FAVORITE WRITERS & NOVELS
Mine are not just from books. I've learned a lot from playwrights, poets and songwriters. Here are a few.
ALAN BENNETT -- The Madness of King George III
A hilarious play all about the loneliness of being king, the madness of his court, all of it done with dramatic efficiency and dazzling clarity. If only people were this witty in real life!
CHARLES DICKENS
Oh, almost anything by Dickens, but my favorites are Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, Hard Times and that fabulous book, Great Expectations. . . .I know, I know, you suffered through Dickens in high school English. I think people are taught to take him very seriously, when, in fact, he's a crowd pleaser of the basest sort (at times). Some of his characters are ridiculous, his passages agonizing long, but then there are the exquisite moments: Pip meeting Magwitch the first time, terrified and awed, or to jump forward, Pip's last encounter with the beautiful and cold Estella. Great stuff!
JAMES JOYCE -- The Dead
This comes from his short story collection, The Dubliners, and I think it's the jewel in the crown, a small, sad story about mortality and marriage. Most people I know, groan at Joyce; blame his big book, Ulysses for this; it's a monster, the Scylla and Charybdis of English students, and, frankly, there are sections that I never bother with, but he can be incredibly funny, compassionate, eloquent and he writes very well about the dilemma of existence without being pretentious or overbearing.
ZADIE SMITH -- White Teeth
Smith's characters are delightful, funny, well-rooted in immigrant London. There's a heartwarming decency to this book that I love. I wanted her to keep going with it. Some books shouldn't end.
DYLAN THOMAS -- A Child's Christmas In Wales
A smidgen of a book, but every phrase is a gem. Dylan Thomas describes the plainest things with a riotous eye, mocking and loving his characters. For example, After the firefighters come in to put out the smoke in the Protherow's kitchen, Mrs. Protherow always says the right thing, in this case, "would you like something to read?"
TOM WAITS & KATHLEEN WAITS-BRENNAN -- All The World Is Green
"I fell into the ocean when you became my wife." A brilliant song lyric that speaks volumes (at least, it did to me). One could write a book beginning with this line (or ending with it). I keep it handy for that very reason.
T.H. WHITE -- The Once And Future King
A terrific novel both for the singular delight of its title character, Wart, and for its humor and humanity. White is lyrical, silly, funny, and possessed of a deep abiding affection and dismay with the human race. My feeling, exactly. For all of its scope, it's an inconsistent book, dabbling in falconry and history, lurching into broad slapstick comedy. He views lovers with a misty, pitying innocence than can be tiresome after a while. He breaks lots of rules, using the modern world to describe this ancient one, and vice versa. Who says a novel has to be consistent in tone? School teachers, mostly--the people we do best to ignore once we are gripped by a passionate enterprise.