Recommended Reading for High School Boys-Guys-Men

I know we joke around a lot here on The Literary Brothel, but when it comes to recommending readings, we're all serious...ness. -KV

Recommended reading for high school boys-guys-men

9th grade
-Ender’s Game. One of those books that looks like a kids book, and can be read as a kids book. Good for the 9th grade mind, which may age from 12-21

NOT GOOD FOR THE 9th GRADE BOY'S MIND - Jane Eyre, NOT Romeo and Juliet. Shit, I can’t even read those books today. Thank god for book tapes.

10th grade
-On the Road. Right when you’re starting to get tired of books, thinking they can’t talk about real things, about life, have to follow some structure or form you don’t want to follow

11th grade
-Lolita. Now that you know good writing comes in many forms, lets get back to how to use the fucking English language. And there’s enough sex and obsession and loging after that thing you can’t have that may resonate with a few 11th graders.

12th grade
-Post Office. Bukowski. Congratulations, you made it to your senior year. Now read about how fucked up the world is. Remember, there are no obscene subjects, only writers who treat the English language in an obscene way.

Now go drink for four years and do some things worth writing about.

Coming Never: Recommended Reading for College

In other words, read whatever you want. You’re an adult.

Oh wait, I recommend one thing: The Literary Brothel.

-KV

Another Quote from Bukowski

"shit, it would be sweet to get paid to write! to just sit here and bang bang bang, and get paid to do what I have to do anyhow - like getting paid to shit or fuck, what? too much but worth a try. and prob. will not happen."

-Charles Bukowski, June, 1967. From Charles Bukowski, Selected Letters, Volume 2: 1965-1970.

Bukowski Quote for the weekend

"think becomes a dirty word. because they have been TAUGHT THAT THEY WERE THINKING ALL ALONG. not so, of course. but if a man can recover, if he has the bounceback, the miracle, he will find that the first 30 years were wasted in fighting off, regrouping before HE CAN BECOME EASY. THINKING OR LIVING IS NOT VERY HARD AT ALL; it is the other thing that they are doing that is killing them."

-Charles Bukowski to Carl Weissner, Jan. 28, 1967.

Quote from Charles Bukowski Selected Letters Volume 2

"unless I can get at my piano (typewriter) an hour or so each day I am not worth a shit to anybody. not that I am creating anything immortal, although now and then I may slip over that line (?) but it is mostly the sound of the typer like ENGINE /////// MY ENGINE MY ENGINE GOD DAMN IT, and when they shut my motor off I am no better than a hockshop owner."

-Charles Bukowski to Carl Weissner - January 28, 1967

Bukowski Quote of the Weekend

even when starving
the rejection slips hardly ever bothered me:
I only believed that the editors were
truly stupid
and i just went on and wrote more and
more.
I even considered rejects as
action; the worst was the empty
mailbox.

-Charles Bukowski from "hell is a closed door," The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Bukowski Quotes - Because we need more hits

"he rushes toward me and somehow it's a part of the part of the part."

-Charles Bukowski, "days like razors, nights full of rats," from The Last Night of the Earth Poems


ONE MORE WHILE I FINISH THIS BOTTLE OF WINE (not a Bukowski quote, but could be.)


almost every writer thinks
they are doing
exceptional work.

that's normal.

being a fool is
normal.

and then I'd
get out of bed
find a piece of paper
and start
writing
again.

-Charles Bukowski, "the writer," from The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Charles Bukowski Quote

"It's not the large tragedies that moil us to pieces - we are fucking well ready for those. It's the little scratchings and drippings, the continuous stubbing of the toes and elbows, the car that won't start, the piece of tooth that breaks off as you are biting into a peach, dirty stockings, a sudden face in the market goring your peace like a bull, a ring in the bathtub, constipation, insomnia, a dirty newspaper, toothpaste too sweet, a fingernail flipping back and ripping from the finger...these things again and again, the similar small biting donnybrook continuous hail...these tear us to the final pieces. ah ha."

-Charles Bukowski, 1967
From Charles Bukowski Selected Letters, Volume 2: 1965-1970