1001 (Minus 976) Books to Read Before You Die

I am grateful to technology because it has given the world another reason to realize that the act of reading will never be a dying past time (thank you Kindle, thank you Nook). Reading is a fundamental gift that all humans can be blessed to learn. Reading provides the brain stimulation, inspiration, confidence, information and enlightenment. I enjoy reading because it helps me be a better writer. The stories I love to read are of humanity; stories of people like me or like people I know who struggle and in the least make it through difficult times with some sort of grace and accomplishment.

I recently took a book out from the library: “501 Great Writers,” a comprehensive guide to the giants of literature. I was just curious, for my writer and reader ego, to see how many of these writers I have read. I am very much into classic literature. It was a Shakespeare class in college, actually, that inspired me to become a writer.  So I continually read the “classics” of literature, from “The Great Gatsby” to “The Bell Jar” to my current huge undertaking of “Atlas Shrugged,” the philosophical and political opus by Ayn Rand.

Just looking at the table of contents in “501 Great Writers,” I already am overwhelmed and my ego is feeling bruised. First off, I know I don’t have time in my life now, and who knows if ever, to get through each of these writers; even if they each wrote a short story for me to pick up. My free time for reading is seldom these days. But the table of contents….from A to Z….I shocked myself….I have read a round 100 of the writers listed in this book. One fifth! But the ego is still bruised – not that I even want to read the remaining 401 writers necessarily….what hurts is that from all my years interested in writing and reading and studying, there are so many writers that I haven’t heard of.  Then I boost myself back up off the floor by realizing there are so many writers I do know that I think belong in this book. 

I mean, these lists are subjective. The Oscars are subjective. And political. But that’s beside the point.  Lists like this, there are obvious picks, and controversial picks (which help with the marketing of this book – give the readers something to discuss and they will be more likely to read it). There are historical picks and contemporary picks. These lists are [hopefully] made for people like us to think. 

What I wanted to do with this book, besides fuel my education, see what “score” I had in the current literary world, and make a new list of books I want to and need to read….what I want to do is put together my own list for my friends and followers based on suggestions from this book plus suggestions from my little literary world and mind.  (Unfortunately, I have decades to catch up on modern-age authors that are not included in this book.)

Here are my top 25 suggestions of excellent writers, and a good selection from each writer that you should read (in no particular order):

1. William Shakespeare (read and see King Lear)
2. Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
3. Jack Kerouac (On the Road – read it before the movie comes out)
4. Margaret Atwood  (Wilderness Tips – Short Stories; read “Hairball”)
5. F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tender is the Night)
6. William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying)
7. Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)
8. Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf)
9. Franz Kafka (Metamorphosis)
10. Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
11. John Milton (Paradise Lost)
12. Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
13. William Burroughs (Naked Lunch)
14. Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
15. D.H. Lawrence (Sons and Lovers)
16. Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
17. J.D. Salinger (Franny and Zooey)
18. Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
19. Niccolo Machiavelli (The Art of War)
20. Edgar Allen Poe  (The Fall of the House of Usher)
21. Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
22. John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
23. Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
24. David Mamet (American Buffalo)
25. Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

 Not on the list but worth my mention:

1. Christopher Isherwood
2. Balthazar Gracian
3. Joan Didion
4. Augusten Burroughs
5. Ayn Rand

What would make your list? I would love to get recommendations from people (other than “People” magazine).

writes and wrongs and in-betweens



hi dad
(paso robles, ca)

My father wrote a couple of books in the 1980s, published by the American Institute of Family Relations. One of the titles was "Kids Can Cope Creatively," and the other "Rights, Wrongs, and In-Betweens." Both books were non-fiction pieces designed to help children and families through the difficult journey of life, growth and human relations. I unfortunately do not have copies of these books. My father passed away last January and I don't believe he kept copies of these books. Ironically, however, I have kept the gift that my dad did give me, and that is the gift of writing. Every time I sit down with my laptop, or with my journal and favorite pen, I smile and am grateful for my creative abilities. Thus the title of my blog, "Writes and Wrongs and In-Betweens;" not only is it a shout-out to my dad, but it also applies to my self, my soul, my gifts and my shortcomings.

Writing....is it actually a gift?  Or a curse? That saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words..." A poignant statement. But have you ever actually sat down to write those thousand words? Have you ever tried to paint a picture using words, expressing an image for one to see, using only words?  It is a challenge. But when you have completed a section of your story, your poem, your novella, even an essay....whatever it may be, if you can paint that picture you have just created a moment in time for someone. You've helped someone's dream come true, their imagination to develop and broaden.....you've achieved what all writer's aim to do: to inspire.

Here is a brilliant, on the first page of "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath:
"New York was bad enough. By nine in the morning the fake, country-wet freshness that somehow seeped in overnight evaporated like the tail end of a sweet dream. Mirage-gray at the bottom of their granite canyons, the hot streets wavered in the sun, the car tops sizzled and glittered, and the dry, cindery dust blew into my eyes and down my throat."

Did you picture New York in the summer? Can you feel what she was feeling? I am choking on exhaust and rubbing sweat off my brow! An amazing passage. And more lucky that it is the third paragraph on the first page of her book. What every writer who wants to get published knows: you have to hook the reader on the first page. Sylvia Plath was one such writer. And so then...

Sometimes having the gift of writing can be a curse?.... For me only because I feel I have to write all the time. For Sylvia? She was not able to express herself outside of her words?  For me, I never have enough time to write. If you read my intro blog, you would have seen that being a writer is only one-one-hundredth of who I am. But writing is my soul. Writing is how I am. I am the moon and writing is my earth. And when I am able to take a moment and express myself through words, I feel complete, that I have done my job and the day has had night and the ocean, tides, and another night will soon come.

I then return to the conclusion that writing is most certainly a gift.  It can be painful, it can be waivering, it can be fleeting...it can keep me warm at night and safe from the cold. The words I write will hopefully some day be those things to other people.  If even just one.