Day 3 of 101

Laura Nicklas, one of the registered professionals at the B-wood who works on the polar opposite of my visibly backward schedule (she works the 7 AM to 3 PM day shift, so she's just getting in to receive report while I'm ready to give it and jet), requested that I supply her with a reading list of what I have laid out for my summer. After I spent most of my break one morning last week feverishly writing out four or five pages of definitive recommendations along with the long list of authors I've been buying The Thrifty Peanut(s) in Shreveport-Bossier out of, she responded with a long list of her own. To be perfectly honest, her list of suggestions and must-reads totally puts my own to shame. I'm tacking these onto my already bulging list of books and authors that I'm dying to devour. Laura's list is by no means exhaustive, but pretty comprehensive. I've copied and pasted it here...only editing for some of the personal information she included in her email to me:

• Anna Karenina by Tolstoy (still waiting for my modern day Constantine Levin)
• Les Miserables by Hugo (Jean Valjean was my first hero)
• Moon and Sixpence by Somerset Maughn about a man who rejects his entire way of life, job, family to pursue an obsession. You really can't go wrong with Maughn. I love everything he ever wrote.
• The Complete Works of Flannery OConner. I am a Flannery fanatic. She has a nearly cult following. Her work is full of symbolism and her characters are eccentric, grotesque and flawed. I named my cat after her. Good thing I don't have children. Otherwise, poor kid!
• The Jungle by Sinclair Lewis about working conditions in the Chicago stockyards in the 1900's.
• Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck about migrant workers during the Depression (I've actually read this, finished it after taking the exam on it my junior year in the famed Pardue-Wells Humanities block at Caddo Parish Magnet High School. I can't say that it would still make it into my all-time top ten, but it definitely would for the classics-only genre).
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee about a black man on trial for raping a white woman (also read this one, and I agree: Harper Lee is a great example of the greatest stuff a Southern writer can put out there).
• Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury about a future society where certain books are banned and how this affects thought. It has a great opening line "It was a pleasure to burn."
• Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton is set in South Africa. It is the story of a pastor and his son who was arrested for the murder of a white man during a robbery.
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez about seven generations of a family in Columbia. Also, Love in the Time of Cholera about a love triangle and it's frustrations.
• I love the short stories of Raymond Carver. Where I'm Calling From was his last collection. My favs are "Cathedral" and "Chef's House" (weren't these the basis for Robert Altman's Short Cuts???)
• A book that has affected me deeply is The Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America by Natalie Goldberg. It opened up my mind to the present moment and the beauty of what is. She has also written books on writing, Wild Mind and Writing Down the Bones. They are a little New Age if you don't mind that.
• Another of my favorite books on writing is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont (When I got my father's permission to take a year off from school to write, this was one of the books a friend gave me to encourage my endeavor. I always wish that I still had the notebooks that I'd filled with short stories and the beginnings of a novel during those months of creative expression...some of the happiest of my life).
• Atonement by McEwan is one of my favs (this was my first selection for Book Club). I also like his On Chesil Beach about a couples anticipation of their wedding night and how they sabatoge the whole thing. Also, Saturday about 24 hours in the life of a man and how his plans go awry.
• I recently read William Styron's Darkness Visible which is the best description depression I have ever read. Sophie's Choice is probably the saddest book I have ever read. I read it on a beach vacation years ago. It was certainly not a beach book! I was not surprised to learn that Styron struggled with suicidal depression!
• Since you liked Prince of Tides you may also like Beach Music. it is very long, vulgar at times, but I loved it.
• The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie is a good read. it is a darkly comic collection about life on an Indian Reservation.
• Mystic River by Dennis Lehane about the murder of a young girl by a childhood friend of her father, who as a child had been abducted and molested. I liked the book more than the movie.
• The Missing by Tim Geautreaux is about a man who survived his family's massacre as a child and now searches for a missing girl. The author is from Louisiana and the story in set in Louisiana.
• Vernon Little God by DCB Pierre is a satire of life in central Texas. A 15 year old goes on the run to Mexico after being accused in a mass shooting. I really liked it. It has been compared to Catcher in the Rye.
• Galapagos by Vonnegut is about people who get shipwrecked on an island while a deadly disease wipes out all the rest of the people on earth. It's about how they evolve over time. It's weird, but enjoyable.
• Family Inheritance by Deborah Leblanc is another book set in Louisiana. This was her first book she has written many others. This one is my favorite. It is in the horror genre.
• I am a long time fan of James Lee Burke's detective series featuring Dave Robicheaux. There are 18 books in the series with the first being Neon Rain. His characters are complex, colorful and flawed. I love the way he describes the Louisiana landscape and culture.
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson. The first line drew me in immediately. "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." It's crazy and druggy. Read it even if you've seen the movie.
• Under the Net by Iris Murdoch about a struggling writer in London is brilliant. It was her first novel. She was a philosopher and philosophical themes run through the book.
• The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates about a woman who husband commits suicide by throwing himself over Niagra Falls.
• Asylum by Patrick McGrath is about a wife of a psychiatrist who becomes obsessed with a patient who has murdered his family. Needless to say, it does not turn out well.
• Bleachy Haired Honkey Bitch by Hollis Gillespie is a collection of funny essays about her dysfunctional childhood which carried over into a dysfunctional adulthood. I really liked it. It's kinda like reading Sedaris.
• I love everything David Sedaris has ever written. You mentioned him. He's great to listen too on a long road trip. Start with Naked.
• I'm a big fan of memoirs. Some of my favorites are Angela's Ashes, Tis and Teacher Man by. Frank. McCourt. The Liar's Club and Cherry by Mary Karr, Daughter of the Queen of Sheba by Jackie Lyden, Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls.
• Other books on my shelves that I love include
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe,
• the Earth Children's Series by Jean Auel,
• The Complete Stories of Franz Kafka,
• The Fall and The Stranger by Albert Camus,
• Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy OTool,
• Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky,
• Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl,
• Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night by. Fitzgerald,
• On the Road  by Kerouac,
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison,
• The Human Stain, Deception by Phillip Roth,
• Agony and Ectasy by Irving Stone,
• Dr Zhivago by Pasternak,
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin,
• Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe,
• Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann,
• all of Tolkein's books just to name a few.

Thanks, Laura. Once again, I'm reminded of all the great literary figures in the world. I definitely have my reading cut out for me.