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I have never been much of a reader of “The Classics.” In fact, I’ve always believed that if I had been forced to struggle through too many of them when I was young, I might never have become the reader I am today.
Reading, at least the reading we choose for ourselves, should be fun. It shouldn’t feel like something we’re being forced to do.
In the 1970s, I spent four years at the University of Florida and another year at the University of Georgia, so I certainly did my share of required reading — and plenty of it I didn’t particularly enjoy. But through all those years, I always continued reading for myself simply because I loved to read.
Looking back, I can see certain books that helped shape the reader I became. Some introduced me to new authors. Others sent me off exploring whole genres. And a few have simply stayed with me for fifty years or more.
These aren’t necessarily the “best” books I’ve ever read, and they certainly aren’t ranked. They’re just books thawere there at the beginning of my reading journey.
Funny Books and Authors That Made Me Laugh on My Readig Journey
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — Douglas Adams
Books should be enjoyable, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy certainly was — as were its sequels. Every reader needs some outright fun once in a while.
Over the years that same desire to laugh while I read led me to the equally funny books of Christopher Moore and Tim Dorsey, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books.
They’re very different writers, but they all remind me that a book doesn’t have to be deadly serious to be worth reading.
Note: The above photogrph is a photo is of Volumes 1 and 2 of the Hitchhikers series, They are 1979 England/Australian release found at Goodwill.
Books for Animal Lovers
- Watership Down — Richard Adams
- All Creatures Great and Small — James Herriot
I’ve always been an animal lover, so it’s probably no surprise that both Watership Down and All Creatures Great and Small have stayed with me.
Literary Fiction That Stayed With Me on My Reading Journey
- The Magus — John Fowles
- The Collector — John Fowles
- If Beale Street Could Talk-James Baldwin
- Cancer Ward — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- The First Circle — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Catch-22 — Joseph Heller
Maybe this group proves that my problem was never really with “literature.” It was with being told what I was supposed to read and appreciate.
These are serious books, but they were books I chose to read. John Fowles, James Baldwin and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn are very different writers, but their books drew me in rather than making reading feel like an assignment.
And The Magus is one of those books that has never really left me.
Horror and Suspense Novels
- Ghost Story — Peter Straub
- ’Salem’s Lot — Stephen King
- Harvest Home — Thomas Tryon
There was also a period when I loved a good book that could scare the hell out of me. Peter Straub, Stephen King and Thomas Tryon certainly managed to do that.
Classic Thrillers, Spy Novels and Political Suspense the Core of My Reading Journey..
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy — John le Carré
- The Day of the Jackal — Frederick Forsyth
- Night of Camp David — Fletcher Knebel
- Dark Horse — Fletcher Knebel
- Eye of the Needle — Ken Follett
Now we’re getting closer to the reader I eventually became.
Spy novels, political thrillers and suspense novels became a major part of my reading life. John le Carré, Frederick Forsyth, Fletcher Knebel and Ken Follett were among the writers who helped lead me down that road.
And decades later, I’m still reading thrillers.
Science Fiction, Satire and Some Very Strange Worlds
- Rendezvous with Rama — Arthur C. Clarke
- I Will Fear No Evil— Robert A. Heinlein
- Player Piano — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
- Slaughterhouse-Five — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Science fiction was another part of my early reading life, but looking at these books now, I realize that I was often drawn to books that used strange worlds, science fiction, absurdity or satire to say something about our own world.
Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein gave me science fiction. Kurt Vonnegut gave me something much harder to categorize — aimagend maybe that was part of the attraction.
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Image is a photo of the cover of my 1970 paperback copy of I Will Fear No Evil
Historical and Political Fiction
- Burr — Gore Vidal
With a degree in political science, perhaps Gore Vidal was inevitable. Burr combined two things that have always fascinated me: history and politics.
Books About Finding Your Own Way
- Your Erroneous Zones — Wayne Dyer
- Pulling Your Own Strings — Wayne Dyer
- Siddhartha — Hermann Hesse
- Narcissus and Goldmund— Hermann Hesse
Then there were books that weren’t about escaping into another world as much as trying to understand your place in this one.
Wayne Dyer and Hermann Hesse certainly approached that question from very different directions, but both became part of my reading journey.
And that may be what I see most clearly when I look back at all these books today.
One book rarely stood alone. One author led to another. A thriller led to another thriller. Douglas Adams eventually led me toward other writers who made me laugh. Science fiction opened other worlds. Political novels fed an interest that had begun long before I entered college.
I never needed someone to tell me what I should read.
I just needed one good book to lead me to the next one.
