Shut up and read stuff.
Get obsessed. It's worth it.
The lowly shelfie. No one cares about them. They get the least amount of views on the old social media platypus-forms (my new name for them.) But whenever I see one, I scan, blow up, scan some more… cuz I’m always intrigued over what people are reading.
I guess this is a post about reading widely. I always have. My mind is too zippy to stay in one genre (hate that word), or too curious to not explore as much as I can. My shelfie above is a good example of the stuff I bop through. It includes books that I keep trying to read (Ratner’s Star), books that I dip into but have never read all of (A Moveable Feast and Watts’ The Way of Zen.) On that note, I do like the dippers. Sometimes I just want to read a page or even a paragraph, like glancing at a painting I like, discovering something new, and going, oh yes… I love that.
The shelfie also includes writers I keep trying to get into, like Ross MacDonald. Oh, don’t shout at me classic-crime-fiction lovers. I’m busy. And I’m behind in everything. It took me five-ever to get around to reading Charles Willeford, but thanks to pals like Thomas Trang, I finally cracked one, and then five more. I do get obsessed once I’m into a writer.
On that note, see Joe R. Lansdale. Mr. Mojo-Storyteller his own self. When I discovered Joe’s books, I could not get enough—especially the Hap and Leonard series. I landed there because someone from Rhode Island told me I kinda wrote like him. Yes, I had a pal in RI. I said Joe Who? And then I was totally hooked. The Two-Bear Mambo, besides having an awesome title, is one of the best. The other obsessive read in the stack is James Crumley, notably The Last Good Kiss. Here is a book I heard about in a steamroom at a winter lodge (don’t ask). Some random dude and me were talking books and I mentioned Lansdale, he said you should read Crumley. And bam, an obsession was born. Not only have I read TLGK many times, I’ve diagrammed the structure. And when a reader points out a Crumley influence in my Fischer, I silently high-five myself. Okay, not so silently.
Important to me on the shelf are some of my fave literary writers. Let me start by saying I fucking hate the term literary. But yeah, you could call Franzen that. He can get a bad rap, because he can be a bit arrogant in interviews, or do stuff like turn Oprah down. (Look it up if you don’t know the reference.) But the guy can write like an absolute motherfucker. Sorry, it needed to be said. I disappear into his books. He’s the kind of writer who gets deep into the human condition. That sounds hoighty and toighty, but I don’t know how else to say it.
Which brings me to yet another obsession, Jennifer Egan. Her work simply floors me, and I recommend her to everyone I know. I think she is one of the finest writers working today. I audibly gasp when I read her work. How does she know that about us? I also love that she is a genre-jumper like me. I’ve heard through sort of a grapevine (I was at an online book-visit of hers) that she is working on a crime fiction book next. Pardon me while I swoon. Yes, I’m a major fan boy, and when she responds on social media I just about pass out. Shut up.
I do chuckle that there is a Connelly book on the shelf. One that remains unread. Not sure how far I got into it. But like all his books I never make it through. I’ve been known to pitch one across the room. Not as far as I can throw a Dan Brown book (personal record: The DaVinci Code), but let’s just say his work doesn’t grab me.
This was a random shot of the shelf, and I have zero organizational skills or aspirations. There’s a lot more non-fiction, philosophy, and theology on other shelves. But here I see Deep Blues by Robert Palmer peeking out, and I recall when this was an important book to me. I might need to give it another re-visit. Too dark to see, but in the back row, I know there is a Timothy Leary biography that I read during my obsession with the history of LSD (and the writing of my novel, Fall in One Day. Soon-ish to be re-released.)
Anyhoodle. This post is about reading widely, and how it helps you. As a writer, yes. But as a human, even more. There’s always this question about why you read… for pleasure, entertainment, edification, enlightenment… or what? I say yes to all of that. I’ll tear through a Crumley or Lansdale book and have a helluva time. But then I’ll gear down and read some Franzen, or a page out of Watts. It all seeps into me. And informs me as a person… that’s what I’m trying to get to.
I can’t stay in the entertainment zone. I always need to reach for something that makes me think in a different way. This explains why I read DeLillo for a decade straight. No other writer (except maybe Egan) makes me think expansively, and well, changes my brain. That’s not to say I don’t love reading the John D.’s, or The Ross Mac’s… I do. But I need it all. I don’t replace real life with reading, so I’d never say I escape into reading.
I’ll end with this. My partner has been a nurse for a long time. And she has seen some shit. Stuff that I would have a hard time coping with, like working in an Emerg ward in the inner-city, or a women’s shelter in a different inner-city. She is incredibly strong, and I marvel at what she’s done in her career, and the mercy she has extended to others. But like I said, I can’t really do what she does. I thought about it once, becoming a nurse that is, as I worked in a psychiatric institute. It was where we met, actually. Aw, how romantic, and on Valentine’s Day! Anyway, when I got jumped and pummelled on by a patient I knew that was it not for me. I was incredibly paranoid for the whole next months while I worked there. This intense time in my life gave me a window into my partner’s world. I’m very grateful that she, and others like her, exist. Our world needs them.
But for me, sometimes I need to view the world from a few steps back. I’m not removing myself from it. Rather, I’m inviting myself into it.
Books, and really good writers, help me do that. I hope they do that for you, too.
(post your shelfie!)
I guess I should take one, the problem is that I don’t know where to point the camera, lol!
You got very introspective this time-- living it.