BOOK LIST

by Bert Stratton

12 comments

1 Mark Schilling { 03.05.14 at 9:51 am }

Man, this brings back memories. I’m surprised Bukowski isn’t on the list, unless you consider him “Beat.” That also goes for the poets you were reading then, starting with Hall and Berrigan.

I never kept reading lists, though there was a heck of a lot of overlap between yours and mine in the 1970s, especially.

I got you into Miller, you got me into Kerouac. Even steven…

2 Bert Stratton { 03.05.14 at 9:59 am }

To Mark Schilling:

I had to cut some guys (to save bandwidth). Sorry about Buko. He was beat if ever there was a beat, even though he would have denied it.

Yes, Ted Berrigan should be there too, on the list. I already did a post about him, though.

3 Bill Jones { 03.05.14 at 10:34 am }

Thanks, Bert. Great page in your blogging history. Your sense of humor is showing. Talking about humor, combined with craziness and mystery, try Where’d you go Bernadette by Semple. Appeals to me as the Northwest’s, and contemporary version of, Catcher in the Rye. Now my sense of humor is showing.

4 David Korn { 03.05.14 at 11:10 am }

Reading the list brings back memories — of the books on the list I have read and loved — and regret that I haven’t kept a list too. I could turn this “like” post into a competition (things I read that you didn’t), but that would really be self-indulgent (and stupid). Instead: (1) My thanks for remembering a great book, one on my tops list, Fred Exley’s A Fan’s Notes, and also the less-renown works of George Orwell. (Down and Out is my fav.) (2) Dan Brown? DaVinci Code?! You kiddin?! (3) Thanks for reminding us of the pleasures of the entirety of the Rabbit series.

btw, Rabbis is Rich (your ’84 list) might be a typo or a really good title for your next novel.

5 Jessica Schreiber { 03.05.14 at 11:20 am }

Great post, Bert. I love seeing what other people read. Of the 22 books people pretend to have read, I actually read 19 of them. The three I missed were The Odyssey, Treasure Island and Old Man and the Sea (though I read my children’s high school essays on it).

For anyone who has not read Lolita, I highly recommend the recorded version read by actor Jeremy Irons.

6 Bert Stratton { 03.05.14 at 12:08 pm }

To David Korn:

Normally I would correct my typo(s) after a reader, like you, points them out. But Rabbis is Rich deserves to stay. Thanks for pointing it out!

7 alice { 03.05.14 at 9:30 pm }

I’ve got three 5th grade boys in a book club. I’m suppose to turn them into “pleasure readers.” We’re reading There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom. I became a “pleasure reader” in 3rd-5th grade from Charlotte’s Web, Secret Garden, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Voyages of Dr. Dolittle, Incredible Journey. I was blown away by Catcher in the Rye in 10th grade. How about a list of books that makes people “pleasure readers”?

8 Mark Schilling { 03.06.14 at 12:56 am }

Good idea, Alice! I was a history buff from the 4th grade or so, devouring books on the boyhoods of famous men (Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower, ), as well as on the Civil War (this was the era of the CW centennial). My first “classics” were Jules Verne, Mark Twain (Tom Sawyer before Huckleberry Finn) and Edgar Allan Poe, though I also read crappy boys’ adventure stuff, including the “new” Tom Swift books.

The only comics that appealed to me were by Disney, especially “Uncle Scrooge” and “Donald Duck,” which I found out much later were the creations of the incomparable Carl Barks. I fantasized about diving into Scrooge’s money pit. That was pleasure reading!

9 Bert Stratton { 03.06.14 at 7:28 am }

To Alice:

I didn’t read much for pleasure as a kid. I had to read 10, or so, books a summer for the library library list. Painful. I gravitated toward Herbert’s Homework and Henry Reed Inc and sports bios.

The first adult book that blew me away was Dharma Bums by Kerouac. I was 20. Then I became a true pleasure reader.

10 Norm Green { 03.06.14 at 9:16 am }

Do you know much about Sonia Pilcer? My late grandmother (who was a Green by the time she came to Cleveland) was born a Pilcer.

11 Bert Stratton { 03.06.14 at 11:53 am }

To Norm Green:

I don’t know much about Sonia Pilcer. She’s still around and findable. I remember her parents were from Europe and she lived in New York. She wrote other books, but Maiden Rites is her best.

No, wait, I’m apparently a FB pal of hers. I have her phone number. Whoa. She lives in NY.

12 David Korn { 03.12.14 at 10:04 am }

What hooked me as a pleasure reader when I was a kid: I had this Indiana Jones picture in my mind when I was a kid, so much so that when I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark (when all growed up) it really resonated. The book I remember was some pulp called the Aztec Idol Mystery. I remember almost nothing about it, but I cannot ever forget how much I loved it. The best kids series was — still is, I think — Freddie the Pig. Freddie the Pig and the Baseball Team from Mars! Great title! Great read, still!

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