CURRENT READING LIST:
Again, people ask me why don’t you just finish one book before you start another? Yeah? Why don’t you just eat all that vanilla ice cream in the freezer before you dig into the Moose Tracks or Pistachio you just bought? Variety is the spice of life. Discovery, the meat. I cover every flat surface in my home with something to read. Always something within arms distance. Always nice having another world within reach. Well, here’s my up-to-the-minute West Coast reading list…
JUST FINISHED:
- A MONK SWIMMING by Malachy McCourt
A engaging and raucous memoir of actor, barkeep, gold smuggler, raconteur McCourt who along with brother Frank (Angela’s Ashes, ‘Tis) has become the first family of modern day Irish-American literature. Having published plays, political commentary, two volumes of memoirs, a weekly columnist for NYC magazines, books on Irish history, the legend of the ballad “Danny Boy” and the Claddagh Ring, and recovery from alcoholism, since his arrival in the USA in the 1950s where he began a long career as an actor in Broadway, Off-Broadway, television, and motion pictures. A Monk Swimming tells of these early days in a new land, fresh from a tough, young life of poverty in Limerick, Ireland. Younger brother Alphie also published a memoir, A Long Stone’s Throw.
http://www.malachymccourt.com/
- THE BEAT FACE OF GOD: The Beat Generation Writers as Spirit Guides by Stephen D. Edington with a forward by David Amram
- BIG SKY MIND: Buddhism and the Beat Generation by Carol Tonkinson (editor)
Edington, a Reverend in the Unitarian Church and adjunct faculty member at University of Massachusetts at Lowell, is a contributing writer for Beat Scene Magazine and has previously written a book on Jack Kerouac’s Nashua, New Hampshire roots. He is active in the Kerouac scene around Lowell and here investigates the many facets and shared importance that the search for spirituality held in the lives and writings of the main protagonists of what we know as the central writers of the “Beat Generation” – Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti among them.
Big Sky Mind is a collection of the writing of the above Beats and friends. Background in to the spirituality and Buddhist leanings of works of each writer is given followed by some examples of their work. Other prominent Beat and Beat-influenced writers included here are Gregory Corso, Anne Waldman, Diane DiPrima, Lew Welch, Bob Kauffman and more.
- THE FLASH OF LIGHTNING BEHIND THE MOUNTAINS: NEW POEMS by Charles Bukowski
A wonderful posthumous collection of previously unpublished poems. As with much of Bukowski’s work, I start a new books of his poetry all excited since my first readings of Buk and Allen Ginsberg were part of what really got me inspired to write poetry. The tendency for nostalgia sometimes gets me looking at his milieu and thinking, I’ve heard all of this before. But I pick the book up again and invariably 2/3 of the way through a batch of poems just floors me. Something resonant and timely and profoundly human always rears up and slaps me around. I wind up feeling more unique and individual while simultaneously just more similar to the rest of humanity. While going through a couple of long months watching my father deal with illness and growing old, having the Chinaski hang on circling the big sleep shed new light on this twilight we all must fight our way through.
- THE NAMESAKE by Jhumpa Lahiri
A beautiful rendered tale of cultural assimilation and belonging. I’d passed on the film when it came out and I’m glad I did. The book is a treasure and just unfolds it’s personal family perspectives with a treasured sense of intimacy and sweetly drawn details of a family from Calcutta and their assimilation into American life. Their US born son wrestles with his given name and issues of cultural identity and as he grows he watches the world around him changes as does his emotional connection to his past.
READING:
- PINCHER MARTIN by William Golding
The recent passing of Golding provoked the purchase of this novel at a used bookstore just off the Pasadena City College campus last week. A fascinating tale that takes place almost entirely in the mind of Christopher Martin who finds himself thrust upon a bare rock in the middle of the sea forced not only to survive the elements but the hallucinations, revelations and inner spirit that circulates within his own mind. A fascinating perspective from the famed author of Lord of the Rings.
- WHEN THINGS FALL APART by Pema Chodron
A book I pick up often, to help focus on the realities of daily living. Chodron’s gentle and direct approach always encourages me to pull new meaning from passages on the page and the ever-flowing instances of my own life and find the pertinent and shimmering moments of clarity and discovery that help me through my days. A wonderful aid to my meditation practice and to the tiny changes in perception that help in every fleeting or weighty instance of doubt, despair or fear that pops up in life.
- THE MINDBODY PRESCRIPTION by John E. Sarno, M.D.
Sarno describes in layman’s terms how many of the illnesses we suffer from in modern society how emotions can cause and/or influence one’s ability to prevent and/or overcome these maladies. He presents a good place to start investigating how attention to one’s emotional perspective and needs can help speed the process of recovery from pain as well as circumventing the body’s reaction to stress, worry, and negative feelings. I found this medically based perspective very helpful in illuminating some of the reasons why meditation has been of such help to me.
- THE FRANK ZAPPA COMPANION: Four Decades of Commentary by Richard Kostelanetz
The author collects essays, articles, and reviews of Zappa and his oeuvre and interviews with the artist himself. A fun and enlightening primer for new Zappa converts as well as long time fans looking for an intelligent and diverse exploration of this iconoclastic American musician.
- SELECTED POEMS by William Blake
This pocket-sized 1963 hardback edition from the Oxford University Press collects 324 of the timeless poets greatest writings. I keep Blake and Burns around on the tabletop year-round for quiet moments when I can read out loud and glory in the sublime sound of human spirit made manifest.
- A&R by Bill Flanagan
Long-time MTV/VH1 exec, Flanagan writes his first novel. This one is an insider's tale of the backroom, front room, bathroom, green room, court room, zoom room take behind the curtain of the slimy, sleazy, sultry, sexy, greedy, needy and seedy side of the rock n roll business. Where's dreams go green in more ways than one.
- THE TRUTH: WITH JOKES by Al Franken
Okay, I tend to buy political books when they hit the bargain racks. My tendency is to hate the fact that writing books is part of an election campaign, more propaganda, more spin. But I always liked Al Franken as a comedy writer, as well as in his role as resident lefty provocateur for my generation. And yeah, you go Al. Ride into Washington and stay true to your guns. Of course, there are some funny things in this book. Scary funny, but funny nonetheless.
- THE ZEN OF LISTENING: Mindful Communication in the Age of Distraction by Rebecca Z. Shafir
Shafir is a Speech Therapist who has found lessons in her studies of Zen that greatly enhance the ability to listen, communicate and interact deeply with those in the world around you. Her techniques and observations are explained without any religious overtones and have helped many of the people who come to her workshops on Listening to help them in their relationships, workplaces and in the busy world that surrounds them.
- THE EROTIC MIND by Jack Morin, M.D.
A journey into how the erotic mind works and techniques, observations and tools that can help you interpret and enhance that way you look at your personal sexual profile towards a greater and more enjoyable sexual perspective on life.
- DYLAN’S VISIONS OF SIN by Christopher Ricks
I am completely not attracted to the way in which Ricks writes a sentence, collects his data or set’s up his chapters...just a bit too high-fallootin’ for this old boy. On the other hand, his perceptions, conclusions, circumnavigations of all the myriad levels of Dylan’s genius are fascinating. I like the Sins concept. Viable if a bit stretched at times. Then again, any book taking on the task of interpreting Dylan is sort of like someone trying to interpret the motivations behind the form of a tree’s growth or the inexplicable “from whence” behind quantum physics. Sometime a song is just a song, sometimes it’s architecture and sometimes it’s just receiving from the muse. But this is a book I’ve been picking out for a few years…a chapter here, a half a page there. Fairly draining stuff but ultimately interesting for anyone as over-the-top intrigued by His Zimmenence as I.
- THANK YOU AND OK!: An American Failure In Japan by David Chadwick
Interesting first person story of an American studying Buddhism and living in Japan. Spiritual writer Jack Kornfield says of the book, “Chadwick saves you the trouble of going to Japan by making all the mistakes for you.” This book is a fascinating portrait of a spiritual quest in modern times.
JUST STARTED…MORE ON THESE LATER:
- AMERICAN CREATION by Joseph L. Ellis
- HAPPIER THAN GOD by Neale Donald Walsch
- THE POWER OF KINDNESS by Pierre Ferrucci with a forward by His Holiness The Dalai Lama
- THE UNIVERSE IN A SINGLE ATOM: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality by His Holiness The Dalai Lama
- THE LIVELIEST ART: A Panoramic History of the Movies by Arthur Knight
I'd elaborate but I've got some reading to do...
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