The A to Z books that explain you

This is an arbitrary list culled from my bookshelves:
A is for Auden, Akhmatova, and Auster
B is for Bulgakov, Borges, and Ambrose Bierce
C is for Calvino, Cavafy, and Chekov
D is for Lawrence Durrell, Robertson Davies and Michel Déon
E is for Eco, T.S. Eliot, and Paul Eluard
F is for F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fuentes, and Forster
G is for Gide, Greene, and Galsworthy
H is for Houellebecq, Huysmans and Hašek Jaroslav
I is for Ishiguro, Ibsen, and Irving
J is for Joyce, Henry James, and Alfred Jarry
K is for Kipling, Keats, and Khayyam
L is for Lessing, Lovecraft, and Lermontov
M is for Marquez, Maugham, and Mahfouz
N is for Nabokov, Neruda, and Naipaul
O is for O’Neill, Flann O’Brien, and Orwell
P is for Perec, Pushkin, and Plutarch
Q is for Queneau and de Quincey
R is for Rushdie, Rimbaud, and Rilke
S is for Shakespeare, Stendahl, and Saint-Exupéry
T is for Michel Tournier, Tanizaki, and Twain
U is for Updike and de Unamuno
V is for Voltaire and Valéry
W is for Wilde, Waugh, and Woolf
X is for ….had to cheat a little, but I have a book of Greek historians that includes Xenophon’s Anabasis
Y is for Yeats
Z is for Zola and Zweig

-- Michael White (mwwhites...), February 5th, 2004.

Alphabetical Africa, by Abish.
To Do: A Book Of Alphabets And Birthdays, by Gertrude Stein.
"on the corner" to "off the corner", by Tina Darragh.
Annotations For Eliza, by Cynthia Kimball.
Any number of books by Edward Gorey.
The Alphabet, by Ron Silliman.

And, in a more limited sense,
Eunoia, by Christian Bök.
A Void, by Georges Perec.

Can't read the article, because I can't be bothered with registering, but here are some favourites organised like Michael's (and several letters are VERY hard to restrict to three, while some I stopped short rather than list writers I only kind of like; I stuck with alphabetical order all the way):

A is for Aristophanes, Austen and Auster (ooh, good range!)
B is for Barth, Block and Borges
C is for Calvino, Lewis Carroll and Coover
D is for Delany, Dick and Dostoyevsky
E is for Brett Easton Ellis, Endo and Erickson
F is for Farren, Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald
G is for Garcia Marquez, Garner and Grass
H is for Hesse, Alice Hoffman and Hugo
I is for Ike, Ionesco and Isherwood
J is for Joyce and Judd
K is for Kelman, Kemal and Kotzwinkle
L is for LeGuin, Lem and Primo Levi
M is for McMurtry, Mieville and Mishima
N is for Nabokov and Narayan
O is for Oates, O'Connor and Okri
P is for Proust, Pullman and Pynchon
Q is for Queneau
R is for Ishmael Reed, Philip Roth and Rushdie
S is for Shakespeare, Spark and Stark
T is for Jim Thompson, Turgenev and Twain
U is for Updike
V is for Vachss, Vargas Llosa and Voltaire
W is for Patrick White, Wilde and Wodehouse
X dammit
Y dammit too, though I came close to listing Yeats
Z is for Zola

Why no love for Yeats?

Login and password from bugmenot.com:

missotisregrets
bettemidler

People seem to be doing authors instead of books. I'm narrowing down this list to one choice per letter; otherwise, it might take me all week.

Ashbery, John
Borges, J.L.
Carver, Raymond
Dostoevsky, Fyodor
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Flaubert, Gustave
Ginsberg, Allen
Heller, Joseph
Ignatieff, Michael
Joyce, James
Kafka, Franz
Lovecraft, H.P.
Melville, Herman
Neruda, Pablo
Olson, Charles
Pynchon, Thomas
Q?
Rimbaud, Arthur
Sebald, W.G.
Tzu, Chuang
U?
Vonnegut, Kurt
Whitman, Walt
X?
Yeats, W.B.
Zimmerman, Robert (ok, that's cheating)

Actually, now that I've read the article, I suppose it's halfway amusing that a woman linked to it.

As if
By
Counting
Desire
Enough
for
Going
High
I
Just
Know
Let
man
not
ought
put
quests
respond
settle
tonight
undone
Valour
xeroxes
your zeal.

left a few blank for the future

A Andersch Alfred
B Brecht Bertolt, Benjamin Walter, Bufanlino Gesualdo
C Calvino Italo, Canetti Elias, Camilleri Andrea, Chatwin Bruce
D Dibdin Michael
E Eco Umberto
F Frisch Max, Fried Erich, Flaiano Ennio
G Glauser Friedrich
H Handke Peter
I Ishiguro Kazuo
J Johnson Uwe, Jünger Ernst
K Kafka Franz
L Levi Primo
M Meier Gerhard, Merz Klaus
N Nabokov Vladimir
O ?
P Proust Marcel, Pintor Luigi
Q ?
R Rilke Rainer Maria
S Sebald WG, Sacks Oliver, Simon Claude
T Tabucchi Antonio, Tolstoi Lev
U ?
V Vazquez Montalban Manuel
W ?
X ?
Y ?
Z Zanzotto Andrea

Michael, I like Yeats, but in all honesty there probably aren't any poets I care about deeply.

Fie! Martin, give in.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain)
Beyond Good & Evil (Nietzsche)
Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara
Don Juan (Byron)
En attendant Godot (Beckett)
Finnegans Wake (Joyce)
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
The History of Sexuality (Foucault)
Invisible Cities (Calvino)
Julius Caesar (Shakespeare)
King Henry IV Part I (Shakespeare)
A Lover's Discourse (Barthes)
The Mind-Body Problem (Rebecca Goldstein)
Nixon Agonistes (Garry Wills)
Orlando (Virginia Woolf)
A People's History of the United States (Howard Zinn)
(McSweeney's) Quarterly 13
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard)
Stranger Music (Leonard Cohen)
Translations (Brian Friel)
The Universal Story and Other Stories (Ali Smith)
A Void (Perec)
Wonder Boys (Michael Chabon)
X, The Autobiography of Malcolm (X: tough letter)
You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train (Zinn)
Zooey, Franny and (see X)

Anna Karenina – Tolstoy (Levin, not Anna)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Capote
Cold Water – Riley
Diary of a Madman & Other Stories – Gogol
Eats, Shoots and Leaves - Truss
Future of Nostalgia, The – Svetlana Boym
“Gods” – Nabokov (also: Gidget and Ghostwritten)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World – Murakami
Invisible Cities – Calvino
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth – Ware
Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov
Le Petit Prince – Saint-Exupéry
Morvern Callar – Warner
Northern Lights, The – Pullman
Of Human Bondage – Maugham
Prague – Phillips
Question of Bruno, The – Hemon
Russian Journal, A – Steinbeck
Stories I Stole - Steavenson
Tales of the Unexpected – Dahl
Uguns nemodina (Fire Won’t Wake You) - Âbele
“Vera Pavlovna’s Ninth Dream” – Pelevin
Wrinkle in Time, A – L’Engle
Xtra scraps of paper I’ve written my own stories on
You Shall Know Our Velocity – Eggers (disclaimer: I did not like this book. But the main character has an epiphany in a Latvian forest, where many epiphanies happened in my life. So I’d tear out everything but that scene and hand it over.)
Zelta Zirgs (The Golden Horse: The Story of the Rising Sun) – Rainis

Given that I own relatively few books, for a book lover, this list of authors I own at least 1 work by (probably more than 1) is probably MORE representative than it normally would be?

Jane Austen
John Burnside
Raymond Carver
Michael Donaghy
Jeffrey Eugenides
Paul Farley
William Goldman
Ted Hughes
I?
J?
Milan Kundera
Roddy Lumsden
L.M. Montgomery
E. Nesbit
George Orwell
Don Paterson
Jean Rhys
William Shakespeare
R.S. Thomas
U?
V?
Jeanette Winterson
X?
W.B. Yeats
Z?

"I never explain ANYTHING."
--Mary Poppins

This fun! Anyone who was remotely bothered could plausibly make a pretty decent me out of:

A rebours (Huysmans)
Bringing Out Roland Barthes (D.A. Miller)
Count Zero (Gibson)
Dandies and Desert Saints (James Eli Adams)
Encylopedia of Ball Juggling (Dempsey)
Fruits (?)
Ghost World (Clowes)
High Windows (Larkin)
Infinite Jest (DFW)
Jimmy Corrigan (Ware)
Lessons in the Fundamentals Of Go (Kageyama)
Maud, And Other Poems (Tennyson)
New Casebooks: Chaucer (Pretty much only for the Caroline Dinshaw essay that changed my life)
Oblivion (DFW)
Pleasure Of The Text, The (Barthes)
Queen Mary (Tennyson)
Royal Road to Card Magic, The (Hugard & Braue)
Sea Came In At Midnight, The (Erickson)
Troilus & Criseyde (Chaucer's version, by inches)
Unknown Armies (Tynes & Stolze)
Victorian Afterlives (Robert Douglas-Fairhurst)
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (Carver)
Young Visiters, The (Ashford)