Yep, I copied this idea. Stole it. Grand larceny.
Today I got the latest installment of Steve Terrell’s Snazzy Life autobiography cum Substack. His headline was “What Are Your Favorite Books?”
Sigh.
He was not paid to write headlines.
I have chosen the far more sophisticated, ahem, literary title The Books That Made Me.
No matter how sophisticated I may imagine myself to be, Steve’s choices are pretty damn good and hard to beat. The man has an encyclopedic knowledge of early rock, rockabilly, surf, psyche and probably a lot of other music I have never heard of. This rarefied taste is matched by his formative reading material.
The Matt Helm series made the list, for Pete’s sake. I used to look at those books - along with The Executioner series - at B. Dalton in South DeKalb Mall in Atlanta. Neither of those places exists anymore. Atlanta is still there, but it’s sort of like my ex-wives-changed.
The entire Executioner series is on eBay for 80 bucks.
Enough deification of Steve.
This got me thinking about what books deeply influenced me. Steve summed up with a great quote from ‘You Can’t Go Home Again’’ and tied it back to his own life and a cool experience with the book.
Here are my formative books:
The Sun Also Rises: The first time I read it because I had to. The second was because I wanted to know more about a lost generation (the name of the first band I was in). The third time because I wanted to learn how to write.
Big Bad Love: For good or ill, I read this and saw myself. I’m sure my first wife, JM, would agree. Then I read everything by Larry Brown I could find. Because I wanted to learn how to write.
On the Road: Mad to live, mad to burn, mad for jazz, beer, and fast girls. It took me a long time to learn about jazz.
Endless Love: Her name was Terri.
The Great Gatsby: Postgraduate learning how to write.
You can buy my first novel Bad Motor Scooter here. Perhaps it will form or deform you.
Hey! I thought I was the only one who reads books! I’ll have to check out some of these you mentioned. I have heard of this Hemingway guy. He’s doing a great job, people are saying …