Thursday, March 11, 2010

on staying home, book lists, and why people shouldn't be allowed to use stone lions as exterior decor


I love being at home. I LOVE it. I love the quiet, open hours, I love the freedom of time and space, I love knowing that the time is mine and mine alone to spend as I will. Camped in front of the laptop? Reading in bed? Curled up on the couch with a movie? WHO KNOWS, IT'S MY NIGHT!! 

Speaking of reading, tonight I'm going to re-post an interesting list of '12 Authors Every Man Must Know' from an article from Esquire that a friend sent me. And while I know that doesn't make this a * real * blog post because I didn't * technically * write it, I don't want to forget this list, and this blog is where I put things I don't want to forget.

12 Authors Everyone Should Know, by Esquire:

Saul Bellow
Everything you need to know about what propels the American male: "I am an American, Chicago born — Chicago, that somber city — and go at things as I have taught myself, freestyle, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent." The book to read: The Adventures of Augie March.

Raymond Carver
A car hits a boy. A woman licks whiskey off her lover's belly. Nobody captures the darkness and hopefulness of everyday America better. The book to read: Where I'm Calling From.

Cormac McCarthy
Because he tells a truth most don't want to hear: that man is capable of terrible evil.  The book to read: Blood Meridian.

Zadie Smith
‘prose so kinetic, it seems to break-dance’  The book to read: White Teeth.

William Faulkner
Sometimes you must see the world through a fractured lens.  The book to read: As I Lay Dying.

Flannery O'Connor
Because: "She would of been a good woman ... if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." We all would. The book to read: The Complete Stories.

Stephen King
No writer knows more about our current cultural fears — the cold-war anxiety of The Dead Zone, the post-9/11 fearfulness of Under the Dome — than Uncle Stevie. The book to read: The Stand.

Graham Greene
Have you ever felt as though you can't trust anyone, not your friends or your lovers, not your boss, your family, not your god, not even yourself? The book to read: The Quiet American.

George Orwell
Because he is angry, uncompromising, and unapologetically political. The book to read: Down and Out in Paris and London

Philip Roth
He understands that at base, we're a nation of fearful womanizers. Plus, he wrote the only great novel to end with a guy getting poked in the eye with a fork. The book to read: American Pastoral.

Norman Mailer
Because behind the grandstanding — the run for mayor, the head-butting of Gore Vidal — you can sense that Mailer was as much a fragile soul as the last great literary man. The book to read: The Executioner's Song.

William Shakespeare
We all come out of Shakespeare's pen — every one of us, every one of our stories of revenge, of ambition, of baleful and nectarous and incestuous love. The play to read: Henry V.


In other, totally unrelated news, did you know that in Japan they thought that the 'Sharona' of 'My Sharona' was a certain, unmentionable male organ? It gives a whole new meaning to my name. Also, it makes me want to go visit Japan. I anticipate a warm welcome.




And last, but not least, the Photo of the Day. RAWR!

Hugs hugs and oh so many more hugs,
Essss

6 comments:

  1. Sometimes I feel so validated when I read your blogs. I don't even know what the word "validated" means, but I think I feel it.

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  2. Boo on Zadie Smith and Faulkner... the other ones I recognize I like though. That lion is just waiting to get moustachio'd!

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  3. Uhm, of the 12 writers..I've only read one, Stephen King...kind of wondering what this says about me.
    and that lion..doesn't that back leg look more human than lion?!?!? Freaky!

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  4. i loved this post. Have just ordered 'The Quite American' on reading through above.

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  5. Thanks! Now I have a few books to add to my "to-read" list.

    Read the article on "My Sharona". Question is: did YOU go to the funeral of the artist to pay your respects?

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