Restless City Nights

As most people do, I take advantage of the extended daylight of the summer months (and the coincidental feeling that I must remain productive as long as it is daylight) by reading. I find that reading is the perfect summer activity as it is rather leisurely and involves little to no sweating (something to which I am repelled, though I find reading outdoors most satisfactory). I just finished my copy of James Pollan’s In Defense Of Food. An excellent tome full of astounding information regarding the foods we as Americans think little of. After such a thoughtful and concerning read I decided to lighten it up with several weeks worth of fiction, or at the very least some lighter non-fiction (something more personable and less actual perhaps). 

I broke from tradition and made my way to Barnes and Noble (I am usually an Amazon fan, but this trip required immediate gratification). There was one book I came with the intent to retrieve, which was Henry Millers Air-Conditioned Nightmare. I have heard a lot of good things about it and as it comes highly recommended by Henry Rollins, I figured it had to be a pretty decent read.  I managed to find it with absolutely no trouble and, not being satisfied with the length of the book, continued searching the shelves for authors with whom I felt I needed to be more familiar. This search turned up two more books (I said I was looking to fill just a few weeks… not months). I picked up a pocket sized copy of Catcher in the Rye and a collection of O. Henry’s short stories. I was exhilarated to find that the three books only ran me about $28. Nothing better than a cheap read, I always say.

I have started in on Catcher in the Ryefirst.  I am always eager to add to my list of classics. You never really think about how many classics there are until you attempt to read them all. Also, it helps to consider that “classics” is a very broad and relatively undefined term. It is a list that will likely change from person to person. Of course, there are a few standards that I’m certain would make most people’s list (just authors, I think it’s rather risky to pull specific stories). My list includes a great many 20th century American writers such as Hemingway, Joyce Carol Oates, Shirley Jackson, Jack Kerouac and so forth.

In addition to resuming my summer reading, I have challenged a few friends to start some summer reading of their own. My friends are already casual readers, but by giving them brief synopses of certain writer’s styles and methods with which I feel they might be interested I have managed to get them away from their usual genres and to try out something different. On this same book buying trip one of my friends, an avid fan of neo-apocalyptic sci-fi novels, walked away with a collection of Shirley Jackson’s short stories. I was secretly quite proud of myself. I can’t wait for him to finish so I can collect his thoughts on the work. I would like to get more of my friends involved in this cross genre program, but that may take some convincing.