Help me build the best contemporary book collection ever!

June 13, 2009 11:01 AM

I am looking to build an amazing collection of contemporary books, which will include essentials, but also osbcure yet amazing titles. I am including the categories that I am looking to build my collection in below, and I am looking at about 20-30 titles in each category, say 20 essentials and 10 obscure titles.

I am not looking for stuff that is extremely mainstream, for example I would not want any Grisham, Sheldon, Arthur or Deepak Chopra, Monk Who Sold his Ferrari, or the Secret.

The kind of books that I like are "Godel, Escher and Bach", Annotated Alice, Outposts, The Stanley Kubrick Archives. Not easily found, intelligent, beautiful amazing books. I even like controversial books like "Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Centre Disaster" and "the Missionary Position: an expose of Mother Teresa". Even rare spritiutal books like "Tertium Organum" and books by Idies Shah on sufis or any book by Alan Watts.

I am also looking for books which are beautifully designed, as in they are wonderful objects within themselves like the Godfather Family Album or the MILK project book, Humanity.

Money is not an object, and even though I prefer books in print, rare books that are out of print would also do.

If you are familiar with any of the categories below, I would like you to recommend the essentials in these categories. Otherwise, any amazing book that you have come across, which is not completely obvious would be great. Also if you ve come across good lists from experts and authors etc, of their favorite books, would be great if you could link.



Film
Music
Biographies
Children's Books
Comics
Graphic Novels
Cooking, Food and Wine
GLBI
History, Politics
Psychology
Architecture
Psychedelia
Sexuality
Spirituality
Travel
Sci Fi
Controversial

posted by tusharj to shopping (33 comments total)

Joy of Cooking is essential. It is so much more than just a cookbook.
posted by sickinthehead at 11:21 AM on June 13

Speculative Fiction, Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand, by Samuel Delany.

Why do you want to build this amazing collection of books?
posted by the Real Dan at 11:34 AM on June 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski, just for how completely different it is from any other book I have ever come across (and the design). It's more of an elaborate puzzle than a book.
posted by bradbane at 11:48 AM on June 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

Children's Books: Free to Be You and Me
Cookbook: How to Cook Everything (pretty mainstream, though...do you mean mainstream or stigmatized as low-brow?), The Professional Chef
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:51 AM on June 13

Did you say money is not an object?
posted by hydrophonic at 12:03 PM on June 13

Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
A Language Older than Words - Derrick Jensen
The Culture of Make Believe - Derrick Jensen
A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
Great Plains - Ian Fraizer
Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer
posted by Ostara at 12:06 PM on June 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

What the corpse in the library said. You're looking for books that aren't extremely mainstream (per some unspecified definition--I mean, Alan Watts?), that might be but are not necessarily well-designed, on subjects that encompass about half of the Dewey classifications.

The way that people traditionally build this kind of collection is by spending a lifetime reading books, looking at books, talking to people about books and browsing libraries and used bookstores. I think you should try that approach.
posted by box at 12:13 PM on June 13 [10 favorites has favorites]

for comics and graphic novels (why the separation?) - the scott mccloud books.

i also think every comic/graphic novel collection should have death, the high cost of living by Neil Gaiman, batman: the dark knight returns by frank miller (sequels to both books aren't so good), and, of course Watchmen by alan moore and dave gibbons

while it's not in your list - everyone should own 100 years of solitude by Gabriel García Márquez and the wind up bird chronicle by Haruki Murakami - both falling in the magical realism side of fiction.
posted by nadawi at 12:18 PM on June 13

I don't know exactly what you mean by contemporary, but for psychology, I think you need to find a lovely edition of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. Which is post-WWII, but I don't know how old. A really impressive collection (to me) would include several works from positive psychologists and no Freud.

If you'll define contemporary for us, I might suggest a couple of slightly older works that are quintessential in non-clinical psychology.

I'll also throw out Things Fall Apart which is hopefully not too mainstream for your tastes.
posted by parkerjackson at 12:20 PM on June 13

Also, that anniversary edition of Subway Art is pretty neat.
posted by box at 12:21 PM on June 13

Children's books: Harold and the Purple Crayon, The Giant Jam Sandwich, The Way Things REALLY Work, and In the Night Kitchen.
posted by parkerjackson at 12:25 PM on June 13

Children's books: Where the Wild Things Are and Where the Sidewalk Ends.
posted by misha at 1:06 PM on June 13

I agree with box, but I will give you The Doors of Perception by Huxley for your psychedelia category.
posted by waitangi at 1:09 PM on June 13

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.
posted by RussHy at 2:19 PM on June 13

FILM:
True and False by David Mamet
Story by Robert McKee

COMICS / G-NOVS:
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Scott Pilgrim Series by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Blankets by Craig Thompson
Watchmen, Maus, Persephone

KIDS' / YOUNG ADULT BOOKS:
A Wrinkle In Time - Madeleine L'Engle
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - Mildred D Taylor
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
posted by pseudostrabismus at 3:13 PM on June 13

Wow. I was just wondering the other day how rare it would be to meet someone who knows about Alan Watts, let alone is interested in his ideas. Then I met one, and he recommended Idries Shah to me, and then after reading some Shah, I thought, wow, he knows about both those guys, how rare is that? And then I see this thread not three days later! Mazel tov :)

I think that if you like Alan Watts, the one book you should actually check out from my recommendations is this:

Language in Thought and Action by S.I. Hayakawa.

This book is amazing to me, much like Alan Watts, for the same reason: they both discuss commonplace aspects of every day life with a refreshing clarity of thought. If you're interested in language, seeing the world as it is, and investigating the effect that the language you use has on you, check this book out.

Other than that I don't have much... Alan Watts: This Is It: And Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.

In music, I don't have much to recommend except to take a look at the 33 1/3 series. These are 65 books (and more on the way), each analyzing a single album, such as Harvest, the Velvet Underground & Nico, Electric Ladyland, Let It Be, Exile on Main Street, etc. I kinda discounted the series when I saw that they bothered to review a Celine Dion album, but a friend of mine checked it out and apparently it's one of the longest of the series, and is a treatise on the profession of music critic, the value of popular and critical taste, and is quite an interesting read. So, I'm not saying you have to read about Celine Dion, but definitely check out at least one of these books. They're written by different people, so each one is a different beast. If you see one of your favorite albums on the list, check out what the author has to say about it.

Oh, and to those who are questioning the premise of the question, he says "I am not looking for stuff that is extremely mainstream..." The asker is just looking for the interesting books out there. I know I've been in a position where I thought, I want to read something good, but separating the wheat from the chaff sounds overwhelming. The vast quantity of books that are out there makes it a bit different than movies or music, I think. There are simply so many, and the popular ones are a world apart from the life-changing ones. It can be hard to find someone with tastes similar to your own to get recommendations from.
posted by malapropist at 3:14 PM on June 13

At what point, for the purposes of this question, does a book stop being contemporary?
posted by IndigoJones at 4:26 PM on June 13

At the crossroads of "graphic novels" and "money is no object", you will find THIS.
posted by crazylegs at 5:17 PM on June 13

I don't know if these count as "mainstream" or not - that's kind of subjective (for instance, I've never thought of Alan Watts as obscure or unknown) - but for the GLBI category (I assume that's gay/lesbian/bi?):

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
Sisterhood is Powerful ed. by Robin Morgan (more on the women's movement than specifically lesbian, but still, to my mind, essential)
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
Epistemology of the Closet by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
The Celluloid Closet by Vito Russo (gay/lesbian history + film! twofer!)

I'll think of more, or maybe just get my ass off the couch and go look at my bookshelves. I'm also curious about your reasons for wanting to build this collection. I've built my collection over the years by browsing, talking, reading, taking classes, working in bookstores, working as an editor, etc. It's been an organic process.

Also, everyone's definition of "essential" or "best" is going to be different, and I'm not sure how you'll figure out what to collect, if you haven't read these yourself. My two cents.

Oh, and for food/cooking: Larousse Gastronomique and Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking.
posted by rtha at 5:41 PM on June 13

S, M, L, XL by Rem Koolhaas.
posted by Falconetti at 5:57 PM on June 13

For the category of psychedelia, you should include PIHKAL and TIHKAL. Also perhaps Breaking Open the Head.
posted by gingerbeer at 6:07 PM on June 13

Seconding Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking

For architecture, try two books by James Gordon- Structures, or Why Things Don't Fall Down and New Science of Strong Materials. Gordon is one of those British scientists who can really write, and is always interesting.

You might also want to peruse the catalog of Taschen, publishers of some pretty eclectic works of art, photography, architecture, sexuality, and pop culture.

Also, have a look at the Very Short Introduction series, out of Oxford University. They publish small, intelligent books on a variety of subjects, with references for further reading. They are my favourite subway read these days.

It's out of print, but if you can find a copy of Codex Seraphinianus, it's pretty intriguing.

History and art intersect in Graphic War: The Secret Aviation Drawings and Illustrations of World War II

I'll throw in The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.

Most of the books I am interested in, I learned about by just standing around in libraries and bookstores. A lot of good books refer to other good books. My theory is that when you get enough books together, they start talking to each other. So you want to choose intelligent books to get a really good conversation started. Good luck!
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 6:57 PM on June 13

My apologies, crazylegs, I didn't notice you had linked to Codex Seraphinianus.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 7:11 PM on June 13

odd and interesting:
A Humument (which has a website!)
you want to look at Loompanics press which publishes books on many subjects that probably fit your desire for "controversial"
things.

There are literally hundreds of questions on here about best books for certain kinds of subjects, so doing a lot of browsing here will be useful. You can begin with the "book" and "books" tags.

Also, if you look at online bookstores like Powell's or Amazon, they have listings of recommended books in different subject areas. This might be a more systematic way to approach a very large project like the one you seem to have in mind.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:56 PM on June 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

History

(I hope this doesn't count as self-linking...)
posted by Kimothy at 8:42 PM on June 13

Amazing to whom? To you? To your amazingly many amazing admirers who will see from your bookshelves how amazing you are?

I suggest you read lots of books, decide which are the important ones, and keep them.
posted by JimN2TAW at 10:44 PM on June 13

Previously, beautiful non-fiction helps with the "beautifully designed" part of your question, and in the specific subject areas, look at What single book is the best introduction to your field. I've bought several books based on those two threads.

Personal recommendations: for architecture, Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building are two of the most beautiful, inspiring and lucid books I have read on any topic.
posted by siskin at 11:37 PM on June 13

Thanks to everyone who gave me amazing recommendations, and I look forward to receiving more.

To answer some of the questions/comments raised earlier:

I am a bibliophile, and I spend a lot of time with books, researching, studying and talking about books. . However,finding an amazing book in a world dominated by big publishing is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Each person comes across different amazing books along their lifetime, and the reason for asking this question is to try and dig out those ones. So for all those who did not answer my question, but rather decided to criticize it, NO THANK YOU. Please stick to answering with book recommendations, I am not soliciting any other advice.
To give everyone some of my recommendations:

A New Model of the Universe: Ouspensky
Hans Ulrich Obrist: Interviews
Who am I ? Raman Maharishi
Secret life of Plants by ?
Liberty or Death by Patrick French
The Entire Annotated Series
Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamied

Thanks!
posted by tusharj at 2:43 AM on June 14

Graphic novel: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
A gay woman tries to make sense of her relationship with her closeted father after he commits suicide. Non-fiction. The author includes direct quotes from the diaries she kept during her childhood.

Biography/Controversial: The Pimp by Iceberg Slim
Auto-biography about the author's attempt to make a living in Harlem during the 40s and 50s by, well, pimping.
posted by notcomputersavvy06 at 2:04 PM on June 14

Rice Boy was originally a free, online comic but I have purchased the book for a friend and it really is worth the money. An interesting addition to any comic/graphic novel section for sure.

Older books by Francesca Lia Block would be great for a young adult section. They are very creatively written and also deal with sexuality and LGBTQ issues. (Don't trust the Amazon editorial review as it isn't very helpful.)
posted by delicate_dahlias at 3:13 PM on June 14

Perhaps too mainstream, but there's basically nothing in Penguin's Great Ideas series (now on season 3!) that isn't worth reading. Great simple cover art, too.
posted by Cantdosleepy at 7:11 AM on June 15

A fabulous resource from the Guardian(the world's highest quality newspaper IMO) : various experts choose their favorite top 10 books on different subjects.
posted by tusharj at 9:39 AM on June 15

Evisioning Information by Edward Tufte
posted by like_neon at 4:31 AM on June 16