Impulse

I want to be more lit­er­ate. A few months back, I sent mail to my more well read friends — writ­ers, edi­tors, and peo­ple of excep­tion­ally good taste — and asked them what books they think I absolutely must read. Here are their sug­ges­tions. What I find cool is that many of these authors are still alive and scribbling.

• A heart­break­ing work of stag­ger­ing genius, Dave Eggers —  this one was rec­om­mended by sev­eral peo­ple, thus is the one I’m cur­rently reading.
• Ada, Vladimir Nabokov
• Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
• Penny Dreadful, Will Christopher Baer
• Justine, Lawrence Durrell
• The Painted Bird, Jerzy Kosinski
• Roots, Alex Haley
• The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, Jose Saramago
• The Cosmic Serpent, Jeremy Narby
• Upside Down, Eduardo Galeano
• Ginsberg: A Biography, Barry Miles
• Super-Cannes, J.G. Ballard
• The Dazzle of Day, Molly Gloss
• One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez — Lots of peo­ple love this book. I think the book works best if you read it when you’re at just the right place in life. I must not have been in the right place as I man­aged to only get 3/4 of the way through it before giv­ing up. Perhaps, being sin­gle and self-employed, it was unwise to read some­thing titled “one hun­dred years of solitude”.
• Lightning Bird, Lyall Watson
• Crackpot, John Waters
• A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber
• Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
• Civilwarland in Bad Decline, George Saunders
• Pastoralia, George Saunders
• The Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino
• The Town Where Time Stood Still, Bohumil Hrabal
• Bird by bird, Anne Lamott
• Operating instruc­tions, Anne Lamott
• The World and Other Places, Jeanette Winterson
• Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles, Jeanette Winterson
• How to be alone, Jonathan Franzen
• Fraud, David Rakoff
• The boys of my youth, Joann Beard
• Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
• I know some things, Lorrie Moore (editor)
• Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger — like every­one else, I read this in high school. That was long, long ago. Several peo­ple have told me it’s a whole dif­fer­ent book when you read it as an adult.
• Bean trees, Barbara Kingsolver
• Map of the world, jane hamilton
• Stranger than fic­tion, Chuck Palahniuk
• Girls guide to hunt­ing & fish­ing, Melissa Bank
• Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
• Siddhartha, Herman Hesse
• Partly cloudy patriot, Sarah Vowell
• The Bhagavad Gita
• The Tale of Genji

What else should I be read­ing? Leave me some com­ments.
Thanks to Jay for his exten­sive list, to Wilson for her tailor-made sug­ges­tions, and to Becky, Bobby, and Laurie for their sug­ges­tions. I think this list cou­pled with my own should last me until at least my 50th birth­day.
Update: More rec­om­men­da­tions here.

Related posts:

1. Followup: read­ing list
2. Reading your mind with film