Recommended reading

So yeah, i read a lot, and i do mean a lot

mostly what i would call literature,

read a little bit of sci-fi,

some graphic novels

but mostly modern stuff

anyway as a fanatical bibliophile

i feel compelled to provide these

recommendations,

can’t really call them my favorites

because that list changes a lot..

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

This may be my favorite novel of all time. Deals with addiction and the pursuit of happiness in America. WARNING- This is dense in many ways, it’s the size of a phone-book, it’s fiction with end-notes (lots of ‘em) and it gets fairly perplexing at times.

Gravity’s Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon

A hefty mind-blower about war and the economics that spring from conflict. Very thick prose and something like 500 characters, thick too, but all of Pynchon’s novels are worth the investment if you can get into his particular style of writing.

Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates – Tom Robbins.

Tom Robbins novels are intellectual junk-food, deep philosophy candy-coated with sex, drugs and humor, this one is his best.

London Fields – Martin Amis

A wonderful, almost distopian novel, brilliantly written with spectacular characters, this man has an uncanny knack for how words should be strung together. If it’s about any one thing, it’s about the death of love and the problems this is causing.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig

The sequel to this, Lila, is even better, but this has to be read first. Deep philosophy, this is a book many people just can’t get into because it’s heavy as hell, thick prose.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Johnathan Safran Foer

This is a great story, perfect characters, but more importantly it’s the best example of the book as art that I’ve ever seen.

Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murukami

Describing a Murukami novel is impossible, you’ll just sound insane, but he’s brilliant. He takes you right up to the edge where it seems inevitable that he’s going to expound some sort of mystical truth, but then doesn’t just lets the almost expressed cast it’s own unique spell over the pages.

Tokyo Cancelled – Rana Dasgupta

Modern fairy-tales, woven together as if by magic. A book of short stories that interconnect with one another well is about the rarest creature in literature and this is a great example.

Leviathan – Paul Auster

Auster is one of my favorite authors, and this is one of his best books, he’s got a great way with language, sparse, yet moving. Every time I read it I find something new.

Ishmael – Daniel Quinn

Telepathic gorilla teaches a man the truth about human culture. Seriously. It must be read to be believed, but it will forever change the way you view society.

The Painted Bird – Jerzy Kosinski

Small child wandering across Europe during WWII, depressing as all get out, but what an amazing book.

The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie

The history of Rock and Roll as it takes place in a universe very similar to our own. Or maybe it’s a message about the importance of myth. Maybe it’s about the nature of love. Maybe it’s all this and more. Salman Rushdie at his very finest.

Life of Pi – Yann Martell

You will never forget this book. It just stays with you, and unfolds slowly in your mind long after you’ve put it down.

The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith – Peter Carey

Brilliant distopian novel with an amazing hero. The exploration of entertainment’s importance and the thinly veiled attacks on Disney come hard and heavy.

Desolation Angels – Jack Keroac

Forget On the Road, this one shows why the beats were so important and does a much better job of illuminating the underlying morality of the movement.

The Tetherballs of Bouganville – Mark Leyner

How to explain? Best perhaps not to try. Leyner is worth reading, utterly fascinating, a sick rabid tone, think William Burroughs meets Charles Bukowski.

Trout Fishing in America - Richard Brautigan

Spacey man. All over the board, maybe it’s a novel, maybe it’s a guy in a wheel-chair, maybe it’s a statue. I think it’s a damn good book.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggers

This is a true story, Eggers turns the whole idea of the memoir on it’s head and takes on a period of heavy emotional turmoil with aplomb by being relentlessly clever and self-referential. Worth checking out; if only for the start, where you can find ‘Suggestions for enjoying this book’ and twenty-one pages of acknowledgements.