To make matters worse, I went to summer school in the tenth grade and took English and Literature which means a year of course work was crammed into about eight weeks.
The upside was that I skipped the eleventh grade. The down side was "I SKIPPED THE ELEVENTH GRADE. I didn't read many of the books I should have read.
Many of the books that would have helped me with my mental development and to better understand a complex world, were left unread.
I thought I was being clever, but as it turns out, what I did was dumb and really short changed myself.
If I'd realized then that I wanted to be a writer, I would gone to school the full term. But, there's nothing I can do about that now.
So the last few years, I've been playing catchup. Here's a partial list of what I've read in the past few years:
Atlas Shrugged
Tom Sawyer
Treasure Island
Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice and Men
Catcher in the Rye (currently reading)
Stranger in a Strange Land
Anna Karina
1776
Biographies of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Einstein, Hannibal
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Illusions
On the Road
On the Road
Cat's Cradle
Breakfast of Champions
Slaughter House Five
Pillars of the Earth
The Rise and Fall of Alexandria
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Plus countless recent fiction and short stories.
My friend Grandpappy (http://granpappy31.blogspot.com/) suggested that a book by Larry McMurtry entitled "Books". I recently found a used copy and I will be reading it next. It's a memoir by the writer about his love affair with books. I can't wait to read it.
Anyhow, I can't do anything about taking a shortcut in high school, but I'm having fun now playing catch up.
I'm a big fan of John Steinbeck & Mark Twain.
ReplyDeleteMs Soup
How did you like Illusions? It's one of my favorite books ever, it really opened my mind and let me see things from another perspective. I often wonder if it was life changing for others too.
ReplyDeleteThat's an awesome reading list. I've read many of those myself.
ReplyDeleteI just finished reading "The Red Hunter" by William F. Buckley, Jr., a fictionalized history of Senator Joseph McCarthy's attempt to clear the Communists out of our government. I remember listening to the Senate hearings back in the 50's.Mr. Buckley does a good job of setting the background.
ReplyDeleteI've a couple of books you must read to be considered educated. I'll go through them and check the books I've read. Unfortunately I've not read nearly enough of them!
ReplyDeleteI'll keep reading though as I always learn something I don't know.