Book bucket bench-warmers

So a few books have started coming 'round and wondering why they didn't make the cut.  (It's getting a bit crowded inside my head...)

Probably the most significant omission is Dahl's James and the Giant Peach, which I like considerably more than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, though that is a good book in its own right.  I really ought to add James to the list, even if it means cutting Flatland or I, Robot (probably the latter).  That still wouldn't leave any room for Charlotte's Web, however.  While both celebrate unusual friendships, and Charlotte teaches us important lessons about learning to live with the cycle of life, I really was struck by how nasty the aunts were and how amusing it was when they got squashed.  It takes much longer for Harry Potter to ever get revenge on his horrible uncle, though there is still the same motivating force.  I do respect children's lit. that points out that not all adults are particularly nice people.  That was a lesson that stayed with me for a long time, and indeed, many of the books that are on the list already are about outsiders and/or explain why being a bit different from others isn't something to be ashamed of, even though broader society may disapprove and even punish those who get out of line.

Now there are two others that are on many people's lists, but not on mine.  And while I am sure I will enjoy them, their impact on me is necessarily going to be limited: To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath.  I've already admitted that I just couldn't squeeze them in so far, but at least Mockingbird is somewhere on the list for 2015. Anyway, they obviously didn't influence me if I didn't read them.

So far, I have:
Roald Dahl - James and the Giant Peach
E.B. White - Charlotte's Web
James Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol
George Orwell - 1984
Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49 (I do enjoy paranoiac fiction when done well)
Ford Madox Ford - The Good Soldier
Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
Audre Lorde - The Black Unicorn (though New York Head Shop and Museum should not be overlooked)

I probably ought to include just a bit more science fiction, as I read so much of it from grade 4 through high school.

Certainly something by Robert Heinlein:
Stranger in Strange Land would have been my pick when I was younger, but in some ways it just tries a bit too hard.  I suppose I would actually go with one of the juvenile novels from the 50s, like Citizen of the Galaxy or probably The Rolling Stones, which had just a taste of his libertarian-lite philosophy.
And one of my other favorite authors is Roger Zelazny.
I have a huge soft spot for Roadmarks, which many people consider very minor Zelazny.  It does have the distinction of introducing me to Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mal."  In terms of anything actually making the list it would either be Eye of Cat or Lord of Light (with the latter slightly edging out the former).
Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Depending on how it is counted, this is a baker's dozen of books that could easily find a place on my original list(s) if they could only elbow another book out of place.  So between the two posts that's 33 (or so) books that changed my life.

Maybe at some point, if I ever have the time, I will write out some short mini-essays on what each meant to me, but I don't anticipate doing this at any point in the near future.

(Oh, this is indeed a special post: number 300.  Huzzah!)

Update (10/3): Madison Smartt Bell's Waiting for the End of the World wants to know why it didn't even make the 3rd batch of books.  I have no good answer.

I can only weakly point out that I am supposed to get around to rereading it next year, at which point it may reassert itself in my consciousness. If it lives up to the mental picture I have built up about how great it was, then it will definitely make the cut. But I may have changed (presumably the book has not), and it may no longer strike home as deeply as it did in my 20s.

Update to the update (5/10): I did reread Waiting for the End of the World, and while the first and even second acts are quite good, the ending is a real cop-out, with the main character turning on his compadres to undermine their plan for no real reason I can tell, other than he suddenly rediscovered his moral compass.  It echoes everything I hate about Hitchcock's Rope, and I'm actually quite surprised I liked it so much on the first reading.