My Personal Literary Canon – A Self-Portrait in Books

There is great debate about which texts deserve to sit in the canon of literature – debates shaped by people far more informed than I.  Sure, I’ll talk about canon in Marvel or Doctor Who or Star Wars but F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway?  Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle?  Et cetera and so on?  I’ve opinions but few are fully informed by academic scholarship.  Last summer I was reading one of my favorite blogs – I read that in a book – and I came across a post titled, “Personal book canon – a self-portrait in books.”  I loved the post and I loved the idea and I immediately began thinking of what would make up my own personal literary canon.  In the comment section of the piece, I talked of how I was eager to “steal” the idea and try it myself.  This was something I could speak to in an informed way!  I thought it a really fun idea, too, to look at the books which have most shaped my life.  So today, in my 400th post (!!!!), I’m going to do just that :D.

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