Something happened to me yesterday with a rarity factor that rivals honest politicans and good television.
A friend (okay, someone I know only through the internet, so a total stranger I think of as a friend), actually asked me for...no, I can't say it! I must!
Book recommendations.
I'm a bookish guy, and I've had lots of people recommend books to me. J sent me the one I'm 3/4 of the way through, 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' which I'd already recommend without having finished it. Yes, it's that good. J sent me the stories of John Cheever, and a collection of Raymond Carver (thanks, J), both of which are great books.
I've offered book recommendations. Do it all the time, despite the inevitable resistance. I street-teamed 'Kiss Me, Judas' ARCs for Will Christopher Baer's new publisher even though the first and third of the Poe books didn't fully satisfy me. WCB is still a solid writer, and if you like hard-boiled noir, he's good at it. The middle book, 'Penny Dreadful' connected with me full-on.
I've tried to push Terry Southern on the Cult book club, 'The Magic Christian' being a favorite of mine and in my view a seminal work in transgressive fiction.
I culled from my own collection, pestered coworkers and spent almost $100 at a used book store last year to send a box of books to troops in Iraq that (I'm not making this up) almost exceeded the package size and weight the U.S. Postal Service will accept. Including my personal copy of 'The Illuminatus! Trilogy,' a dessert island pick if ever there was.
So I'm a book pusher, always saying, 'try this.' Really, 'first hit is on me.' Dunno what happened to the trade paperback of 'Survivor' I read on the plane to NYC, but I replaced it with a signed hardback first edition, so not really a loss. And somewhere, I imagine, some other guy is pushing that trade paperback off on someone else who will forever be ruined for the lame TV show that bears that name.
I was in my cups when I replied to this e-mail asking for book selections. Does that make the selections more honest? Maybe. But probably more forgetful too.
I have a page at my supposedly 'main' website about books. Including a long list of books I'd at least recommend investigating based on my experiences.
Thinking about it today at work, I realized how hard it is to come up with a top ten or anything like it. So here's some definite recommendations in non-arbitrary categories, and without the phony restriction that there be any given number of books in a list.
Contemporary novels and/or stuff I don't think your English teacher included on their list:
The Magic Christian by Terry Southern
Contortionist's Handbook by Craig Clevenger
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin
Syrup by Max Barry
Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Black Sunday by Thomas Harris
Ray by Barry Hannah
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Pretty much anyting by Elmore Leonard, but Bandits is a particular favorite. Also Touch.
Pretty much anythng by Philip K. Dick, though especially Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Divine Invasion, Radio Free Albemuth, The Clans of the Alphane Moon, and The Man in the High Castle.
Epic novels that may or may not have made the cut with your English Teacher
Underworld by Don DeLillo (I especially treasure Marvin & Eleanor's to the mythical ship with flashbacks to the trip into the Soviet Union, maybe the best scatalogical humor in literary history).
V., Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Paradise, Beloved by Toni Morrison
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Fast Red Road: A Plainsong by Stephen Graham Jones
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaraslov Hašek
Stuff I consider good 'light reading' but is no small beer...
All The Beautiful Sinners by Stephen Graham Jones
Identity Theory by Peter Temple
Most Chuck Palahniuk, esp. Choke, Lullaby, Fight Club,and the aforementioned Survivor.
Your English teacher may have included it, but he/she was fucking right...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Anything by Toni Morrison I've ommitted. Paradise, Beloved, Sula, she just writes these great books like they're Hallmark Cards...
And on the English teacher subject, if you think you've read Eric Arthur Blair (a.k.a. George Orwell): The Road to Wigan Pier, Down & Out in Paris and London, and Homage to Catalonia are essential reading. Coming Up for Air is also excellent, and if you wanna know where the famous books (nineteen eight four and Animal Farm came from, Keep the Aspidistra Flying is probalby worth reading, though I found it lacking in pace.
Others I'd recommend? Short stories:
Pretty much any Amy Hempel
Mark Richard's The Ice at the Bottom of the World (esp. 'Strays')
Thom Jones (esp. The Pugilist at Rest)
The Stories of John Cheever
The Complete Stories of Franz Kafka
Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver
Beth Ann Bauman's Beautiful Girls is also good, with peaks and valleys.
There's more, but I'm a half hour late for bed and two weeks past finishing my brother's tattoo work (inlays)...
5 comments:
While I never would consider sending books to representatives of a government, let alone agents of „war“, I share your enthusiasm of sharing books with people.
I agree with many of your picks, not so much on the contemporary level – like Toni Morrison, but then again I’d use a Hallmark Card analogy as an insult, not a compliment. ;)
Someone asking you about books is a rare thing? I’m surprised…
I've thought a lot about the Iraq war, gone from being gung-ho when we started in on it to regarding it as a horrible mistake. And while I'm no fan of the state, a soldier is really an indentured servant. No other line of work requires an 18 year old to make a committment that (reading the fine print) might be 8 years. It's the only non-employment-at-will gig out there, so right or wrong the troops on the ground over there have very little choice in the matter. In fact, courts have ruled repeatedly that Army recruiters can outright lie to kids about the nature and length of the committment they're making and the contract stands firm.
What they do have, though, is copious free time and limited media access. What better time to tempt them with a book?
The Toni Morrison comment was more to her prolific nature, especially given how complex and researched most of her books are. Though I guess she does have a narrow focus, I wouldn't say moreso than Don DeLillo or Thomas Pynchon. Or Elmore Leonard.
I disagree. A solider being a human being in -as far as I last heard- a volunteer Army (navy, etc), has a choice. Â choice. If a choice is made to stay within the confines of said “service” while the ‘Commander in Chief’ makes absurd movements to better interest himself, if that choice is *counter* to what the solider believes this person is a non-entity. A useless waste of oxygen.
I absolutely abhor nonsense sayings like “support the troops” if one doesn’t “support” the means as to what purpose the troops are acting out. Makes no sense whatsoever and is simply the cowardice of people and the misuse of language.
The only thing a solider that can’t think for his/herself should be “tempted” with is, “hey, that gun on your hip, pressed to your head, may provide you some great ‘release’”.
As for Morrison, while I know you don’t add her to your list simply as a ‘token black’ writer, many do. And it’s just the sad state of fiction that there aren’t many very good black writers, so she seems to get people’s attention.
Charles Johnson blows her away, but her never makes anyone’s list.
Same with Native Americans. Leslie Silko and Sherman Alexie are both pretty bad, but they’re about all the Native Americans have, so they’re “great”, etc.
As far as a soldier's choices and conscience go, yeah, it's a volunteer army, but most recruits are barely old enough to vote and three years below when society trusts them with the decision to take a drink. Once they sign the papers, their choices narrow to obey, jail, or to follow your suggestion and shoot themselves. And those contracts are incredibly long, when you factor reserve time. There are guys in Iraq who thought they were completely out of the Army and found themselves reactivated.
And as with any corporation, the culture they're immersed in is one that encourages them to obey. Aggressively encourages them.
And while most problems can't be solved by military means, a front line soldier isn't the one who decides where he's deployed. The guys to hang are the assholes in charge, both military and civillian.
Morrison is good, but she's not the only good black writer I can think of . Ralph Ellison, Edward Jones -- I haven't read Charles Johnson, but I'll put it on my to-do list.
Stephen Graham Jones is a Native American, and more importantly a writer with serious range. 'Fast Red Road' is Pynchonesque post-modern; 'All The Beautiful Sinners' is a thriller that (this hardly ever happens) actually thrills.
Once they sign the papers, their choices narrow to obey, jail, or to follow your suggestion and shoot themselves.
Well, they’re old enough to sign the paper; they’re old enough to –hopefully- have an opinion on what they-themselves think.
The ones that stand up and don’t become and agent to what they don’t believe in, which means jail – you get me *their* address and I’ll send several boxes of books. Weekly.
And as with any corporation, the culture they're immersed in is one that encourages them to obey. Aggressively encourages them.
And because they _do_ obey, this creates the system. Not healthy.
And I’m not at *all* concerned that the ‘poor’ people are the ones going off into the military. Mommy and daddy should really take into account if they have an ideal situation to raise lil’ Joe and Susie Buck [Midnight Cowboy] before getting down to fertilizin’ eggs.
Since I’m apparently quoting rappers today, I’ll paraphrase whatever that no talent “gansta” whom Puffy is always bitch-moaning over, ‘mo’ people: mo’ problems’.
Morrison is good, but she's not the only good black writer I can think of . Ralph Ellison, Edward Jones -- I haven't read Charles Johnson, but I'll put it on my to-do list.
of course. _Invisible Man_ is mind numbingly good. But people seemly prefer to have living idols.
Doc CJ is a former student of John Gardner. He won the NBA for _Middle Passage_ but I’d say _The Oxherding Tale_ is his best.
Stephen Graham Jones is a Native American, and more importantly a writer with serious range. 'Fast Red Road' is Pynchonesque post-modern; 'All The Beautiful Sinners' is a thriller that (this hardly ever happens) actually thrills.
Time will tell if he can leapfrog the others onto the list of PC cool. I haven’t read the former but the latter bored the shit out of me and remains unfinished. I could tell he has some writing skill, but just write the fucking story, wait until you have some rank before playing little games with the text.
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