Four books that changed C.K. Stead

C. K. Stead, an award-winning novelist, literary critic, poet, and essayist, is New Zealand's poet laureate. One of four books that changed him, as shared at the Sydney Morning Herald:

THE GREAT GATSBY
F. Scott Fitzgerald

I was 18 when I read The Great Gatsby and was fired by its romantic quality and the way its clear, sharp prose went close to poetry without interrupting narrative flow or impeding narrative complexities. Characters are brilliantly delineated; and there is something eternally human about Gatsby's yearning for Daisy's "green light" across the water. But it is one of those rare books which reach beyond character and action and become signifiers of an age, the 1920s.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Great Gatsby appears among Jeff Somers's seven most disastrous parties in fiction, four books that changed Jodi Picoult, Joseph Connolly's top ten novels about style, Nick Lake’s ten favorite fictional tricksters and tellers of untruths in books, the Independent's list of the fifteen best opening lines in literature, Molly Schoemann-McCann's list of five of the lamest girlfriends in fiction, Honeysuckle Weeks's six best books, Elizabeth Wilhide's nine illustrious houses in fiction, Suzette Field's top ten literary party hosts, Robert McCrums's ten best closing lines in literature, Molly Driscoll's ten best literary lessons about love, Jim Lehrer's six favorite 20th century novels, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best clocks in literature and ten of the best misdirected messages, Tad Friend's seven best novels about WASPs, Kate Atkinson's top ten novels, Garrett Peck's best books about Prohibition, Robert McCrum's top ten books for Obama officials, Jackie Collins' six best books, and John Krasinski's six best books, and is on the American Book Review's list of the 100 best last lines from novels. Gatsby's Jordan Baker is Josh Sorokach's biggest fictional literary crush.

--Marshal Zeringue