John Straley
The Top Five Books
I've Lied About Reading:
| James
Joyce's Ulysses |
|
| I know. Maybe on everyone's list. I'm still on page 200. But I am going to finish it this year, really. | |
| John Barth's Giles Goat Boy |
|
| Freshman year, Grinnell College. Trying to sleep with a girl I met in the library. Didn't work. Since it's unlikely I'll ever get a chance to sleep with her, I'm not going to read it. | |
| Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past |
|
| Not my fault. A guy who picked me up hitchhiking was drinking sweet wine from these little cups that looked like Nyquil caps and he said. "Hell, you're a college kid, you've read Proust!" Not wanting to start a fight, I said, "Oh yeah. Sure." My friend Rebecca Paulson says it's way worth it. So I'm going to read it just as soon as I'm done with Ulysses. | |
| The Last Best
Place: A Montana Anthology |
|
| Have you seen how thick it is? I highgraded through the writers I like and skipped the rest. I feel guilty, but there you have it. | |
| Richard Ford's The Sportswriter |
|
| Again, not my fault. Some clown at a conference I was attending was sounding off about how "regional writers" don't have to be confined to their region and he said something like "take Ford's Sportswriter . . . now everybody's familiar with that. You loved it, didn't you?" Again the gutless side of me said, "You bet." I did read Independence Day and liked it, so I'll probably read this. But I might not live long enough, if I'm really going to finish Ulysses and Remembrance of Things Past. | |