Bookworm
So I read... a lot. Whether with a physical book where I have to dog ear the pages to save my place, my Kindle Fire, or through Audible, I'm always either reading or listening to a book.
No offense to you out there who are fans, but Twilight and Hunger Games aren't really my cup of tea. I won't waste my time with 50 shades of porn. I like my emotions to be challenged. I like to think. I like to read books that are so descriptive that I feel like I'm there.
I need new things to read, and hopefully someone will be able to give me some suggestions! My all time favorite author, is Charles Bukowski. He has written some amazing stuff, seriously. Women was my favorite, followed by Ham on Rye, followed by many of his poetry books. Next up, Frank McCourt.... He wrote an autobiography called "Angela's Ashes". It was a story about him and his family growing up during the famine in Ireland. His subsequent stories were about him coming to America and struggling to make it. So brilliantly written and full of emotion.
A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway was fantastic. I read a book recently called Blindness by Jose Saramago... and it was AMAZING! Story about an epidemic of blindness and the breakdown of society that followed. I really also loved "The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosinski. I loved John Irving's book called "The Cider House Rules". Kind of dark, but great story. Annnnd the obligatory "Brave New World" from Aldous Huxley.
So tell me... you've seen my "style", if you will. What should I read next? I'm currently in the middle of "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. I'll be finishing that up soon, so tell me what to read next?!?!?!
And for your reading pleasure, here is my favorite poem from Charles Bukowski.
Dinosauria, We
Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.
Today's Awesome: Stuck at work for the next 3 days, but super excited about the weekend coming up! Tons of stuff to do with my family. Weeeeee
No offense to you out there who are fans, but Twilight and Hunger Games aren't really my cup of tea. I won't waste my time with 50 shades of porn. I like my emotions to be challenged. I like to think. I like to read books that are so descriptive that I feel like I'm there.
I need new things to read, and hopefully someone will be able to give me some suggestions! My all time favorite author, is Charles Bukowski. He has written some amazing stuff, seriously. Women was my favorite, followed by Ham on Rye, followed by many of his poetry books. Next up, Frank McCourt.... He wrote an autobiography called "Angela's Ashes". It was a story about him and his family growing up during the famine in Ireland. His subsequent stories were about him coming to America and struggling to make it. So brilliantly written and full of emotion.
A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway was fantastic. I read a book recently called Blindness by Jose Saramago... and it was AMAZING! Story about an epidemic of blindness and the breakdown of society that followed. I really also loved "The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosinski. I loved John Irving's book called "The Cider House Rules". Kind of dark, but great story. Annnnd the obligatory "Brave New World" from Aldous Huxley.
So tell me... you've seen my "style", if you will. What should I read next? I'm currently in the middle of "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. I'll be finishing that up soon, so tell me what to read next?!?!?!
And for your reading pleasure, here is my favorite poem from Charles Bukowski.
Dinosauria, We
Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.
Today's Awesome: Stuck at work for the next 3 days, but super excited about the weekend coming up! Tons of stuff to do with my family. Weeeeee
wow, that poem is dark my dear.... On a lighter note, you should read Assholes Finish First, Hilarity Ensues, and Sloppy Seconds all written by Tucker Max ;) Also, 50 shades is not, and nowhere near, porn. Those ladies across America must be missing sex in their lives if they think that book is "porn". It is more a love story than anything else :)
ReplyDeleteLmao. I've heard it was just sex all the way through. I dunno.... and yeah the poem is super dark but a lot of truth to it! I've read all the tucker max books too. When Jon and I had our first date, we walked into Barnes and Noble and I read him my favorite chapter. Hahahaha. How romantic!!!!
DeleteHmmm, Heinlien's Stranger in a Strange land changed my way of thinking about lots of things.
ReplyDeletePretty much everything Kurt Vonegut wrote made me smile and think the world wasn't all that bad after all.
Read the parts of the New Testament that are titled "Paul's letter to the xXX" and ignore the religious stuff, instead try and get the meaning in there about how this guy lived his conviction that he was doing what he was supposed to. It has and does make me think I'm a wus when it comes to not getting enough done.
Thank you Carl! I'll definitely check those out. I know I had read something by Vonnegut in the past, but it was so long ago, that I don't remember! lol Will definitely revisit that and the others you mentioned! yay
ReplyDeleteOh, I forgot The Shack by William P. Young - Great book that still has me thinking :)
ReplyDeleteI really don't know if these are your style or not, but these are some of my favorite books ever. But most of them are dark, and a bit twisted - which you seem to like.
ReplyDelete- American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Fantasy, but modern and not cheesy. Awesome. First scene involves a once-god living as an L.A. prostitute who consumes her clients (worshippers) with her lady-parts.
- House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. Crazy head trip.
- Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins. You're a ginger, you'll identify.
- Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. While Fight Club was good, it was not his best book, in my opinion.
- Middlesex by Geoffrey Eugenides. Hermaphrodite trying to find her/his identity in the world.
- Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. Autobiography of a boy raised by crazies.
- Wicked by Gregory Maguire. Retelling of the Wizard of Oz, where the Wicked Witch isn't so Wicked. There is a Broadway Musical (which I saw) that is not nearly as dark and lacks all the depth of the book.
- Foucaults Pendulum by Umberto Eco. Middle ages conspiracies? Okay.
- Lolita by Vladimir Volkov. I don't care what the skeptics say, this man's writing is beautiful. Just beautiful. I could cry now just recalling it.
-- I could offer you at least 50 more suggestions right now, but we'll wait, haha.
Oh. And I tried to read 50 Shades of Grey because I was curious what the big fuss was about. Ohmigod it was horrendous. I got through maybe about ten pages, and flipped around through the book quite a bit. It was not, at all, porn. It was one of the worst written books I have ever encountered. The couple of sex scenes I found were awful. If the majority of American women think that shit is risque`, or good sex, I very seriously pity my fellow Americans. Additionally: it reads like a 14 year old's diary. Just awful.
DeleteOh, I forgot the obligatory Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (42!) but I assumed if you'd wanted to read it you would have already. Though if you haven't, you totally should when you want something light, amusing and AWESOME.
ReplyDeleteFantastic suggestions Rachel thank you!!! I read wicked years ago then my first real date with Jon, he took me to see it. It was awesome. I love chuck palahniuk as well. I've read quite a few of his stuff. I loved Choke and Diary too. I'll absolutely check those out. Middlesex sounds up my alley as does running with scissors. I'm so excited for new stuff! Thank you!!!!
ReplyDelete