Reading List
Reading.
Not just a bunch of
words
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Reading is an infinite activity. Our government, through its agent, The Library of Congress, ensures this. In the Library of Congress, books are everywhere and new ones are coming in all the time. The shelves are sagging with books of all sorts - from He Doesn't Know I Care to A Modest History of the Universe. Comic books to encyclopedias, books written by dedicated men and women of literature, compulsive egoists, celebrity Bar-B-Que masters, and people who didn't even realize they were writing a book.
Imagine how large this library must be. Curiosity trembles at the thought of this much information. Eyelids grow heavy and breathing slows. The mind can not encompass the existence of this many books. This is why we must read them one at a time.
Reading is an activity that can help put our feet on the ground, while at the same time, it takes us to places faraway. It expands our vision. If you live in Minnesota, reading can give you a sense of Texas or Tasmania. And, if you live in Texas or Tasmania, you can learn the difference between Minneapolis and Saint Paul and other fascinating things, which you had no idea could make a difference. Outer Space is just pages away and you can come back any time you want. The past exists in the present and you can be a part of it. The opportunities are limitless.
Reading calms us down. Although it can be done, reading while walking or driving is not recommended. It is a reflective act. And reflecting at stoplights or on sharp curves can be dangerous. When we read, we are (most of us) sitting down. This, in itself, is beneficial. It keeps us from constantly doing errands. We leave behind the world as we know it and travel instantly to places we have never been and to places that may never have existed. This saves not only time, but also airfare. If you get lost, you can just go back a few pages and orient yourself. Unlike Television, which is anything but reflective, we can travel at our own pace and to wherever we want. On the way, we need not worry about hamburgers or our cars or whether we're on the correct long-distance plan.
Reading is a cooperative act. As a reader, you and the author together, design new buildings, create hairdos, and resolve conflict. You can toy with affections, fly an airplane, and outwit the enemy. You can help bake a cake, bait a hook, or beat the system. It's endless. Just when things seem to be falling into that ditch called Routine, you can revive yourself with a new adventure, a new skill, a new direction.
One of the few things from school that made a lasting impression on me was summer vacation. And, when summer vacation was approaching, we would be presented with a reading list that contained suggestions of books of all sorts. This was the kind of homework assignment I could understand. No pressure - just suggestions. No tests. No reports. Just the pursuit of knowledge and happiness.
Teachers, freed from the daily restraints of the school system and the need for discipline, seemed to finally relax. They included books that they liked. Old favorites. Books that were important to them as people, not just as teachers. Reading the list excited me. All those possibilities.
Any list of books can only be a partial list. The ones that come to mind at the moment. The ones that have made themselves known. The ones that have jumped off the shelf this afternoon.
Remember - No pressure, no tests, and no reports.
Books About Writing
Becoming a Writer - Dorothea Brande - Gets to the heart and soul of it.
Aspects of the Novel - E. M. Forster - Characters, plot, and pattern, the whole ball of wax.
Elements of Style - Strunk And White - Also available online, click here.
The Sounds of Poetry - Robert Pinsky - How to hear better.
Women Writers at Work, Beat Writers at Work - The editors of the Paris Review - Great interviews with great writers.
Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular - Rust Hills - How did he get that name?
A Poetry Handbook - Mary Oliver - Reveals the foundations.
A Writer's Time - Kenneth Atchity - How to organize, schedule and move forward.
The Writing Life - Annie Dillard - Has that great quote in it.
Woe Is I - Patricia O'Connor - Whoa! An entertaining book about grammar.
The Deluxe Transitive Vampire
The New Well-Tempered Sentence
Paris Out of Hand
The Disheveled Dictionary - Karen Elizabeth Gordon - Yes, grammar can be fun. And, sometimes, necessary. The Paris book is not about grammar, but about a Paris of the imagination.
The Writer's Digest Guide to Good Writing - Writing advice from the past eight decades.
The Triggering Town - Richard Hugo - Wonderful essays on poetry and writing by a wonderful poet.
100 Things Every Writer Needs To Know - Scott Edelstein - Straight talk from a good guy from Minnesota.
Writing For Your Life - Deena Metzger - She goes deep and puts into words the healing aspects and possibilities of writing.
Writing Down the Bones
Wild Mind
Long Quiet Highway - Natalie Goldberg - Natalie set me on the path and these books kept me focused. Great, wise, and generous words.
One Continuous Mistake - Gail Sher - A directly Buddhist experience.
How To Read a Poem - Edward Hersch - Subtitled - And Fall in Love with Poetry.
Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott - She's been there and retained her sense of humor.
Books for Fun
Cosmicomics - Italo Calvino - Recreates the world.
The Little Sister
The Big Sleep
The Simple Art of Murder - Raymond Chandler - The master of simile.
3 Plays - Thornton Wilder - A great American voice.
A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway - Mais oui!
Harold and the Purple Crayon - Crockett Johnson - One of the first and most influential books in my life.
A Prayer For Owen Meany - John Irving - Possibly a perfect novel.
Alba - Delacorta - Hip mystery. Lean, but mean prose.
Sixty Stories - Donald Barthelme - The master of the form and formless.
Up in the Old Hotel
Joe Gould's Secret - Joseph Mitchell - Brilliant reporting by an elusive artist.
Wise Children - Angela Carter - A great book about the theater, acting, and celebration.
Hotel Eden - Ron Carlson - Short stories are usually too short for my attention span, but something wonderful happens in each one.
Transit of Venus - Shirley Hazzard - A beautifully written book about fate and coincidence.
Essays
Charlotte's Web - E. B. White - Mr. E. B. and his kind heart.
The Horse's Mouth
Herself Surprised - Joyce Cary - The Horse's Mouth was my 11th grade English teacher's favorite book. Mine, too. In it, the passion and humor of an artist rises above a world too busy to really notice.
Weather Central - Ted Kooser - A great, midwestern, insurance man poet.
Sex, Death, and Fly-Fishing - John Gierach - Like Mark Twain, but on smaller, more intimate rivers.
The Mezzanine - Nicholson Baker - The king of Specific Detail beguiles us with language and lunch.
My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell - Lawrence Durrell brother reveals the secrets of a completely wacky English family. Very funny.
Jumpers
Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead
Shakespeare in Love: a screenplay
India Ink
Arcadia - Tom Stoppard - The greatest living playwright plays with our minds.
Understanding Comics - Scott McCloud - A different kind of narrative.
Buddhism - Plain and Simple - Steve Hagan - The best book.
Sailor Song
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Sometimes A Great Notion - Ken Kesey - A real American hero who can also tell a great story.
Pigs Have Wings - P. G. Wodehouse - Laugh out loud and disturb the neighbors.
A Story Like The Wind
A Far-off Place - Laurens van der Post - Africa, a boy and his dog, a native uprising true love, words of wisdom, and an endless trek through the desert. Wow.
Mysteries and Manners - Flannery O'Connor - Words from one of the great ones. Includes the best chicken in literature.
Collected Poems - Kenneth Patchen - A beautiful dreamer.
Fires - Raymond Carver - Stories, essays, and poems.
War and Peace - Tolstoy, Trans- Constance Garrett - Who says translation doesn't matter? This book will keep you warm in winter.
The Incredible Voyage
Ice
Adrift, and others. - Tristan Jones - The incredible Mr. Jones drags his sailboat through the Amazon jungle, is trapped with his ship on an iceberg off Greenland for months, and sails the sea with his three-legged dog. True stories.
Freddy The Detective
Freddy and the Baseball Team From Mars - Walter Brooks - One of the best voices in what they call children's literature.
Refiner's Fire
Ellis Island
Winter's Tale
A Soldier of the Great War - Mark Helprin - Big hearts encounter adventure in an attempt to make sense of the world.
Red Harvest
The Thin Man, etc. - Dashiell Hammett - He means business and he means red as in blood.
So Long, See you Tomorrow
Time Will Darken It - William Maxwell - The longtime, former New Yorker fiction editor is one of the great stylists of all time. Suspense, poetry, humor, everything is in his writing.
Crossing To Safety
Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner - Wonderful writing, wonderful stories.
Crow With No Mouth - Ikkyu - Zen haiku from a wildman.
Picnic, Lightning
Questions About Angels
The Art of Drowning
The Best Cigarette - Billy Collins - All that poetry should be. The Best Cigarette is a CD of poems read with feeling and humor.
With any author you like, it’s usually worthwhile to check out his other books. Like those above and those below.
James Thurber
Hendrik Van Loon
J. D. Salinger
Jonathan Carroll
Robert Anton Wilson
Patrick O’Brien
Tom Robbins
Dorothy Dunnett
Kazantzakis
Ryokan
Ikkyu
Robert B. Parker
Starling Lawernce
Paco Ignacio Taibo II
John Crowley
Garrison Keillor
]James Hilton
David Ives
Roald Dahl
Natalie Goldberg
Thornton Wilder
Stoddard King
Rafael Sabatini
Kurt Vonnegut
Laurens van der Post
Timothy Findley
Wm. Maxwell
Eric Kraft
Raymond Chandler
Carson McCullers
Gore Vidal
E. B. White
Anton Chekov
Wm Kotzwinkle
Robert Frost
e.e. cummings