Nerdcore, old school.

Working in a library now, I have a lot of time to think about books
(all kinds of books; books I've loved and hated, books I want to read,
books I wish I could remember.)

I have my favorites, the ones I've read over and over, nearly 10 times
a piece - Mutiny on the Bounty, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and the original
Dune.
I have read books that simmer in the back of my mind long after I put
them down - Fear & Loathing in las Vegas, Ender's Game, The Once
and Future King, Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit, Slaughterhouse Five,
The Bell jar.
I love the armchair revolutions of Kafka, Dumas, Dickens, and Voltaire;
the stuffy epics of Homer and Dante; the introspective ravings of
Hemingway and that nut William H. Burroughs; the slinking terrors of
Huxley, Orwel, and Sinclair. I love transformative memoirs like Eat,
Love, Pray and narratives of Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston; the
weirdness of David Sedaris and the spastic perversions of Chuck
Pahlianuk, books about journeys and lost youths and poignant battles
that fade into scarred hills.

Four books, above any others, had such a profound impact upon me when I
read them that my perception of the world itself is filtered through
their pages.

1. Johnny Got His Gun - Dalton trumbo
Grotesque, horrific, implicative; I cannot think of modern warfare
without dredging up the gut stirring silent terror this novel induced
in me as a teenager. On a deeper level, this narrative helped to shake
me out of my addiction; as I delved into the loneliness, delirium, and
captivity of the protagonist, I couldn't help but see a parallel in my
own self-imposed paralysis. Drugs and alcohol had robbed me of my
limbs, my voice, my vision, my sense of reality in an impersonal world.
As Johnny was at the mercy of his fevered memory and the
self-preserving physicians, so was I to the chemical vortex and
denizens I surrounded myself with.

2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
This book simply changed me. Every memory became a piece of melancholy
art; music was like beautiful shrapnel, drawing me deeper and higher
and out of the world. I began to look at people differently;
friendships became life rafts and endless pursuing. The universe seemed
to be imbued with a grand silent fluidity. Sometimes still I am Charlie.

3. Holy the Firm - Annie Dillard
My mom sent this book to me shortly after I left rehab. Dillard helped
me reconcile brains and faith; she spoke and thought like I speak and
think. She asked the questions burning in me about God and providence,
death and rebirth and injustice. Of course, being set in Puget Sound
this book had even more weight for me (if there is a place I belong in
this world, it is somewhere between the Olympic range and the Pacific
ocean amid the rainforest and cold driftwood.) At the time, I live in a
log-house with twelve women on the edge of a cliff overlooking the
Guadalupe river. I spent my free time meditating on mossy boulders that
had been washed onto the banks by an epic flood in the late seventies.
I poured over fossils and strange flowers, watching for moths and
snakes and bobcats. This is where I found God and Dillard sent me
searching.

4. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
This book gave me the wanderlust, made me wrack my brains in madness,
sent me spinning after mists and ideals, and taught me the purity of
toil. I was at that ethereal adolescent milestone where I felt
disenfranchised and vaguely dissatisfied with the "grown-up" world I
was about to embark in. After reading this, I made it my mission to
surround myself with and become a person who lived "art." Kerouac
echoed my rage and confusion. He, first and foremost, compelled me to
write, as if I had been searching for permission and a medium.


So... do you people read books? Have a similar experience with one? This post has been boiling around inside my brain for days... I want to know what you demented people read.

I myself don't read books much anymore :/ I mainly play video games. But when I'm not playing games im reading manga or committing a hate crime. which reminds me i have to go see my PO in 20 mins -_-. So real fast #1 book i read and loved in high school Enders game followed by a parody of the hobbit know as the Soddit. But being that all I norm read now is Manga Gantz is my #1 followed by sgt frog then MPD psycho and ive just started read GTO younger years and its made me laugh a good bit. So thats me and now i must be off. GOD SPEED!