I’ve had two people ask me for book recommendations in the past week or so, and in looking through my bookshelf to search for ideas, I’ve come up with definite thought: I need to read more serious literature. Let’s face it, you can only recommend Harry Potter, sci-fi, and Motley Crue’s “The Dirt” to so many people. It’s not everyone’s cup of the proverbial tea.
I am, of course, mostly kidding. I read for enjoyment, not for literary cred. But at the same time, I have been interested in checking out more “classic” (or more generally renowned) titles, either older or more recent. Generally speaking, I figure these types of books gather that type of reputation for a reason — and that reason can’t always be because Oprah mentioned it on her show.
So that’s something on the reading horizon for me. Probably not the immediate horizon, because I do still have a rather hefty box of unread books that I still need to get through. But eventually this will happen. I’m making a little mental list of things I’ll eventually want to get to. (The one exception that I will be buying soon is Huckleberry Finn — a reread for me — because I want to get a version that’s not the neutered piece of pointlessness that’s being released soon.)
But in the meanwhile, what have I been reading recently? I’m glad I asked.
I’ve been going through another pulps phase, which I’ve been doing probably a few times a year since I started reading them a few years back. By “pulps”, I mean older detective and crime fiction. Raymond Chandler, Daishell Hammett, and Jim Thompson primarily. I just recently finished up two Thompson novels: “A Swell Looking Babe” (pretty good) and “The Getaway” (really good). I’ve got a Hammett waiting in the aforementioned hefty box. And currently I’m splitting my time between a collection of Chandler’s short stories and a collection of short stories by a woman named Isak Dinesen, which is decidedly not pulp. A friend of mine recommended — actually went so far as to give it — to me. If you don’t know (and if you care), Isak Denisen is the woman who also wrote “Out Of Africa”, which I’ve not read, but have seen the movie.
A couple other things I’ve been working off and on have been:
- I’m rereading Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” series again. I’ve read the first four books a number of times and the last three only once each. And at this point, the last I read, probably about a month or so back, was once again the fourth book, “Wizards And Glass”, which I enjoy more and more each time I read it. However, I know those first four books so well, and the last three so little, that for some reason I feel a little apprehensive about getting to them. Probably just because, while I remembered really liking them the first time around, I hope that this will not diminish with a rereading. It probably won’t, but I’ve come to the end of my comfortable and familiar mid-world surroundings, and much like Roland and his ka-tet, need to take that step into end-world. Plus, I want to make sure I get them all reread before Ron Howard undertakes his massive big and small screen adaptation of the series, starting in 2013.
- I’m also working my way once again through Stephen Donaldson’s Gap Cycle. Five volumes of some pretty decent sci-fi. However, these are being reread for a different purpose. One, because I wanted to, sure. But also, this will be my last reread before getting rid of these books. The problem is, I have limited space for my books, so as I accumulate new books that I want to keep in my collection, older books have to go. Now while Donaldson writes a good sci-fi epic with an interesting story, he does have one shortcoming (in my opinion). I’d say that fully 90% of the characters in this series are filled with some appreciable level of self-loathing. (The main character in his fantasy trilogies about Thomas Covenant is the same way.) And this makes for somewhat of a burdensome read. When everyone hates themselves, after a while it makes for some serious psychological duress for you, the reader. So this will have to be the last time through the Gap Cycle. However, Donaldson does have a new Thomas Covenant series in the works, and I do plan to read that. The first two trilogies, again despite the oppressive self-loathing, were also quite good.
- A few other tidbits. I’m slowly making my way through a reread of all my Clive Barker novels as well. No real rush on this one, I’m just picking one up every now and then when nothing else is striking my fancy. Also, I soon plan to start rereading all of the Wheel Of Time books. Again, no real rush. I’m going to try and time that so I get to the last novel as it’s released in paperback, which will probably be late 2012/early 2013, so I’ve got time.
January 12, 2011 at 12:35 AM |
I haven’t read much of Raymond Chandler’s stuff- I know that he wrote at least a few books based in Boston, and in several of those, he always mentions buying stuff at an upscale tobacconists’ shop between Scollay Sq. and Downtown crossing. My grandfather was the polite, white haired tobacconist with the indecipherable brogue that he mentions here and there- I guess Chandler was a regular at Erlich’s, where my grandfather worked.