50...errr, Jesus! Let's try the 40 Most Influential Books in My Life
I am often asked by my closest friends to give a list of books that have influenced my thought pattern (maybe just so they can avoid them!). In the next 4 posts, I will give a list of the 40 books that have most influenced me in my life. And, if I do not tire, which no doubt I will, I will give a blurb for each one. Noting some witty (or my attempt to be so) about the book or its effect on me.
Please feel free to comment on my choices. I hope you will indulge me in my own little trip into my mind.
40 - 31
40. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood - I read this for the first time in my Intro to Lit class my sophomore year. Barbara Vielma. She was a good prof. Little flighty, I guess. I remember vividly the sex scene in this book, mostly because my girlfriend at the time constantly mentioned it. Not sure why a man having sex with a woman while his wife embraces the woman from behind is so odd. Isn't it human nature to pervert the natural? And if it is in our nature, doesn't that make our perversion all the more natural?
39. The Bad Beginning - Lemony Snicket - This whole Series of Unfortunate Events is amazing. Well-written children's books that are depressing and enjoyable as hell. My friend Jen recommended this book and I was hooked from day one. They are deeply fatalistic (realistic) in their view on life, and when (and IF) I have children, I want them to read novels like this one from an early age. I think it would be helpful in shaping their world view.
38. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn - Another book brought into my life by one Barbara Vielma. This book really hooked my on Russian writing. Introduced me to truly depressing genres of literature. No doubt I have this opinion from a limited exposure (mostly through Dostoevsky), but I think it has bourn out by others with more knowledge than my own. One Day... really taps into the existential ethic: survival, one day at a time, existing.
37. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal - Eric Schlosser - The first non-fiction book to make the list. Some from my voting party might consider it fiction, but I walk without blinders and facts are facts, regardless of who they make look bad. I'm not vegetarian, I enjoy eating beef, pork, chicken, you name it. This book has, at times, made me reconsider that life choice. I first heard of this book in a NOFX song. Not all great books or ideas come from lofty peaks, sometimes they drip from the gutters and seep through grates into the sewer. Not that NOFX is all that bad.
36. Moby Dick - Herman Melville - I got this book from America, I guess. Probably a lit class or a movie. I remember an old black and white job based off this book. I was terrified of the coffin in the final scene. No doubt my abhorrent fear of death waking early within my chest. May all rational men learn to stop fearing death, and instead embrace it as their natural end. Call me Ishmael. Well, at least call me Dan, I guess.
35. Man in Black - Johnny Cash - Now, I will be honest in saying that music is a huge influence in my life (sometimes good or bad. And hopefully FallOutBoy will never be my life-consuming compass in my thought patterns!). Johnny Cash was an artist. A man consumed by his talent and his lifestyle. I have nothing but love and respect for this man I never knew. This book is extremely effective in its frank upright delivery. Its like talking to J.R. across a kitchen table. Pretty sure Bob Lopez pointed me to this book.
34. The Plague - Albert Camus - I remember I read this book because of the recommendation of my girlfriend (at the time). I had really enjoyed another of his novels (which will peep out soon enough), and looked forward to reading this one as well. This story really hammers home the idea that man cannot control his life around him. That nothing can be controlled, and especially life or death. Camus must have indeed suffered in his mind. His ideas are bleak. but true. In the end, if nothing else, I learned from Camus that truth is more important than delusional happiness.
33. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury - Goddamn it if Bradbury didn't nail the future dead on: people ignoring books for TV and radio, knowledge seen as abnormal and the drive for it regarded as unworthy. Joseph Leonard put me on to this book. He was a creepy old man, and a good friend. This book suggestion will not be forgotten. Whenever I think of censorship or the stupidity that seems to permeate our modern age, I am struck that this man spotted this coming 50 years ago.
32. Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs - When I was in Bible college some 10 years ago, I had a dream one night, a man came to me and asked me if I would buy his books. I told him I could not. He then offered to sell his cane. I told him I could not. So I handed him the money I had. He leaned forward and whispered the saddest thing I had ever heard (though when I awoke, I could not remember what he had told me). Two weeks later, I was thumbing through a magazine in B & N and spotted the old man from my dream. It was William Burroughs. His secret was that he had killed his wife while drunk. I do not know what to think of that, but when I think of that dream, I get goosebumps.
31. Legends of the Dark Knight - Various - Comics have influenced me greatly. None more than Batman. He was a man fighting evil in his time with what he had: his mind and his body. This particular comic was darker than the others of its focus, Batman. It was more brutal and a hell of a lot more realistic. When I think of being a kid, I think of Batman, beating up bad guys and whisking away into the night.
More to come.....
Please feel free to comment on my choices. I hope you will indulge me in my own little trip into my mind.
40 - 31
40. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood - I read this for the first time in my Intro to Lit class my sophomore year. Barbara Vielma. She was a good prof. Little flighty, I guess. I remember vividly the sex scene in this book, mostly because my girlfriend at the time constantly mentioned it. Not sure why a man having sex with a woman while his wife embraces the woman from behind is so odd. Isn't it human nature to pervert the natural? And if it is in our nature, doesn't that make our perversion all the more natural?
39. The Bad Beginning - Lemony Snicket - This whole Series of Unfortunate Events is amazing. Well-written children's books that are depressing and enjoyable as hell. My friend Jen recommended this book and I was hooked from day one. They are deeply fatalistic (realistic) in their view on life, and when (and IF) I have children, I want them to read novels like this one from an early age. I think it would be helpful in shaping their world view.
38. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn - Another book brought into my life by one Barbara Vielma. This book really hooked my on Russian writing. Introduced me to truly depressing genres of literature. No doubt I have this opinion from a limited exposure (mostly through Dostoevsky), but I think it has bourn out by others with more knowledge than my own. One Day... really taps into the existential ethic: survival, one day at a time, existing.
37. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal - Eric Schlosser - The first non-fiction book to make the list. Some from my voting party might consider it fiction, but I walk without blinders and facts are facts, regardless of who they make look bad. I'm not vegetarian, I enjoy eating beef, pork, chicken, you name it. This book has, at times, made me reconsider that life choice. I first heard of this book in a NOFX song. Not all great books or ideas come from lofty peaks, sometimes they drip from the gutters and seep through grates into the sewer. Not that NOFX is all that bad.
36. Moby Dick - Herman Melville - I got this book from America, I guess. Probably a lit class or a movie. I remember an old black and white job based off this book. I was terrified of the coffin in the final scene. No doubt my abhorrent fear of death waking early within my chest. May all rational men learn to stop fearing death, and instead embrace it as their natural end. Call me Ishmael. Well, at least call me Dan, I guess.
35. Man in Black - Johnny Cash - Now, I will be honest in saying that music is a huge influence in my life (sometimes good or bad. And hopefully FallOutBoy will never be my life-consuming compass in my thought patterns!). Johnny Cash was an artist. A man consumed by his talent and his lifestyle. I have nothing but love and respect for this man I never knew. This book is extremely effective in its frank upright delivery. Its like talking to J.R. across a kitchen table. Pretty sure Bob Lopez pointed me to this book.
34. The Plague - Albert Camus - I remember I read this book because of the recommendation of my girlfriend (at the time). I had really enjoyed another of his novels (which will peep out soon enough), and looked forward to reading this one as well. This story really hammers home the idea that man cannot control his life around him. That nothing can be controlled, and especially life or death. Camus must have indeed suffered in his mind. His ideas are bleak. but true. In the end, if nothing else, I learned from Camus that truth is more important than delusional happiness.
33. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury - Goddamn it if Bradbury didn't nail the future dead on: people ignoring books for TV and radio, knowledge seen as abnormal and the drive for it regarded as unworthy. Joseph Leonard put me on to this book. He was a creepy old man, and a good friend. This book suggestion will not be forgotten. Whenever I think of censorship or the stupidity that seems to permeate our modern age, I am struck that this man spotted this coming 50 years ago.
32. Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs - When I was in Bible college some 10 years ago, I had a dream one night, a man came to me and asked me if I would buy his books. I told him I could not. He then offered to sell his cane. I told him I could not. So I handed him the money I had. He leaned forward and whispered the saddest thing I had ever heard (though when I awoke, I could not remember what he had told me). Two weeks later, I was thumbing through a magazine in B & N and spotted the old man from my dream. It was William Burroughs. His secret was that he had killed his wife while drunk. I do not know what to think of that, but when I think of that dream, I get goosebumps.
31. Legends of the Dark Knight - Various - Comics have influenced me greatly. None more than Batman. He was a man fighting evil in his time with what he had: his mind and his body. This particular comic was darker than the others of its focus, Batman. It was more brutal and a hell of a lot more realistic. When I think of being a kid, I think of Batman, beating up bad guys and whisking away into the night.
More to come.....
That's a real beauty of a list, homes. I took that same Vielma class (and, if I'm not mistaken, read Camus for that class, as well as Kafka); she really planted those existential seeds in you, eh? I know you mentioned comics and, while I'm no big comic kind of guy, I'd like to recommend a couple: Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Kid on Earth; and In the Shadow of No Towers. The first is right up your alley, I think; the second's just great. This is Bob, by the way.
Posted by
Anonymous |
12:53 AM
I think people discredit comics too quick. The best comics are well-written comics, not just well-drawn. Frank Miller is one of the best...
Posted by
WDV |
1:42 PM