When I was 13 I read a book called MOCKINGBIRD. It was written by one Walter Tevis. I loved it but didn’t pursue any other books. That was when I should have become a reader because as a sza adult I don’t care. Reading had been the thing I would do because I was at a loss of what else to do as an adult without a job.
Today I pick up a book but don’t finish it. It’s hard work! And I have nothing to show for my efforts.
It’s about 2 a.m. and I’m not tired from sleeping in the day. The radio station I like I stream from Washington DC, WPFW, an independent channel, one of only a few in the country is playing some wild music but I need to occupy myself somehow.
When I was young one of my punishments for doing something bad was to write a page out of Webster’s Dictionary the book they used was from a college that stood about a foot thick that was the most impressionable book I ever had to deal with
Tejobindu upanishad,
Ribhu gita,
Bhagavad-Gita,
Nietzsche,
Avatamsaka sutra,
Lankavatara sutra,
Toltstoy,
Red book by Mao,
The biographies of Stalin,
The full books of Stalin’s writings,
Etc
When I was young I read everything by Jack London. I would sit up in the middle of the night and was too eager reading to go to sleep.
In later years Haruki Murakami has been a favorite. He writes in a very untraditional way. His main character is always a loner, so easy to relate for me.
When I was young I read a book called “Fat City”, it was about exposing government waste. For instance: did you know that all government offices in the DC area get fresh flowers on their desks every day? Really helped solidify my loathing for the federal government in general
Probably Stephen King’s first read of his was “The Shining”. Scared me to death…still does…I still have to fast forward the woman in the bathtub scene and I hate it still when the shower curtain is pulled all the way across. real fear…real good horror…that’s Stephen King… “A Confederacy of Dunces” was and still is lately I read it again…hilarious…the author I forget but he won a congressional award for literature posthumously. He was a professor that tried for a while to get his manuscript a publisher and failed, so he took his life…his mother found the writings in the attic and had it published…just goes to show you there is always hope…sad story I think…as a young boy the writings of Ray Bradbury were very impressionable to me, now I’m an avid science fiction head, reading “the foundation trilogy” right now…big book, only half way done.
. What I have read so far has been unreal).
