When 10 Becomes 50
I try to picture myself at, say, age 11, imagine myself curled up on a soft chair in the living room, or on my bed, head propped up by pillows, reading a book. But I can’t see it. I can’t see that image through high school either, at my family’s home, at Jay’s or Water’s or any of the places we hung out after school. Just can’t see it. Maybe my sisters can remember me reading.
I know reading became a thing for me for sure in college, I remember carrying around Tolkien’s trilogy, finding and becoming devoted to Vonnegut, tuning in to more socially conscious books like ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’. And somewhere along the way, along the crookedly crooked path of my life, reading became a very big deal – a passion.
In the previous post titled “Risks and Other Stuff” I mentioned reading a suggestion from somewhere to begin each day writing down 10 ideas. And if you couldn’t come up with 10, make it 20. To be more thorough in that explanation, that suggestion is found in the book ‘Tools of Titans’ by Tim Ferriss, specifically in the profile piece about James Altucher. He is a most interesting cat, and you can find him at jamesaltucher.com. James says that making this a daily morning habit improves “your idea muscle”. I began that practice shortly after reading of it and having come up with 10 ideas the last eight mornings I now have in a specially-designated “idea” notebook 80 early morning ideas (actually a few more as some have intruded on my post-idea coffee and reading time.) I’m proud to say that most of the 80 are boring or stupid or both. There are some which are mildly intriguing – buy chickens for the yard this spring, go to meditate in San Francisco’s Peter and Paul church, learn Dungeons and Dragons – and more.
But one idea has reached up from the page and taken hold of me, probably no more than a few hours after streaming-of-consciousness-ing it down on the paper. It’s this one – Pull 50 books I own from shelves in the house and read them, one after another. The idea has morphed with a now time-frame. Read all fifty in the next year. Using my keen mathematical mind that comes out to, like, a book a week. Doesn’t seem so hard. Being an unemployed vagrant and all. Still – never-ending reading probably every single day for a year. Yikes. But, you know what? The ‘Spirit’ has come upon me and I am commited to this idea now, it has in fact become a personal vow, and to get all real about it, I’m starting tomorrow. Saturday, October 26, 2018.
I’m going to tell you the titles of the books I’ve chosen, and their authors, here in a second. First, a quick word on the process. I have, we have, a bunch of different bookcases around the house, also a few spaces with piles of books, and yesterday in the afternoon I went from pile to pile, case to case, and ran my fingers over the spines of the books there and did my best to intuit what it made sense to read. Then I pulled whatever book spoke to me out a couple
of inches from the others, going around later in the evening to grab them from their case or pile and gather them in the collection you see in the photo. There are 45 books there, and I am waiting on two coming used from Ebay. I have three more to select.
Okay, for the truly devoted readers, here’s the list:
‘Understanding Comics’ by Scott McCloud; ‘Just Kids’ by Patti Smith; ‘A Stained White Radiance’ by James Lee Burke; ‘First Things First’ by Stephen Covey; ‘Radio Free Boston – WBCN’ by Carter Alan; ‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem’ by Joan Didion; ‘The Night Gardener’ by George Pelecanos; “Generation of Swine” by Hunter S. Thompson; ‘The Golden Compass’, ‘The Amber Spyglass’, ‘The Sublte Knife’ trilogy by Philip Pullman; ‘Go’ John Clellon Holmes; ‘Kitchen Confidential’ by Anthony Bourdain; ‘Notes of a Native Son’ by James Baldwin; ‘Travels With Charley’ by John Steinbeck; ‘The Basketball Diaries’ by Jim Carroll; ‘The Onion Field’ by Joseph Wambaugh; ‘Devil in a Blue Dress’ by Walter Mosley; ‘Naked Lunch’ by William Burroughs; ‘River of Shadows’ by Rebecca Solnit; ‘The Lost Get-Back Boogie’ by James Lee Burke; ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ by A.A. Milne; ‘Running and Being’ by Dr. George Sheehan; ‘Soul on Ice’ by Eldridge Cleaver.
‘L.A. Requiem’ by Robert Crais; ‘The Subterraneans’ and ‘Desolation Angels’ by Jack Kerouac; ‘Childhood’s End’ by Arthur C. Clarke; ‘Joshua Dread’ by Lee Bacon; ‘The Dark Half’ by Stephen King; ‘When the Sacred Gin Mill Closes’ by Lawrence Block; ‘Even Cowgirls Get the Blues’ by Tom Robbins; ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J.D. Salinger; ‘Cat’s Cradle’ by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ by Robert Heinlein; ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test’ by Tom Wolfe; ‘The Moviegoer’ by Walker Percy; ‘The Soul of a New Machine’ by Tracy Kidder; ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ by Robert Pirsig; ‘The Sun Also Rises’ by Ernest Hemingway; ‘Zen Guitar’ by Philip Toshio Sudo; ‘Thoughts Without a Thinker’ by Mark Epstein; ‘Song Man’ by Will Hodgkinson; ‘Writing Down the Bones’ by Natalie Goldberg; ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; and coming from Ebay, ‘Outliers’ by Malcolm Gladwell and ‘Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman’ by Richard Philips Feynman.
Well, if you are still here, I bet a couple of things. You think I’m lying or a bigger imbecile than previously imagined. You think I’m crazy, have finally and truly lost it, bonkers, off the deep end, up on the top of the double-decker bus. Or – if you are a lover of reading like I am – I bet you feel just a little jealous. All those amazing books. Come on, you can admit it, we already know.
Now, if you have two more minutes.
Some of these books, though I own them all, I have never read. For instance, ‘Catcher in the Rye’ (!) and ‘Naked Lunch’ (!!) and ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ (what!!). Some I have read but not for the last 45-50 years. Including ‘Soul on Ice’, ‘Even Cowgirls Get the Blues’, and ‘Travels With Charley’. Some I’ve read more than once but not in a while. For instance ‘A Stained White Radiance’, ‘Devil in a Blue Dress’, ‘Writing Down the Bones’. And a few, it hasn’t been that long. ‘Outliers’, ‘Desolation Angels’, and Patti Smith’s ‘Just Kids’, where the writing is so powerful and honest and touching that I could read that book every single month and be all the better for it. Then again, how many books on this list would work that very same magic?
As is always the case, I ask here for your thoughts and comments. They always mean so much to me. This time, however, I wonder if you might talk just a bit about a book or two on my “spoke to me” list. A book impacting your life in a big, big way. A favorite possession. Actually you can’t stand some of these. A thought about the mix – fiction and non-fiction, mystery and sci-fi, self-help (‘First Things First’) or self-help (‘Generation of Swine’). Not enough writers of color. Not enough women. Too much blood. Embarrassed to say you’ve never read Malcolm Gladwell. Or Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
I look forward to your thoughts.
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Dude it’s like the Twilight Zone my dad used to talk about where the guy was the last person on earth and all he wanted to do was read books but then his glasses broke!
No, man, I am a little jealous. Once I hit a spot where the book lulls, my laziness and workaholism kicks in and I lose the reading habit until I find prose that carries me away. I also have a stack of books I chose specifically and I still buy more that sit. The one I really want to read is Moby Dick. Dude I had a dream last night about meeting a cute girl in a book and record store and discussing books with her, particularly one she was reading about Kurt Cobain. This is an apropos discussion here being that I just woke up.
On the Road, I’ve read it four times. Mother Night and Slaughterhouse Five both blew my mind. Did you know Vonnegut owned a Saab or Volvo dealership in Connecticut for a while? I just finished the Omnivore’s Dilemna, brilliant and timely, and I’m slowly working on Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation (western cultural history that is).
I miss reading the New York Times but who the fuck can afford it? My current boss can barely write a literate text message to save his life but I just got a call and spoke to an old Vietnam vet hippy with a hugely successful energy and solar business five minutes away from me who really liked my interesting resume. He mentioned that he loves to read science fiction and that he wants to save the world. He is doing huge grant work energy installations for the state of New Jersey. Plus I got all my substitute teacher application hoop jump dossier materials handed in. I see more reading in my future.
I think your plan is one of the best I’ve ever heard. Just don’t forget to move your body.
Also, You Can’t Win by Jack Black, is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Mike, this is all the best, and I’m glad my crazed 50 books that must be read idea thought and commited to has bumped your imagination in some way. Love what you wrote, and I hear the dumb reader-less boss thing – because people who don’t read are everywhere – and the chance to go work for the science fiction dude and do important good works. Rock on. Please keep me informed, a phone call is required soon.
Actually I think (well I know) you are a mad genius.
You have hit a niche with this blog that is like a batter who has slightly adjusted his batting stance ( Im forever with the baseball metaphors) that is now continually ripping screaming hits every at bat,
One of those guys who every pitcher fears, but also respects as he
is in the sweet spot and the best they can hope for is to not have a line drive come back and hit them in the shin!
Because of the nuerological damage I incurred due to My traumas as a child ( starting with being conceived on
(22 Nov, 1963)…and all the other myriad of events and such that took place before I was 10,
I had to be put on ritalin @ 7 couldn’t sit still in school no less read a book.
Though when I became a bit older – actually after I left home permanently @ 15 – I read a book on Jim Morrison (here we go again) with the Lizard king- and began to read all the books he read, in retrospect In think all the LSD I was taking and the Pot I was smoking must have done something to my brain that allowed me to sit still enough and read – as opposed to the ritalin which made me feel like a freak-because it took away my appetite and my ability to run around the playground at recess like the other kids, i just stood there kind of frozen like I was trapped in this prison watching everyone- and would have to chew the wires of my lamp to help me fall asleep @ night I was so tweeked! …FREAK… hahahaha
Anyways- your a genius Buddy- face it -embrace it- I was gonna write one of my poems tonight but instead read the Blog and did this instead,
I just got done reading a book on RFK, twice The revolution of Robert Kennedy”, by John R Bohrer., that I saw in the bibliography of the book RFK jr just wrote ( Bobby Jr’s Book is epic as well I highly recommend it can’t remeber the name off hand ).
last night I finished , “We got the Neutron Bomb” – the untold story of LA punk, By Mark Spitz and Brendan Mullen- interesting- but the drug stuff was disturbing – but that’s just me.
i’m simultaneously reading ‘”Angles in America”- “Please Kill me – the uncensored oral history of punk” ( for the record both punk books were bought at a yard sale last weekend in studio city and were owned by the guy who played Eddie on ” The courtship of Eddie’s father” – I also got some brand new Whal hair clippers from his daughter she shaved her head once and was good with that look haha).
“Play the scene” the ultimate guide to contemporary and classic scenes and Monologues’ and a couple books By Philip K Dick I am about to start today.
I noticed I read mostly in fall and winter… I guess i’m a binge reader- the same way I drank!
– Now, Sally the Fairy on the other hand…
my fairyqueenchildbridesugadauhgta- who I Iiberated from the dope fiends Amy & Cassidy who had captured her and made the mistake of pulling into Malibu and running into me while I was painting on the beach @ Zuma.
I blasted them with my cannons sunk there vessel, then and there and brought her aboard my pirate ship
She reads more than my parents, and they read a-lot- she’s good for one to two books a week!
I’ve watched her do this for three years!! do the math!!!
She’s Wicked Smart ( Shout out the the Homeland Buddy hahhahah) -one of those Mensa type people-
I keep wondering if she is so smart why is she with me?
You’ve got something here Buddy!!!,
maybe protect it legally,
I have a feeling this thing is going to blow up-
I mean if you have me hunting and pecking @ 3 am – taking 2 hours to write something that a person with typing skills could write in 15 minutes- God only knows where it’s going!!!!
Yea your a Mad Genius Bro… Grateful to know you!
Long overdue reply. You are my main man. Always inspiring. Be cool to go meetup, say at FarLands, at 7 am and get a coffee and plot the saving of the planet.
Interesting list! I watched PBS the other night to see how the books ended up rating on there list of 100 that people voted on for The Great American Read. Thank goodness To Kill a Mockingbird rated the top spot!! I had an issue with some of the stuff on the list (Nicholas Sparks?? Really?) or the Twilight Series ( tho I did read them ) or 50 Shades of Gray ( did NOT read – poorly written! ). So many books that made me think that I should read them ( again in some cases ). Made me think I should start reading more again – I go on fits and starts, reading a lot, and then just magazines for months.
I think that I will take your post and the PBS show to heart and challenge and try for a book a week starting with To Kill a Mockingbird!
Let’s wish both of us luck!!
Thanks for your comment Chris and sorry for my delayed reply. I love to read anyway, this “suggestion” from out of nowhere – the 50 book thing – feels big and important and potentially filled with possibilities, all of which I cannot even imagine yet. Currently on books four and five, and a new writing project has emerged already. I’ll stay tuned, and keep you posted.
I finished ‘The Power of Myth’ by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers this morning (not counting in my 50).. At one point in the book, in response to a question from Moyers about how “ordinary” people – not poets, not artists, not shamans – how they learn of divine and transcendent things, Campbell’s answers, “I’ll tell you a way, a very nice way. Sit in a room and read — and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought on to that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.”