice Kuipers
84: Nikolski, by Nicolas Dickner, sent to you by Émile Martel
83: Caligula, by Albert Camus, sent to you by René-Daniel Dubois
82: The Grey Islands, by John Steffler, sent to you by Don McKay
81: Diary of a Madman, by Lu Xun, sent to you by Charles Foran
80: For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down, by David Adams Richards, sent to you by Steven Galloway
79: Charlotte’s Web, by E. B. White, sent to you by Alice Kuipers
78: Century, by Ray Smith, sent to you by Charles Foran
77: King Leary, by Paul Quarrington, sent to you by Steven Galloway
76: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
75: Nadirs, by Herta Müller
74: Eunoia, by Christian Bök
73: Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
72: Books: a memoir, by Larry McMurtry
71: The Financial Expert, by R. K. Narayan
70: Tropic of Hockey, by Dave Bidini
69: Property, by Valerie Martin
68: Generation A, by Douglas Coupland
67: Waiting for the Barbarians, by J.M. Coetzee
66: What Is Stephen Harper Reading?, brought to you by dozens of great writers
65: The Tartar Steppe, by Dino Buzzati
64: The Virgin Secretary’s Impossible Boss, by Carole Mortimer
63: Flaubert’s Parrot, by Julian Barnes
62: Everyman, by Philip Roth
61: Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, stories and pictures by Maurice Sendak
60: The Tin Flute, by Gabrielle Roy, translated by Hannah Josephson
58 and 59: Runaway, by Alice Munro, and The Door, by Margaret Atwood, with Camino, music by Oliver Schroer
57: Hiroshima Mon Amour, a screenplay by Marguerite Duras and a movie by Alain Resnais
56: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
55: The Gift, by Lewis Hyde
53 and 54: Louis Riel, by Chester Brown, and The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, by Yukio Mishima, translated by John Nathan
52: Burning Ice: Art & Climate Change, a collaboration organized by David Buckland and the Cape Farewell Foundation
51: Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare
50: Jane Austen: A Life, by Carol Shields
49: The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
48: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson
47: The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror, by Michael Ignatieff
46: Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics 1965-1999, by Paul McCartney
45: Fictions, by Jorge Luis Borges
44: The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck
43: The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett
42: Gilgamesh, in an English version by Derrek Hines
41: Gilgamesh, in an English version by Stephen Mitchell
40: A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
39: Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones
38: Anthem, by Ayn Rand
37: A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift
36: Everything That Rises Must Converge, by Flannery O’Connor
35: Under Milk Wood, by Dylan Thomas
34: The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
33: Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi
32: The Rez Sisters, by Tomson Highway
31: Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
30: The Kreutzer Sonata, by Leo Tolstoy
29: Drown, by Junot Díaz
28: Read All About It!, by Laura Bush and Jenna Bush
27: To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
26: Birthday Letters, by Ted Hughes
25: The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi, by Larry Tremblay
24: Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett
23: Artists and Models, by Anaïs Nin
22: Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
21: The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway
20: The Educated Imagination, by Northrop Frye
19: The Brothers Lionheart, by Astrid Lindgren; Imagine a Day, by Sarah L. Thomson and Rob Gonsalves; and The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, by Chris Van Allsburg
18: Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
17: The Island Means Minago, by Milton Acorn
16: Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke
15: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, by Jeanette Winterson
14: Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
13: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
12: Maus, by Art Spiegelman
11: The Watsons, by Jane Austen
10: Miss Julia, by August Strindberg
9: Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel García Márquez
8: Short and Sweet: 101 very short poems, edited by Simon Armitage, published by Faber and Faber
7: Candide, by Voltaire
6: Bonjour Tristesse, by Françoise Sagan
5: The Bhagavad Gita
4: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, by Elizabeth Smart
3: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie
2: Animal Farm, by George Orwell
1: The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy