Two days ago I finished my first Young Adult-Teen Fiction novella (VAPOR) that will be released on November 7. I mostly write Literary Fiction and have for a long time and am anxious to see how all of you receive the book. While I’ve been learning the new world of publishing I’ve also been exposed to the fact that numerous authors seem to write more than they read and that stuns me. I’m not attacking anyone here. I’m not a successful author. I hope to be one day, but that day isn’t today. I decided to write this blog because I actually heard a writer say I’M NOT A READER. I’M MORE OF A WRITER. Why would he say that? Why would you let the reading public that buys you and feeds you and houses you and works shitty ass jobs that you don’t work, know that you’re not giving your best effort? What happened to respect? A bricklayer wouldn’t stack shit up without mortar! Now I’m going to lose my mind and list every book I’ve read since March 5th, 2014 (in order) so you know I’m not phoning this in from the bleachers. This isn’t me being arrogant. You write my paycheck. I appreciate you. This list runs through 6:48 this morning. Here they are: William Faulkner (Light In August, The Sound and the Fury, Sartoris, The Unvanquished, Knight’s Gambit, As I Lay Dying, Absalom, Absalom, Intruder In the Dust, Selected Short Stories of William Faulkner, The Wild Palms). Henry Miller (Sexus, Plexus, A Devil in Paradise, Nexus). Thomas Wolfe (Look Homeward Angel). Henry Miller (Henry Miller on Writing). Christopher Hitchens (Arguably). Ernest Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea). CS Lewis (The Great Divorce). John Steinbeck (The Pearl). Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols/The Anti-Christ). Albert Camus (The Stranger, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom). Anais Nin (Little Birds). Raymond Carver (Fires). Ernest Hemingway (The Snows of Kilimanjaro). Charles Bukowski (Love Is A Dog From Hell). Michael Shaara (The Killer Angels). Henry Miller (Black Spring). William Faulkner (Soldier’s Pay). Gustave Flaubert (Flaubert In Egypt). Cormac McCarthy (The Orchard Keeper). Henry Miller (Under the Roofs of Paris). Cormac McCarthy (Outer Dark, Child of God). Charles Bukowski (Women). Blaise Cendrars (Moravigne). Charles Bukowski (Post Office). Anais Nin (The Four Chambered Heart). Franz Kafka (The Trial). Cormac McCarthy (Suttree). William Faulkner (Sanctuary, Three Famous Short Novels). Cormac McCarthy (The Road). Jim Harrison (Farmer). Annie Proulx (Close Range). Jim Harrison (Legends of the Fall). Herman Melville (Moby Dick). Ray Carver (Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?). Edgar Allan Poe (Selections from Poe). James Dickey (Deliverance, To The White Sea). William Stafford (Writing the Australian Crawl). Jim Dodge (Not Fade Away). Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar). Mary V. Dearborn (Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller). William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch). Norman Maclean (A River Runs Through It). Flannery O’Connor (A Good Man is Hard to Find). Henry Miller (Tropic of Capricorn). William Styron (Lie Down in Darkness). Albert Camus (The Plague). Wayne Curtis (The Last Great Walk). D.H. Lawrence (Lady Chatterley’s Lover). Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451). Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment). Sherwood Anderson (Winesburg, Ohio). Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, Blood Meridian). Marcel Proust (Swann’s Way). Louis-Ferdinand Celine (Journey To The End of The Night, Rigadoon, Death on the Installment Plan). Honore’ De Balzac (The Girl With The Golden Eyes). Willa Cather (O Pioneers!). Phillip Roth (When She Was Good). Henry Miller (The Colossus of Maroussi). Blaise Cendrars (Sky). John Fante (The Road to Los Angeles). Jim Harrison (The English Major). Fyodor Dostoevsky (Notes from Underground). William Faulkner (The Hamlet, The Town). Sunday After The War (Henry Miller). Ivo Frenzel (Friedrich Nietzsche). Arthur Schopenhauer (Essays of Schopenhauer). Marquis De Sade (The 120 Days of Sodom & Other Writings). Maurice Lever (Sade/A Biography). Simon Schama (Citizens). Joseph Conrad (Tales of Land and Sea). Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove). Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote). David H. Richter (The Borzoi Book of Short Fiction). Russell Blankenship (American Literature As An Expression Of The National Mind). Bliss Perry (The Heart of Emerson’s Journals). Ralph Waldo Emerson (Selected Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson). Harper Lee (To Kill A Mockingbird, Go Set A Watchman). Cormac McCarthy (All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain). Ernest Hemingway (Death In The Afternoon). Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon). William Faulkner (The Mansion). Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose). Salman Rushdie (The Satanic Verses). John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces). Truman Capote (In Cold Blood). Jack London (Great Short Works of Jack London). Herman Melville (Typee). Jack London (The Sea Wolf). Gore Vidal (Burr-A Novel). Knut Hamsun (Hunger). James A. Michener (Sayonara). Bernard Gilboy (A Voyage of Pleasure-Log of the Boat “Pacific”). Larry McMurtry (Terms of Endearment). Christopher Robinson (French Literature in the 20th Century). Sigmund Freud (A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis). Jerzy Kosinski (The Painted Bird). Dagobert D. Runes (Twentieth Century Philosophy). Carlos Castaneda (The Active Side of Infinity). Jerzy Kosinski (Steps). Will Durant (The Story of Philosophy). Thomas Sugrue (There Is a River-The Story of Edgar Cayce). Will/Ariel Durant (The Lessons of History). Jerzy Kosinski (Being There). Anais Nin (Delta of Venus). H.G. Wells (The Outline of History). Stephen King (Bag of Bones). James A. Michener (The Source). Jerzy Kosinski (The Devil Tree). Abbi Glines (Until Friday Night, Fallen Too Far, Bad For You). Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno (An Invisible Spectator-Paul Bowles). Abbi Glines (Never Too Far). Stephen King (The Bachman Books-Four Early Novels). Ian McEwan (Amsterdam). Larry McMurtry (Crazy Horse). Annie Proulx (Postcards). Larry McMurtry (Horseman, Pass By). Abbi Glines (Up In Flames). Kylie Scott (Dirty). Joseph Heller (Catch 22). Abbi Glines (Existence). Jim Harrison (The Road Home). Abbi Glines (While It Lasts). Fyodor Dostoyevsky (The Brothers Karamazov). Emily Foster (How Not To Fall). Jerzy Kosinski (Cockpit). Larry McMurtry (Boone’s Lick, The Desert Rose). Charles B. Guignon (Essay on The Brothers Karamazov). William T. Vollman (The Royal Family). Ivan Turgenev (Fathers and Sons). Hush, Hush (Becca Fitzpatrick). Isabel Allende (The Japanese Lover). Edward Uhlan (The Rogue of Publishers’ Row). William Styron (Darkness Visible). William Kennedy (Ironweed). Ken Kesey (One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest). Jack Britton Sullivan (Torment, Vapor). Henry Miller (Crazy Cock). Abbi Glines (Once She Dreamed). James Joyce (Ulysses). . . . . and on and on and on. . . . .because YOU HAVE TO READ TO WRITE. . . . .JBS
JBS 