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

Bringing Literary Back - A Book List

After reading my summer reading list, The Brothel's good friend C____ decided to weigh in with a list of books and authors we've never heard of, but according to her are worth your time. In other words, this list is not endorsed by The Literary Brothel - read at your own discretion! -KV

BRINGING LITERARY BACK

It was indicated that a certain someone involved with The Literary Brothel was looking for book recommendations. The following is what happens when it is intimated to a New York publishing person that their opinion on books might be welcome. (ed. note: good to know)

Books I’ve read recently and for which you should drop everything. Why aren’t you already at your local independent bookstore? Put down that milkshake! Go!

City of Thieves by David Benioff
Lush Life by Richard Price
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell
The Wild Trees by Richard Preston
Drop City by T.C. Boyle
The White Album by Joan Didion
Among Other Things, I’ve Taken Up Smoking by Aoibheann Sweeney
The Journey Home by Edward Abbey

Books I haven’t read but that I’ve heard are good from reliable sources, like friends who read more literary fiction than I do because I’m lazy and prefer books under 1,000 pages with plots that move along trippingly and in a linear fashion.

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Giraffe by J.M. Ledgard
The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
My Revolutions by Hari Kunzru
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Books to treat as though they are dark figures lurking in an alley at night when you are walking by yourself. I.e. run away! (Why? Because they are sort of tripe that’s all too ballyhooed in Manhattan these days—atrocious first novels or memoirs written by young, privileged media darlings with entirely inflated senses of self-worth.)

All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen
Personal Days by Ed Park
I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Beautiful Children by Charles Bock
The Mayor's Tongue by Nathaniel Rich
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

Books you should already have read when you were younger and more impressionable because you’ll never like them as much if you read them now.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
To a God Unknown by John Steinbeck
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Books I haven’t read but pretend I have:

The Bible (ed note: God wrote this)
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond

Books my boyfriend likes because he’s a geek for Classical history and drama:

The Histories by Herodotus
Xenophon’s The Expedition of Cyrus (a.k.a. Anabasis)
The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
Anything by Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus

Books you should read because they are among the best ones I worked on before I bailed out of book publishing:

The Last Beach Bungalow by Jennie Nash
Little Pink Slips by Sally Koslow
The Russian Concubine by Kate Furnivall
Midwife of the Blue Ridge by Christine Blevins
The Red Scarf by Kate Furnivall
Catching Genius by Kristy Kiernan
The Accomplice by Marcus Galloway
The Savage Trail by Jory Sherman
Rogue Lawman by Peter Brandvold
The Outcast by Luke Cypher

Books to try reading and then throw at your cat:

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Book I’m reading next:

...

I don’t know. Suggestions?

-C_____

Recommended Summer Reading

I did a bit of reading in my early to late 20s. People used to ask me "which book should I read next?" Ah, those glorious 20s.

In recent years, I get that question less and less. This might have to do with my hurried responses of "How the hell should I know?" or "Whatever you feel like reading." These days I simply don't read as much as I used to.

However, all that reading was not all for...not. I was recently asked which books I might recommend for summer reading. Hey, I forgot about "summer reading." And now the summer is at least half-way over! Oh no!

Below is a brief list of books that I loved in my twenties, and that you might love if you are in your 20s, or slightly younger, or slightly older. And no need to hurry; they're good no matter what season it is.

(In order of greatness)

1. The Great Gatsby
2. Lolita
3. Post Office
4. On the Road
5. Ender's Game
6. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
7. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (This is cheating since I just read this, but I WOULD have read it in my 20s, had I known about it then)
8. The Missing Piece meets The Big O
9. Under the Banner of Heaven
10. Me Talk Pretty One Day

You can't go wrong with any/all of those books. "The Missing Piece" might be a bit short; you can read it in about five minutes. But that doesn't make it any less great.

-KV