Literature Month: Top 10 Stephen King Books

Greetings, reader!

As has been evident from references in my blog, most conversations anyone has had with me this year, or sightings of me reading one horror classic or another while brushing my teeth or attending a lecture, I've been seriously hooked on Stephen King for the past 6-7 months. He is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite authors, and I keep plowing through his books with an increasing tempo. While this project is still very much underway, I decided to share a ranking of his best books I've read so far, now that it's Literature Month - I might do a more revised ranking once I'm "done" with this phase and have read enough King to satisfy my craze for the time being.

The most notable classics that won't be found on today's list as I haven't read them yet are The Green Mile, Salem's Lot and 11/22/63, because I haven't found them from my local libraries yet. They're all on my shortlist for sure, and I will read them once I get the chance. Another notable work that is missing at this point is the notorious Dark Tower series, because I keep bumping into more and more "you should read this book and that book and also all of these books before reading The Dark Tower because it all ties in" stuff, and as incredibly curious and hyped as I am about the series, I'm stretching my patience trying to get through all of the connecting material before diving in. I want the best possible reading experience, and I like the feeling of saving The Dark Tower for the future, hidden away like a secret treat.

Anyways, out of the King books I've read so far, these are my favorites!

Here are my honorable mentions: Christine (1983), Doctor Sleep (2013), Here There Be Tygers (1968), The Long Walk (1979), The Reaper's Image (1969).

10. Lisey's Story (2006)

King has called Lisey's Story his own personal favorite of his own writings, and I can see why - while it is fictional, it's also so personal to him, that at times it doesn't feel fictional at all. Sure, there are fantasy elements and storylines not drawn from real life, but the parallels are clear: after surviving his notorious near-death experience, a part of the author's reflection process was to write a book - not about a famous horror author who tragically passes away, but about the widow of a famous horror author who tragically dies, trying to get over her husband's death while reminiscing their marriage.

There's a lot more to Lisey's Story than that, as there often is in the products of King's complex imagination, but at the very core, you have the idea of "oh man, imagine how hard it would've been for my loving wife if I had passed away?" turned into a 550-page testament to true love.

A book like this means so much more when coming from a mind like King's, a mind often so cynical and dark in what he writes, and believe me, that darkness also has its fair share of the spotlight in this one. But, when all is said and done, the big silver lining from King's often tragic life story - his by-all-accounts happy decades-lasting marriage with Tabitha King - is clearly the big inspiration behind this book, and after reading through the book's grim and disturbing parts, its central message feels all the more earned and powerful.

9. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (1982)

This story, originally released as a part of the Different Seasons collection and technically counted as a novella by King standards (although I fully count it as a book, with its length well over 100 pages and its later prints as a solo book due to increased popularity), is a hard one to rank. It's such a peculiar case - a solid book, better than some King stories but not as good as others - and some motherf**ker named Frank, along with Morgan Freeman and company, went ahead and pulled the greatest movie of all time out of it.

I've spent so much time trying to wrap my head around this. Shouldn't Shawshank be much higher, just on the merits that it is the basis for the all-time great film? I mean, Stand By Me (1986) and Misery (1990) are very solid adaptations of King books and awesome movies in general, but not nearly as good as the Shawshank film. And it's not like the movie adaptation changes a lot of stuff, like Kubrick's The Shining (1980) - it just expands upon it.

But, yeah. Somehow it goes like this. The best metaphor I can think of is that King's Shawshank book is like Bob Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door, and Frank Darabont's movie is the Guns N' Roses cover. The cover song is very rarely better than the original, just like the movie adaptation is very rarely better than the book, but in these cases, the later release manages to find something from the original and expand upon it to make it find its true potential. But, yeah - even if Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption isn't as much of a masterpiece as its cinematic adaptation, it cannot be understated how important and powerful of a story it is nonetheless - you couldn't make such a movie about an average book, that's for sure.

8. Carrie (1974)

King's debut work is incredibly solid for a debut - while there are some instances where the writer still had room to improve, the overall impact and creativity of Carrie is more than enough to warrant a spot in the top ten. The select few weaknesses are mainly that the horror isn't all that scary (something King would go on to master better than anyone in history), and that the language, from word choices to the flow of sentences, isn't quite as great as it would be in King's prime, as the young writer still had room to grow.

That being said, Carrie is one hell of a book. It's one of King's most emotionally powerful works, with the story working as a gripping statement against both bullying and religious fundamentalism. It's also staggering that a male writer, who hasn't admittely had the overall best track record with writing female characters and has had his share of poor-taste sexist undertones in some of his books, managed to tap into his inner feminist with his very first book, truly getting inside the teenage girl protagonist's head without being creepy or dismissive.

But the best thing about Carrie, by far, is the insanely creative story structure - interspersed between the actual chapters, there are mini-chapters that read as (fictional yet real-feeling) scientific studies, newspaper articles etc. written several years after the story's events. This is such a cool and imaginative way of fleshing out the story's fictional universe, and it makes the end product a very addictive read.

7. Hearts In Atlantis (1999)

Hearts In Atlantis reads like a tribute to, a hazy memory of, and a closure-giving funeral service for the 1960's. The book falls into the middle ground of a novel and a short story collection, as it consists of five stories that read as their own individual novellas, yet each of them is connected in various ways, and the theme binding them all together is the Vietnam War. The first story, Low Men In Yellow Coats, lays down the pre-Vietnam atmosphere of the early 60's with a loss-of-innocence story that also ties into King's Dark Tower mythos, because the author is one ambitious bastard. The final story lets the reader to return to the first story's main character, decades later, in a thoroughly changed America, as a nice poetic bow on things.

The three stories in between are gripping tales with their own viewpoints, each featuring side characters from the first story and various connections ranging from neat and mind-blowing to haunting and heartbreaking. My personal favorite is the title story Hearts In Atlantis, where a group of college students get equally hooked on an ongoing card game that turns their promising academic careers into worrying gambling addiction, and on the fist-pumping adrenaline of protesting and the anti-war movement.

The story paints such a vivid picture of the late 60's that it made me quite sure of what I would've been up to had I been alive back then - as honestly as the book describes the pitfalls of rebellion and the toll the era had on that generation later on, not to mention the dangers from losing one's reputation to getting beat up by policemen, there's just no way that I wouldn't have joined in with those giving a voice to the voiceless. King's writing explains why the protest movement became so enormous - amidst all the chaos and trouble and turmoil, there was something truly addictive and soul-sparking, something unique that can't quite be captured, yet this book might be the closest you get.

6. The Body (1982)

Fun fact: King himself considers Stand By Me (1986), the coming-of-age film based on this book, to be the hands-down best big-screen adaptation that has been made from any of his books. Less fun fact: when knowing King's life story, especially the tragic part of him witnessing a friend getting struck by a train and dying as a child (an event that many have speculated to traumatize him and inspire many of his darker works), it becomes quite gripping to consider just why he might have such a soft spot for this particular story with its particular themes.

But, yeah, The Body is a deeply moving one, and definitely one of King's best non-horror stories. I love it how it's so much rougher-around-the-edges than pretty much any other coming-of-age story, with absolutely no extra fluffiness or softness, yet it still manages to be touching. Usually coming-of-age stories have wholesome character archs with conventionally likable characters, but here you have these four dumb kids who are total idiots, each of them coming from horrible circumstances, their discourse filled with profanity and insults of the ugliest kind - yet still, there's something so raw and real about it all that the end result feels all "oh man, remember what it was like to be child in the summer?".

Oh, and the final few paragraphs? An emotional gut punch of the highest order, and one that had me instantly in tears.

5. The Shining (1977)

I'm a big fan of Stephen King's book The Shining. I'm a big fan of Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining (1980). Is it a good adaptation? Hell no, and I can see why King hates the film. It disregards many of the book's key themes and narratives, wildly replacing it with Kubrick's own visions that had nothing to do with the book, and it just happened to become a cinematic masterpiece, even though its masterpiece-ness has very little to do with the book it's based on. It's like the Rage Against The Machine cover of Bruce Springsteen's The Ghost of Tom Joad - bafflingly different, but weirdly good as its own thing.

But, yeah, if I had to choose, the book is even better. And yes, I've called The Shining the greatest horror film of all time, so ranking the book that I consider even better than that at #5 really gives you an idea of how much I like Stephen King's books. The Shining is delightfully spooky, heavily psychological, and surprisingly emotional towards the end.

As I mentioned in last week's blog as an example of how interpretational King's stories are, The Shining can be viewed as a supernatural tale about a haunted hotel with a cursed and fascinating lore, as the dark forces haunting it take control of protagonist Jack Torrance, who as an extra spice of character writing is also a recovering alcoholic. Or, it can be seen as a tale specifically about an alcoholic family father's struggle to stay sober, with the fantasy elements being mere symbolism. Both takes are fascinating and neither is wrong, King is just an ambigious genius.

4. Pet Sematary (1989)

The edition of Pet Sematary that I borrowed from the library had a foreword by King, written years after the book's initial publication, where he explains why he considers this to be his hands-down scariest book. He explains how much inspiration it drew from real life, how dark the thought process behind the book's conception was, and how after writing the initial draft, he kept it hidden in a closet for years, afraid that he had 'finally gone too far'. Needless to say, I've never read a foreword that made me more excited to read what was ahead. And God damn, the end result lived up to the hype.

Is Pet Sematary King's scariest book? That's up for debate, and I'd personally put it on a tied #1 spot with It, because nothing in this world is as scary as the very scariest chapter in King's 1200-page masterpiece. But Pet Sematary is more consistently spooky from start to finish, and as It is so much more than mere horror, I'd single Pet Sematary out as King's finest hour as purely a horror writer. As the ranking shows, there are three books of his that I liked even more as overall pieces of literature, but in terms of pure horror, Pet Sematary is the gold standard.

King's words create vivid mental images, heart-stopping moments of cold terror, and chills-down-your-spine moments of authentic creepiness that no movie (or no other author) could accomplish to such a degree. The book was written in the 80's, often credited to be King's very prime, when he was already mature enough to have the literary skills, still young enough to have the energetic drive, and admittedly cocaine-fueled enough to have the hectic high-stakes intensity and pressure, that his words bring you intimately into the fictional world, feeling everything the characters feel, seeing what they see with your mind's eye. The book is also perfectly paced, with events escalating in a well-flowing and adrenalizing fashion.

3. Misery (1987)

There were a few parts in Misery where I was moved to the verge of tears by King's words, without the subject matter in those parts being one bit emotional by nature - I was moved simply by how good his writing is. There was a paragraph where he describes main character Paul's obsessive drive for writing, using nasty language to describe just how addictive and unhealthy it had become, and the images conjured by King's word choices were so vivid that I was touched by how any human could write literature this well, with such perfect sentences that paint such clear pictures.

The premise of Misery is one of King's many instances where he reflects on some own issues through fiction - a writer is kidnapped by an obsessive fan, one who is unhappy with her favorite character being killed off in her favorite book series, and she forces the man to write a new book where he brings her back to life. Sure, that sounds like King dealing with pressure and expectations from fans, but that's just the tip of the iceberg - the author revealed that he realized years later that the whole ordeal was a metaphor for his cocaine addiction, with Annie Wilkes serving as the human representation of the crazy drug that kept the author writing with such an intense and unhealthy drive. The metaphor is so subtle and between-the-lines that King himself didn't realize it when writing the book, and only came to the conclusion later in life.

Furthermore, Misery shows how well King masters suspense even when not writing horror. This is a thriller about two people in a cabin, with no supernatural elements (unless you count the neat tie-in reference to The Shining), but it has you scared and worried and flipping pages with a high pulse just like the creepiest horror novels out there. King's creative storytelling structures are also present here, as we're treated to many full pages and chapters of the fictional book-within-a-book that the protagonist is writing, throughout the novel, and these out-of-genre excerpts are a delight.

2. The Stand (1978; revised edition in 1990)

As I mentioned in last week's post, The Stand isn't over 1200 pages long because it's particularly detailed, or because the story goes on forever. It's over 1200 pages long because the scope of the story is the largest I've ever beheld. The amount of people, locations, storylines and threads coming together in this post-apocalyptic, character-driven horror-spiced tale of human nature is just off the charts.

The story is about a deadly virus that changes society as we know it forever (haha, can you imagine?), and for the first several chapters, we just meet a whole bunch of different characters that have nothing do with each other, all over the United States, living their normal lives. The spread of the virus is fascinating to follow, as there are so many well-thought-out real-world factors affecting how it gets around, as life starts to change very slowly, and King truly thinks through every possible aspect of society and how they'd react to such a change (and the coronavirus era proved his thinking quite right, even if Covid was thankfully less deadly than this one).

300 pages into the book, we haven't even met the main villain yet (or, arguably, the main hero). And, 300 pages into the book, even though you know you've read the equivalent of one normal start-to-finish novel, it feels like you're still in the very beginning, because the well-built threads are only beginning to unravel. It takes a truly magnificent writer to keep you all excited about the first act and build-up when having read hundreds of pages - but King sure was up for the job. Another effect of The Stand's scope and length is that when a major character is killed off about 800 or 900 pages into the story, it feels like you've lost a friend, as you've spent chapters upon chapters getting to know this fleshed-out human, their backstory, their secrets and fears, all of it - and it feels like a devastating gut punch to know that said character won't be there for the final resolution.

Oh, and what a resolution it is. Profound to the maximum. There's a chapter, I think it's the second-last or third-last one, that goes on forever and keeps the reader in a state of unforeseen suspense and desparation, sweating while flipping the pages to see how it all shakes out, the reading experience downright painful in the most beautiful way. And the final lines of the epilogue? Deep thoughts, man, and important ones as well. The Stand is often called King's masterpiece, and I can see why.

1. It (1986)

"The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years - if it ever did end - began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain"

That's the first line of the book. And I'd argue it contains more storytelling than some books do from cover to cover.

It was the first Stephen King book I read, several years ago, inspired to read the whole thing because of how much I liked the film It (2017) and wanting to read it before catching the sequel It: Chapter Two (2019). I'll have to re-read it in the near future, possibly as the last project of my 'King phase', to check if it really is better than The Stand, as those two are pretty much deadlocked for the #1 position. But based on how I remember the book, I just have to put it at #1 for now - it instantly made it into my top 5 favorite books of all time, and made me sure that one day I'd have to dive into the rest of the King mythos because God damn, the dude can write.

The memorable and fleshed-out characters. The balance between sweet coming-of-age wholesomeness and gruesome horror. The spooky, intricate and larger-than-life lore. The insanely imaginative structure of the story, with the chapters jumping back and forth between the 1950's narrative and the 1980's narrative (often switching from one to the other mid-sentence) while lore-deepening interlude chapters are placed at key transitions. The one chapter, towards the end, written from the point-of-view of It itself, which is probably the most mind-bending writing I have ever witnessed. The surreal climax, one that could never be captured on the big screen. The humor. The heartbreak. The descriptions of the fictional town of Derry, Maine making the reader feel like they've lived there their entire life.

Yeah, It's a good one.

Thank you for reading! Tune in next week as I return to my usual movie/TV themes, while also continuing today's themes - that's right, next week's post is the top 10 Stephen King adaptations on the big screen!

Literature Month II: My Top 10 Authors of All Time

Greetings, reader!

Literature Month II continues, and today's post is a big one: the ranking of my 10 favorite authors of all time. These storytellers have shaped my taste in books, taken me to different worlds with their writing, and helped me grow as a person and find new perspectives in life.

Also, as a rule of thumb: no matter how big of an impact a certain author-who-must-not-be-named might have had on my childhood, she can f**k right off from any top 10 of mine until she apologizes for her tirades against trans people. I guess I sorted out my priorities, as Ron Weasley famously told Hermione to do.

Here are my honorable mentions: Arthur Conan Doyle, Frank Herbert, Jack London, Kurt Vonnegut, Mary Shelley, Rick Riordan.

10. C.S. Lewis

During my original years of being a major bookworm, in my childhood, fantasy books were the shit. I consumed instalments of various fantasy series, devouring their fictional universes and jumping to the next one while coming back to re-read the favorites every now and then. And one of the most beloved collections was The Chronicles of Narnia, the 7-part epic that filled my head with magic and inspiration with its compelling world, lovable heroes and fascinating storytelling.

I love the fact that Lewis was friends with J.R.R. Tolkien, as I can only imagine the wild conversations that the two fantasy masterminds must have had during pub evenings in Oxford. While Lewis is no Tolkien, he might very well be the next best thing, as his works have stood the test of time and and continue to impress and hook readers.

9. George Orwell

Orwell is a deeply divisive figure, as a writer who pours politics into his fiction is bound to become especially as time passes - voices on both the left and the right have presented their own reasons for why actually Orwell was wrong about everything and his books shouldn't be praised and taught about. Having read many of these arguments, I always find them to be a tad over-thought - naturally there will be individual parts in books from a different time that wouldn't quite work the same way in today's society, and Orwell's philosophies certainly don't fit into any one black-and-white mold of opinions that people might hope for as he had such a complex viewpoint on things (as you're bound to do, when being a British socialist in World War II while also gaining a unique perspective on how the Soviet Union's system didn't work despite his left-wing views).

When not over-thinking or hoping that everything Orwell writes will fit 100% perfectly into your own political compass, the fact remains that the biggest takeaways from his writings - criqitue of totalitarism and propaganda, cries for equality and freedoms of individuals - are extremely relevant to this day. As a history buff I loved Animal Farm for what a perfect analogy it was for the USSR, and as an activist-spirited civil rights enthusiast, I was shocked how much of modern phenomena, from Cambridge Analytica to Fox News, had been more or less predicted and warned about in 1984. These are important books, and people need to keep reading them, as one extra step in keeping the populists and liars from winning.

8. George R. R. Martin

From one George to another, here's a writer who revitalized the fantasy literature craze of my childhood in my teenage years, but with a new twist. Martin writes fantasy just as epic in scope and poetic in prose as Tolkien or Lewis, but his fantasy replaces clichés and black-and-white heroics with fleshed-out antiheroes, dark realities of the middle ages, and morally grey storytelling. The Song of Ice and Fire series, on which the hit series Game of Thrones (2011-2019) is based, contains the biggest positives of conventional fantasy literature, but it goes far and beyond being typical with its brutal kick spiced into the world of Westeros and its stories and characters.

But if there's one thing even more impressive about Martin than his use of dark and realistic themes, its his intricacy. The worldbuilding in his works is insanely off the charts, with the intricate details of Westeros' history and lore, from the different religions and customs to the vast family histories and complex geopolitics, seeming to be his life's work (or rather, more than one man's life's work, as at this point I've lost all hope that the 74-year-old will live to finish The Winds of Winter, let alone the "upcoming" seventh and final instalment). The mastermind created a fantasy world so vast and large-in-scope that even his own mind hasn't been able to wrap it up, but if it's any consolation, the world of fantasy fans has gotten a great deal of joy and fulfilment (as well as heartbreak and trauma) from the inner workings of his incredible imagination.

7. Mark Manson

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a provocative book title, especially if you're a middle-aged woman who cares a great deal of many things, yet there was something that made my mother pick this particular book from the airport bookstore and bring it as a souvenir to her then-18-year-old son. And I sure am glad that she did - that book had an effect on me, to such a degree that I honestly consider myself to be a better person thanks to it. Through blunt language, filled to the brim with profanity and wild humor, the blogger-turned-writer Mark Manson finds some ultimate truths about life and the human experience, with valuable lessons we could all learn from.

His follow-up book, Everything Is F**ked: A Book About Hope is a more existential one, and one that also had a tremendous effect on me, albeit in a slightly different way. As a big fan of living life, I've always had a bit of a hard time coming to terms with the facts of mortality, but this book really spoke to me and helped find some truly helpful viewpoints, with Manson channelling his own take on Nietzche's philosophy while shedding some light on the human need for a legacy and "eternity projects".

6. Agatha Christie

The unbridled and iconic queen of detective mysteries, Agatha Christie truly defined the genre with her beloved mix of humor, intrigue and plot twists. Her style of storytelling is simultaneously "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", as a vast majority of her books follow a similar structure with many tropes re-appearing, yet also "always find a new twist to keep things fresh", as hardly any of the stories go in as straight-forward of a manner as you'd expect.

My problem with conventional whodunit-stories often is that it's always anti-climactic when the killer is revealed to be just one of the few main suspects, yet Christie books almost always one-up the reader's expectations by going the extra mile for an out-of-the-box extra twist - the better-known and most groundbreaking twist endings can be found from The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Murder on the Orient Express, but other severely underrated iterations can be found from Evil Under the Sun, The Mystery of the Blue Train and The Mysterious Affair at Styles, to name a few.

Her books also have a specific vibe and nostalgic value to them, as the bookshelves in the attic room of our family cabin are filled with her books, and I strongly associate her mysteries to that place - nothing like going to the cabin in the summer, picking up a dusty Christie classic from there and delving into its story for the next day or two.

5. John Steinbeck

As I mentioned in my Great American Novels post a few weeks back, Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath was about as life-changing of a book to me as can be. This was thanks to a combination of elements - the social criticism and progressive-for-its-time values really spoke to my activist spirit, Steinbeck's writing style and word choices painted such a picture-perfect portrait of Great Depression -era America that I felt as if I was there myself when reading his words, and his creative narrative style (with every other chapter being a longer one where the main story progresses, and every other chapter being a short interlude describing a specific phenomenon in order to create atmosphere and context) was downright addictive - not to mention hellishly inspiring to me as a writer.

And while The Grapes of Wrath cannot be beaten, Steinbeck's other material is very much worth one's time as well, whether it's the gripping character dynamics of Of Mice and Men or the grim yet funky atmosphere of The Wayward Bus. Like many old-time writers, Steinbeck certainly has his instances of word choices and attitudes that haven't aged well, but I see them more as a reflection of the overall dominant racism and sexism of the society of the time, than as Steinbeck himself being a particularly rotten individual. If you're willing to get through those unfortunate parts, there's a treasure trove of amazing literature awaiting you if you ever feel like getting acquainted with his works.

4. Ernest Hemingway

"And when the old man died; Jack Hemingway cried

And the birds flew high; up into the night sky

And the stars stood still; they all refused to yield

The only real sound; a shotgun wound"

 - Squealers, Jack Hemingway Cried

The all-American writer, whose experiences as an ambulance driver in World War I Italy and a journalist in the Spanish Civil War inspired some world class literature while his chaotic lifestyle further solidified his larger-than-life character status, truly embodied the iconic quote "In order to write about life, first you must live it". The quote, by the way, is attributed to Hemingway himself, because of course it is.

His writing style always was gritty and and concise, yet he dealt with such themes that the mental images rising from his no-extra-roses vocabulary are large in scale. Hemingway's words feel like dry whiskey, bringing you much enjoyment once you get acquainted with the initially strong and bleak taste. Hemingway's works, from the brutality of For Whom the Bell Tolls and the intrigue of To Have and Have Not to the Pulitzer-winning writing of The Old Man and the Sea and the ultimately moving A Farewell to Arms, are certainly worth diving into.

3. William Shakespeare

You know how we all have a massive Shakespeare phase when we're 19 years old? Oh, just me? Well, then, let me fill you in.

You know how cool it is to watch The Godfather (1972) and just feel how influential the movie is, noticing all sorts of elements that Hollywood has tried to copy ever since and the origin of many famous character archetypes and lines of dialogue? Reading Shakespeare is like that, but for all western fiction - his plays are so full of tropes, narratives and character types that have become the absolute basis for stories both tragic and comedic ever since, that it truly feels like peeking into history in the making.

Also, the plays are just awesome. The comedies range from actually much more hystercially funny than one might expect for the 1600's (The Comedy of Errors, The Merchant of Venice) to delightfully atmospheric with beautiful and colorful dialogue (A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest), while his tragedies range from gripping, dramatic character dynamics (Othello, Julius Caesar) to heavy and hard-hitting themes exploring the very core of humanity (King Lear, Macbeth).

Shakespeare's language is addictive once thou starteth to get a hang of ye olde English, and his storytelling and character writing is quite unmatched. Hamlet is up there with Mozart's compositions and the Mona Lisa in the category of works of art that define the human race.

2. Stephen King

The biggest challenge of today's list, by far, was deciding where exactly to rank the author who I am currently obsessed with. Some would say "careful not to rank him too highly just because you're currently going through a King phase, try to stay unbiased", but honestly, there's an argument to be made for him at #1 because I know I've never been this thoroughly swept away by one author's works for a period of time (not a short period, either - every full book I've read in 2023 so far has been by King, because I just keep wanting more and more). I made the decision to put him at #2, as only time will tell if he truly deserves to be ahead of the writer I've considered my all-time favorite for well over ten years, and whose #1 spot is only now being remotely challenged. King still makes it ahead of the likes of Christie, Hemingway and even The Bard himself, because what his books have caused in me is just something else.

It's not even about the horror for me - sure, horror is his primary genre and God knows the man does it well, as Pet Sematary and It are most definitely the two scariest books I've ever read and far creepier than any horror film. But my love (addiction, really) for his writing goes so much deeper than that. It's many little things - his balance of gritty cynicism and idealistic hope, his awe-inspiring word choices and ability to always find the best possible adjectives and synonyms to paint a picture with his words, his admittedly cocaine-fueled high-stakes adrenaline-pumping brand of storytelling, and the way he weaves tough themes into his books and leaves things open for interpretation (depending on the reader, The Shining is either a supernatural tale of a haunted hotel where Jack Torrance's alcoholism is just a side narrative, or it's purely a story about a family father's struggles with alcoholism as it takes over his life, with the fantasy elements being a subplot or even mere symbolism).

But more than anything, it's his imagination. I've always had a big imagination, and as my love for consuming stories is pretty much equal to my love for creating them, I've always appreciated storytellers with good imaginations - and no one imagines quite as wildly King. It can be seen in how he fills a story - Misery is hundreds of pages of two people talking in a cabin, yet not one sentence of it is boring. It can be seen in his worldbuilding - The Stand is over 1200 pages long not because the story takes place over a long period of time or because everything is described in detail, but because the story has the largest scope I've ever come across.

And it can be seen in his narrative structures - I was blown away by the interlude chapters in Carrie, where fictional scientific studies and newspaper headlines about the book's events written in the future are interspersed between the actual story, not to mention the structure of It, where we flash between the 1958 timeline and the 1985 timeline in a creative fashion while having lore-deepening interlude chapters in between, and eventually a chapter from the perspective of It itself, which is just about the most mind-bending writing I've witnessed. Basically, everything King does he does with a massively creative mind, and for a fellow writer, consuming his works with the intense and hyper-focused drive of a main character in a King novel is just about the most addictive and inspiring reading I've ever done. He's still at #2 for now, but ask me again after I've finished the Dark Tower series - he's certainly getting closer to first place every day. But for now...

1. J.R.R. Tolkien

I think the main reason why I'm still letting Tolkien hold his #1 spot for now, in addition to the nostalgic and sentimental value of having been a fan since childhood, is that it would feel wrong to put King ahead of Tolkien while emphatizing the writer's imagination as his biggest strength - after all, let's not forget that John Ronald Reuel Tolkien not only created fictional worlds, but he created peoples with cultures and histories and lores as detailed as many in the real world, down to them having their own languages that Tolkien also created - not as in creating a few words into a made-up language to sound cool, but rather using his linguistic knowledge and endless creativity to build entire language systems, with their own grammar rules and entire vocabularies and all. This man is a legend.

My journey down the Tolkien rabbit hole started off in the usual way - reading The Lord of the Rings, loving it, watching the movies and loving them, and also reading The Hobbit. But unlike most people, I didn't stop there. I was around 12 years old when I read The Silmarillion, which has been called "The Bible of Tolkien's fictional universe" (which is a bit offensive - one is the greatest story ever told, after all, although the Bible is also pretty neat). Then it was The Children of Húrin, then it was The Book of Lost Tales, Beren and Luthien, Kullervo, The Return of the Shadow - the road goes ever on and on...

And through it all, I was constantly amazed at how deep Tolkien's imagination ran, with the fabled beauty of the fictional world he crafted being so intricate and full of life. The stories he told were massively dramatic and heroic as well - truly the kinds of 'stories that really mattered' that Samwise Gamgee talks about in his Two Towers monologue, which feels like Peter Jackson paying tribute to Tolkien through a deeply moving meta lens. The Lord of the Rings trilogy feels so authentically dark and desparate and devoid of hope at times, that it feels like a larger-than-life payoff when...well, I won't spoil anything to any people who haven't read it (although I will recommend that you cancel all your plans for the next few days and read the trilogy f**king immediately).

I also love Tolkien's somewhat polarizing style of writing - I've heard the classic criticism of "Haha, the characters will enter a forest and Tolkien will describe what the trees look like for 10 pages" many times, and seriously - kindly f**k off with that bullshit and go watch the latest Transformers movie if the art of engaging storytelling isn't for you. Tolkien's vast descriptions are breathtakingly beautiful, as reading those pages truly makes you see the glorious waterfalls of Rivendell, the green pastures of the Shire, the apocalyptic fires of Mordor and the mythical shores of Numenor in you mind's eye. I wouldn't be half the writer I am today if it wasn't for the inspiration from Tolkien's books, guiding me through childhood and adulthood like the light of Eärendil itself.

Thank you for reading! Tune in next week for the final post of Literature Month II - I return to what I love to discuss more than anything, with a ranking of the top 10 books I've read (so far) by Stephen King.

Literature Month II: Top 10 Finnish Books

Greetings, reader!

As the second edition of Literature Month continues, I'm turning the lens to my other home country - last week I ranked the top 10 Great American Novels, so this week, it's Finland's turn. As far as I know, this land doesn't have an equivalent to the canonical and mythical term "Great American Novel", so instead of copying that idea, I'll just broaden the spectrum and rank my top 10 favorite Finnish books, no matter what genre and style of literature they may represent.

Here are my honorable mentions: Christina Salmivalli - Koulukiusaamiseen Puuttuminen, Matti Rantasila - Oli Neljä Veikkoa Meitä, Mikael Huhtamäki - Scream for me Finland! Kansainvälistä hevikeikkahistoriaa 1980-luvun Suomesta, Sauli Niinistö - Viiden Vuoden Yksinäisyys, Veijo Murtomäki - Jean Sibelius ja Isänmaa.

10. Aino Sibeliuksen Kirjeitä Järnefelt-suvun Jäsenille

This collection of letters to and from Aino Sibelius, the wife of legendary composer Jean Sibelius, is a fascinating window into an important period of time in Finnish history. The letters offer insight into the marriage of Jean and Aino, the culture and lifestyle of their time, and into the larger cultural history of Finland - Aino herself came from the Järnefelt family, whose various members had a major role in the shaping of Finnish art and the Finnish identity, through music, literature and painting. It's a moving collection, one that history buffs and classical music enthusiasts are bound to enjoy, and it works as somewhat of a time capsule.

9. Sirpa Kyyrönen - Lempeät Tukaanit

There's a place in my heart for Finnish poetry, as more than one poem collection made it into today's top 10. I started getting into writing poetry much before I got into reading it, but when I did begin to gain interest in consuming poetry by others, this collection by Sirpa Kyyrönen was one of the first works I tackled. It's the Finnish language at its most beautifully flowing, with depictions of nature and deep ponderings of the self and of human nature coloring the images brought to mind by Kyyrönen's elegant words. It's a colorful collection, with atmospheres ranging from delightfully serene to stormy and dramatic.

8. Aleksis Kivi - Nummisuutarit

Like the collection of Aino Sibelius letters, this play by Finland's most beloved playwright is likewise a delightful look at the ways of 'Old Finland'. It's a comedic misadventure, light at heart while having much to say with its intriguing characters and redemption archs of initially unlikable people.

Kivi's language is so rich that the play is an entertaining read on its own, even though I'd imagine it comes to life on a whole other level on the theater stage. I haven't had a chance to see it yet, unless you count the modernized version Nummibodarit, which I saw many years before I ever got around to reading the original text.

7. Sofi Oksanen - Puhdistus

Puhdistus ("Purge") is one of the least fun, most depressing hard-to-read books you'll ever come across. Originally a play by Sofi Oksanen and later written into a novelized version, this multiple-award-winning literary work tells a story spanning multiple generations, its characters haunted by abuse, sexism and violence against women. It is a reading experience as horrifying as it is important, managing to tackle interesting history and gripping social issues as well with its milieu of Soviet-occupied Estonia. The bleakness of Oksanen's language and word choices is perfect for such a dark tale, and the effect the book has on its reader will stay with you.

6. Tove Jansson - Muumilaakson Marraskuu

I really, really hate November, the absolutely shitty excuse for a month that manages to bring one down every year. A few years ago, I was having an exceptionally disasterous N*vember, with school stress and relationships and all sorts of things just falling apart, and I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown when I asked my friend Hilda, who lives nearby, if I could come over for a cup of tea, as I just really didn't want to be alone. I arrived at her place, and she handed me a book, saying I should read it. It was Muumilaakson Marraskuu, the last Moomin book written by Tove Jansson.

The deeply melancholic book hits you hard on many levels - the story of secondary characters finding the Muumitalo empty and deciding to take care of it in the winter ends up seeming cute in its own way, but when you find out that Jansson wrote this as a metaphor for dealing with her own mother's passing, the whole "the house feels so different without Muumimamma's comforting presence" atmosphere is devastating. The reading experience was glum but in a mellow and ultimately comforting way - my friend had certainly known me well enough to know that this was just what I needed.

5. Terhi Kokkonen - Rajamaa

Rajamaa is the debut novel by Terhi Kokkonen, the lead vocalist and lyricist of one of my favorite Finnish bands, Scandinavian Music Group (she also sang for the more famous, if slightly less my-cup-of-tea band Ultra Bra when it was still active). As a huge fan of Kokkonen's lyrics, a fictional book written by her was a concept that immediately grabbed my attention, and it sure didn't disappoint. I love how the text is somewhat similar to her song lyrics in a specific way, despite the differences of the media - the immaculate SMG vibe can be felt in how she introduces characters and describes settings.

The flash-forward beginning immediately reels you into the story's slowly unfolding mystery, with a peculiar and Lynchian vibe having the reader fully hooked as the fascinating intrigue plays well with the bleak and melancholic premise. When all is said and done, the book will leave you with questions to ponder and interpretations to be made, as a good book should.

4. Tommy Tabermann - Kukkiva Kivi

Like last week's Literature Month post, this one also calls for a shout-out to my high school homeroom teacher and kick-ass teacher of Finnish and literature, Maarit. She has shaped my taste in books and my appreciation for literature more than any other individual, and the few different books that I received from her (one as a graduation present, one as part of a scolarship of sorts and one as a thank-you when my civil service at the same school drew to a close) are very precious to me as she always knew just which book I could really use.

This collection of poems by Tabermann is wildly emotional, with texts ranging from short-and-to-the-point to long-winding-ramblings, from sweet and delicate romance to depictions of erotic lust, from grim and heartbreaking to beautifully inspiring. There were many parts that I had to bookmark so that I could return to them in later stages of life, as Tabermann's words had such a haunting effect on me. Nothing quite like a good poem, and this book certainly has its share.

3. Elias Lönnrot - Kalevala

The Finnish national epic Kalevala, assembled into its known form by Elias Lönnrot, has been subject to some interesting debate in recent years - the story's roots are in the old culture of Karelia, and aspects were changed to fit the purely Finnish national identity better, and for a long time the epic has been discussed as a purely Finnish point of pride while shunning its Karelian roots. I'm a big Kalevala enjoyer, and all credit to the Karelian folks of old for creating a large chunk of this story.

When viewed less as a debate point juxtaposing patriotism, colonialism and cultural heritage and merely as a reading experience, there's no getting around the fact that the Kalevala f**king rules. There's a multitude of classic heroes, creepy villains, cool lore and epic quests to make one think that this would make for one hell of a Hollywood blockbuster, yet there are also many uniquely Finnish/Karelian characteristics spicing the story up and making it stick out. This is also one of the many national epics that influenced J.R.R. Tolkien himself, and the antihero Turin Turambar in The Silmarillion is largely based on the character Kullervo (or, as Finnish schoolbooks like to report it, "The Lord of the Rings is basically copied from Kalevala since Tolkien got all his inspiration from Finland").

2. Kjell Westö - Missä Kuljimme Kerran

I really should read more Kjell Westö - this winner of the 2006 Finlandia prize remains the only book I've read from him, and considering that it's my second-favorite Finnish book of all time, it feels wrong that I haven't read any more. I'll have to work on that once my Stephen King phase wears down (assuming it ever does). But, yeah, Missä Kuljimme Kerran is a truly gripping tale, showcasing the writer's deep understanding of Finnish history and the atmosphere and identity of old Helsinki. I've always liked books and films where a very real historical era is looked at through a fictional plot, and this book is one of the very best instances of the trope: the main characters and their stories are fictional, but there is an incredible amount of intricate and realistic context coloring the story, making everything feel like it could've really happened.

Taking place from the troubles of 1905, where Finland was finding its national identity, all the way through independence, the Civil War and the Lapua movement to the doorstep of the Winter War, this book follows various characters as they live through a rapidly changing Helsinki and change themselves quite a bit. The youngsters from the rich families become more or less willing participants of one side in the Civil War while the youngsters from the poor families on the other, really reminding the reader how the era was more complicated than your history books might tell you and most people really didn't have a choice on what they found themselves fighting for. Amidst all the gripping character archs, the book's most lively and fascinating character just may be the city of Helsinki itself, truly coming to life as a living, breathing thing through Westö's words.

1. Väinö Linna - Tuntematon Sotilas

A mainstream pick for sure, but I couldn't really go with any other one (although Missä Kuljimme Kerran did give this classic a run for its money, to be fair). There's something deeply universal about Tuntematon Sotilas ("The Unknown Soldier") - its themes of appreciating the sacrifices of those who fought in the Continuation War make even the most patriotic Finns love this classic, yet its criticism of the brutality and inhumanity of war is so pronounced that pacifist hippies such as myself love it equally. Basically, it all comes down to "sending your young men, children really, to kill and die for your country is a f**ked up concept, but the bravery of those young men thrust into that situation is something one can hardly comprehend".

The characters, from the loud and rebellious Rokka and the cheerful and lovable Hietanen all the way to the grumpy communist Lahtinen and the giggly Vanhala, are deeply engrained staples of Finnish culture. As well as they have been captured on the big screen, both in the original 1955 film and the 2017 remake, there's really no beating Väinö Linna's original text with its authentic dialogue, sprinkles of humor amidst the realistically depicted horrors of war, and overall powerful impact.

Thank you for reading! Tune in next week as I continue Literature Month II with a ranking of my top 10 favorite authors of all time.

Literature Month II: Top 10 Great American Novels

Greetings, reader!

I'm once again doing a theme month focusing on something different than movies and TV, and for the second time, the theme of such a month is literature. I'm kicking it off with a ranking of Great American Novels - a term that is thrown around a lot, with its exact definition and determining what does/doesn't qualify as a Great American Novel being a convoluted and long-standing point of debate. The term often refers to a book that truly embodies the spirit, essence and character of the United States and its culture, and many scholars have come up with their own specific definitions that often clash with one another. With this being 4th of July week and all, I figured that it's the perfect time to dive into this topic.

The term was first introduced in a 1868 essay by John William De Forest, where he noted that "The Great American Novel most likely hasn't been written yet". I like that idea, as it alludes to 'The promise of America', the idea of what the country could and should be as an idealistic contrast to what it often is, a thought echoed by Americans from Rosa Parks and JFK all the way to Aaron Sorkin and the Hamilton musical. Anyways, in the perspective of this half-American bookworm, these are the top 10 books that I personally feel to deserve this mythical moniker!

Here are my honorable mentions: The Wayward Bus (John Steinbeck, 1937), For Whom the Bell Tolls (Ernest Hemingway, 1940), Hearts in Atlantis (Stephen King, 1999), The Brooklyn Follies (Paul Auster, 2005), The Hellfire Club (Jake Tapper, 2018).

10. To Have and Have Not (Ernest Hemingway, 1937)

"Listen, I told him. Don't be so tough so early in the morning. I'm sure you've cut plenty of people's throats. I haven't even had my coffee yet"

This Hemingway classic combines romance, crime and adventure in a thrilling fashion as we follow a working-man-turned-smuggler called Harry Morgan to the backdrop of the Great Depression. The novel is set partially in Key West, Florida (Yay, I've been there!), and partly in Cuba. Hemingway's depiction of the busy harbors and bustling boardwalks of these milieus is culturally engaging and beautifully worded in its own, raw and gritty way. When I think of classic American literature, Hemingway is the first guy who comes to mind, and books like this are why.

9. Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck, 1937)

"Trouble with mice is you always kill 'em"

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas river drops in, close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green - and this is where we meet George and Lennie, two iconic characters who roam the land searching for work. Of Mice and Men is a gripping tale, as cynical about humanity's deep-lying nature and American society as it is unavoidably true to many American ideals and truths, from its lively descriptions of Californian nature to its ever-relevant look at the conditions of migrant workers.

As is the case with many Steinbeck books, there are parts that certainly haven't aged well. But that doesn't keep the book from being a Great American Novel in my view - instead of cancelling an individual author for relaying racist thoughts, we should take an introspective look at what it says about our history that racism seems to embedded into most books from that time regardless of the author. Of Mice and Men is a perfect example of a book that should be taught in school, but with the full context on how such language was a part of an overall racist society, thus integrating the studying of literature into learning history (something that Florida Governor and Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis certainly doesn't want any of us to do, instead opting that we all pretend like it's still 1937).

8. The Call of the Wild (Jack London, 1903)

"But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called"

Funnily enough, quite a few books that don't take place in the United States ended up making this top 10 - believe me or not, this wasn't a purposeful point on multiculturalism or globalism, the list just happend to go that way. I guess it goes to show that an American writer can tell a story that embodies something deep and true about the country, no matter where it's set.

And to be fair, with this one, Canada isn't far from home (and the state of Alaska certainly has a big part to play as well in this Yukon River adventure). Having explored the Yukon myself on our 2013 float trip with my dad, uncle and brother (hands-down one of the coolest experiences of my life), it was a joy to re-experience the beauty of that part of the world by reading the pages of this Jack London classic. The Call of the Wild is a short book, but depending on the reader, it can be seen as many things - a tale of the bond between man and animal, a tribute to the majestic nature of the Yukon, or just a true and gritty adventure tale of the highest order.

7. Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut, 1969)

"But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes"

With wildly dark humor and bizarre sci-fi elements as its stylistic means of making serious points about the world, Slaughterhouse-Five certainly isn't one of the more conventional candidates for Great American Novel. But I never was one for blindly sticking to tradition, and the ways in which Vonnegut challenges the conventions of American literature are as inspiring as they are bold.

The book's gripping anti-war themes really speak to me, especially when looking at where they come from - the first chapter reads like a pseudo-foreword by Vonnegut, shedding light on his own experience as a POW who survived the bombing of Dresden in World War II, and how he had always felt an urge to write about it, but found the experience so haunting that a conventional book wouldn't do, so instead he used all these wild narrative choices to demonstrate the sheer absurdity and inhumanity of war. And so it goes.

6. The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Heminway, 1952)

"But man is not made for defeat, he said. A man can be destroyed but not defeated"

Hemingway's Pulitzer Prize -winning work may take place on the coast of Cuba and have Cuban main characters, but when broadening one's horizons on what the essence of 'American literature' is, well, it's this. In my personal view, Hemingway's writing style alone is in the very core of the literary culture of the United States, no matter where his stories might take place. So the book that is most often considered his masterpiece is by all means an American classic, and a major milestone in U.S. literary history.

The Old Man and the Sea is a classic example of writing about large things through the lens of small things - on the surface, it's just a detailed account of an old man's fishing trip, but between the lines it's about so much more than that. Man's relationship to nature, the human struggle with one's own mortality, questions of legacy, you name it. What a tale.

5. The Nix (Nathan Hill, 2016)

"Sometime we're so wrapped up in our own story that we don't see how we're supporting characters in someone else's"

It might be a bit weird to suggest such a new book as a GAN, as there is no knowing for sure how Nathan Hill's debut work will stand the test of time and whether or not it will be seen as a classic in the future. But there are many reasons for me to see this subjective favorite as such: with a major part of the story taking place in present day and dealing with themes from fad diets and online gaming addiction to the aftermath of the Iraq War and the rise of far-right populist politics in the U.S., The Nix resonates with the America I recognize from my own lifetime and experiences. Because of this, I'm guessing that it'll be one of the books I look back on at an old age, in a similar way that older generations now reminisce about the America of their youths through Hemingway and Steinbeck classics.

And while a part of the story takes place in modern times, a major narrative is a flashback storyline from the late 1960's, taking a gripping look at the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the infamous 1968 protests in Chicago. So The Nix has a lot to say about America, and feels truly American at heart admist its criticisms and the questions it poses on what kind of nation we should be (perhaps this, more than anything else, is what a Great American Novel should do).

My literary enthusiasm has been inspired by many people, but none more so than my high school homeroom teacher Maarit, who taught Finnish and literature, and had a major role in my bookworm ways. She gave me this book as a graduation present, and I swear to God, only a literature teacher can come up with such a perfect specific book to give to a specific person at a specific time in their life. As a half-American living overseas and starting to get a grasp on the country's chaotic politics through the acid-in-your-eyes lens of the Trump era, this book was just what I needed in order to deepen my relationship to American literature and the culture of my second home country.

4. A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929)

"But life isn't hard to manage when you've nothing to lose"

Again, a book that doesn't take place in the U.S., where an American soldier falls in love with an English nurse in Italy - but the end product still makes me scream "That's my America!". It's nice and easy to criticize war in today's society - while humanity still hasn't become nearly anti-war enough, we've certainly moved to a better direction. But when it's 1929, and you're a popular writer like Ernest Hemingway, it takes some serious balls to call out the inhumanity and senselessness of war.

A Farewell to Arms is a moving tale, finding places of beauty from Hemingway's gritty and bleak writing style, finding love and even authentic-feeling rays of hope from realistically brutal and inhumane milieus. Out of Hemingway's many great works, this one has stood the test of time the best, and is bound to resonate with a pacifist soul like myself while also working in the broader sense of ideals belonging to American literature.

3. The Stand (Stephen King, 1978)

"Show me a man or woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare"

As anyone who has heard me speak a sentence during the past half a year will surely be aware, 2023 is the year of Stephen King for me - I haven't completed a single book by any other author this year, as his works are keeping me delightfully busy (addicted, some would say - I won't say that I'm not addicted but I will say that I am). While King's primary genre is horror and Great American Novels don't traditionally fall into that genre, this is a case where the writer and the category have significant overlap - King's books are never just horror (many aren't horror at all), and as a vast majority takes place in the U.S. and King's relationship to his country is one of the many themes he has dealt with through his writing, I'd argue that many of his books deserve shouts as potential Great American Novels.

Right off the bat, I'm excluding the ones that take place entirely or primarily in King's home state of Maine - they're all eligible as Great Mainean Novels and a part of the state's cultural heritage at this point, but King's way of writing stories in that particular state feel too specific to Maine, therefore not feeling as universally representative of the U.S. as a whole.

And if one of his works does encompass Ameria as a whole, it's The Stand. Through the lens of a deadly virus changing life as we know it (haha, can you imagine?), King envisions an America whose society collapses into post-apocalyptic chaos, only for our group of heroes to slowly and surely start to try and rebuild a new and better America. Taking place across the landscape from the pitfalls of Las Vegas and the cornfields of Nebraska all the way to the plains of Texas and the suddenly abandoned streets of New York (and yes, Maine has a part to play as well), The Stand reflects King's knowledge and understanding of the lay of the land and its customs. The author, often very critical of his home country, taps into his national pride in this one, with unforgettable moments like Larry Underwood singing the Star-Spangled Banner outside his tent upon realising that its July 4th, or the Free Zone committee being moved to tears as they meet for the first time and officially start to rebuild.

Of course, the social criticism rears its head as well, with the story grappling with the perhaps most interesting question that a post-apocalyptic story can ask - how do we recreate the old way of life, without bringing back all the problems that came with it? As society starts to return to normal, instances of crime start to occur which calls for the establishing a police system, but how do we stop police brutality from happening? There is no easy answer for these questions, but reading The Stand will make you think about your own relationship to America - the good, the bad, all of it.

2. Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852)

"The longest way must have its close - the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning"

A female author, writing a book that speaks strongly against slavery in antebellum America, is about as punk rock as you can get. This massively influential book showcased the evils of slavery to many Americans at the time, who either hadn't witnessed the system's brutality from their place of privilege or who had turned a blind eye due to the classic reason of being used to it (it makes my blood boil when people use the "things have always been this way" argument to oppose positive change and progressive values, because that shortsighted and lazy-ass way of thinking is exactly why America was very okay with slavery for a long time before making any changes).

Uncle Tom's Cabin is a gripping tale, drawing a heartbreaking amount of inspiration from real people and real events despite being a fictional story at heart. This is about as "show your love for America by criticizing its flaws and calling for what kind of country it should strive to become" as you can get, and that sort of national pride has always resonated with me more than the blind and over-patriotic kind (this applies to both of my home countries, by the way), so this classic is definitely among the most deserving candidates for the title of GAN.

1. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck, 1939)

"A large drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going. And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon, and darkness crept over the land from the east"

Steinbeck's masterpiece deserves the #1 spot in a universal sense - if there's another book that says as much about America, encapsulates the spirit of the United States and relays conventions of American literature as much or more than this one, then I haven't found that book yet. Following a family making their way from Oklahoma to California in desparate search of work during the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath is a book where every aspect, from Steinbeck's nuanced depictions of nature and the atmosphere-creating interlude chapters all the way to the characteristics and personalities of the Joad family and the social criticism weaved into the story, feels as "Great American Novel" as one can get.

But I also had to put it at #1 for personal reasons. Reading this book in the summer of 2021 pretty much single-handedly begun my so-called "Bob Dylan phase", where I discovered a newfound resonance and deeper sense of belonging to my second home country. While I've always loved America, it has always inescapably been the slightly more distant-feeling of my two home countries because I've always lived in Finland, and especially living through the Trump years was something that made my relationship to the U.S. a lot more difficult and complicated. But the American spirit found in this book was something that really spoke to me, prompting me to read more such classics while listening to tons of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, et cetera.

In his book A Promised Land, Barack Obama talks about the dilemma of how he could love and believe in a nation that had enslaved people who looked like him, then segregated them, and still continued to treat them differently in the eyes of the police and the justice system. He comes to the conclusion that what he loves and believes in and decided to fight for was the promise of America, what the country can strive to be at its best, and lists some examples: it's the America Walt Whitman describes in his poems, the America of Jackie Robinson stealing home, the America of misfits like Chuck Berry making it and the America of Dr. King speaking on the national mall. I wholeheartedly agree, and among the names I'd add to that fabled list would be John Steinbeck writing The Grapes of Wrath, and a certain Mr. Obama overcoming the odds to become President. "Yes we can" has been a challenging sentiment to believe in ever since 2016, but it'll always be the idea to strive towards.

Thank you for reading! Tune in next week as I turn the lens to my other home country - "Great Finnish Novel" may not be a canonical term like its American counterpart, so I'll settle for "Top 10 Finnish books".