Kramer listed 15 books in his journal Xenon (see sidebar) as follows:

The thematic content is fifteen books of great importance - recited without looking them up. Material that sticks, like, forever. Now, tag fifteen friends.

1. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
2. Stranger in a Strange Land by RAH
3. Job: a comedy of justice by RAH
4. King James Bible
5. Lamb by Christopher Moore
6. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
7. Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey
8. Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling
9. Neuromancer by William Gibson
10. Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
11. (author's name only, no longer have titles without a search, but the writer's name is A. Bertram Chandler)
12. They Came and Ate Us by Robert Rankin
13. Good Omens by Neil Gaimen & other guy
14. American Gods by Neil Gaimen
15. Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling

The odd part, each book and author, well, most of them, lots of them, have whole series. Three, five, seven books. Not just one.

I had to add a list of my own:

~Bhagavad Gita
~Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
~Madeline, Ludwig Bemelmans
~Lois McMaster Bujold (I notice Kramer's list didn't have any women authors)
~C.J. Cherryh
~Ursula LeGuin
~Dune, Frank Herbert
~A.A. Milne (I learned to read from Winne-the-Pooh)
~Andre Norton
~King Lear, William Shakespeare
~James White
~T.H. White
~Connie Willis
~Roger Zelazny


and, because I am numerically challenged, there are only 14 in my list. I could add James Herriot to the list, though I don't know if he would recognize the mental company I keep. I didn't list specific titles for many of the authors because there are long series, most excellent, a few pot-boilers.

I'd like to tag Jim and Sue and Momzilla and Batty and crochetlady and Eric and Kat and Maggie and John and cmw and beautiful violet. Plus anyone else who loves to read. What are your most memorable 15? Ones you can think of without having to check the shelves?