aayounglittle boy
nine years old, I’d say
leaning on the wall by the
Newberry Medal bookshelf
red Chuck Taylor’s
one foot pulled up
brown hair
tan corduroys ripped at the knee
not-so-white button down shirt
looking like a
tiny Jack
Kerouac
eyes wide
lost in the pages of
A Wrinkle in Time
I smile and think
one day
he’ll be traveling
On the Road
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
Dirty Pretty Things by Michael Faudet
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Lake by Banana Yoshimoto
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
Wind/Pinball by Haruki Murakami
Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Soloist by Steve Lopez
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Praying Drunk by Kyle Minor
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Othello by William Shakespeare
The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
Mao II by Don DeLillo
Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
The Figured Wheel by Robert Pinsky
The Familiar by Mark Danielewski
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark
The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clark
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut
The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
Poems of Humor & Protest by Kenneth Patchen
Poetry as Insurgent Art by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Bookish people who know I’m a fellow bibliophile, writer, and bookseller are often asking me for book recommendations. I ask the same of my librarian and literary friends. I have compiled a list of the best books that I’ve read in the last 7 months, plus a few everyone should read. I keep a list of everything I’ve ever read for posterity, not for myself, but for my sons. I want them to know what their mother loved…almost as much as she loved them.
Suicide Casanova by Arthur Nersesian
Gladyss of the Hunt by Arthur Nersesian
The Fuck-Up by Arthur Nersesian
The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show by Ariel Gore
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
The Petting Zoo by Jim Carroll
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Colorless Tsukuru Tszaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
by Haruki Murakami
Joe by Larry Brown
Fay by Larry Brown
The Underworld by Don DeLillo
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
My Name is Red by Orham Pamuk
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami
Euphoria by Lilly King
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Little Friend by Donna Tartt
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by
Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
California Raisins by Seb Doubinsky
The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami
Perfume the Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind
Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami
The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
Seymour an Introduction by J.D. Salinger
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters by J.D. Salinger
Whole New Religion by Bob Jakubovic
The Night Market by D.R. Wagner
…These titles appear in no particular order, I love them all. You may have noticed no Catcher in the Rye. Why? Because that book is shit and Salinger thinks so too. The Scarlet Letter and The Bell Jar? If you haven’t read those yet, you aren’t trying. No Infinite Jest? David Foster Wallace didn’t love you…or himself. If you want to regret three months of your life, Infinite Jest in the quickest way.
Happy Reading
This piece will only appeal to avid readers of Haruki Murakami. If you don’t read him, you should. The following poem, written for his fans, will act much like Jeffrey Lebowski’s rug, it will tie the whole room together.
coffee
tea
tofu
someone bearing the name
of a food or a spice
elephants
cats
vanishing elephants and cats
spouses
vanishing spouses
empty wells
vacant houses
tokyo at night
prostitutes
suicide
strangulation
coffee houses
motorcycles
inheritance
ironing
world war II
earthquakes
faceless men
mysterious women
creepy psychics
train stations
abandonment
noisy birds
alternate realities
parallel universes
massage
coming in your pants
rape
dowagers
groceries
bad dreams
creepy investigators
all knowing uncles
erections
whiskey
scotch
beer
NHK television
someone who wants to have sex you
for a mystical reason
water
rain
verandas
brothels
odd teenagers
chaotic jazz
depressing classical music
vinyl records
dormitories
letter writing
ear fetish
cooking
sofa naps
contemplating death
still more contemplating death
clothing
footwear
sitting on benches
stars
moon
unexpected phone calls
sleep
i needed to escape my thoughts
but didn’t feel like driving
all the way to the library to be
.
surrounded by books
settling instead
on a half price books
i was hoping to find
kafka on the shore
by haruki murakami
.
no such luck
.
instead
gleefully discovering
a hard cover with pristine jacket
of larry brown’s
fay
and a two buck
the smiths
cd
.
i sat in the wing chair
of the architecture section
devouring my unearthed treasures
trying to forget
for a moment
people were elsewhere
in the world
busily
bloody
needlessly
dying
.
i found myself
wishing for a part time job
in the intellectual oasis
as a way to support my book addiction
.
sighing as i realized it could never be
.
i don’t have enough facial piercings
i’m not pale enough
i don’t have an ironically bad manic panicked haircut
i haven’t stretched my ear piercings with grommets
inside which one could wear an antique salt cellar
or piece of driftwood
in each lumbering lobe
i don’t wear my sweaters belted and frayed
or present with a look of general disdain
and loathing of the shoppers or human race
a permanent puss on an acne scarred face
.
they would never
hire me
You are cordially invited to attend the
Third Friday Salon @ The Rapp Saloon
featuring
Alicia Young
Vachine
Alexis Rhone Fancher
Music by: Daniela Podobea, Tom Gramlich, Guido the Bass Player, Jean-Louis Boudreau,
and Derf Reklaw
December 19, 2014
8:30 pm
1436 2cd Street Santa Monica, California, 90401
presented by the beautiful and gracious Elena Secota
.
Women will swoon.
Men will beg.
The poetry will drip from our lips like honey.
Music will soothe us.
Arias will propel our souls to heaven
Gods shall weep.
Bass strings will be plucked.
Enchantment shall be the order of the night.
And plenty of snappy dressers!
if i’m not careful
this happiness
will ruin everything
wearing flowing chiffon for no reason
warming my skin in the sun
reading and writing as much as i want
i suppose i’ll have to fall in love
to fuck it up again
each time i take in a new book
a tide of awareness
sweeps my reading chair
into the knowing sea
understanding how
to better appreciate
life
death
and the placement psychology
of bright green cans of organic peas
in aisle three
the only thing
that scares me about death
is no longer
being able
to read books