Day 11: Read. Read. Read.

Just a few of my piles of books.

They say that if you want to write a book you need to read. Read a lot and read a variety of books. They would be those writers who write about how to write a book. I figure they should know. After all, I have read many of their books. They make lists that read like a whose who in literature. They make lists that read like first year English class at Anywhere University. If you are Canadian they make lists that include Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence and Micheal Ondaatje. They make sure to include Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner. They include in their lists Henry James, James Joyce and Joyce Carol Oates. Kerouac, Salinger and Steinbeck. Twain (not Shania) and Tennyson. Those of us on Face book have undoubtedly received those lists whereby we check off the number of classic titles that we have read and pass it on. Many of us are in book clubs where we read books like The Kite Runner and Sarah's Key. Then there are the series of books that we are sucked into; Twilight, Outlander, The Millennium Trio of books and so on. I have been busy reading this summer. I have been catching up with the classic titles like To Kill A Mockingbird and Uncle Tom's Cabin. I have also read biographies of Rob Lowe and C.S. Lewis. On my nightstand are stacks of books that I am 'in the middle' of. Books like A Passage to India and Aspects of the Novel by Forrester and Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton. Then I have books that I aim to read one day. The Interpretation of Dreams by Freud and Swann's Way by Proust are collecting dust along with my collection of Simone de Beauvoir books. I have books that are dog eared and have broken spines from my reading them over and over again. Books like Plath's Bell Jar and Kerouac's Dharma Bums. Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Thoreau's Walden round out this set of books. I also have a pile of books set aside that I have collected from the library. They are the books I have picked up for research. You see, the book I am hardly writing these days requires that I learn a little about economics and globalization. So bring on Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine and some book called Reefer Madness (not about pot, or the movie. If you want a book along those lines try The Electric Kool Aid-Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. Another of my favourites.) about the black market along with a couple of  idiots guides to economics.

Some of the books on my bedside table.

I went to Indigo the other day and to my delight they were having a sale. Buy three and get the fourth for free! I have now added Leonard Cohen's Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers to my library, along with Kerouac's Big Sur and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. I can't wait to read, and re-read, these books!
Oh yeah, and I can't wait to get writing.