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And There Was Light is one of my all time favorites. I don't understand why it hasn't become more well known. Somebody should make it into a movie; it would be a spellbinder.

I read The Sound and the Fury--literally--five times. I still couldn't understand it. When I read Faulkner's explanation, I was even more confused. Then one night at a party, I met a woman who taught Faulkner in college. I said, "You're not leaving here tonight until you tell me what that thing is about." We spent the next two hours on the sofa, she explaining it to me in detail. Then I read it again, and it was crystal clear.

I love these threads too. I love to talk about books.

I thought of another must: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald. If anyone isn't familiar with it, the poetry is gorgeous. I've practically memorized the whole thing. Here's a sample (from memory):

The worldly hope me set their hearts upon
Turns ashes, or it prospers, and anon
Like snow upon the desert's dusty face
Lighting a little hour or two was gone.
Yon rising moon that looks for us again,
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane?
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same garden, but for one in vain?
And ah that spring should vanish with the rose,
That youth's sweet scented manuscript should close,
The nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah whence and whither flown again? Who knows?
Would that some winged agel, e'er too late,
Arrest the yet unfolded scroll of fate
And make the stern Recorder otherwise
Enrigister, or quite obliterate.
Ah, Love, could you and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits
And then remold it nearer to the heart's desire?