Here are the next four books on my list of twelve that have stayed with me. One more part to go.
5. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury. I could fill up
half my list with Bradbury’s work but I’ll limit myself to this one. Chronicles
is another collection of short stories that are loosely connected to each other
around the theme of colonizing Mars. Bradbury was the master of melancholy. No
one else does the haunting beauty of loneliness as well; no one else writes
“sad” so wonderfully.
6. Murder in the Wind, by John D. MacDonald. I said I love
the archetypal characters created by writers such as REH and ERB, but to me, no
one has ever created more ‘realistic’ characters than John D. MacDonald. JDM
was outstanding at putting real people on the page, and he told compelling
stories about them too. This book has a number of characters thrown together
during a hurricane. The interactions are a lesson in how to do characters.
7. The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway. In high
school, I had to read such classics as The Grapes of Wrath, Silas Marner, The
Scarlet Letter, and The Metamorphosis. To this day, I still think Silas Marner
and The Metamorphosis are two of the worst books ever written in the English
language. At least for our modern times. The Grapes of Wrath is actually
worthwhile but is way too long for required high school reading. After being
forced to read this material in high school, I came to the conclusion that I
generally hated the classics, and to this day I struggle to get myself to read
such material. Had I not already been in love with reading, High School English
class would have destroyed it for me. But all this could have been avoided if
they’d just let us read The Old Man and the Sea. It’s short, vivid, full of
adventure, full of characters of depth, and introduced me at least to a culture
I knew nothing about but found interesting. It was this book, read when I was
in my late twenties, that restored my interest in the classics. Most of the
classics I’ve read since then wouldn’t have gotten read without this book coming
first.
8. Northwest Smith,
by C. L. Moore. I had no idea when I first read these stories that C. L. Moore
was a woman. Nor would I have cared. Anyone who can write stories like this
will get my attention. Smith is also an archetypal character, but there is far
more vulnerability in him than in most of the characters created by REH and
ERB. Having something of a melancholy personality anyway, these tales resonated
strongly with me. As I grew older and began my own writing, I also wanted to
create such characters. They should be bigger than life, but also have that
vulnerability as well.
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