A Main Serving of Fiction with a Side Order of ...

There's a rather nice meme-y thing I found it in Daphne's notes on Facebook :

I decided I'd like to see a list of books or works you'd recommend to others, made on the principle of maximum pleasure per syllable.

she says and proceeds to name her five :

1. The Ready-Made Family by Antonia Forest
2. On Pilgrimage by Jennifer Lash
3. The Complete Letters of John Keats
4. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
5. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

After that, other people added their own lists ... not just the five books, but also the ideal food to accompany them! I think Ahnaf started it :

Ahnaf Azmi at 11:57pm March 7

1. Ariel by Sylvia Plath (Hughes's edition, not the restored one)
2. Three Billy Goats Gruff
3. Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett
4. Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
5. Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

BONUS! FREE "Eat with" recommendations!

1. Black tea, no milk, no sugar.
2. Two Chipsmore cookies and half a glass of cold milk.
3. Raisin pancakes with a smidge of maple syrup.
4. Doritos Tangy Cheese crisps.
5. Chocolate icecream with raspberry lashings.

Animah Kosai at 12:30am March 8
I just read Where The Wild Things Are to Sara at Kino this afternoon! So I'd agree with you. If I were to chose a kids book tho it would be any of the Charlie & Lola. I get maximum pleasure just reading it out loud.

As for adult books (ok some are not):
1.Lolita. Lo lo love of my loins. Beautiful read out loud as the syllables literally roll off your tongue.
2. High Fidelity cos its soooo funny!
3. Anything of Rumi's
4. Alice In Wonderland being completely bizarre and philosophical.
5. Any Calvino short story for its sheer mathematical brilliance.

Yang Jerng Hwa at 12:30am March 8

Read:

1. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsch
2. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein
3. The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
4. Metaphysics: An Anthology (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies)
5. Closer (Screenplay) by Patrick Marber

Eat with:

1. Bangers and mash, RM34++ on Changkat Bukit Bintang
2. A square pizza
3. One shot of pure Wheatgrass extract
4. Subway's Veggie Delite!
5. One small chocolate cake, with molten insides, a ripe raspberry on top. Finish with dry martini.

Preeta Samarasan at 1:45am March 8

Oh! I'm in love with the "Eat With" recommendations -- I probably wouldn't have responded quite so quickly if not for that!

1) When We Were Very Young, A.A. Milne
2) The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats, any edition
3) The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992, Jack Gilbert
4) e.e. cummings, Complete Poems 1904-1962, any edition
5) Waterland, Graham Swift

(Yes, I think maximum pleasure per syllable = poetry, but Waterland is an exception.)

And now for the Eat With:

1) vanilla or almond blancmange
2) large pot of mussels with good brown bread
3) paella and a full-bodied red wine
4) devilled eggs, outdoors
5) This really should be eels but I don't like them (except in sushi which is not appropriate here), so: fish pie and a real old ale.

Rebecca Khor at 10:23am March 8
1) Remains of the Day by Kazuo ishuguro
2) Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
3) The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
4) The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
5) ????

i cannot comment on the "eat with", reason being i'm a compulsive exerciser with self-proclaimed low metabolism. I bite my nails instead, find that goes well with any book.

Even though I wasn't tagged in the first place, I'd like to add my own lists :

1. Money by Martin Amis
2. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
3. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
4. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
5. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
   

1. No food but lots of alchohol ... any kind of booze
2. Seafood pie w a mashed potato topping
3. Apples ...
4. An English style curry with raisins and apples and lemon wedges and Sharnwood's curry powder
5. Sorry! Roast pork (distant memory) ... must be all that talk about Piggy
   

And oh ... I reckon that Preeta's book (which gave me enormous pleasure per syllable) would be best served with a plate of Ipoh Char Kway Teoh ... preferably eaten at the FMS Restaurant.

Feel free to add your own lists!