Why Do You Read Books?

Diana commented on my last blog: "Does it ever get tiresome reading books that are about something? Have you ever tried reading a book to just escape?"

Good question. Makes me think.



I think of most book readers as becoming so when they're children. I also suspect they read a great deal in genre or commercial literature, and that they read quickly. I have a niece who can go through a Twilight book in a couple of days, another friend who reads books in one sitting. These are the people who I think of as the book readers of the world, the ones who keep traditional publishing alive.




I'm happy they're around.

I didn't get hooked on reading until I was 18 and in an English class at junior college. In this class we read books like Tess of the D'Urbervilles, 1984, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and A Clockwork Orange. Each book seemed to offer some different perspective on life, a perspective I couldn't expect to glean from any television show or movie or album. Novel reading is direct communication from one person (writer) to another (reader), and the genre struck me as more unique and radical than other media, in the way individuals can be more unique and radical than groups of folks.



As I've read diligently and widely over the last 20 years, I've also grown to love the use of the English language. I get a charge out of--if not profoundly new ways of thinking--new and beautiful ways to say old things. Last night, here's what jumped out at me in Finding Time Again:

"The only true paradise is the paradise we have lost."



Proust does lay down the law.

Basically, a book--if I'm going to like it--has to offer, for lack of a better phrase, insight into life. I need to be entertained by it, sure, but it needs to go beyond that. Does it offer a new perspective? Is it using language in a way that is making me see something in a way I've never seen it before? When I find a book that does this, I find my release, my escape.


So, to answer Diana's question, I guess I never get tired of reading books that are about something. And reading books that are about something is exactly where I find my escape.

Oh, yeah. And I escape into crazy shit like this, too.



So, enough about me. Tell me why you read books? I'd really like to know.

Yours in laying down the blog,

Art


Buy Ghost Notes



Buy Songs from Memory


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix

Who's Your Favorite Author?

First of all, Ghost Notes has been discounted 10% at Amazon.

Why? I don't know, but I like it.

So, I'm finishing In Search of Lost Time this month.

What's In Search of Lost Time?

It's a seven-part novel written by a Frenchman named Marcel Proust.



Marcel was kind of a freak boy. He grew up in what we might call the upper-middle class as the 19th turned into the 20th century, had a lot of leisure time, spent a lot of time in "society," was most likely gay, and spent the second half of his short, unhappy life in a cork-lined room writing a seven-part novel.

A hard novel to navigate, In Search of Lost Time. It spans something like 3,500 pages, which at times feels like 350,000, but the rewards therein are manifold.

It took me the better part of four years to complete it, but I loved it. The guy's now one of my all-time favs.

This is kind of the top of the mountain of literature for me, and now I'm looking for new authors to give a try on my casual descent.

In spending so much time delving into authors of Christmas Past, I've acquired a certain amount of guilt for neglecting authors of Christmas Present.



Especially since I am an author of Christmas Present.



So, I'm asking you for your recommendations. Can you tell me what to read?

Here's what I like:

Novels; not NF or memoirs.

My taste leans literary, but I'd be happy to read a genre novel with good use of language.

Anything with a rock 'n' roll backdrop is good, but hardly necessary.

The male perspective is a plus, but again, hardly necessary.

Last requirement: I need it to be from the 21st century; in other words, I'd like to support current novelists. Nothing could make me happier than for you to point me toward a contemporary fiction writer whose work I could fall in love with.

A few hints: I've liked at least some of the work of the following contemporaries:

Franzen
Perrotta
Eggers
Klosterman

This list is very American, but your recommendation need not be.

So, something literary is a pretty good guess with me, but if you love a genre writer who can craft language, I'd love to know of it.

Feel free to include your recommendations as a comment, or you can email me, if that suits you. I'll report my findings here.

Yours in laying down the blog,

Art


Buy Ghost Notes



Buy Songs from Memory


Buy Stuck Outside of Phoenix