Suggested Reading List

As I plan to shut down this blog and move to Wattpad like everybody else, I decided to post a suggested reading list. 

I believe a well read society is a well informed society. 

(Please support local newspapers!)

Suggested Reading List:

1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Good Earth by Pearl Buck

Candide by Voltaire

Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy

Truman: David McCullough

The Godfather and The Sicilian by Mario Puzo

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Native Son & Black Boy by Richard Wright

On The Road,  The Town and the City, Maggie Cassidy, Desolation Angels and The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac. 

Slaughter House Five, Sirens of Titan, Breakfast of Champions, Player Piano, Mother Night and Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

The Lost Prince, Young Joe the forgotten Kennedy by Hank Searls

The Woman in the Dunes by Kobe Abe

Dracula by Bram Stoker

American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 by William Manchester

Babbit and It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

The Jungle by Lewis Sinclair

The Sheep Look Up: John Brunner

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Enemy Within by Robert F. Kennedy

The Executioners Song by Norman Mailer

The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I am Legend and The Incredible Shrinking Man  by Richard Matheson

The Little Prince

The Color Purple and Possessing The Secret Of Joy by Alice Walker

I am The Cheese and After The First Death by Robert Cormier

On the Beach by Nevil Schutte

Ghost in the Shell manga

Myra Breckenridge: by Gore Vidal

Rebecca, The Scapegoat and My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

The Haunting of Hill House  and The Lottery(short story) by Shirley Jackson

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo

Face It by Deborah Harry

The Autobiography of Malcolm X  by Alex Haley and Malcolm X

Drought by J.G. Ballard

The Myth of The Rainy Night

Dear Jack,

Since you departed the planet all those decades ago, people no longer have interest in pursuing the myth of the rainy night.  Since you left nothing really has changed and yet things have changed. Gone are the days when you could freely wander the country and not worry about being shackled to a desk.  Jack, we are all slaves to something called social media which probably will horrify you. We are slaves to the machine that is grinding us and spitting us out for what? 

Is this what life is about?

It is a sad fact, Jack, the moment we are born we are expected to grow up get a job to support ourselves in a crass consumer orientated society than once society uses us up we become a burden in old age. The doctors pump drugs into us keeping us alive even though society has no use for the elderly.  The elderly are stuck in nursing homes where they wait to die.

 Is this what life is about?

We are slaves to a dictatorial society and culture. We are slaves to all forms of media. We are slaves to other thoughts and actions.  We are slaves to organizations and institutions.  We no longer think for ourselves.  We are slaves to what we are suppose to be instead of being who we truly are.

If we all cool it and just open our heart and minds to the truth. The truth is inside of all us. The truth is all around us. We got to open our eyes and mind to the world.  We got to open our minds to what lies in the Great Beyond. 

A long time ago your friend Allen wrote an epic poem that started with these lines, I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,    And I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by mediocrity and nostalgia. It is not just my generation, I have seen the greatest generation turn grey and now shuttered in homes being patronized by the younger generations. I have seen the boomer generation once full of hope and idealism now a group of stubborn reactionary whiners.  I have seen the younger generations being shit and spit upon by the older generation, trying to keep them down and if one breaks out and speaks out he or she are mocked.

It is upsetting to see madness and blindness ravage the older generations while the younger generations struggle and fight for their survival.

And here I am, Jack, at the apex of my life. I think back with amusement how I was going to be a great writer and travel all over our great land. Life turned on me and now I am a capitalist worried my business might not survive a recession.

I do long for a moment in time where I can break the ties that bind me and head on out on my own search for the Myth of The Rainy Night.

Good night Jack,

MM