some of the books i read in high school

i read a lot. at any given time i'm probably reading two books, complaining about one or both of them. i've quit reading only a few books (Les Miserables, Native Son, and some others that i've forgotten by now), and hated quite a few (DEAD MAN WALKING cough cough). i forget all plot lines and only pick up on metaphors and themes if i have to write a paper, but i have to have a book for some mental illness reason (probz). i keep a list in my brain of books i can't stop thinking about, and i thought it might be a good point to type them down. what with going off to college and probably having no time to read what i actually want to read again. so here goes.
i think everyone should read all the books i like.


books i liked a lot in no particular order:


The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
how typical, who didn't like this book? cool young man who's spent time in prison rebels against The Man, poor people get kicked around, religious people full of doubt, fights, despair, and that creepy ending. i read it in american lit class and it was good for sparking questions and comments and notes written on my binder like "everyone is an idiot, especially CLASSMATE SO-AND-SO".

something that i underlined:
Tom asked, "Ain't ya gettin' out?"
For a long time the bearded man stared at him. "No," he said at last.
"But they'll burn ya out."
The unsteady eyes dropped to the ground. "I know. They done it before."
"Well, why the hell don't ya get out?"
The bewildered eyes looked up for a moment, and then down again, and the dying firelight was reflected redly. "I don' know. Takes so long to git stuff together."


Joe by Larry Brown
my dad suggested i read this book. a dog kills another dog at one point, that was pretty uncomfortable to read.

something that i underlined:
Joe held him and made Gary pet him and the dog accepted it and licked his hand. The broad tongue raspy, pink, wide. The creased forehead with its knots of tooth-marked scars.


The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
this book was written by a woman and it didn't piss me off. that's a big achievement, i have some weird sexist problems i think. i hate how most women i read always write about men, or write about not needing men, or write about men in a sarcastic feminist way, blah blah blah. also, if a book is set in the south, there's a greater chance that i'll like it, i dunno why.

something that i underlined:
'For two days now I been talking to you in my mind because I know you understand the things I want to mean.'


The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole
i could not shut up about this book. mainly because i also read the author's bio and that dude killed himself over his book not getting published. tragedy! white boy tragedy! i love that stuff.

something that i underlined:
*i underlined nothing in this book. maybe i liked the book as a whole but no particular sentence struck me? like every piece that seemed unexceptional to me made an exceptional book?


My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
this book is delightful. i read it because i watched the bbc adaptation on pbs. when i can't sleep at night because of a nightmare/nervous breakdown, i read this book and everything is better. i think it would be even cooler if you were a person who cared about lizards and bugs and nature and all that.

something that i underlined:
(about a gull)
From the soles of his great webbed feet to the tip of his beak he was, in my opinion, quite admirable. I swallowed a final cockle, wiped my hands on the side of the boat, and asked the man if he could get a baby gull for me the following spring.
'You want one?' he asked in surprise; 'you like them?'
I felt this was understating my feelings. I would have sold my soul for such a gull.


A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
i got "my" copy from my dad, who was lent it by david strasser. i should probably give it back. i read it three times. the first time i read it i cried. the ending is a little dramatic or...i dunno, shoddy? but when i think about it, owen meany was a very dramatic character. and the ending is not the important part of this book, to me. it's like when people read the story of jesus (i think this book was about jesus, or at least some kind of savior), they care more about his life than his crucifixion. i might be wrong.

something that i underlined:
(disclaimer: this section is kind of cheesy out of context and maybe in context too, but i still like it and i still underlined it so whatev)

"DON'T SOUND SO ASHAMED," he said. "READING IS A GIFT."
"I learned it from you," I told him.
"IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE YOU LEARNED IT--IT'S A GIFT. IF YOU CARE ABOUT SOMETHING, YOU HAVE TO PROTECT IT--IF YOU'RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO FIND A WAY OF LIFE YOU LOVE, YOU HAVE TO FIND THE COURAGE TO LIVE IT."


Hard Candy by Tennessee Williams
this is the only tennessee williams i have ever read, so i don't know if there was a story or stories i was supposed to read first, i just picked this one up. i wrote down in the margin to look up what william's deal was, so i could better understand his writing. all i got was that he was gay and didn't feel comfortable until he was in new orleans and some other uninteresting stuff, so i think i'll just read more of his stuff. but i liked it so far!
special favorite: The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin

something that i underlined:
...and think what a cheap little package this is that we have been given to live in, some rubbery kind of machine not meant to wear long, but somewhere in it is a mysterious tenant who knows and describes its being.


If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
a gift from a teacher after graduation. reading this was like reading a book about reading and about people who read books and about you reading this book that is about all the above things. messes with your head a lot, but calvino really gets humans. there's a great bit near the end where the character is trying to write a story (something like that), tries opening with the first sentence of Crime and Punishment, and then copies the next, and the next, and has to force himself to stop from copying the whole book, because it's all so perfect.

something that i underlined:
It's all very well for me to tell myself there are no provincial cities any more and perhaps there never were any; all places communicate instantly with all other places, a sense of isolation is felt only during the trip between one place and the other, that is, when you are in no place.


The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
my parents bought this for me after a family trip to new orleans. it was amazing to read what percy wrote and say: "i know what he means about the sidewalks with the trees growing up in them". we also read it in my american lit class and it made me and my friend so mad when the boyz said it was about nothing. granted, we didn't know what it was about until our teacher sort of led us to the answer/some ideas. ah, learning.

something that i underlined:
In a sudden rage, as if I had been seized by a fit, I roll over and fall in a heap on the floor and lie shivering on the boards, worse off than the miserablest muskrat in the swamp. Nevertheless I vow: I'm a son of a bitch if I'll be defeated by the everydayness.

The U.S.A. Trilogy by John Dos Passos
these three books are cool 'cause they're split up into three sections each "chapter": newsreels, the camera eye, and a story that highlights just one of the characters. they might be the reason i am majoring in american studies (until further notice). i bought a second copy of The Big Money, just because i saw it at a library book sale, i have no other excuse for it.

something that i underlined:
The 42nd Parallel:
She made her feel that Art was something ivory white and very pure and noble and distant and sad.

Nineteen Nineteen:
We gulp our coffee splash water on us jump into our clothes run downstairs step out wideawake into the first morning of the first day of the first year

&

He tried to recapture the sweet and heavy pulsing of feelings he used to have when he sat down to write a poem. But all he could do was just feel miserable so he went to bed.

The Big Money:
The trouble with us is we are in the distant future and don't know it.


books i liked but didn't "get", and should probably read again:


Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
read this during my shifts at work, not the best setting. it's one of those books i need to talk about with someone who knows what it's actually about and i need to do research and all that stuff that i, in general, avoid.

something that i underlined:
I had always thought that wringing one's hands was a fictional gesture--the obscure outcome, perhaps, of some medieval ritual; but as I took to the woods, for a spell of despair and desperate meditation, this was the gesture ("look, Lord, at these chains!") that would have come nearest to the mute expressions of my mood.


Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
*i also read The Idiot and that one was completely over my head too, i never learn

i feel bad for reading this without giving it any attention.

something that i underlined:
'Why don't you just say it's a miracle?'
'Because it may only be an accident.'

i read the lyrics and everything

leonard cohen, you have yet to win me over. you know what REALLY hasn't won me over, especially? the story of isaac. we know you're jewish. it's about him being jewish, isn't it?