Grateful Dead

Okay, it's definately not literature, but this is a funny tongue-in-cheek "survival manual" for surviving zombie outbreaks. I recommend it because sometimes the dead are not grateful; sometimes they are just flesh eating killing machines. Organize before they rise! http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/zombiesurvivalguide/ Yo Soy Boricua!

Deadicated-had spaced out Don Quijote, which is my absolute Fave Fave Fave classic! As a matter of fact, think it is time to read it again. :-)

I do enjoy to laugh out loud when reading - although I might be disturbing others in the household - ha, ha. A Confederacy of Dunces is ideal for this - as is Don Quijote. I also like to re-read favorites - a lot - keeps the cost down and often times can reveal details missed in the first go-round. Muy buenas. "From day to day, just lettin' it ride, You get so far away from how it feels inside, You can't let go, 'cause you're afraid to fall, But the day may come when you can't feel at all."

Wholeheartedly actually, that Love in the Time of Solitude COULD be one of the best novels ever. Love the Latin American writers in general, and especially Marquez and Allende. Keep digging out Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective from Douglas Adams, as it never fails to crack me up. Can recommend that for people who appreciate the absurd, and enjoy to laugh out loud while reading. Is one sentence that goes something like "An electric knight sat on a bored horse" that slays me every time I read it. Is my favorite sentence that I ever read, I think. And if I can be so bold as to reply to Hal R as well, your point number 5 from the Beats/Dead CERTAINLY was absolutely responsible for pointing me in my career direction.

leadbelly 27: It is cool that you got exposed to both On The Road and Live/Dead when you were 14 and got it. Both are works of magic for me. It was Dylan that hit me first and altered my sense of the world when I was 14 and listening to his Greatest Hits Volume 2, it blew me away and then Bringing It All Back Home. I lived on a farm in Iowa...music and literature kept me from going crazy in the midst of a time when the Vietnam War was on tv every night.. I did have fellow spirits in high school.... Started to listen to the Dead at age 16 and reading Beats at age 19. After I read On The Road and Dharma Bums I took off one summer, driving and hitchhiking with friends along the Mississippi River and then from the Midwest to Wyoming and Montana and 2nd real back backpacking experience. Then to California, San Francisco, Big Sur - I crashed near the beach for a whole week, Los Angeles. In San Francisco I stopped at City Lights - it was a Mecca for me probably as the Vatican is for others. I bought lots of books and mailed them back to myself in Iowa because I had never seen anything like these books there - The First Third, Maggie Cassidy and other Kerouac, big volume of Patchen and and the two Collected Short and Long Poems of Rexroth and others. When hitchhiking I was carrying books of Snyder’s poetry and Goddard’s Buddhist Bible - the one Kerouac read. It was my trip of a lifetime. Lots of strange, wonderful experiences which could fill another book. Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) Walt Whitman-Song of Myself

Hal R- the Beats and the Dead pointed me toward a different way of looking at things. They were my first exposure to literature and serious "Rock" music, and my gateway to literature, art, philosophy, and culture. I still remember first listening to Live/Dead and reading On the Road when I was 14. I don't think I've fully recovered, lol! I've kind of outgrown the Beats over the years, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for those writers. On a side note, Kerouac's idea of "bop prosody" is almost identical to the approach the Dead took with their music. I guess I've always had a faculty for language and writing, so I just sort of followed that path (it's been a crooked path, a long strange path, but it's been pretty interesting). For me, the best thing in the world is guiding students toward that moment I had when I was 14; the literature or the music needn't be the same, but that recognition they see in literature that attempts to relate human experience, using the inadequate tool of language (and the students actually getting it!), or that flash that the world is wonderful and terrible at the same time, is really something. I get to spend (most of) my days in the world of ideas, literature and writing. the same world that completely blew me away at 14. How cool is that? I consider myself extremely lucky to have finally found something I'm really good at and enjoy (mostly). Yo Soy Boricua!

Leadbelly 27- How are the Beats and the Dead responsible for pointing you in your career direction? Here are some of the major lessons I got from them 1. To hell with the system . 2. We create ourselves. 3. Follow your Bliss (actually Joseph Campbell - Beats and Dead lived it) 4 Experiment, try something new. 5. It's OK to be a freak, it's OK to be weird. 6. Be yourself 7. Don't sell out Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) Walt Whitman-Song of Myself

Though I realize you might assume some bias in my recommendation, I can heartily recommend the novel my brother got published a few years ago called "After Lucy." And honestly, I wouldn't have any problem NOT recommending it if I didn't think it was a good read, in spite of it being something he wrote. It's very well-written and kind of a page-turner that sucks you in, and it's got a fairly heavy dose of GD-related content (no pun intended). Even better, it sold well enough that it's now generally available in paperback. If you're looking for a good summer beach/airplane/camping book to read, check it out. Oh yeah, the author's name is Daniel Jones.

light reading with a bit of wry humor, I have always dug Robert B. Parker's Spenser series... 'Spenser with an S, like the English poet' especially Double Deuce, Pot Shot, A Savage Place... etc etc.

they're REALLY OLD! but I hope you liked 'em... The Tonga one led to grand adventures. I don't read much "serious" stuff these days. On the other hand, I love good mysteries. Margaret Maron and Donna Leon, love 'em.