Back in time...

[KTC]

If you could go back in time, assuming there was a time machine at your disposal, and you could claim one novel as your own, (meaning, under the title it now reads your name) which novel would that be? And why?

I would pick WONDER BOYS by MICHAEL CHABON. Because from the very first time I read it I connected with it more than with any other book I've read. The words feel like mine.

(Although I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the Zooey section of FRANNY AND ZOOEY by JD Salinger. But that's another category...what fictional character would you like to be? Mine would be Zooey (Zachary Martin) Glass.)

[maestrowork]

I would have loved to have written Dr. Zhivago. What a timeless story.

[CACTUSWENDY]

:idea: This may sound a bit on the tacky side...and I'm not prusuming to be anyone that great, but how about one of the Writers of the Bible? (Being female that leaves me out there)
That aside, and because of her cacusal humor I would like to be Janet Evanovich. Not for anything other than a relaxing read. (I even laugh out loud when reading her stuff)
There are just so many others that for one reason or another cause me to ponder many things if my life. James A. Michener's way of the epic storytelling leaves me in awe.(again, another male)

[Jamesaritchie]

If you could go back in time, assuming there was a time machine at your disposal, and you could claim one novel as your own, (meaning, under the title it now reads your name) which novel would that be? And why?

I would pick WONDER BOYS by MICHAEL CHABON. Because from the very first time I read it I connected with it more than with any other book I've read. The words feel like mine.

(Although I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the Zooey section of FRANNY AND ZOOEY by JD Salinger. But that's another category...what fictional character would you like to be? Mine would be Zooey (Zachary Martin) Glass.)

Huckleberry Finn, hands down, no contest. Why? I think it's simply one of the best novels ever written. It's been called the greatest American novel, and I couldn't agree more.

And also because that's a novel I think I could have written.

[BradyH1861]

Lonesome Dove. I happen to think it is one of the best stories I've ever read.


Brady H.

[Sarita]

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo... The personal struggle, the national strife, the characters. This book was epic to me, although I might not want to know that much about the Paris sewer system.. :)

[three seven]

The Story Of A Fierce Bad Rabbit by Beatrix Potter.

Best. Book. Ever.

[PattiTheWicked]

Without a doubt, Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo.

[pepperlandgirl]

Since Lonesome Dove is already claimed, I'll say Deena Metzger's Doors: A Fiction for Jazz Horn. It is literally the finest novel I have ever read in my life.

[johnnycannuk]

Either "On the Road" or "Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac, simply because I would have had to live it to write about it.

Or maybe "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashell Hammet, for the same reasons.


Mike

[Anatole Ghio]

I can't pick just one for the reason I don't have just one voice... my style changes depending upon the intent of the story.

So I'll pick three:

For social realism/existentialism: Old Man and the Sea

For Science Fiction/beautiful poetry: Martian Chronicles

For Postmoderism/beautiful prose: White Noise

Can't make it any shorter of a list.

[oswann]

Tough question.

'Of Mice and Men' by John Steinbeck is the first to spring to mind. Concise with compelling characters. The book sings like a bird.



Os.

[zornhau]

"Le Morte De Arthur", but actually it could have been me anyway - nobody's really sure who Malory was.

(However, given a trip in a time machine, I'd be too busy trying to persuade Robert E Howard not to shoot himself to bother about stealing other people's novels.)

[Jamesaritchie]

"Le Morte De Arthur", but actually it could have been me anyway - nobody's really sure who Malory was.

(However, given a trip in a time machine, I'd be too busy trying to persuade Robert E Howard not to shoot himself to bother about stealing other people's novels.)

I had to study Malory to death in college.

The interesting thing about Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire is that we know pretty much every detail of his life from the time he turned twenty-three in 1428 (?) until he died in 1471, but almost zero about him before he turned twenty-three. We know his father was John Malory, a member of the gentry who was twice sheriff, and we know the Malory family history for centuries before Thomas was born.

Thomas Malory's birth is recorded, and we have that record, but it's as if no one inside or outside the family wrote anything about Thomas until he was old enough to make the public record by buying and selling things that required either a deed or tax records. And then to make the news frequently for one misdeed after another.

So it really isn't that we don't know who Malory was, we do. It's just unusaul to have nothing written about you for the first twenty-three years of your life when you father is both a member of the gentry, and a sheriff in an important area.

[edfrzr]

I don't think you would consider it a "novel", but without a doubt I would claim To Kill a Mockingbird. Whenever one of my nieces or nephews ask me about a good book to read that will hold their interest, that is the one I recommend. As a child it made me laugh, it made me cry, it scared me to death and afterward it made me think.

Without a doubt one of the greatest pieces of Americana today.

[KTC]

edfrzr...I couldn't agree with you more. I so loved To Kill a Mockingbird as a kid. I turned my daughter onto it and it's her favourite book. I loved the movie too. They don't make 'em like that any more!

[BlueTexas]

East of Eden, without question. Every time I read it, I find a new layer.

[SJB]

Middlemarch. For too many reasons to list.

[wurdwise]

If I could go back in time and have been the author of any novel I wanted? Wow, that's a hard question. The first thing that came to mind was 'To Kill a Mockingbird' but I wasn't surprised when I saw it was taken. So I think it would be "We Were the Mulvaney's" by Joyce Carol Oates. I have read every novel she's written, a genius, in my opinion, though haunted, still, her grasp on human emotion is spooky.

[Tish Davidson]

Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I've read it 4 or 5 times between the ages of 20 and 50, and it has said something different to me at every age.

I also would have liked to have written Margaret Wise Brown's Good Night Moon because of its timelessness and the pleasure it has given so many parents and children reading together.

[aadams73]

East of Eden, without question. Every time I read it, I find a new layer.

My favorite book along with To Kill a Mockingbird.

What book do I wish I had written? Hmm, the Harry Potter books or Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree books.

[Solatium]

The Power and the Glory. One of those novels that hits you in the gut and then works its way up to your brain. It'll stay with me forever.

[JohnLynch]

Monkey Planet (by Pierre Boulle?). And I'd rewrite it ;) Planet of the Apes (which was based on the book) fascinated me as a small child and continues to do so. Many of my ideas probably wouldn't have occurred without Planet of the Apes. So because of the movies, I became fascinated with the idea of talking apes. So I of course loved the book.

And why re-write it? Because I'd want to give it my own touch of course. If I'm going to claim a book as my own, I'd want it to read like one of my own (well, what one of my own will read like once I finish a story and become good ;)).

[triceretops]

Journey to the Center of the Earth--Logan's Run--The Time Machine.

tri

[Julie Worth]

I’d like to have one of my own novels five years ago. As it is (or was) topical, that would give me time to make it through the process of submission-rejection.