I haven't read this book, but it looks really cool.
I don't know what the Top Ten Tuesday is, this week at The Broke And The Bookish and I don't even want to know. I'm just worming in this morning with this half-serious top ten to make them know I didn't forget about them. See, I'm a self-conscious reader. Whenever I read a book in a public place, I KNOW other readers are looking over my shoulder to see what I read and pass judgment. I know, because I do it too. So over the last few months, I kept asking myself who are the readers one can take in the subway or on the bus and look like and absolute badass? Here's what I could come up with (in no particular order).
James Ellroy
The demon dog of crime fiction writes long crime epics in era-specific vernacular, with a borderline obsessive attention to detail. They are for the experienced and adventurous readers and yet, if you chose to read him, you make the conscious decision of reading literary fiction about rotten cops, whores, perverts, weapons and debauchery in general. Recommended: The Black Dahlia, L.A Confidential
James Clavell
I don't know if it's the memories of watching the Shogun series with my dad or something, but Clavell's the baddest dude. Richard Chamberlain made a great Blackthorne with his glorious seventies beard. Whatever he writes about, it always seems to involve courageous men, looking forward to test themselves against impossible odds. Did you know he co-wrote the script for The Great Escape? Yes, that Great Escape with Steve McQueen where there's too many badasses in the same place for it to be safe. Recommended: Shogun, King Rat
Arthur C. Clarke
Clarke wrote about men with little regard for their physical integrity and mental health. Space cowboys who were more interested in having a chat with aliens than actually...you know, live? Read the Space Odyssey series on the bus and you will get mesmerized faces and comments like: "Dooode...it was a BOOK?" Yeah, it was a book and it was a badass series: Recommended: The Space Odyssey series, all of it.
Joyce Carol Oates
Here's a lady that doesn't fuck around. Rape, self-loathing, homosexuality, serial killers....it's all business for iconic writer. She doesn't give a fuck what you think of her. Literally, click on ANY NOVEL DESCRIPTION and your chance of finding a description something violent and depraved, that she tackles with the utmost serious. If James Ellroy would be a woman, he would probably be writing similar literature to Joyce Carol Oates. Shit, just look at her. She looks like she's about to chase you off her porch with a shotgun. Recommended: Them, Zombie, Blonde, Solstice...anything, really.
Norman Mailer
Mailer is a writer who people talk about reading more than they have actually read. There's a reason for that. He wrote a lot less good novels than he thought he did. But when he was inspired? He had this "fuck it, let's do this" attitude, but...you know. Pushed to a pathological extreme. His epic about the life and crimes of Gary Gilmore is something that might just never be equaled in true crime. Nobody wants to read the eleven hundred pages of it...doing so makes you completely badass. Recommended: The Executioner's Song, The Deer Park, The Naked And The Dead
Yukio Mishima
While Haruki Murakami is the new kid in town, in the Japanese Literature landscape, Yukio Mishima is the daddy. His novels deal with difficult and abstract issues and yet they are pretty straightforward and highly symbolic (oh and did I mention they were beautiful?) He suffered from incurable melancholia for feudal Japan and had demented dreams of taking over and reviving the Samurai order. Not badass enough? He committed suicide doing a goddamn Seppuku. Recommended: The Temple Of The Golden Pavillion
Philip K. Dick
Intellectuals of all kind will name drop him in any circumstances like he's a prophet or something. But how many people have you actually seen reading his books in public? Not many. There is a polite awe of his work, but I don't know many people who had the stones to dig in. Reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in the subway is the most times I've been approached with polite questions like I was a goddamned erudite or something. Recommended: A Scanner Darkly, Martian-Time Slip, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, too many to count....
Dennis Lehane
Reading Lehane sometimes feel like being worked on with a pair of pliers and a blow torch. It's not structurally difficult, but it can get emotionally gripping. The Kenzie/Gennaro series is featuring some of the most twisted crimes and a perpetually horrified P.I who sees the streets of the city he grew up in turn to shit. If you go through the series in order, you will lose your innocence at the same rhythm as Patrick Kenzie. One of the most versatile crime writers. Recommended: Darkness, Take My Hand, Mystic River
H.P Lovecraft
He's that weirdo that went where other people didn't. You will look like a weirdo reading him, but you also look like the guy who went through Poe, King and the other maestros of horror and didn't find what he wanted. Recommended: Really, just pick up any short stories collection
Hunter S. Thompson
A lot of folks pick him up, but not many read him through. Again, there is a reason for that. The actual books are very far from how the movies represent them. Thompson was a difficult author with a very peculiar style and outlook on life. Only the adventurous and the open-minded give him a try. Recommended: Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
I don't know if it's the memories of watching the Shogun series with my dad or something, but Clavell's the baddest dude. Richard Chamberlain made a great Blackthorne with his glorious seventies beard. Whatever he writes about, it always seems to involve courageous men, looking forward to test themselves against impossible odds. Did you know he co-wrote the script for The Great Escape? Yes, that Great Escape with Steve McQueen where there's too many badasses in the same place for it to be safe. Recommended: Shogun, King Rat
Clarke wrote about men with little regard for their physical integrity and mental health. Space cowboys who were more interested in having a chat with aliens than actually...you know, live? Read the Space Odyssey series on the bus and you will get mesmerized faces and comments like: "Dooode...it was a BOOK?" Yeah, it was a book and it was a badass series: Recommended: The Space Odyssey series, all of it.
Here's a lady that doesn't fuck around. Rape, self-loathing, homosexuality, serial killers....it's all business for iconic writer. She doesn't give a fuck what you think of her. Literally, click on ANY NOVEL DESCRIPTION and your chance of finding a description something violent and depraved, that she tackles with the utmost serious. If James Ellroy would be a woman, he would probably be writing similar literature to Joyce Carol Oates. Shit, just look at her. She looks like she's about to chase you off her porch with a shotgun. Recommended: Them, Zombie, Blonde, Solstice...anything, really.
Mailer is a writer who people talk about reading more than they have actually read. There's a reason for that. He wrote a lot less good novels than he thought he did. But when he was inspired? He had this "fuck it, let's do this" attitude, but...you know. Pushed to a pathological extreme. His epic about the life and crimes of Gary Gilmore is something that might just never be equaled in true crime. Nobody wants to read the eleven hundred pages of it...doing so makes you completely badass. Recommended: The Executioner's Song, The Deer Park, The Naked And The Dead
While Haruki Murakami is the new kid in town, in the Japanese Literature landscape, Yukio Mishima is the daddy. His novels deal with difficult and abstract issues and yet they are pretty straightforward and highly symbolic (oh and did I mention they were beautiful?) He suffered from incurable melancholia for feudal Japan and had demented dreams of taking over and reviving the Samurai order. Not badass enough? He committed suicide doing a goddamn Seppuku. Recommended: The Temple Of The Golden Pavillion
Intellectuals of all kind will name drop him in any circumstances like he's a prophet or something. But how many people have you actually seen reading his books in public? Not many. There is a polite awe of his work, but I don't know many people who had the stones to dig in. Reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in the subway is the most times I've been approached with polite questions like I was a goddamned erudite or something. Recommended: A Scanner Darkly, Martian-Time Slip, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, too many to count....
Reading Lehane sometimes feel like being worked on with a pair of pliers and a blow torch. It's not structurally difficult, but it can get emotionally gripping. The Kenzie/Gennaro series is featuring some of the most twisted crimes and a perpetually horrified P.I who sees the streets of the city he grew up in turn to shit. If you go through the series in order, you will lose your innocence at the same rhythm as Patrick Kenzie. One of the most versatile crime writers. Recommended: Darkness, Take My Hand, Mystic River
He's that weirdo that went where other people didn't. You will look like a weirdo reading him, but you also look like the guy who went through Poe, King and the other maestros of horror and didn't find what he wanted. Recommended: Really, just pick up any short stories collection
A lot of folks pick him up, but not many read him through. Again, there is a reason for that. The actual books are very far from how the movies represent them. Thompson was a difficult author with a very peculiar style and outlook on life. Only the adventurous and the open-minded give him a try. Recommended: Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas