There’s a meme on Facebook that I’ve avoided, but Charlie did such a great job with the annotation on his version that I feel I should at least give it a try. I’m posting it here, because this is where I put my longer stuff, and because it’ll get cross-posted to FB anyway … something I don’t really like in some ways, since it splits comments between the blog and Facebook. Here goes:
Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books/authors you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.
In order to avoid any sense that the order matters, I’ll go alphabetical by author. I’ve left out plenty, but I followed the rules, didn’t think about it, did it fast.
Walter R. Brooks, Freddy and the Baseball Team from Mars. I figure I should mention something from when I was first reading, and the Freddy books by Brooks were my faves at that time. This being the baseball one clinches its place on this list. I am such a city boy that I didn’t spend a night on a farm until I was in my mid-50s, so everything I ever thought I knew about farm life came from these books (what, animals don’t talk?).
Rita Mae Brown, Rubyfruit Jungle. While this book is more an important historical artifact than a great novel, I used it many times in English classes, and about half the time I loved Molly Bolt. Other times I found her insufferable. This is also a pretty funny book.
Albert Camus, The Plague. The easiest book to put on the list, since it has been my favorite book for many decades. No other book comes close.
Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye. It was harder than I expected to decide which detective book to stick here. Runners up would have been Red Harvest, The Big Sleep, The Chill, and something by Sara Paretsky. I tried very hard in my dissertation to stick up for pulp fiction as legitimate literature, and so I surprise myself here by choosing Chandler’s clearest attempt to move beyond the genre. But it retains its resonance, as does the Altman film.
Philip K. Dick, Now Wait for Last Year. It could have been any of them, at least the ones before the religious stuff near the end of his life. This is the one I’ve taught most often, so it gets the nod for this list. Dick did two things I find fascinating. First, although the requirements of the marketplace demanded that he write genre fiction, most of his books just transplanted the regular human beings of his time to a futuristic setting. There was always something charming about the idea that our petty neuroses would survive everything, like cockroaches in our souls. He also had a way of describing what I can only call the psychedelic experience with such accuracy that I needed to take a few seconds to reorient myself to the real world when I’d put one of his books down. I once proposed a seminar on Dick to the English Department at Cal. My wife thought I was being silly, but I told her that academic interest in Dick was on the rise. Cal didn’t agree back then, but history shows I knew what I was talking about. One last thing: I’m pretty old-fashioned when it comes to fiction, which means I’m not particularly fond of post-modernism … I never assigned Pynchon. Philip K. Dick is the closest I come to appreciating that important part of the literature of our time.
Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays. Another one that surprises me, but if I wrote fiction, I’d want to write like Didion.
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man. A literary classic that remains both classic and readable. Those two adjectives don’t always go together.
Thomas Gilovich, How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life. There are better books than this one, and the examples Gilovich uses (such as free throws taken by the 1980-1 76ers) are dated, if still true. But this was the first book I read in … what is this genre, anyway? Logic? Reason? Whatever it’s called, I’ve been reading books like this one ever since. It is also the only “academic” book I chose for the list.
Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch. The best book I’ve ever read about what it means to be a fan. Hornby is better known in the States for his novels (including the ones made into movies) and, perhaps, his music writing. Fever Pitch is probably best known for that movie version about the Red Sox. I’ve always had a hard time recommending this book, and I’ve never assigned it to a class … how do I convince someone to read a non-fiction book about the trials of a fan of the Arsenal football club? But I go back to this one time and again.
Bill James, The Bill James Baseball Abstract, 1982 edition. The first one I read, and the first one for a major publisher. Next to Pauline Kael, James has probably been more influential on my own thinking than any other writer. He forces us to see baseball differently, but just as important is the way we take the lessons he teaches us and apply them in “real world” situations. Without James, I probably wouldn’t have read the likes of Gilovich.
Pauline Kael, For Keeps. I chose this because it’s her personally-chosen anthology, but basically, everything she wrote should be here. The only writer who has her own shelf at my house. She influenced the way I look at movies; she influenced the way I write about culture; she influenced a lot of people who influenced me.
Jack Kerouac, On the Road. My son shares a name with Neal Cassady, but Kerouac is the better choice.
Greil Marcus, Mystery Train. I’m not sure which Marcus book is the best, but this was the first of his solo productions. Sitting in the factory, where I spent ten years of my life, reading this book, I had a sense of possibilities. When I finally went to Cal, I chose a major and a group of advisors based on what I read in this book. Whatever I have or haven’t made of my education, one thing is certain: without Mystery Train, there would be no Dr. Rubio.
Studs Terkel, Working. There are so many stories I could tell about my love for this man. I’ll stick to one of my most shopworn examples. When I was just a factory bum, I interviewed a couple of local radio disc jockeys and submitted the results to BAM Magazine. Not only did they reject me, they told me my submission was unrecognizable as an interview … they wondered if I’d ever read an interview in my life. Although they could have been kinder, they were right that I’d ignored a cardinal rule of unsolicited submissions: read the publication and see what they liked. But they were wrong about me and interviews … I constructed the piece as if it was in a Studs Terkel book.
Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I originally had a Kesey novel on this list (Sometimes a Great Notion), and yes, I know this stuff is supposed to be more spontaneous than edited. But I had to be honest … as much as I loved Kesey’s first two novels, and as much as Wolfe may have gotten wrong in this book, it was The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test that most inspired me in my great teenage ambition to be a hippie. I read this so many times back in the day … my oh my, I wanted to be a Prankster.
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